SeoulPodcast: Tales from the Dark Side

This week we have one of those evil recruiters, Rowan Hall, from ESL-Planet Recruiting. He actually has a lot of background info on the current trends in the Korean ESL industry and personal experiences and advice on how to navigate the new E-2 visa regulations.


Finally, Some Sanity in Sogogi-gate

Trippin’ #3: Grandaddy’s Birthday


6 thoughts on “SeoulPodcast: Tales from the Dark Side”

  1. I think I know where the head-poofing rumours came from. My friend in Korea showed me some extracts from more graphic of interweb-urban-myths-turned-propagandas, which featured pictures of people suffering from disfiguring brain and spinal cord illnesses and congenital deformities, all unrelated to mad cow disease. It’s doubly offensive because it’s warping people’s mind but it also exploits poor people who’s born with such life-limiting diseases to spread outright lies 🙁 It’s true that many Koreans need some serious work in developing critical thinking skills; I was a high-schooler until recently (am an undergraduate uni student), but it seems that even people much older than I still falls for such rumours without asking why, or whether it’s logical or plausible.

    You replied to my earlier comment that Koreans living overseas should pressure the government to get things right; you are absolutely correct, but I was thinking – there are rumours flying round the net with heart-wrenching (am saying this with a pinch of sarcasm) accounts of Korean Bashing and Korean eviction, from people who are supposedly from the US or UK. Generally they make me laugh – albeit with bitter feelings down my gut. (For these supposedly ‘first-hand’ accounts you only need to look at the Virginia Tech shooting incident and the subsequent rumours of bloodly vengence of Americans towards all Korean-Americans)

    Sorry for the comment being so long, so illogical and probably not making much sense; it’s lunchtime and I don’t have much time to think through and proofread this. Now I want a hearty bowl of oxtail stew (my tastebud is alarmingly British, and disturbingly beefy)

  2. That is some really freaky fear-mongering. I can’t believe that people actually feed into those rumors and don’t fact-check!

  3. I think you misunderstood Matt’s post. He didn’t actually overhear that conversation. Rather, he was providing a hypothetical example of the urban myths circulating on the internet and in text messages.

  4. You’re right. I read it more carefully this time and found I had skipped over the preceding paragraph. I’ve fixed it in the post. Thanks.

  5. I brought up the beef protests at my last teachers’ workshop. I talked about all the misinformation going on, but my coteachers still believed Koreans were more at risk for Mad Cow Disease than others, based on that TV program and because a scientist said it was true. I showed them the article from the Joongang Ilbo from the Marmot’s Hole—the one you linked to up there—which talked about the scientist who is having his views distorted, but my colleagues immediately dismissed it as false because the Joongang Ilbo is, they said, “the government’s newspaper.” *Sigh* Just got back from a big candlelight rally in Gwangju . . . complete with kindergarten students on stage, rappers saying “I want to fuck,” and high school girls feigning tears. I’m going to go eat some Burger King now.


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