Newspaper Reveals the ‘Truth’ About Foreigners in Korea

Nocut News, part of Christian broadcaster CBS, is garnering popularity with a series of reports on expats’ pick-up line skills in Korea. Although CBS (Christian Broadcasting System) and its ownership structure are obviously Christian, it is mostly secular when it comes to general news content. The journalists are not necessarily religious; rather, it seems they try and become a total news network, making up for lost time since Chun Doo-hwan’s crack down on the network.

Having said that, whilst budding Korean journalists generally respect the network for having taken a stand during the Chun Doo-hwan regime, the following articles from its news branch regarding expat men’s flirting with Korean women may leave a lot of us scratching our heads. This follows their first article, posted on koreaBANG earlier this week, about an American teacher and his stash of illegal sex tapes on his computer.

From Nocut News:

The internet is full of ‘Making out with Korean girls for dummies’

CBS’s Nocut News exclusively reported the problem about the foreign English teacher at the language institute of a famous private university who personally stored [on his computer] over 20 videos of secretly shot sex scenes with Korean women. As soon as we reported it, the police immediately launched an investigation and the school took action by firing him.

In light of this incident, CBS’s Nocut News decided to carry out news coverage to retrace the distorted values and the reality of native language teachers who in majority are white men [Nocut News editor’s note].

‘Korean girls rarely complain unlike most western girls’, ‘Yeah, right (group laughs)’, ‘My Korean girlfriends never came up with dating plans; they expected guys to lead them’

This conversation is part of a YouTube video, in which four ex-expats share their dating experiences in Korea. The episode focuses on how to seduce Korean women, sharing their multicultural dating know-how.

They also share some tricks and techniques in other episodes, such as chasing a hot girl until she finally gives in to their charming broken Korean, saying ‘I like you’.

There is an English website ‘Korea Dating tips’, which blatantly shows its intention. It categorises Korean women in 5 types and sells respective dating tips: the Princess, the Conservative, the Traditional, and the Foreign-lover.

Meanwhile, there is a book on dating Korean women, titled ‘Making out in Korean’, which was first published in 2004; that book is a steady seller with a revised edition.

The book is on sale on Amazon as well as in Korean major bookstores. It sexually objectifies Korean women by informing readers of everything from pickup lines to breakup know-how.

On top of the growing numbers of English hagwons, schools are hiring native English teachers in order to follow the government’s latest English education policy; there are more and more foreigners with E-2 Visas (English teacher visa).

Number of expats with E-2 Visa hiked from 16,300 in 2007 to 22,500 in 2011.

The issue here is that those foreign teachers are usually informed about Korea with distorted knowledge.

In particular, there are articles and videos out there giving the wrong impression about Korean girls, such as expats’ claims of having found a girlfriend in two days or having had sex with 20 women in 2 years.

Such claims let some foreigner teachers think that ‘Korean women are easy’.

A Korean working at an English hagwon said ‘Since all they need is a bachelor’s degree to get a E-2 Visa, some of them are working here in an attempt to pay off their student loans, whilst dating Korean girls for a couple of years.’

She also added that ‘I find some of them are not worth the lesson fees’, implying that some native English teachers are not qualified enough.

Of course most foreigner teachers will end up finding the reality is quite different from that distorted information regarding dating Koreans. However, some of them with false impression about Korean women are constantly springing up such as with the guy who committed that hidden camera incident last week.

Comments from Nate:

전선우:

We already ‘lost our face’ due to Korean prostitutes abroad. I don’t care about those girls having fun, yet what I find disgusting is some of them will hide their past and marry to some rich, naïve push-overs.

이영욱:

This is serious.. When you go up-town, there are many girls with foreign guys next to them. Don’t expect love from those girls who are so used to one-night stands. What happened to Korean ladies who keep loyal to their husbands? eh-hyu..

김시목:

Some of you girls dating white guys may think ‘I’m not one of them’.. We’re talking about YOU, bitches.

