[Source: Yahoo News]

Interesting to see these two images actually linked together as a single graphic, which does a great job of linking all foreigners’ apparent sexual desire for Korean women and debauchery to the issue of “sexual groping” that was brought up in the story. This is more than a story, or a series of stories, but are actually parts of a growing meta-narrative in which foreigners (specificially men) are an actual pathological threat to the “innocent” members of society, i.e. women and children.

There is no logical reason to link these two photographs together other than that. And since the issue of sexual groping is quite literally at hand, adding a picture in which you actually see it happening is a very powerful emotional move. Here, we have a white man (and perhaps another off-camera) with his hands all over the flesh of two Korean women, in what is a party atmosphere, in an environment that is private. But that doesn’t matter when that picture is used to depict the “sexual groping” that the article talks about. A mere picture of an adult English teacher in a shot of many students isn’t so powerful, since it simply says that “he is in charge of your children”or “watch out.” There is no sense of direct sexual threat in the left picture.

But with the magic of the mosaic, the two white men, who have nothing to do with one another, who are acting in very different private and public spheres, become conflated into a single “white male menace,” made similar by not just their proxomity to each other in their layout, but by the faceless  anonymity and notoriety assigned them by that mosaic. They are these men, and all white men. Note that the only “sexual grope” is in the picture on the right, ostensibly between consenting adults, but the psychological effect of such lurid imagery is to make the reader feel almost as if s/he had seen the white male English teachers actually groping a child in the picture on the left.

In a sense, and on an emotional level, the white man/men are guilty of lewd groping of Korean girls, regardless of context, at least in the conservative Korean mind, especially one that is full of stereotypes and negative images already. And once that emotional trigger is pulled, the psychological connection between perfectly legal, but perhaps unsavory “sexual groping” in a night club or other private space, and that of perhaps small girls in the public space of the classroom, is made. In terms of the visual and emotional connections, it’s almost as if a grope, and hence, an actual crime had been depicted in the picture on the left, rather than in the picture on the right, taken from a situation clearly that should absolutely be considered personal and private. In the end, the emotional brain won’t really make any real distinctions, because in a fundamental way, it doesn’t matter which picture sexual groping actually took place in — both pictures are, from a certain emotional standpoint, one and the same.

마약에 성추행까지…막나가는 원어민 강사 (link in Korean)
“From Drugs to Sexual Groping…Foreign Instructors on the Loose”

‘막가는 외국인 영어강사’ 환각 수업에 성추행 (link in Korean)
“Out-of-control Foreign English Instructors: Sexual Groping during Class”

‘막가는 외국인 영어강사’ 마약에 도박까지 (link in Korean)
“Out-of-control Foreign English Instructors: From Drugs to Gambling”

‘막가는 외국인 영어강사’ 마약에 도박까지 (link in Korean)
“Out-of-control Foreign English Instructors: From Drugs to Gambling”

These are variations on the same report being passed around KBS. These stories clearly feed into the single, big meta-story of “foreigners gone wild in Korea” and evolved to include the new gambling story.

Donga.com also got in on the story with:
원어민 강사들 2000여회 포커 도박

As did the Maeil Kyeongje, with their story:
도박·마약에 찌든 외국인 영어 강사 무더기 적발

More will be added to this post as the story develops.

ORIGINAL STORY:
Expect some kind of story, with accompanying video, about a “ring” of foreigners involved in drugs and gambling, from tonight on the national news.

From a tip to Korean Media Watch, a group of Americans/Canadians were having a poker game that was raided. Apparently, someone called in a tip. There were 8 members at the raid, one of whom was female but was not asked to come down to the station to pose for the cameras today. 6 others NOT present at the poker game but had been players before were “asked to come down and make a statement” at which time they were told to take urine drug tests. The original 8 had already done so. Apparently, two of the original 8 tested positive, although no drugs were apparently found. This morning at the station, it was a press field day, with cameras called in and set up around a makeshift poker table IN the station. They were even asked by the Korean press to re-enact the game around the table for the cameras, which they refused to do. They also refused to grant any interviews.

From the station.

One reporter, who seemed a bit disappointed or confused about what was actually going down, informed a member of the group that they had been called by the police, who had claimed to have busted a “drugs and gambling ring.” This is apparently how the police want things to go appear, as this is the context under which the press was called. A few things seem obvious — that the police are primed to turn anything involving foreigners into a “big story” and are directly involved in calling the media down to the station, as well as spinning the story. No matter what particular trouble any members of the group might be in, it is certainly a stretch to call a poker game a drug and gambling “ring,” or to link this story to other “foreigners acting wild” yellow journalism already out there. Considering the pattern of media vilification of foreigners, expect lurid closeup shots of a poker table (provided by the police), exaggerated unnecessary implications about other crime “rings” being conducted by foreigners, and most importantly, linkage of this story to other bad journalism already out there.

