영국사람

Shit Shit! Piss Piss!

Last night my daughter was rummaging through one of her book collections. From a very early age she was intrigued by books, and in order to encourage that we ordered quite a few different sets for her. Some are Korean, some are English.

Obviously, I have no idea what the Korean books are. I have never looked at them unless she brings one over to me to read for her. They are, for the most part, the wife’s territory.

Last night, baby was rummaging through her books, when one of them caught my eye. The first thing I noticed was actually the title. 응아, as far as I know, means shit. Not shit as in bad. Shit as in the stuff that comes Mr. Whippy-like out of your arse.

쉬? That’s piss. Now… I’m sure there are probably other, more innocent meanings for these words but I thought it had to be more than a coincidence for them to be together like that. Surely my wife is not reading a book called “Shit Shit! Piss Piss!” to the baby? I picked it up. One glance at the front cover told me all I need to know.

So we have a girl and her teddy bear, both on the shitter. What do we see on the back?

Well we have a dog, pissing on the loo seat, and the happiest little turd I ever saw. Obviously this is a book that needed further investigating (and translating into Scouse)!

“Rabbit, Rabbit! What are you doing?”

“I’m having a shite!”

“Cat, Cat! What are you doing?”

“I’m having a shite!”

“Dog, Dog! What are you doing?”

“I’m having a piss!”

“Hippo, Hippo! What are you doing?”

“I’m having a shite!”

“Fish, Fish! What are you doing?”

I’m having a piss!

“Little girl, Little girl! What are you doing?”

“I’m having a shite!

And my wife thinks this is perfectly normal…

I am so happy right now!

A few months ago, I posted about the issue of my daughter’s family documents missing something that I considered very important… my name! The issue was something I was committed to following up, but a few other things got in the way… most notably a libel case that I wanted to be able to give my full attention when it was required. I expected that to go away within a few weeks, but the damn thing took a few months before I was even called in to be questioned!

Anyway… Professor Benjamin Wagner weighed in on the post recently with an awesome suggestion. Rather than fight the issue myself, fusion-baby should bring the case to court in her own name, possibly as part of a class action. It was an amazing idea! I threw the idea around friends in similar situations, and there was some interest in bringing it to court.

Now, that is not necessary. Roboseyo sent me an email today. It was unexpected because, as much as I like Roboseyo, we are not in any kind of regular contact. The first email I ever received from him concerned the ATEK series on Hub of Sparkle earlier this year, and so did the last one I received from him. Anyway… the title asked me if this was the news I had been waiting for, and it contained a link to a JoongAng Daily article that made my year!

Court eases foreigner registry rules

The Supreme Court said yesterday it will revise regulations to allow foreigners married to Koreans here to have their nationality and foreigner registration number recorded on the family relation registry starting this month.

To date, the registry has only carried records of genders and dates of birth of spouses and children of Koreans who have yet to acquire Korean nationalities. For this reason, those Korean families have had difficulty dealing with various situations here.

“The rule change will resolve inconveniences that foreigners who have families with Koreans face. For instance, when the spouse of a Korean wants to open a bank account on behalf of his or her child, he or she must be tested by a notary public to prove his or her relationship with the kid or bring along his or her wife or husband,” said the Supreme Court in a statement.

The family relation registry has five different types of certificates, depending on their usage: default certificates, family relation certificates, marriage relation certificates and adoption certificates.

The certificates are issued either over the Internet or by local district offices. The family registry system replaced the hojuje, or a patriarchal family registry system in Korean, on the first day of 2008 following persistent claims that the long-standing system was based on a patrilineal lineage system.

According to the revised rules, those who want to have their nationalities and foreigner registration numbers recorded in the family registry can file an application with local district offices.

By Seo Ji-eun [spring@joongang.co.kr]

So: Thank you Professor Wagner for giving me some awesome advice. Thank you to guys and gals at AFEK for giving me your support, and thank you Roboseyo for sending me the link which caused a wave of instant relief. I feel even better today than I did yesterday after the wife booked me some Guns N’ Roses tickets!

Where will the Bus Drivers Come From?

