This article might be the basis of a future discussion class. Basically, an Israeli court found a man guilty of rape (rape by deception which is not punished as severely as rape by force as I understand) because he told a Jewish woman that he too was Jewish. In fact he was Arab.
In addition to discussing this specific case, what about all the other lies people tell each other before sex? Which ones should be punishable by law? Should you go to jail for lying about your age, income, sexual history, sex (like a man pretending to be a woman to get a straight man in bed), etc.?
And speaking of sex, today I saw a little girl, maybe 10 walking with her dad (I presume) in Yeouinaru Station. She was wearing a shirt that said "Smile lie you got laid last night." I have to guess that neither daddy nor his little girl knows what that shirt means.
Kind of like the winner of the 2nd YTN HUFS debate tournament last Sunday. One of these days YTN the news station will air this debate on TV, the bebate won by a team called the Fit Tuckers. I guess the organizers had no idea that these high school kids were playing a joke until it was too late to make them change the name.
Because if you do turn on MBC, right after the 9:00 news you should see a few professors discussing English lyrics in Korean pop songs, praticularly Rainism (by Rain) and Mirotic (by 5 guys who dance around). Basically the reporter was trying to figure out just how dirty the English lyrics being use are.
That's a little funny because Rain's Korean lyrics are dirtier than his English ones and even got him banned from SBS.
Anyway, it'll be me, the dean of my college, and another professor from our college.
I just bought my second new car in Korea, a Samsung QM5 (Renault Koleos in Europe and Africa). It was fairly similar to buying a Daewoo Kalos in 2005 except that this time we were able to test drive one by calling up a local dealership and talking to a saleswoman who was able to borrow a QM5 from a friend or something.
Now the QM5 starts at around 21,000,000 for the gasoline engine and around 23 for the diesel. The models go all the way up to 29 or 30 million. We ended up spending about 25 on the LE25 Plus (my wife wanted proximity sensors which are not available on the less expensive models). The base price is 24 but we got side curtain airbags and two-tone paint. Obviously after taxes and stuff it comes to more than 25 - I think we're putting 12 million down and paying 15 million over 24 months. We were able to get about 400,000 off although the saleswoman is giving us that in cash because she didn't want to put it on the invoice.
What led us to Samsung was the 0% financing they currently offer. Normal car loans are 9% or more in Korea. I know it sounds crazy - Americans currently expect to pay 6-7% but you can get 6-7% interest on a savings account in Korea so obviously banks need to lend at higher interest rates.
Anyway, they had 0% interest. My wife likes the QM5 styling. And we recently were driving our Kalos (a much smaller and cheaper car) and the wind was blowing it around a little bit and it didn't feel entirely safe. We drove the big SUV (they call it a compact SUV or a crossover) and it was nice. We figure because it's bigger and heavier it ought to be safer.
We pick it up in a couple of weeks.
My wife and I rescued our 6th stray last night when we decided to go for a walk after dinner. I saw a litle Maltese walking around and followed it into an open space where some soccer team seemed to be spending their Sunday evening eating and drinking.
The dog started following some kid around and the kid got scared and fell. The father threatened to kick the dog so I yelled at him and went over to protect the dog. My wife yelled at me (I shouldn't really be fighting, especially because of my recent surgery) and my wife told the guy he shouldn't kick dogs.
We called the dog but there were a lot of people's legs in the way so we couldn't pick him up immediately and we were being a bit indecisive. All this time my wife was asking people if the dog had a home but everyone said it was a stray.
Some other guy picked up the dog and treated it quite lovingly except for the talk about eating it. I like to think he was joking, but my wife had actually seen the dog walk into a place that sold dog meat right around there so she told me to take the dog from him, which I did.
Then some lady told us that people come first and not dogs. My wife started yelling at her. Not so much because of her message but the lady was pretty condescending - I mean she's sitting there getting drunk next to a place that sells dog meat while one of her friends threatens to kick a little stray dog (this Maltese is probably around 6 pounds) and she wants to teach us about life's priorities?
My wife and the lady yelled for a bit until some guy came over and put his hands on our arms and told us to leave. My wife and I both told him to take his hands off us, my wife still yelling.
Anyway, we left with the dog and started calling local vets (mostly closed on Sunday night). One answered the phone and opened up for us. He said the dog has probably been a stray for a while even though it smelled like soap. Seems strange.
Anyway, the dog stayed at the vet overnight and will get checked out today. Then we'll try to find her original home (a long shot I guess) or a new one. Wish us luck!
My wife and I talked to some people from Seoul Customs Office about bringing a car from America to Korea. Basically you pay for shipping and pay 36% tax to bring the car into Korea. They said shipping would be aroun $1500-$1800.