이우현:

Stop making sweeping generalizations. Most Korean ladies are not like that. Few thoughtless girls are making Korean women into a joke. We’ve got to keep a record of guys going on sex-trips to Southeast Asia and ladies having sex with Western bastards, keeping good girls and guys from harm’s way.

정건영:

Korean girls have a cheap reputation around the world; foreigners call them with a variety of derogatory terms such as ‘yellow cab’, ‘KFC’, ‘easy girls’… I feel ashamed of Korean women. I hope they stop making their mother nation a joke house.

김준환:

I’ve got a yankee friend, and he told me a shocking story the other day. He said it’s not uncommon for him to pick up girls at night clubs and have sex with them. And after those one-night stands, he can always call the girls to have sex; they are even willing to have threesomes. To be honest, I used to think such cheap attitudes can only be found among whores, thinking those girls he’s talking about are just a handful of Korean girls. However, he said 9 out of 10 Korean girls are that cheap. Korean girls are not so conservative with Confucian mentality anymore. We aren’t in a position to brand Japanese and Chinese girls as dirty and cheap. Korean girls are such a pretentious, bean-paste group of girls; some of them even go abroad to sell their bodies. I wonder whether such girls hiding their past careers as prostitutes are really just a few of Korean women.

김종률:

One of my friends is a foreigner. He bragged about his girlfriend living in Seoul the other day; she visits him every weekend, offering her body for his pleasure. He once showed me his picture with his girlfriend next to him in a motel room. When he calls me to come and have fun with his ladies, they are literally attached to him, speaking Konglish. I tried to dissuade them from being a booty call, but I’m not their father. I hope those girls first study English properly to understand how their foreigner boyfriends are talking about them. Oh, my foreigner friend also let me have read some of text messages from those girls, and they were full of rubbish talks like ‘I like that you’ve got such a huge dick.’ tsk tsk They have no idea he’s broadcasting their sex lives to me. It’s horrible just to think of the possibility that one of those women might end up becoming my future wife. I know they don’t represent all Korean women, yet I see that the number of these kinda girls is growing, which is slowly changing my views on Korean women in general.

오민윤:

Have you ever seen girls with foreign boyfriends that are actually pretty? ke ke They all look ugly, yet they are fucking pretentious, walking arm in arm with a white guy.

조창빈:

I used to think these kind of claims came out of misogyny; however, if foreigners see Korean women the way this article explains, maybe it really is a serious issue. Their perception of Korean women seems worse than our view of Japanese women.

이영삼:

Making out in Korean? The title should be ‘Fucking with Korean’!

Two days later, the following article was posted:

From Nocut News:

‘Korean Girls are pretty, let’s have a drink together’… Itaewon’s night scene

– ‘White Hunters’ flood the Itaewon night scene: pick up lines in Korean? Being an English teacher? That’s charm for sure –

CBS’s Nocut News exclusively reported the problem about the foreign English teacher at the language institute of a famous private university who personally stored [on his computer] over 20 videos of secretly shot sex scenes with Korean women. As soon as we reported it, the police immediately launched an investigation and the school took action by firing him.

In light of this incident, CBS’s Nocut News decided to carry out news coverage to retrace the distorted values and the reality of native language teachers who in majority are white men. On the 16th, in the fourth part of our series, we have directly covered the scene where these people breakaway [from their main purpose in Korea i.e. teaching] and are carrying out their actions in places like nightclubs in Itaewon [foreigner district of Seoul].

Last Friday 13th, at 11:30pm, we went to Itaewon’s L Club. To the deafening and resounding sound of music, Korean men and women, together with foreigners were hanging out, shaking their bodies to the music. The heavy rain downpoured through the late night, but their faces were flooded with excitement.

Caught up in the thick fog of cigarette smoke, the eyes of Koreans and foreigners alike were busily moving, trying to find the opposite sex. Some foreign men were eyeing up the bodies of women dancing while gulping down some beers.

