Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Lucas]

http://www.expathell.com/

Whats up?

[maximmm]

It was a well written but dumb blog. Perhaps its writer has found something more interesting to do?

[Steelrails]

That's a shame. I appreciated its world-weary, alcohol tinged, vibe. It was well-written. Something noirish about it. Half expected the guy to be English Teacher Sam Spade on the 13th floor of the YBM building, late on bills, divorced, with some random papers and half a bottle of Jack in his desk.

[Lucas]

The blog list linked to it was removed for a week or so before it went to how it is now.

I wonder if some of the other more extreme blogs attracted some interest in old posts?

The blog with the human centipede theme, linked to the sewol ferry is very unwise - it's still up.

I'm amazed some semi-literate Korean hasn't found it and had the Korean police raid the ISP yet!

[cmxc]

If expathell had to shut down because of Korean law enforcement or government action, it would only provide another example of an aspect of Korea I most despise.

Koreans can't tolerate criticism, even when they know that their system is deeply flawed and in need of drastic reform.

Rather than improving things so that life is better for all Koreans, they go after voices of criticism, especially from non-Koreans, to make sure that the ugly truth about Korea is never aired.

[greene]

my friend and i just went to hallasan burger last weekend

http://oi62.tinypic.com/35n31mw.jpg

[greene]

you can search google for the individual articles and see the caches still, if there are any you want to save. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3F82VU0f1IwJ:www.expathell.com/%3Fp%3D6362+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk

[bossface]

This really bums me out. My favorite blog in Korea ever, I dug it more than Mr. Wonderful's or even my own. I'm glad I read through every post while I was deskwarming last winter.

[furtakk]

[BackRow]

Shame, I liked to occassionaly go and read his newest entries, some were pretty amusing given he'd not a bad comedic fiction writer

[anamika]

If the owner of this blog was such a literary genius, why did he want to be a magnet and ringleader for some of sickest and most imbalanced 'expats' in all of South Korea? The comment sections following his articles were utter train wrecks.

I have no idea why the blog went underground, but for me the last straw, when I didn't even want to look at the blog anymore for occasional comic relief, was the tireless barrage of toilet photos a couple of months ago. What kind of sicko wants to 'document' stuff like that? I heard that, more recently, a bunch of those guys whipped themselves up into a frenzy about something some clueless Korean journalist had written about, and then somebody posted the journalist's email address in the comments. Maybe this has something to do with it, or maybe it does not, but anyway it is not at all surprising to see this blog gone. Good riddance.

[Otter]

The blog is still there. I'm reading the forums right now.

Some people have no sense of humour, and expathell is the funniest Korea related blog around. Most Korea based bloggers are so far up their iwn backsides it isn't funny, it's almost like their suffering from some kind of kimchi infused Stockholm Syndrome, EH is a breathe of fresh air.

People calling for the site to be shutdown are pathetic. 'Ohh! someone writes a humourous blog taking the micky out of Korea. How offensive, the government must do something', that's just sad. With all the challenges Korea faces do you actually believe the government should bother with a harmless blog? They have far more important tasks to attend to than that.

North Korean nukes
Relations with their neighbours
One of the highest suicide rates on the planet
One of the lowest birthrates on the planet
One of the lowest productivity rates
An ageing population and a broken social system
Incredible amounts of corruption in business and government
Ridiculously lax of enforcement of laws
Shocking numbers of traffic fatalities
The list goes on and on and..........

Are some things the 'government' should address before shutting down humourous websites. It would be like Obama's administration shutting down The Onion rather than engaging with priority issues. A waste of time and effort.

I found it amusing when the right wing religious groups had most porn sites banned, it's like duh, South Korea has one of the biggest prostitution industries on the planet, many Koreans are sex tourists and Korea also has huge issues with human trafficking yet they think banning porn websites is more important! Ridiculous, but what do expect from christian nutjobs. Anyone who really loves to watch porn can just use a proxy anyway. Even if the government did ban EH in Korea, the site isn't even hosted on a Korean server, can you imagine a Korean bureacrat calling his counterpart in the US and saying 'Please understand our special situation, can you take down this malicious website?' and the ensuing laughter that would come from the American? Lol I'd love to hear that conversation, I really would.

I had lunch at the awesome Hallasan Burger the other day too, a little on the expensive side and difficult to find, but well worth the money and the effort to track down the place. I've heard HB are even going to start trialling proper milkshakes soon! That will be great.

[Scorpion]

I agree fully with the above post. EH is a great site. Some of the posts are laugh out loud funny, and a breath of fresh air amongst a lot of politically correct 'Korea is awesome' blogs. EH describes Korea exactly as it is. The Marmot's Hole, although an excellent source of information, doesn't show the true face of Korea. Expat Hell, on the other hand, tears off the mask to expose Korea for the seedy slum that it is. This is not the Korea that 'Arirang TV' wants us to see. It's the actual Korea. And the writer has a very entertaining and capable writing style. Anyone who has not visited Expat Hell should do so. True, the quality of the posts had been declining over the last several months, but overall it's a great blog.

Now, if the Korean authorities tried to ban his blog, or find out his identity and place of employment, that's just...well, so very, very Korean. I look forward to his next post telling us the background to this development. They got to Mr. Wonderful a couple years back. There was another site by a Scottish guy that criticized Korea and got shut down. And there was another blog by a guy down in Chollanamdo (Smee, I think is his Daves name). He got deported.

Time to grow up Korea. They can dish out all the insults at English teachers, and foreigners generally, but criticism of them by these very same people whom they abuse endlessly is off limits.

[brento1138]

Not only was Expat Hell the best literature on Korea that I've ever read, it was written by someone who clearly knows how to write. It was easily the most entertaining blog I think I've ever come across on the WWW. The thing is though, you have to have lived in Korea to really understand it. You have to also be on the same page as him when it comes to having a sense of humour - something quite easy for us longer term (and former) expats. The folks who criticize it for whatever reasons (the toilet post, etc) just don't really get what the page is about. It's a critique of Korea in an original, well written, utterly hilarious style. Whenever I got a tinge of missing Korea, I'd head there. Nobody else quite captured the sort of trapped yet content feeling living in Korea as an expat serves up.

I am hoping he writes a book or a screenplay with this material. It was seriously great stuff. Sad to see it gone. But I'm not so sure it's locked down or whatever. It seems the site has changed to a forum. I've tried signing up, but no response yet.

For now I'll just enjoy reading the remnants of his blog on my Pulse app... and perhaps cached internet pages. Here's hoping the blog someday returns...

[TheMeerkatLover]

Expat Hell is still up (I have account access and read what is not for public consumption daily). The site has been running for years and I'm sure the nutizens have tried to have it shut down for a very long time to no avail. The site main blog page went down after the Marmot's hole fiasco when the posters went into a self-induced frenzy to start a witch-hunt. Knowing what happened in the past, Jake was smart enough to take a pause and make sure the identities of those of us who use the site are secure as well as ensure those who in the past registered for the site and then took snapshots of the content to report to the authorities is avoided.

The gov't hasn't shut him down, nor are they able to. I think the site will return with greater access in the near future while at the same time blocking the Anti-English Spectrum, Koreaboos, Klowns and Kimchileaders (as termed ExpatHell) from gaining any access to what is most probably the best private site on Korea.