This article says that shipping is more like 2.5 million Korean won and that you end up paying 4 million to get tests done and to register the car. They also say that the FTA might decrease the tax you pay by 8% - the import duty would be abolished leaving people to "pay taxes totaling about 20 percent, including a special excise tax, education tax, and value added tax."
After some internet searching I haven't been able to find any more decent information so I'll try asking around on various forums. I know people do this - I guess they never talk about how on the internet...
I recently received this email and got permission to answer it publicly in case other people have the same questions about teaching in Korea:
I'm writing you in order to beg for information and advice because I would like to go to Korea at the end of next year and try to teach at a university like you're doing. I have absolutely no experience teaching English, though I might acquire some in an internship next summer, and I will have a Master's degree. (I've also subbed a little at high schools.) I'm comfortable with being booted out after two or three years because I really don't care to stay any longer. And here's the kicker: I've got a wife and two kids.Regarding the question about supporting a family and paying off loans on university wages, you probably would not have enough. However it would be fairly easy to supplement your income with overtime from the university (some pay very little for overtime), private lessons (illegal if you don't do the paperwork and in my experience no one - not even government agencies - want to do the paperwork), or side business (like my websites or network marketing).Do you think that Korean university wages would be sufficient to fly my family over AND pay off my loans AND live? Is there even such a thing as family housing for these jobs? How hard was it to get your job at CUK? Is is a decent place? How did you find your job? Dave's ESL Cafe, or some secret backdoor for the cognoscenti that I have yet to discover? How's life? Is Korea cool? From what I've read it seems like I'd like it a lot.
Some universities offer housing large enough for a family; the further away from big cities you teach, the better your chances of finding a big apartment from the university.
I did find the CUK job on ESL Cafe and also my current position at Sookmyung Women's University. The TESL-L job mailing list and the TESOL.org website are other possibilities. The university positions are competitive but if you have a Masters you should have no trouble getting interviewed for most of them. I tend to interview well so it is fairly easy for me to find positions in Korea. I know people who have better qualifications on paper who have a more difficult time finding good positions. You'll have to persuade your interviewers that you're an excellent teacher.
Regarding life in Korea, it is cool. My wife and I have no kids, 1 dog, and two incomes. We live quite well since tax is low and many things (like Korean food) are inexpensive. Today my wife and I had lunch delivered to my office and spent about $8 total. We could easily go out for dinner and spend the same amount.
One warning is that newcomers to Korea often have trouble coping with the germs - they are tough over here. I was sick my first few years in Korea and many foreigners experience the same thing. I could recommend some supplements (the same ones that saved me) but to supply your entire family would be rather expensive. My wife and I are a bit obsessed, but we spend a few hundred dollars a month on vitamins and things. I'm sure it's worth it since I no longer spend money on doctors and medicine (both very cheap in Korea) and have more time (I don't lose time to sickness) to earn money.
This article touches on many aspects of Korean culture, from the sex industry, to money lenders who charge 25% interest, to the scarcity of good-paying jobs for women, to the idea that girls go to college to find husbands. And how all that led one Korean girl who grew up poor into taking a job in America where she was turned into a sex slave.
There's a lot of material here for discussion classes, though some of it will certainly be uncomfortable. Still, the parts about running up credit card debt and turning to moneylenders should be fairly safe. The other issues are important, but is it our job to bring these serious issues to class?
Here are links to what I did for my friend from New York when he cam to Seoul recently.
Day 1: Kyungbok Palace, Namdaemun, JJ Mahoney's
Day 2: Bongeunsa & Coex mall in Seoul, Korea
Day 3: The National Museum of Korea
Day 4: War Memorial of Korea and Hongdae
Day 5: Han Ok Gol Village, Waffle House, shopping
Day 6: National Assembly Building in Yeouido, Seoul Arts Center
Day 7: DMZ, Insadong, Chungyechun, City Hall, drunkeness, Seoul taxis
Day 8: Seodaemun Prison & Shinchon
Day 9: Shabu Shabu, Acupuncture, Dak Galbi, Noribang
Day 10: Black Rubber Shoes, Zibe, Su Norebang in Hongdae
Take a look at this picture of Red Devil Korean soccer fans in City Hall for the big game. I was there, and it was just a crazily huge crowd. Feel free to save me from talking to myself on my soccer forum.
I've been spending a lot of time trying to clean spyware and adware of my PC recently. One problem is MyLinker and it's possible that the Korea Herald is responsible. Shoddy newspaper and evil adware installing website? I hate the Korea Herald (and they made MyLinker very hard to get rid of - still working on that).
After reading about a foreigner who lost and then found his cell phone, and comments about the taxi driver who wanted compensation for returning it, I thought I'd write about a few experiences I know of.
