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Died By Bear
Joined: 13 Jul 2010
Location: On the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
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 Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 6:18 am Post subject: |
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Teddy diddled a schoolgirl she was 16 years old, Fell from the roof in Kwaghwamun.
Cathy was 31 when she pulled the plug, on 26 valium and a bottle of soju.
Bobby got run over by a bus, 24 years old He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine.
Bobby hung himself when his K-wife cheated.
Judy jumped in front of a subway train after not being paid in a long time.
All my friends have died, died.... |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 7:32 am Post subject: |
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| Died By Bear wrote: |
Teddy diddled a schoolgirl she was 16 years old, Fell from the roof in Kwaghwamun.
Cathy was 31 when she pulled the plug, on 26 valium and a bottle of soju.
Bobby got run over by a bus, 24 years old He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine.
Bobby hung himself when his K-wife cheated.
Judy jumped in front of a subway train after not being paid in a long time.
All my friends have died, died.... |
Sounds almost like a David Allen Coe song or something. Like a sad version of "Whips n Things" |
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Died By Bear
Joined: 13 Jul 2010
Location: On the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
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Weigookin74
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 10:41 am Post subject: |
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| alongway wrote: |
| Chaparrastique wrote: |
Does anyone know about the kidnap and murder of a foreigner by an ajoshi on a boat?
I remember hearing this story way back in about 2006. Apparently in the 90's (or possibly earlier) a Korean man kept one or two foreign tourists hostage on his boat and ended up killing one of them. Blamed them for the IMF or something.
Anybody else heard this one? |
The IMF crisis was in 1997 if something like that happened, it would be after that. It's also high profile enough to be have absolutely been in the international news. A simple google should reveal the truth about it. |
I love how they call it the IMF crises. The IMF didn't create the crises, Korean companies did by borrowing too much money and banks lending too freely without accountibility.
I did also read about some Korean man walking into a school around that time and killing a white English teacher for "polluting Korea." |
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Gladiator
Joined: 23 May 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 1:46 am Post subject: Urban legend |
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Flashback to mid noughties--I think it was 2004/05--and that fairly dire, now I'm sure defunct Korea expat magazine 'Seoul Scene' featured an English Teacher's cautionary tale with such diabolical twists it surely competes for the 'Most Outlandish' award.
An Australian computer programmer working in the UK gets sacked for downloading pornography at work. Penniless and jobless--and I'm assuming now visaless--he sees an advertisement to teach English in South Korea posted on a lamp-post in Docklands, London. He applies, gets interviewed somehow and receives a plane-ticket. He arrives at Incheon Airport and is apparently met by some heavy-set characters, from where he is transported to a dingy room somewhere in Itaewon. A very scary Russian character then appears and proceeds to burn his passport in front of him with the threat: "I own you now. You belong to me." He is then forced to dance in a thong in a bar on the gay nightclub street that ran parallel to Hooker Hill. I forget how he escaped, but he gave the interview apparently from a haven/refuge for exploited foreign workers in Seoul.
Evidence that human-trafficking has been going on in with foreign organised crime logistics in Seoul for many years! |
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alongway
Joined: 02 Jan 2012
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| Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 2:56 am Post subject: Re: Urban legend |
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| Gladiator wrote: |
Flashback to mid noughties--I think it was 2004/05--and that fairly dire, now I'm sure defunct Korea expat magazine 'Seoul Scene' featured an English Teacher's cautionary tale with such diabolical twists it surely competes for the 'Most Outlandish' award.
An Australian computer programmer working in the UK gets sacked for downloading pornography at work. Penniless and jobless--and I'm assuming now visaless--he sees an advertisement to teach English in South Korea posted on a lamp-post in Docklands, London. He applies, gets interviewed somehow and receives a plane-ticket. He arrives at Incheon Airport and is apparently met by some heavy-set characters, from where he is transported to a dingy room somewhere in Itaewon. A very scary Russian character then appears and proceeds to burn his passport in front of him with the threat: "I own you now. You belong to me." He is then forced to dance in a thong in a bar on the gay nightclub street that ran parallel to Hooker Hill. I forget how he escaped, but he gave the interview apparently from a haven/refuge for exploited foreign workers in Seoul.
