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steroidmaximus
Joined: 27 Jan 2003
Location: GangWon-Do
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 Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:18 pm Post subject: Who thought things would change . . . |
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in how the Korean media portrays foreigners after Cho Seung Hee? If you thought so, have a read:
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Who needs Japanese comics when you�ve got the Weekly Hankook Magazine � yes, part of the same media company that owns the English-language Korea Times � to satisfy all your xenophobic needs with headlines like this:
Residential Neighborhoods with Many Foreigners, Lawless Zones when the Sun Goes Down: Scary Night Streets, Foreigner Crimes Rising Daily� High Crime Zones Devoid of Public Authority Appearing
And how�s this for an intro:
�I�m afraid to walk around at night. With herds of foreigners swarming around frightening me, I�m also scared I might be harmed. I firmly warn even my middle school daughter.�
Mrs. Oh (46), a resident of Wongok-dong, Danwon-gu, Ansan-si, Gyeonggi-do, a neighborhood that has become known as Korea�s �Borderless Village,� said that as the neighborhood fills up with foreigners, it has grown savage and desolate. Choe In-song (82), who calls himself a Wongok-dong native, said, �As the number of foreigners grows, the neighborhood is growing increasingly disorderly and women are avoiding walking around at night.�
Because, as you know, foreigners love nothing better than to visit outrage upon Korean womanhood.
Although there were differences in degree, most of the Wolgok-dong residents this reporter met were wary of foreign laborers. Some, citing panicky rumors of sexual crimes and violent crimes, expressed animosity [toward the foreign laborers].
Gee, with the Weekly Hankook running winners like this one, I wonder why?
This got my goat, however:
The murder-dismemberment that took place earlier this year in Wolgok-dong had a considerable influence. The bizarre incident, in which a Chinese man who lived in Wolgok-dong killed and dismembered his Korean wife, shocked residents and changed the way people view foreign laborers.
Note to Weekly Hankook � that incident didn�t change a damn thing. People already held the foreign laborers in utter contempt, and the murder just provided them with �justification.�
About a week later, in February, an ethnic Korean from China named Mr. Wang murdered his North Korean defector wife and his son, waking people up to the seriousness of foreigner crime.
Crickey. I mean, if a body count of three in two separate incidents is enough to raise the alarm about foreigner crime, you�d have to figure a foreigner going onto a college campus and blowing away 32 people would warrant at least a mass deportation.
According to the Gyeonggi-do Police Agency, there are 263,000 foreigners living in the province (80,000 illegally). Last year, police arrested 3,150 foreign criminals, a 35.6 percent jump from 2,322 in 2005.
Park Wan-seok, an official from the Citizen�s Alliance for Countermeasures for Foreign Laborers, which collects and observes examples of foreigner crimes and looks for countermeasures, said, �Even in Korea, there are appearing high-crime zones where public authority doesn�t reach, like Harlem in the United States� In districts with high concentrations of foreigners, when the sun goes down, Koreans � and particularly women � can�t leave their homes freely, and even the police avoid approaching those areas.�
OK, now even I�ve gone on record paraphrasing Chris Rock about the neighborhood (Itaewon) in which I live � when I�m looking over my shoulder at the ATM at night, I�m not looking for OhMyNews. I�m looking for foreigners. That being said, having lived in Washington DC and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania (which is a rather pleasant place, actually), I can assure you, Mr. Park, that as bad as Ansan may or may not be, you don�t know what a lawless zone is.
Anyway, one member of the group uploaded a post on its website claiming that a young girl who lived with her grandmother had been abducted and raped by a foreign laborer, and a few days later she was dragged away again and raped by six foreigners.
The article claims that foreigner crimes are growing more diverse and sophisticated. Police stats show that violent crimes committed by foreigners has increased by a factor of 1.5-2 since 2001, while incidents of fraud and forgery have increased ten-fold.
According to the Office of the Supreme Prosecutor, foreigner crime accounted for only 0.4 percent of total crime in 2005, but foreigners accounted for 1.4 percent of total violent crime and 8.4 percent of phone and document forgery.
In particular, said the piece, more and more foreigners from Muslim countries � freed of the rigid religious lifestyles of their homelands � are engaging in crime. In 2004, a Pakistani indentured servant industrial trainee kidnapped a Busan middle school girl back to his room, raped her, and then pimped her out to his colleagues. In September 2005, three Pakistanis were arrested on charges of luring a high-school girl off a Seoul street and gang-raping her.