There certainly are people who would have returned the phone without demanding or even accepting a reward. I know I did when I found a student's mobile on the ground during our university's festival.
I once left my bacpack on the subway and was able to get that at the lost and found. Although my backpack is very fashionable no one took it home and it found itself in the Seoul subway lost & found.
I was once talking to a taxi driver in Singapore who lost his traveling cash and passports and everything on the subway in Seoul. It was all returned to him.
However, taxi drivers have it rough. I was once told that a taxi driver working 12 hours/day and 6 days a week would pull in about 1.5 million/month (around 1,500 dollars). I'd be miserable in those circumstances.
I know that Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul and catholic University in Bucheon are ahving their annual Spring festivals. At Sookmyung, the festival continues tonight and tomorrow (Friday) night.
I think festivals are fun with live music (when we stopped by the Sookmyung festival the music was pretty bad, but my wife says there were some good (and famous) musicians at the festival a few hours before we arrived.
Not surprisingly, there were quite a few males at the women's university festival. You certainly don't have to be a student or even remotely associated with the university to attend, so why not visit a university festival?
So I recently moved from Bucheon to Seoul and the move cost about 350,000 won. They came to my house, packed everything, drove it to the new house, and unpacked. Certainly this was much cheaper than a move in America as my wife and I have our share of stuff.
However, not everything went well. There was quite a bit of traffic in Seoul on that Monday afternoon and the driver blamed my wife's directions. So he decided to go left when my wife said straight and we immediately found ourselves in a bigger traffic jam. Then he got lost. The drive was about an hour longer than it should have been.
One interesting part of Korean culture is that you're expected to buy lunch for the movers. We did our best, buying coffee and steamed buns in the morning and then offering to order Chinese food as we (finally) approached the new house. Wouldn't you know it, the driver had a problem; he doesn't like Chinese food.
The real problem was that since we were new to the area we ddin't ahve any other places to order from. We ended up stopping at a Galbi Tang place which was naturally more expensive than the Chinese food would have been.
Then came the unpacking job which was pretty bad. We ended up with lots of clothes on the floor, a computer with everything put in its place but nothing hooked up (so we had to take everything out, hook things up, and then put it back in the computer desk) and other things like that.
For the most part nothing was damaged. Our TV cabinet now has uneven doors and some TV channels have poor reception. The cable guy says its our TV but I'm not convinced since some channels are fine. We might have to try another cable company if we have a choice.
Anyway, the move was cheap and the job got done, just in a somewhat annoying way with one guy giving us a hard time about directions and food.
Every university in Korea, including mine, has a Spring festival. This year classes after 1:00 on Tues., Thurs., and Fri. were cancelled as were all classes on Wednensday. With only a couple of weeks before final exams, this was big news for several of my night classes that missed an entire week of class.
The nice part is that we all get to relax a bit. Several teachers and I went to the student bars that get set up so that different clubs can make money while underage students sell alcohol to other underage students.
We have found that foreigners in Chinju still go to the restaurant downtown called Zio Rico's (Ricco's). They do this for a live foreigner band every Wednesday night and sometimes on Saturday or other nights.
Then on Wednesday and Saturaday nights, foreigners go to JJ Event Bar. This alternates between pop/techno dance music and karaoke (which is often boring for me). Things start late, maybe around 1:00 AM.
As regular readers will know, I live in Bucheon a satellite city of Seoul. It feels like I live in Seoul. The last week or two I've been experiencing a very different atmosphere in Chinju, also spelled Jinju.
Chinju is a city of about 350,000 people and is considered to be quite conservative by Koreans I know. The expat community is, of course, much smaller than in Seoul.
This can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. My wife and I are having a great time. We've probably met most of the foreigners in Chinju and they are quite freindly. Foreigners say "hi" to each other when they see each other and it's normal for strangers to introduce themselves when meeting for the first time. In just a couple of weeks my wife and I feel that we've begun several friendships and have really been welcomed by the Expat community.
Making friends in Seoul take quite a bit longer, at least in my experience. I ahve heard a few rumours about places in Chinju you really do NOT want to work. If you're entertaining a job offer you might consider contacting me to see if that's one of the schools I've heard of.
An email recently sent out by the American Embassy about danger in Seoul:
Subject: Potential Threat to US Citizens in University Areas
The U.S. Embassy is transmitting the following information through the
Embassy's warden system as a public service to all U.S. citizens in the
Republic of Korea. Please disseminate this message to U.S. citizens in
your organizations.