If there was one difference between Korean men and foreigners, it is that the latter were more daring. One foreigner who found a lady he fancied started chasing after her with a relaxed smiled.

And naturally, the foreigner brought himself closer to her, groping her body and started dancing with her.

The sudden level of intimacy led the girl to say ‘euh excuse me, can you back off please?’ but the foreign man did not care. He repeatedly said ‘Oh~ Come on’ as if she liked it.

As the night deepened, the cheering grew to the sound of music. One foreigner approached our [female] journalist and laid his hands on her shoulders without understanding [why she was alone]. He asked ‘You came alone?’ and then grabbed her hand and brought her towards the stage.

He had blond hair and a pointy chin, and while asking whether he was a [American] soldier, he fiercely waved his hand. ‘Oh no~ I’m an English teacher. I teach at a hagwon in Bundang,’ emphasizing he was an educator [not a soldier].

As soon as she rejected his suggestion to hang out together by saying ‘I have to go back now,’ he said ‘Drink as much as you like, it’s all on me,’ hugging and dragging her from the back, making her become the victim of alcohol.

The foreign male did not seem care about who she is or whatever she does for a living. Had they had a good time together, then fine. But as the night slowly crept and the intake of alcohol increased, the violent dancing was embarrassing to the point it became impossible to bear.

It was 1am on Saturday 14th. Even outside the club on the streets of Itaewon, foreign men were continuing to flirt. Foreigners were sitting at street food stalls, shouting out to Korean girls passing by ‘hey~ hey~.’

Then, as soon as the ladies would turn their heads towards them, the men would start waving their arms high in the air while winking, and point to the table they are sitting at with their fingers. Meaning ‘hey come drink at our table.’

If the women just passed by without the slightest of hesitations, then the men would simply fix their eyes on their next target. But of course, their next targets were another group of Korean women following shortly behind.

To them, the extent of their Korean language ability is limited to ‘Korean girls are pretty’, ‘What’s your name’ and ‘Let’s drink.’

Especially in the case of English teachers, they are proud of their status as educators.

One said in fluent Korean ‘I’ve been teaching Korean kids English for a long time, and after a while I can communicate my basic intentions.’

One man said ‘Some time ago, I hosted a kids English TV show on such-and-such program,’ and we could not believe what he had just said.

We have no intention of judging all expat men based on a single night’s experience in Itaewon.

However, from what we saw, it is clear that foreign men, or hunters, seek nothing but Korean women. There is no other words for it: the streets were overflowing with ‘white hunters.’

Comments from Nate:

김지수:

What bothers me most is that some of us feel ashamed of not being able to understand English when foreigners ask something to us. Aren’t the foreigners supposed to speak Korean here; asking questions in English itself is wrong.

이성희:

Go and see how Korean women are treated like whores in Itaewon. I heard Hongdae is becoming like Itaewon as well. Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? Don’t you have any dignity or morality? They pick up girls as if they are shopping. We’ve got to build some dignity and self-esteem.

장명훈:

I want to kill that kind of foreigner, swaggering around as if they own this country.

정건영:

Korean ladies, this is an international embarrassment. This issue went too far; even foreigners make fun of Korean girls. I feel so ashamed of those girls. You ladies are getting what you deserve.

김성희:

There should be solid demand to keep the supply growing. I’m a girl, yet this issue isn’t just about guys bitching about girls ;;

양경훈:

I live in Itaewon. Whilst some foreigners are well adjusted, those girls are such sluts. It’s understandable foreigners look down on them. A lot of them even go for a threesome with a western guy. It’s universal that having too much alcohol leads to a dog-like behaviour.

이현진:

Korean women drool whenever they see those bastard foreigners.

김성환:

Girls walking arm in arm with Yankees.. When they break up with the western guys, I bet they will deceive Korean guys, acting innocent and naïve.

전우진:

White hunters? he he The hunters are Korean girls finding and catching a white guy.

봉석민:

I couldn’t care less about those girls having fun.. The thing is, some of them will hide their past and get married to a poor Korean guy.