This article from the JoongAng Daily made me smile. It tells the tale of a Korean who has worked as a driver all of his life, and is still active on the buses of Seoul at 68 years old.

it also got me  thinking about something I often argue: The university experience has become severely undervalued due to there being too much opportunity for Higher Education. What we now have is a young population who are heavily in debt, and a labour market that is saturated, meaning that most people are overqualified for jobs what may be available. This is as true back ‘home’ as it is here in Korea.

This was discussed in a paper I recently read: “Causes and Countermeasures of Youth Unemployment in Korea” by Kim Hea-Kyung (MS Word file). Here are some nice stats gleaned from it:

• Employment of young people stood at 42.8% at the end of 2007.
• Small business tend to pay an average of 2,490,000 for a 201.8 hour working month, compared with 3,819,000 fir a 191.4 hour working month in a larger company. Graduates will do anything to avoid working at these smaller companies.
• Graduates expect 5-10 million won/year more than the market actually pays.
• In 1990, 32.2% of young people went on to college or university (with 25.8% of young people graduating). In 2006, that number had increased to 82.1% (with 52.6% graduating).
• The Quality of Korean University education has decreased due to the increase in quantity, so more businesses prefer to hire experienced workers.

Kim calls for better education of students, in order to give a more realistic picture of what their future will likely entail.

The Korea Times recently printed an article about the unhappiness of Korean Teens when compared to their peers in Japan and China.

Korean teens value money more than reputation or academic career, and tend to look up to rich people the most. About 92 percent said money was most important and four out of 10 said the rich were to be admired.

I blame the parents. Children are not allowed to dream any more. They move from school to hagwon, then into University, all in the hope that they will gain a job that, usually, doesn’t exist when the only thing they like about the job is the pay. No wonder there is such correlation between key academic milestones and suicides in young people.

As for where the bus drivers will come from: The chances are, they will come from some of the better Universities in Korea, bitter at their lot in life. Jang E-in is a man who probably receives nothing more than a cursory glance from those that board his bus in Seoul. The Ajumma’s who dread the prospect of their children ever leading such a ‘poor’ life would do well to give him more consideration, for he is probably more content than their children will ever be.

If I were Korean…

…and all other things being equal, what would my concerns be?

I often talk with the wife about how Korean’s seem to be very good at working themselves up over minor issues, with the flimsiest of evidence to support their claims. At the same time, they seem to be amazingly successful at ignoring real problems in their society.

Koreans are doing an amazing job of protesting the imminent resumption of US beef imports. They also enjoy the odd paranoia induced crackdown and/or protest on English Teachers, migrant workers, and Japan. Usually, these protests are based on the rumour, hearsay, and fabricated or exaggerated evidence.

More »

South Korea implements tougher penalties for Pedophiles

The new administration is working hard to change some of Korea’s more absurd practices. It seems that they have now decided to get tough on sexual predators who target children. This is a crime that is often ignored in Korea. Every Korean knows about the funny “Burberry man”, who likes to stand outside schools and whack off for the kids. The girls are conditioned to believe that they are harmless, and that they will get good grades if they see one. They don’t ever seem to consider the fact that this behaviour can (and often does) escalate.

In a male dominated society, women and children are often powerless when it comes to punishing the men involved in sexual crime. To be a single mother in this society, or to come from a broken home, is considered shameful. Even when people are willing to go against the grain and actually report people for child abuse, the police are often unwilling to act. Part of this stems from a system (changed in January 2008), where men owned the women and children in their clan. A daughter was her fathers property until she married, and then ownership transferred to her new husband. Thankfully, this has changed in the eyes of the law, thought it will take some more time before the (male dominated) culture adopts the new legislation.

More »

An Introduction

I suppose I should post an introduction to myself and my blog. I have been keeping a personal (private) Korea blog for some time, but as I have settled into a more mundane existence here in Korea, I find that my personal experiences have become less interesting to myself and others. At the same time, my desire to comment on Korean society has grown, and so I have decided to shift the emphasis of my writings and so have moved my writings here. Here is my introduction post written for the “about” section. It is intended to give laymen a simple understanding of Korea and the issues in the country today.

