영국사람

The NHRCK have made their decision (and ATEK are not operating illegally)

I have it from a reliable source that the NHRCK have made a decision in regard to the Equal Checks for All campaign, and so I figure this is a good time for me to break my silence in regard to ATEK.

The HIV tests are not something that the NHRCK want to even get into. I suspect that they are not sure if they can call ‘not wanting to foot the bill for a foreigners medical care’ as a human rights infringement.

As for the background checks. They have found that all teachers in Korea, be they Korean nationals or those on other visa types, are required to submit a background check from their country of permanent residence (i.e. Korea), and so foreigners should have to undergo the same checks.

6 months of headache for this. Nice!

In other news, I recently heard the outcome of the Prosecutors investigation into ATEK’s fundraising. It went to my old address instead of my email address as requested, and so it got to me via the new occupant calling my wife, getting my permission to open it, and then reading it to my wife over the phone.

Unless ATEK raise funds, they are 100% legal in Korea. This goes not only for the organisation, but also for the volunteer members who work for free regardless of their Visa type. If the volunteer members draw a salary or expenses, then things get hairy.

ATEK can also engage in fundraising activities, as long as the funds are used for charitable purposes. This means that they can not be used to pay for things to give away (such as books), can not be used to pay expenses for seminars or press conferences, and can not be used to pay for travel around the country. They CAN be used to assist teachers who are suffering hardship.

The amount they may raise is capped at 10 million won before they need to register. It was not made clear if this is a total, or an amount per fiscal year, but they don’t need to be worrying until they come close to that limit either way.

If they wanted to be smart about this, could could start off with a simple fund, and when a teacher is in need, they can have that teacher raise their own funds with ATEK members donating. That teacher can then repay ATEK. Sure, it relies on the teacher being trustworthy, but it does allow ATEK to keep raising funds without capping. They raise the funds, they loan the cash to the teacher, and the teacher repays it with funds they have raised. Happy days!

Now that they are (a) legal, and (b) unlikely to fuck around with ECFA campaigns again, I just might join them

A Korean Holiday…

With the daughter being so young, we have decided to skip having a real vacation this year. A few weeks ago, the Sister-in-Law called and suggested that we go visit a pension (a home in the country that you can rent much like a hotel room) with her boyfriend, and Sister-in-Law 2. It seemed a good idea, and SIL’s BF is a great bloke who I get along with (he is a Korean English teacher), and I love the Korean countryside, so we agreed to go with them.

Now… What I didn’t realise is that SIL’s BF had the weekend off because just about everybody in Korea has the same weekend off. And he wanted to go visit a pension because just about everybody in Korea goes to visit a pension. The traffic was nasty!

We left Seoul just after 7am, and hit the expressway. 5 hours later I looked at the map and said out loud “Please don’t tell me we are still in Gyeonggi-do”. We were. In fact, we were Expressway 50, heading towards Wonju services. SIL and I got out and walked.

We stopped for lunch at the services, and as soon as they were finished (and I mean AS SOON as they were finished – I was still eating) some old women told my SIL’s to move. They did. They then told my wife to move. She did. They then told me to move. “Fuck off!”

I let the wife go do wife things with her sisters and I entertained baby. I’m surprised she left me alone with her in such a playground, as my wife likes to protect our daughter from any potential danger, no matter how slight the risk may be. Having left my wallet in the car, I cadged ₩1000 from the wife and set about having fun with my daughter. First I took her to the water fountain. It was a hot day, and she enjoyed watching the kids running around in the jets of water (she was yelling a constant stream of “Hiya” to anybody under 3 foot tall), and so I took her in for a splash. She had a great time, and I was sure I could get her dried out before the wife had kittens. But still… there was work to be done.

I made my way to the baby rides, dropped her in place and made sure she had at least one hand on the wheel, and dropped in the ₩500 coin. I expected the initial shock, and so when her froze I was prepared for that. Phase 2 was going to be screams and waterworks, or sheer pleasure. Thankfully it was pleasure. Her ride lasted a couple of minutes and at the end of it she had her arm in the air and was spinning the wheel like a nutter with the free arm. Success! When it stopped she started shouting at it, so I dropped another coin in and let her go.

Then I heard the wife: “Oh my god!!!!!”. Shit!

Once she saw that baby was having a blast she was ok, though she was a little pissed at me for plotting it.

We went about our uneventful journey and at 4pm I decided my suggestion of the last 4 hours should become a demand: “Get off the expressway here!”

I played navigator and directed SIL’s BF along the national roads to get us to our destination. Not only could we see the slow moving ‘express’way as we went along the roads alongside it, we also managed to enjoy some much nicer scenery.

We finally arrived just after 6pm. 11 hours to travel around 200km.

The Pension itself was nice. It was a 2 story wooden thing, with a nice veranda which housed a convenient barbeque.

My favourite feature was the abandoned beehive hanging from the roof.

Although we had experienced a beautiful day whilst cooped up inside the car, the weather gods obviously decided that we needed a further pissing on, and so the rain arrived shortly after we did. We never let it spoil the food or drink though, and we had a good time for the next 5 or 6 hours.

The next day we decided to make use of the stream, and so after we checked out at 12, we headed upstream for a swim. The wife had another litter of kittens when I took the baby for her first paddle, though after 90 minutes it was time to leave. As good a time as we were having, I didn’t want to arrive home after midnight.

SIL’s BF and I made a decision to drive to  Seoul using only national roads. We left at 2, and after stopping for an hour for lunch, and a few smoke breaks on the way, we managed to get back home just after 8 O’Clock.

Much better!