The article noted that foreigner crime has skyrocketed since the adoption of the industrial trainee system in 1993, and since the beginning of mass immigration of ethnic Koreans from China.
Park claimed that among foreign laborers from Pakistan and Bangladesh, there�s a �manual� going around teaching laborers how to get permanent residency in Korea. The manual allegedly says one way is to get a Korean woman pregnant� in one way or another. He said that there are many criminal instances of foreign laborers preying on mentally ill women, minors and divorced women in a bid to get permanent residency.
In August 2005, a Bangladeshi worker �approached� a 40-year-old mentally ill woman, got her pregnant, and assaulted her family while demanding her hand in marriage. He was eventually booted out of the country.
The story said there was even a case of an illegal migrant worker applying for a marriage license after he impregnated a woman he kidnapped from a home for the handicapped.
Park � concerned citizen he is � warned that in the case of foreigners from Southwest Asia, some come from countries where you can have more than one wife, and it�s easy to forge documents, so there are many instances of Korean women falling victim. Last year in Busan, a 35-year-old furniture factory worker from Bangladesh approached a Korean women in her 20s by claiming he was an exchange student and his father was a wealthy landowner. He seduced the poor girl and eventually married her, but the marriage ended in divorce when his lies were revealed.
Lest you believe it�s only migrant Third World laborers turning the country to shit, foreign English teachers are also a problem. According to hagwon English teacher Mr. Kim from the Citizens� Alliance for Proper English Education, crimes by foreign teachers have reached a serious level. An English professor at a university in Seoul was famous for his indecent sex life, getting a student pregnant and then forcing her to get an abortion by threatening her with a knife. Yet he was fined only 500,000 won.
Or so the story said.
Meanwhile, there was talk that an American � identified as Mr. R � teaching at a famous English hagwon for children in Seoul was violent, but when a member of the Citizens� Alliance for Proper English Education made this accusation on the Internet, the good netizen was punished for defamation. I guess there is justice in this universe.
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Read it all over at The Marmot's Hole |
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cubanlord
Joined: 08 Jul 2005
Location: In Japan!
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| Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:56 pm Post subject: |
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a lot of times, people will mistake 'foreigner' to mean 'EFL instructor'. Reading the article you have posted here, I see only a mention of the EFL instructor. For the most part, countless 'laborers' are being blamed. There is a difference.
What's interesting, possibly food for thought, is for someone to read this article and not help to think, "hmmm...did they HAVE to add that last part about the EFL instructor just to cover ALL bases? |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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| For me, I was leftthinking... "what's with all the approaching?" |
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matthews_world
Joined: 15 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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For one, these are old facts.
And two:
According to the Office of the Supreme Prosecutor, foreigner crime accounted for only 0.4 percent of total crime in 2005, but foreigners accounted for 1.4 percent of total violent crime and 8.4 percent of phone and document forgery.
this piece is slanted big time.
This article is only saying that Koreans are still xenophobic.[/b] |
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mikowee
Joined: 03 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 8:33 pm Post subject: |
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Media concocting a fictitious enemy to prey on people's fears? Nah, impossible. 
Fear sells. Fear controls. It's not new to Korea. |
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steroidmaximus
Joined: 27 Jan 2003
Location: GangWon-Do
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| Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 9:23 pm Post subject: |
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comments over at the Marmot's are worth a read.
Yes, there is a difference in this article Cuban, but it's not hard to find plenty of examples of this sort of concerted attack directed towards teachers. This article is actually unusual in that it is directed mainly towards the 3D workers. I guess the groups responsible for this sort of journalism didn't want to leave any of their bases uncovered.
Fear sells. Sure. It isn't anything new or unique. Portrayals of Muslims in American media are rife, and movies such as '300' and 'Apocalyptico' do nothing to improve the situation of minorities in the US, just as movies such as The Host and Sympathy for Lady Vengence do little for foreigners in Korea. But this is a discussion board for living and working in Korea, so let's limit ourselves, shall we?
What I'm wondering is whether there has been an increase in negative press towards foreigners since the Cho Seung Hee incident. It seems that way. If anyone wants to volunteer as a co-researcher on this, drop me a pm. |
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