Evidence that human-trafficking has been going on in with foreign organised crime logistics in Seoul for many years! |
only 10 years ago and he couldn't get to the british embassy?
Let's try to make these at least remotely believable.
There is a reason the human trafficking victims mostly come from tiny, powerless nations. |
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ghostrider
Joined: 27 Jun 2011
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| Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 5:55 am Post subject: Re: Urban legend |
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| Gladiator wrote: |
Flashback to mid noughties--I think it was 2004/05--and that fairly dire, now I'm sure defunct Korea expat magazine 'Seoul Scene' featured an English Teacher's cautionary tale with such diabolical twists it surely competes for the 'Most Outlandish' award.
An Australian computer programmer working in the UK gets sacked for downloading pornography at work. Penniless and jobless--and I'm assuming now visaless--he sees an advertisement to teach English in South Korea posted on a lamp-post in Docklands, London. He applies, gets interviewed somehow and receives a plane-ticket. He arrives at Incheon Airport and is apparently met by some heavy-set characters, from where he is transported to a dingy room somewhere in Itaewon. A very scary Russian character then appears and proceeds to burn his passport in front of him with the threat: "I own you now. You belong to me." He is then forced to dance in a thong in a bar on the gay nightclub street that ran parallel to Hooker Hill. I forget how he escaped, but he gave the interview apparently from a haven/refuge for exploited foreign workers in Seoul.
Evidence that human-trafficking has been going on in with foreign organised crime logistics in Seoul for many years! |
'
I remember reading about that. This article about the services of EnfCorp which prevented teachers from doing midnight runs appeared in the same publication:
Law and Order: EnfCorp Style
By Jean Briesbois
They're the language institute owner's latest weapon in the war against contract-breaking English as a Second Language teachers. They do everything from pre-employment background checks to round the clock surveillance. Sound a little too Orwellian for your liking? Tough luck. Welcome to the future of ESL contract enforcement in Korea.
It's 3 AM on a chilly February morning in Seoul. I am sitting in the front seat of a non-descript late model black Hyundai Grandeur parked in full view of a similarly non-descript concrete south-eastern Seoul apartment complex. My companion for the evening is Lee Ha-neul, a hard-nosed 43-year-old former soldier who has been peering through a night vision monocular at an apartment on the sixth floor without so much as a break for the past two hours.
He'll open his balcony curtains soon, Lee states with an air of confidence that I find slightly disconcerting.
Already making mental comparisons between Lee and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator character, I must confess to being more than a little surprised as the curtains are pulled back.
How did you know? I ask.
Men are creatures of habit and this man is no different to any other, Lee replies.
As I take a moment to reflect upon this cryptic statement, Lee passes me his night vision monocular and begins to film the dimly lit apartment window using a digital vision viewer that boasts one of the most expensive looking zoom lenses that I have ever seen.
My curiosity piqued, I quickly suppress any objections that I may harbour concerning voyeurism and lift the night vision monocular to my eye. What I see before me is an unshaven, paunchy thirty-something foreign male quickly moving about his apartment in a manner that would suggest he was readying himself for a long vacation — perhaps a permanent one.
Perfect, Lee says sounding awfully pleased with himself. He's packing up. I've got him. He's getting ready to leave, maybe not tonight, but definitely in the next day or so.
Lee continues to film the hapless fugitive-to-be for another thirty minutes before deciding to call it an evening.
Time to go, Lee says. I have to download this footage and have it to my client by 7:30 AM.
Why?I ask, curious as to his urgency.
Because our client will need to take appropriate measures to deal with this situation before it becomes too difficult, he explains in a slightly irritated tone.
Oh, I exclaim, wondering to myself just exactly what appropriate measures means in this business.
As we weave our way through the maze of parked cars in the apartment blocks' car park, Lee stops to chat with an elderly security guard. After a few minutes of animated discussion, he passes a thick white envelope to the friendly looking gentleman and we're on our way.
What I have just witnessed is simply another day of business as usual for the language institute owner's newest best friend: Enforcement Corporation.
EnfCorp is a small firm consisting of three directors and thirty-four employees. The brainchild of Jung Joo-chan — a former English institute franchisee who was driven into bankruptcy by a combination of the IMF crisis and a runaway teaching staff — EnfCorp maintains offices in Seoul and Pusan and is looking to expand into the Daegu and Jinju markets early next year.
