Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jinju]

I would just like to ask you, Mr.Bill Schiller from the Toronto Star, if you consider anonymous posters on an internet forum posting anecdotal hearsay GOOD sources for a story. I would also ask you if your idea of getting information is by sitting by the computer surfing discussion forums. Because seriously, Im really stumoed how THIS

http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/267707

got published. And oh what great gems this piece contains

[RACETRAITOR]

Headline tomorrow:

Jinju angry at reporter

What a scoop!

[Captain Corea]

The reporter is obviously lazy.

Next he'll be writing about the new cell phone called "hand-pone"

[RACETRAITOR]

We must warn him about fan death.

[diver]

I didn't think the article was that bad. However, I think I can what was bothering jinju so much. I've reprinted the article below, with some edits that I think will make it a little more acceptable. The bold print is mine.



BEIJING�When his picture and an Interpol press release alleging he was a pedophile showed up on his favourite Internet forum a week ago Tuesday, Chris Neil knew he had to leave South Korea. Quickly.

The 32-year-old Canadian from B.C. stopped posting on the forum, Dave's ESL Cafe, where he was known as "Peter Jackson."

He shut down his Facebook account. And he shaved his head to change his appearance.

He sent a final email to a student in the southern city of Gwangju, saying he wouldn't be in class Thursday because of an urgent "family matter."

Then he organized a one-way ticket from Seoul to Bangkok and on Thursday he was gone.

This � and much more � we now know about Christopher Paul Neil, gleaned from police and more than 1,000 messages that Neil, and his Internet friends, posted on Dave's ESL Cafe, a forum frequented by English as a Second Language teachers.

What we don't know is where exactly Neil is today.

Authorities allege Neil was shown in some 200 Internet photos abusing 12 young boys in Vietnam and Cambodia. The man's face, however, was masked by a digitalized blur. German police recreated an image of him, and four reconstructed photos were released to the public.

The international police organization issued an unusual global appeal for help in identifying and tracing the suspect on Oct. 8.

Interpol said that more than 350 people have supplied tips to authorities worldwide.

"He is now internationally known," Mick Moran, the Interpol detective leading the manhunt, told Agence France-Presse. "Really, there is no place for him to hide."

Although the international search is focused on Thailand, Neil might have already made it "to the Cambodian, Burmese or Laos border and tried to sneak over," one teacher worried in a post yesterday.

Police have been poring over the postings for days now, looking for clues about the one-time kindergarten teacher's personality and preoccupations.

A few stand out.

"Oh I loved my kindergarten kids," Neil wrote in one posting last June recalling his early days of teaching in South Korea.

But the exchanges show his friends never suspected anything. Wrote one, "We all knew him, drank with him, hung out with him."

Another recalled boisterous karaoke nights at a club called Norebongs. "When he sang, he really got into it, and was a source of amusement for all of us. ... Everybody was surprised when he did his runner."

In hindsight, a few now feel they might have picked up signals that all was not right.

There are posts where Neil recounts an encounter with a Korean man in a shower; another where he talks of "porn" and how to delete computer files on entering Korea; and yet another on how to avoid the police checks sometimes required to obtain a teaching visa.

"Police checks are NOT required to get a visa," Neil firmly advised a prospective foreign teacher. "Public schools may want them but you should be able to stall them. ... I never gave a police check for my last public school job. ... I delayed and never heard about it again."

On porn, Neil advised, "If you're worried about any content, there are several ways to encrypt your drive. ... If you want to get rid of old files so no one will see ... You'll have to get a program like Jetico's BCWipe ..."

And on his shower encounter in a sauna, Neil wrote, "I felt very violated indeed."

In other postings he revealed details of his personal history and movements in the last seven years.

He was in Canada as recently as Aug. 14, flying out of Vancouver on an Air Canada flight to Seoul after spending the summer in B.C.



He had returned to Canada in the spring after six years teaching in Asia, mainly in Korea and Vietnam. He first went to Korea in 2000.

"I had just finished university and was looking for teaching work in my province," he wrote in one post last November. "My Mom found this little ad in the local newsrag. Not much info: TEACH IN KOREA, MAKE $$ PAY BILLS, etc.

"Boy was I surprised when after I received a 10-minute phone interview at 1 a.m. I was offered a job!!"

In total, Neil spent 4 1/2 years teaching in Korea. He said he held a B.A. and teaching certificate from British Columbia, did some substitute teaching in Canada, but had accumulated seven years in the profession, mostly in Asia.

Earlier this year, he'd grown tired and needed a break. "I love my job, but as someone in another thread mentioned, the subway ride (and in my case a gruelling bus trip too) at 6 a.m. is getting to me," he noted.

Before he flew home to Vancouver, one post revealed he also took a trip from Seoul to Bangkok, on to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and back to Seoul.

Back in B.C., Neil claimed he had interviewed a mother this summer who wanted private teaching lessons for her two children, ages 7 and 8, who had fallen behind under home-schooling. He does not name the family or their hometown.

But if there is one preoccupation that seems to continually crop up, it's his concern about "record checks" and "police checks." "I would just politely put them off," he advised one incoming teacher.

Another post reveals that South Korean police were moving in on Neil and were actually en route to his apartment Friday, until they learned he'd left the previous day.

With a large dragnet being drawn around him, how long Neil can continue to "put them off" seems questionable.

By the way, while researching this story, I came across a poster known as jinju. Not only is he the most intelligent poster on the board, he is probably the best photographer the world has ever seen. In this reporter's opinion, the Pulitzer Prize for photography should just be awarded to him in perpetuity. There's no sense in any of us ever owning cameras ever again. On a personal note, I hope my story lives up to his expectations.