The Ranting Englishman is an EFL teacher in Korea. He is married to a Korean woman, and will soon be father to a Korean girl. This blog is intended to be a place for him to post his rants about living a life as a foreigner in Korea.

Korea is a complicated place, and the culture more so. Often describes as the “Hermit Kingdom”, they have historically tried to isolate themselves from external influence. This policy of isolation is largely due to the treatment they have received from neighbouring countries in the past. Geographically placed between China and Japan, they have suffered under the influence of both countries, and many aspects of Korean culture are directly taken from their former masters, Confucianism being the most obvious example.

In recent (20th century) history, Korea was annexed by Japan, and the people suffered many misfortunes at the hands of their colonial rulers. The Korean people were stripped of their language, and forced to take Japanese names. The crimes committed by the Japanese (often with the help of privileged Koreans) are too numerous to list here, but can be easily researched.

Near the end of WWII the Japanese retreated from Korea. The USA and the USSR had made an agreement to temporarily occupy of Korea. The USSR were to control the northern part of the country (which borders China and Russia), whilst the US were given control of the south.

Each side wanted to give control of the country to a political sympathiser, the US were not particularly keen on granting the USSR full control of Korea by allowing them to install their own leader to control the entire country. As the two sides could not reach an immediate agreement, they each installed a leader area they controlled, and US forces left the peninsula. A divided Korea was understood by both parties to be temporary arrangement, but rising tensions along the border became all out war when the North marched on the South. The US returned to Korea to assist in repelling the communist North, and China soon joined forces with the South. The war lasted for 3 years before a ceasefire was agreed. Korea is still divided, and the two countries are still ‘at war’.

In the latter part of the 20th century, the South Korean economy has flourished. The industrialisation of the once devastated country has been incredible, and they are now listed as the 11th largest economy in the world. The large corporations (Samsung, LG, Daewoo, Hyundai, etc.) control a lot of the wealth in the country, and wealth here often equals power. These corporations are often free to act with impunity, and in some cases illegal activities by these corporations have been treated leniently so as not to negatively impact the economy. As a newly industrialised nation, many of the laws have been unable to keep pace, and corruption is not uncommon at all levels of Korean society.

Gender equality laws are outdated, and are backed up by the bastardisation of Confucianist thinking that prevails in Korea. Women are second class citizens, and this belief is backed up by the legal system.

Korea is reluctantly opening itself up to foreign influence, through necessity rather than desire. Koreans feel a need for English language acquisition, and so allow foreign instructors to work in the country. There are many restrictions placed on immigrants to Korea, and these restrictions are often given legitimacy by government institutions. Immigration laws allow employers a great level of control over workers, and injustices are overlooked when the wronged party is not Korean. Racist banking laws are often written into legislation (though just as often are not) and the Police will almost always side with a Korean over a foreigner.

The events of the first half of the 20th century are still fresh in the minds of the Korean people and they are mistrustful of all foreign interaction. Despite the losses incurred by allied forces during the Korean War, and the subsequent American presence that has protected Korea from any further incursions, there is a decidedly anti-American feeling in Korea.

Finally, progress in Korea is being held back by a tendency for the Korean people to completely over-react to information, without any regard to validity.

This blog will be my place to rant, as much for my sanity as that of my wife. Over the past few weeks I have been angered by a number of news stories that have hit the foreigner blogs in Korea, and I feel a need to say my piece. The current US Beef fiasco has been my breaking point, but is by no means the least important thing to me. In the past few weeks a rapist was set free because his victim was wearing jeans and jeans are difficult to remove. Never mind the 20 weeks of hospital treatment required!, a perverted principal went back to school after photographing a young girls thighs on the subway (and slapping her for objecting), the attempted abduction of a child that was ignored by Police (he was drunk, so that’s ok! Thankfully, the President went apeshit after seeing the video and this recently released pedophile was arrested again) or the Police who would not arrest a man who was raping his stepdaughter because it was not their job!

I hope to base my rants on the injustices that face women, children and foreigners in Korea. My wife is a Korean woman, and my daughter will be a Korean woman. I will also reserve the right to post comment on any other thing I see fit!

Finally, if you are looking for weighty argument, please go visit the Metropolitician’s blog (the best in Korea, according to me). This is a place to rant!