At present there are three other outfits that offer similar services to EnfCorp in Korea, but with an unstable economy and a plummeting won, Jung is confident that there will be more than enough work to keep his employees fully occupied.
Jung contends that if he had been able to engage the services of a firm similar to EnfCorp in 1997, he could have ridden out the financial storm and avoided bankruptcy.
During the IMF crisis I wasn't ready for the way that my foreign teachers deserted my business and Korea, he explains. I believe that foreigners who come to Korea for employment must fulfill their obligations and behave in a manner which is expected of them by Korean society.
Jung states that foreigners have a very poor reputation in the ESL industry when it comes to doing the right thing.
All I want is to make foreigners behave in an honourable way and not ruin small businesses; this is mine [sic] and EnfCorp's goal, he says.
What EnfCorp represents is the future of ESL contract enforcement on the peninsula. EnfCorp not only runs thorough pre-employment background checks on institute and university applicants, they also conduct 24-hour surveillance of employees who are deemed a flight risk, and upon request from the client, frustrate an employee's efforts to leave Korea.
By taking the unpleasantness of monitoring an employee who has become problematic off the institute owner's hands, EnfCorp claims to improve the efficiency of a business, allowing the management and ownership to remain focused on the task of providing high quality language tuition.
With a staff consisting of ex-servicemen, former immigration officials and retired subway employees, EnfCorp knows exactly what it takes to encourage a delinquent teacher to honour their contract, or at the very least, pay an amount of compensation which allows both parties to go their separate ways.
But it isn't always beer and skittles for EnfCorp in their quest to bring ESL drifters to heel. On several occasions, their harried quarries have lodged complaints with local police, consular missions, and embassies. Usually this results in the EnfCorp operative changing tactics or backing off until the situation has cooled down. EnfCorp does not give up on a case until instructed to by the client.
One of EnfCorp's most notable victories of 2002 was its successful tender for a contract with the Immigration Department to assist in the identification of private teachers who are working without employment authorisation.
Choi Joon-ho, a silver-haired retired subway stationmaster who is responsible for managing this part of EnfCorp's business says, I have a staff of four subway corporation retirees who watch the more popular stations every day."
According to Choi, suspects are photographed and their destinations carefully noted.
A dossier is compiled over a one-month period and then referred to an Immigration Case Officer who decides whether to proceed with an investigation.
We have an excellent success rate; no one ever suspects the old person hanging around the subway station, he says.
So what does the future hold for EnfCorp?
Park Duk-bae, the company's Harvard-educated Business Development Manager, envisions a day in the not-so-distant future when EnfCorp will be able to manage the Korean government's contract for employment visa authorization and enforcement.
Outsourcing is the way of the future, he says. With our history of hands-on industry experience, I believe that we are perfectly positioned to move into this field. It is a logical extension for our business, he says.
Another product that EnfCorp plans on developing is a foreign degree and qualification verification service. Park believes that the Korean ESL industry is awash with useless Master's and TESOL qualifications.
Many of these degrees can be purchased over the internet or with one year's study, he says. They are absolute garbage and do not qualify the holder, in my eyes, to be a suitable teacher of English for Korean students.
It seems like the boys down at EnfCorp have some very big ideas about how the Korean ESL industry should be reformed. As with all things in life, change is necessary and inevitable. Yet, I cannot help but wonder if the framed portrait of Big Brother that adorns the wall of Mr. Park's reception area is not a sign of things to come.
Jean Brisbois is working on a book in Pusan.
This is his first piece for DDD. He can be contacted at [email protected] |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 4:34 am Post subject: |
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| Captain Corea wrote: |
| World Traveler wrote: |
| Learning Korean = a way to make more money. |
is it, really? |
Based on some ads I've been seeing lately, it doesn't seem to be a moneymaker at all. So yeah, I think you are right. (>_<)
Bilingual Female North American English Tutor (Dongbaek Station)
Bilingual female English tutor for one 9 year old boy once a week after 5 PM for one hour.
Please send resume and recent photo.
Minimum 3 month commitment
30,000 Won to start depending on experience. |
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