We will do our best to get their side of the story out there, at least, and to keep things in context. However, it must be expected that the media will follow the general pattern: wildly exaggerate the facts fo the story, generalize that story to the greater population, and pose this generalized population as a “threat” to the Korean public, especially to children.

In the beginning and end, all from a poker game. No drugs on the premises or the persons in question, no reasonable evidence for a gambling “ring.” But that’s how the police are spinning it.

One suggestion from this writer and others: watch your Facebook accounts and updates. There is a lot of suspicion that certain interested parties are now watching Facebook, for various reasons related to the specifics of how this and related stories went down, and that calls are being made, tips being given, from watching Facebook, one suspects status updates and event announcements. From the appearance of this story, it seemed like an easy setup and tipoff, with the police ready and prepared to spin a finished story, poker table included.

This pattern of foriegner vilification has institutional momentum, from an over-eager police force ready to make a poker game into a criminal drug and gambling “ring,” to a media equally ready to run any lurid story involving foreigners, whether illegal acts are involved or not. With a police force working hand-in-hand with the media for “the next big scandal,” the results should not be surprising.

Why is it that one of Korea’s oldest, most sober, and ostensibly serious journalistic outlet is always publishing pictures of underage girls in their school uniforms, or pictures of foreigners in their bikinis at the beach?

[Source: Chosun Ilbo]

In case you were wondering, if you look at some other pictures, there WERE boys there, too. Except the editors chose to put in a shot of this girl THREE times, I guess because you could see her belly button.

At the same time, last summer, a group of South Asian men were arrested for apparently doing the same on a beach on the east coast (although they were also reported to have “groped” some women, but that wasn’t confirmed as fact in the article). This was called “sexual harrassment” with cameras, however, and set a dangerous precedent, in this author’s opinion.

But why is it that when the Chosun Ilbo continues to publish upskirt shots of underage girls, or graduation celebrations that show their bodies through wet (and hence transparent) white uniform blouses, or foreigners in bikinis without mosaicing or other efforts to preserve anonymity, this is OK? If you are a Chosun Ilbo photographer, you can publish bikini shots and upskirt photos of teenage girls, but if you’re a brown foreigner, it’s “sexual harrassment?”

This doesn’t make sense. And legalities aside, is this really journalism? Or a bunch of old men sitting around, making excuses to dispatch staff photogaphers with telephoto lenses to snap pictures of underage teenagers? This adds to the media enviroment that legitimizes the sexualization of underage girls, and the sexual objectification of women in general. One should expect better from one of the nation’s oldest newspapers. If I want to see skin, I should go buy a magazine that shows such things. I don’t know how Koreans feel, but as an American, I’d be very ashamed if The New York Times photo and multimedia sections wasted time recording teenage girls at graduation spraying one another with water, or had staff photographers with 300mm telephoto lenses taking upskirt shots of underage girls.

[Source: Chosun Ilbo]

Is this national news? I can understand perhaps one shot of a legitimate story on the problem of girls violating uniform standards that showed how they were sneaking about and doing it. But if you look at the gallery linked above, there are more than 10 shots of the girls in the “changing area”, some of which nearly reveal underwear. Do we need this to get the point? No. As a heterosexual reader, might I be curious about such compromising shots? Sure. But they have no place in a serious, national newspaper. And the sheer number of shots in the photo section of that newspaper that day outnumbered those of real political demonstrations, real news happen domestically and around the world.

Can the Chosun Ilbo really even call itself a completely professional newspaper with this kind of pornographic and pedophilic photo coverage?

Korea Beat has graciously translated the 매일경제 (Maeil Kyeongje) article that was originally introduced by Sonagi over at The Marmot’s Hole and talked about in the post previous to this one.

Interestingly enough, the link to the site that apparently is selling materials to “seduce Korean women” doesn’t work. (http://www.DateKoreanWomen.com) And even if it did, who cares? Are such activities illegal? Is this online book with a broken site even really popular? The Korean media certainly spends a lot of time worrying about what consenting adults do legally on their own free time. If I throw a wild party in my house, or a private establishment, is it worthy of national news? Is this still the era of the “family state,” with the authoritarian president at the head, who controls all aspects of life, both military and civilian?

Honestly, national newspapers — this kind of reporting, whether of Koreans getting a little frisky in a Kangnam nightclub or foreigners having private relations with Korean women — this sort of sensationalist and racist coverage is juvenile. One doesn’t see The New York Times doing such stories, which don’t even belong in a high school newspaper.