By This may actually be a good idea if established properly:
South Korea is pushing to establish a joint prosecution-police body to be charged with investigating crimes committed by foreigners residing in the country, officials said Thursday.
Officials from the presidential office, the prosecution and the police held a meeting early this week and decided to set up such an investigative body, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office said. [Yonhap]
If this law enforcement body is composed of people who read and write foreign languages and familiar with the foreigner scene in Korea, this may be a good thing. If this is just a body being formed to launch a witchhunt against low quality foreign English teachers then it is a bad idea.
5:36 pm on October 16th, 2009 1
I get a little itchy whenever someone starts talking about 'quality' or 'qualified' English teachers. If by qualified you refer to someone that A: has a Bachelor's degree from an accredited university, B: is from a native-English-speaking country, and C: has no criminal record, then I challenge you to find an E-2 holder that has not passed this qualification test. There might be a few people that faked their background check (from another state / city), but degree checks and CRC's are getting a little more strigent.
If someone believes a 'qualified' English teacher should have something more than that, REWARD THEM FOR IT or make it part of the new / minimum requirement. I am as qualified an English teacher as anyone else – between my years of teaching experience and knowledge of the English language, thank you. Sorry, but that piece of paper showing you paid hundreds of dollars to earn it is usually just a piece of paper to me.
What makes a 'quality' English teacher, by the way? Someone who follows the rules / laws of the country they live in, does the best job they can understand their unique circumstances, and tries to fit into the local culture? That certainly sounds like quite a few teachers I know.
We should remember that when the word *foreigners* is used, it's also referring to the tens of thousands of Chinese and other Asian countries here in Korea. We foreign English teachers are a small percentage of the million-plus foreigners – therefore this group does make some sense. If it does turn into a witchhunt against E-2's or teachers in general, it will be grounds for discrimination or unfair treatment in any number of ways. Not that that means much in a country where people are routinely treated differently…
7:46 pm on October 16th, 2009 2
Accuse me of McCarthyism if you will, but any one with more than two brain cells knows that the real outside threat is North Korean spies and their South Korean sympathizers…not some 20-something on an E2 visa or 3D workers who've decided to work illegally because they've been cheated by their original employer.
7:47 pm on October 16th, 2009 3
I hope this is about drugs and prostitution, not some witch hunt against migrant workers.
8:53 pm on October 16th, 2009 4
Two points.
First, as other people mentioned, Chinese and South East Asian migrant workers are the largest groups of foreigners. If they were talking about English Teachers they would have specified that.
Second, every district (구) already has foreigner investigation teams who specialize in crimes involving foreigners. The fact that this is being created at the national level should tip you off that this new body will be dealing with high level crimes, most likely involving the smuggling of drugs and people.
1:54 am on October 17th, 2009 5
Not going to turn out good…
In general in looking back at past crime incidents involving mostly GIs, when the police and prosecutors were allowed to work without interference from higher up, things turned out fair. If it made the news, it always involved the GI/foreigner getting arrested and the Koreans involved not, but once it went up the system, it seemed to generally work out in a justice-oriented manner.
But, when higher powers started to exert pressure, it hit the fan, and this happened regularly enough for me to believe this new idea is going to work out badly.
We've seen enough comments from politicians and the media every few months to give a strong hint that politics and public sentiment will likely end up being a bigger influence on this new group than the law and crime involved.
(And for some — I mean it won't work out for any of the foreigner groups, not just the big nose TESOLers and GIs…)
12:42 pm on October 27th, 2009 6
Frankie… You are completely wrong to say that when Koreans say "Foreigners" they include other countires in Asia. The fact is Koreans will say "Chinese" and "Japanese" when refering to these people but say "Foreigner" when refering to anglo-saxons.
I have personally pulled Koreans up for doing this and most of the time they themselves don't even realize they are doing it.
So, to reiterate…When Koreans say "Foreigners" they mean "White folk" and I bet my bottom chunner they are refering to you "Low class foreigners who are teaching English here" <— Koreans view E2 holders as low class foreigners as seen from a July article in the Korean herald. They are even ranked below SOFA visas (or American GIs)
BTW none of this reflects my oppinion…I am a foreigner in Korean and am personally sickened by the zenophobia here