Korean Job Discussion Forums

[PaperTiger]

There are surprisingly few reports on this websites of people being fired, stalked, or otherwise harassed by the Anti-English Spectrum psycho. Nonetheless, their site claims many victories in the fight against disease-ridden, rapist, kiddie-fiddling, drug-using, morally-unqualified English teachers. So, if you have been caught doing any of the above, or have simply been harassed by this nutjob (anyone got a pic?) POST YOUR STORIES HERE!!!

Maybe one of expert expat journalists should start their own investigation into this guy, follow him around for a while and see what he's REALLY up to.

[kiwiduncan]

I'm not sure if this is the anti-English spectrum guy, but I'll tell my story anyway.

A few years ago I was walking down the street in Daehagno with a female Korean friend when we were approached by a weedy, bespectacled middle-aged Korean man who could have passed for an economics lecturer. He spoke to my friend briefly in Korean (I can't remember understanding any of it) and she seemed pretty unimpressed. He then turned to me and asked earnestly that I do not abuse or despoil my friend's good reputation. At this point we just decided to walk off and ignore him. He followed us and started sayig that if my friend's family could see her now they'd be ashamed. I started getting pretty pissed off, telling him in Korean to stop following us and leave us alone. We then crossed the street and assumed we had lost him.

Nope.

He came chasing after us, this time pointing a phone camera and trying to get photos of our faces. My friend ran away and I was left yelling at him, telling he was a crazy bastard etc.

He stopped taking photos and I thought, finally, this is over, so I stomped off down the street. I got a text message from my friend saying she was in the cafe around the corner, so in a much improved mood I went into the cafe, sat down with my friend and assumed our troubles were over.

Nope.

In comes crazy man again. Camera phone snapping away. This time I get up, approach him, grab his camera wielding hand and start wrestling the phone from him. My main priority of course was to stop the photos, but I would have been quite happy to do some damage to his wrist as well.

The phone dropped to the floor and fell apart. With a gleeful look he said something along the lines of "look, you've broken my phone, now we must call the police" to which I happily replied "yes, let's do that". The young barista offered to call the police and the crazy man and I just sat down and waited. It was quite amusing really, he and I sitting across from each other at the coffee table, quietly abusing each other. For the benefit of the people in the cafe I explained loudly in my best Korean - "My friend and I were walking down the street", "my friend is a Korean woman", "this crazy man was taking our photos" and so on. I asked him, again loudly and in Korean, if he had forgotten to take his medicine that morning. I also said "now I understand, your mother didn't love you". I remember his response like it was yesterday "shut up the f**k!"

The police came. Two portly middle-aged men who looked like Korean Keystone Cops. We all went to the police station together - the cops, the crazy man, myself and my friend. My friend reported to me later in the day that, while driving there, the crazy man kept on insisting that he had friends in high places, and that the cops were messing with the wrong guy. This was probably not a good move.

On getting to the police station the cops took statements from both of us. They also looked at the photos on his (unbroken) camera phone, on which he had lots and lots of photos of young women, obviously taken when he was prowling the streets. The cops were quite incredulous and kept asking him "are you crazy?", "why did you take these photos?" and other questions along that line. Things appeared to be going my way.

It wasw pretty clear the cops were on my side. They even went so far as to advice me to change the wording of my statement, to emphasize that I was grabbing for him phone rather than his hand or wrist.

All in all the cops were very even handed and sympathetic. I think they could see they had a right nutjob in their hands with the camera stalker, so we were eventually allowed to leave. I wish my Korean listening had been a bit better though, as I would have liked to have known what they were saying directly to my Korean friend. She burst into tears a couple of times and got quite hysterical, but I don't know if this is because she was just doing the typical Korean girly thing, or if they'd been saying something to her like "well, love, it's obvious the ajjeoshi's a nutter, but you wouldn't have had this problem if you'd had a nice Korean boyfriend would you? Face it love - you were asking for it". (Let me reiterate however that this is only specution. From what I could see the cops treated us with absolute decency and professionalism - I'm just wonderig why my friend got so upset.)

So anyway, maybe this is the anti-English Spectrum guy. Or maybe there are just loads of nutters out there.

[E_athlete]

my friend mike works in Japan as an English teacher. He talks about stalking alright. Stalking by 17 year old Japanese high school girls!!

Comparing that to the stalking stories I hear in Korea makes me sad.

[harlowethrombey]

I've assimilated too much into Korean culture. I'm being stalked by the handsome man inthe mirror.

At every reflective surface I simply must stop, lean in close and start primping and priming. Then, realizing that I'm now late, I rush blindly across the street perpendicular to all foot traffic, steal a cab from someone who's been waiting and then sit in the back of the cab, again checking my appearence in the dim screen of my hand phone.

[Milwaukiedave]

Kiwi,

That's a pretty crazy situation. You'd think after the first or second time the guy would have gotten a clue. He needs to be locked up in a mental ward and given some high powered medication.

[Bryan]

On another forum, I read a similar story about a guy on a date in Dehangro who was accosted by a Korean man of a similar age, who continued following them around in a similar fashion, calling the girl a *beep* and whatnot. She burst into tears. It stopped when they quickly pulled into a cab and drove away.

[kiwiduncan]

[Freddypops]