YOU ARE BEING WATCHED

Residents of Daejeon are being bombarded with some 200 banners on the side of school buses and hung on walls carrying the stark warning: "You are being watched."

Foreign teachers are threatened with fines, blacklisting and deportation if they are caught teaching private English lessons, something not allowed under their E-2 visa status. The Daejeon Foreign Language School Association is offering rewards of up to 500,000 won for information leading to the apprehension of teachers breaking the terms of their visa.

"This is an opportunity for them to stop," said Charles, the gentleman whose telephone number was displayed on the banners, "we wanted to warn them before they are caught."

Charles said they decided to take this rather dramatic action because "the situation was getting out of control." He said the main problem wasn`t so much the legal E-2 teachers teaching private classes, but the scores of foreigners with only a tourist visa who were teaching illegally.



▲Picture by Sean Morgan

"This damages the business of the hagwon by taking away potential students, and because of the money that can be made, encourages even legal teachers to break the law," he said.

Charles admitted that in many respects the hagwon themselves added to the problem. "The salary for legal teachers is quite low, so when they see how much money can be made teaching privately, they are encouraged to do it. And of course there are hagwon who also employ these tourists as teachers."

Charles said the campaign isn`t intended to just target illegal foreigners, but anyone breaking the law.

"In just over a year we have taken more than ten hagwon directors to court for hiring foreign teachers without a proper visa," Charles told The Korea Herald. He said the hagwon were fined between one and five million won, and banned from hiring a foreign teacher for a year. "This effectively puts them out of business, because with only Korean teachers, they will lose their students," he said.

Charles said three hagwon directors have been reported to the authorities so far this month.

And regarding the campaign against illegal private lessons, "since we have put up the banners I have received many telephone calls reporting teachers who are teaching private classes," he said.

English teachers in Daejeon, however, are outraged. One contributor said, "if the hagwon paid a decent wage, and paid overtime, and paid on time, then teachers would not be interested in taking private classes."

Other contributors admitted there was a problem with illegal teachers, but said there were even more problems with the hagwon regarding pension, tax and overtime issues.

"But this campaign makes us all feel like criminals," said one, "legal or illegal."

By Chris Gelken

(chrisgelken@heraldm.com)

2007.05.25

this is from a friend of mine, I found this quite interesting!!!

I notice these days, particularity, in Noeun dong Daejeon, that
several (I counted 10 so far) of the hagwon buses are driving around
with huge banners attached to the side of the buses both in Korean
and English saying that "All Foreigners are being watched for private
teaching and if reported you will be deported and fined. Also there
is a 500,000 Won reward for turning in the foreigner along with the
Korean household and the Korean who may have introduced them". It
also goes on to say that "The foreigners are not "qualified teachers"
and that in hiring a private teacher you run the risk of something
bad going wrong with your kid and/or apartment". Three phone numbers
are included: Immigration, the Police, and the Hagwon Association.

Just yesterday as I was walking to the gym, one of the hagwon bus
adojis screamed at me through his window with a big glee on his fat
face "You are being watched!!!" The kids in the bus looked horrified
as to what the psycho was going on about.

Now, I don't even do privates, but I feel as if I'm some kind of
terrorist in the dong. I think the Hagwon Association of Daejeon
needs to be called on this. Any ideas what one can do about it? Just
ignore it and let it pass????

I completely agree. I think it is complete bullshit. However, I fear
that the 'walking out' will result in all of them being deported.
Threatening to walk out is another matter altogether. It's my
understanding that the Korean media likes to portray us as all lazy,
fat and incompetent and I fear that this public branding will be
deepen the already alienating experience of living and working here.
You are completely right to be as angry as you seem. I too am quite
disturbed by this. I don't want to feel any more "watched" than I
already do. The more I think about it the more I like your idea.

other feelings...................

I completely agree. I think it is complete bullshit. However, I fear
that the 'walking out' will result in all of them being deported.
Threatening to walk out is another matter altogether. It's my
understanding that the Korean media likes to portray us as all lazy,
fat and incompetent and I fear that this public branding will be
deepen the already alienating experience of living and working here.
You are completely right to be as angry as you seem. I too am quite
disturbed by this. I don't want to feel any more "watched" than I
already do. The more I think about it the more I like your idea.

All this stuff that's going on with immigration and the vans driving
around with banners regarding foreigners is complete bullshit. We
should do something, we shouldn't stand back and do nothing. We
didn't come here to be treated like slaves, controlled, nor owned by
our supervisors.

I strongly believe we (foreigners! ) should take a stance. On a
Wednesday, or whatever day we should all walk out of our schools.
I'm speaking of particularly the schools/hagwon' s in Neoun. I am
appalled by what's going on.

All the foreigners should walk out giving a specific date, time
location. For example, walk out of our schools next Wed. at 5:00pm,
holding our own banners in English and Korean telling them to stop
being #1 racist, #2 to take the banners off their freakin vans...
and #3 have a little more respect for other cultures.

If we do this, who knows if anything will come of it. But, it will
hopefully get into their heads that we're not just going to do
nothing about it. What do ya'll think??????? ???????

I remember this campaign happening about the same time of year in 2003 - lots of banner ads near apartments etc - "Hiring private foreign teachers is illegal etc". It died out in about 2 weeks.

IT SHOULD BE A VERY INTERESTING FEW WEEKS HERE IN KOREA, MORE NEWS TO FOLLOW....