Recently, inflammatory sexual content was posted to a website for
English language teachers in Korea. That posting together with subsequent
postings were taken by some to demean Korean women. We have noted
recently, strong reaction in the form of web postings threatening attacks in
the vicinity of Hongik University and the Sinchon area against
Americans and other foreigners who speak English. All Americans and their
families (especially young adults) are encouraged to exercise prudence and
caution when visiting these neighborhoods. The Embassy advises that
inappropriate social behavior in public may be seen as provocative by
Korean nationals.
The U.S. Embassy in Seoul will continue to keep the U.S. community
informed of any changes in the overall security situation. The Embassy
encourages all U.S. citizens to register their presence in Korea with the
American Citizens Services (ACS) office at the U.S. Embassy or via the
Internet at http://travel.state.gov/travel/abroad_registration.html or
http://www.asktheconsul.org/.
American Citizen Services
U.S. Embassy Seoul
32, Sejongno, Jongno-gu
Seoul 110-710, Korea
Tel: 02-397-4114
Fax: 02-397-4101
DSN: 721-4114
http://www.asktheconsul.org/ (English)
http://www.usavisas.org/ (Korean)
e-mail: seoul_acs@state.gov
Thanks to some negative somments about Korean women, one English forum for teachers in Korea is temporarily offline:
As a result of negative newspaper reports depicting but a small percentage of user opinions, we at English Spectrum have decided to pull the offensive forum and are taking steps to re-organize how these forums are operated and monitored.
Yours truly just completed an interview with daum.net about this and other issues regarding English teachers in Korea. The interesting thing is that I just returned from a vacation in America last night and this is the first I've heard of the issue.
Comments about the issue would certainly be welcome as I suppose this is something I should know more about.
Like many foreigners in Korea, I used to get colds that lingered for weeks. The germs in Korea are tough on most foreigners. And work-related stress and lack of sleep often weaken our immune systems just when we need them most.
Recently I haven't had any problems because I've been taking ResishiMax (standardized Reishi Mushroom Extract capsules) from Pharmanex. This is a safe, all natural dietary supplement. Each capsule contains 495 mg of standardized Reishi mushroom extract and 5 mg of Reishi cracked spores.
ReishiMax is intended for adults who wish to maintain a healthy immune system; who smoke or who are frequently exposed to environmental pollutants; who do not get enough sleep; or who are under constant stress.
ReishiMax is not cheap at 120,000 won for 60 capsules (a one month supply). It works for me and it's worth the money. Becoming a Nuskin/Pharmanex distributor gets you a significant discount (yes I know network marketing has a bad repuation, but it's free to join; I did and have no regrets).
If you want ReishiMax (its available through Pharmanex distributors like myself) or have some questions, you can email me: jtrotta@gmail.com or call me (leave a message with your name and number if I'm not in): 032-345-2046 or call my wife's cell phone: 016-366-2046
ReishiMax FAQ:
What exactly is in ResihiMax?
ReishiMax is composed of Reishi fruiting bodies and cracked spores. The key active constituents found in Reishi include polysaccharides (beta-1,3-glucans) and triterpenes (ganoderic acids and others). Other ingredients naturally found in Reishi include nucleosides, fatty acids (oleic acid), and amino acids. The active ingredients in ReishiMax are standardized to 6% triterpenes and 13.5% polysaccharides. ReishiMax also contains a 1% extract of 100% cracked spores.
How do I take Reishimax?
The recommended use is to take one to two capsules of ReishiMax bid with food and liquid. For optimal health benefits, take one (1) capsule twice daily for health maintenance, and two (2) capsules twice daily for immune modulation.
I take one capsule twice daily and that's all I need to stay healthy.
Are there any side effects?
I haven't noticed any, except for the time I took ReishiMax and then rushed off to class without drinking any water. My mouth and throat felt pretty dry. Remember we're talking about mushroom extract not some chemical formula so its safe.
Here's the official version: ReishiMax is safe and well tolerated at the recommended dosage. In animal studies, Reishi has been shown to be non-carcinogenic, has not produced hepatic toxicity, and has not impaired growth or development. In high doses (1.5 - three pills- to 1.9 grams/day - four pills), some people have experienced temporary symptoms of sleepiness, thirst, rashes, bloating, frequent urination, abnormal sweating, and loose stools.
Take two pills a day and you'll be fine.
So it's perfectly safe?
As usual there is a disclaimer: Keep out of reach of children. If you are pregnant or nursing, or taking a prescription medication, consult a physician before using this product. Consult a physician if you are concurrently using anticoagulants, receiving immunosuppressive therapies or have an immune disorder. Individuals with known fungal allergies should be cautious when taking Reishi. Discontinue use of this product 2 weeks prior to and after surgery.
My contact info once again: email me: jtrotta@gmail.com or call me (leave a message with your name and number if I'm not in): 032-345-2046 or call my wife's cell phone: 016-366-2046