Bullsh¡t Revisited: A year later, a "curious" post about ATEK and the infamous "death threat"

Should I click PUBLISH POST or not...? Okay. I guess I will.

This morning someone named "dose" left a comment on my post about the G20 forum not reaching much consensus. His comment was not about the G20 but about ATEK, the Association of Teachers of English in Korea. He asked if I knew ATEK and he provided a link to a post that made some pointed accusations about the once-controversial organization and its former leadership.

[UPDATE: That entire blog, which consisted of just that one post, seems to have been removed just a few hours after me reporting about it; I did save it as an identifiable webarchive, however, for anyone who would like to see it.]

I'm reprinting the letter (in the same JPG form in which it's posted at the original site), though this does not indicate endorsement for its contents (which include some borderline racist and misogynist comments, along with possibly hurtful comments about people I have no reason to suspect are bad people). Click to enlarge:

Well, I told "dose," I had referred to APEC, not ATEK, but yes, I am quite familiar with this teachers' organization. In fact, I'm well aware of the accusations about Tony Hellmann mentioned above, and at one point some people were accusing me of being behind them (see the comments here; Tony Hellmann, with whom I corresponded by email about this, was kind enough to step in and say he had no reason to believe I was involved in any way.)

What's more noteworthy to me about the "curious" post is that its author, who claims to have been a "founding member" of ATEK, clearly accuses ATEK itself of having engineered the infamous "ATEK death threat" that was the hot topic in the anglophone K-blogosphere one year ago. If you're not familiar with this story, go read about it here and here.

Here's the gist of the threat from the Korea Herald:

"I have organized the KEK (Kill White in Korea). This group of people is about 200 in anywhere in Korea," the e-mail read. "We will gonna start to kill and hit White (expletives) english spectrum from this Chirstmas. Don`t make a fuss in there, just get out."

From the get-go, I have gone on record questioning whether the death threat against English teachers was legitimate (see here, here, here, here, here, and here), though I did specifically say I did not think it was from any of the ATEK leadership. Other bloggers had also expressed their skepticism.

Nevertheless, depsite all the doubts, ATEK associates went overboard to publicize this threat, couching it as an indictment of Korean racism and bigotry aimed at them. They and their associates even went on Canadian national radio to tell about the death threat (you can listen here).

So now this post by "curious," dated just yesterday and presented as a JPG file so that it can't be cataloged in Google searches, is coming out and saying that the death threat was "fabricated" and ATEK "made up the stories." Quite a shocker, if it's true.

In fact, as I pursued this last year and earlier this year, I was eventually told privately by two people associated with the case that the email was sent from the United States, but I never went public with this information, since I was hoping to see more substantial evidence that would allow us to skewer the case.

Now that this "curious" post is out there (and I have no idea whatsoever who "curious" or "dose" is), I wonder if we should revisit the whole thing. I still firmly believe that no AES member, and probably no native Korean, sent the death threat. I still hold out the possibility that it was sent by a rogue ATEK member or some sh¡t-stirrer in the anglophone K-blogosphere without ATEK leadership's knowledge. But if these accusations are true, this is some serious sh¡t.

That would mean the law was broken with false reporting of a hate crime. A hoax was perpetuated in the national media of several countries — particularly the ROK, Canada, and the US — and trust may have irreparably been broken. Those involved would owe a lot of people some major apologies: the English-teaching community they would have been trying to frighten, AES which they would have falsely accused of attempted murder, the larger Korean society that was indicted for promoting such violent hatred, etc.

God, do I ever hope it wasn't ATEK leadership. Or at the very least, I hope (if true) it was past ATEK leadership so that the present organization can come clean, put this behind us, and move on. It is now full of people like Roboseyo who I could never imagine capable of involvement in such caustic nonsense, folks who realize mistakes were made in the past and are trying to move forward with that knowledge.

He is not the droid you're looking for

Whoops! According to matt of Popular Gusts, it turns out the Mr Lee in the now infamous Itaewon-is-a-modern-day-Sodom-and-possibly-Gomorrah online "news" article, is not the Mr Lee who founded Anti-English Spectrum and is the scourge of the NEST universe.

But that doesn't make this message any less valid, as past activities speak for themselves.

(UPDATED) Once more, with feeling.

UPDATE:

Whoops! It looks like the Me Lee mentioned below is not the Mr Lee who founded Anti-English Spectrum (see my post and the Popular Gust post that set the record straight). 

ORIGINAL POST:

The Marmot reports that Anti-English Spectrum's xenophobically incendiary founder has scored another interview, this time from a minor Internet news outlet, and he really lets loose on some racist views:

But Lee, who looked around the clubs, noticed the foreigners’ intonation, way of speaking and level of vocabulary was strange. When he talked with them, most of them were from underdeveloped former British colonies in Africa and Southwest Asia, or running away after committing crimes in their own countries, or social misfits who were not properly educated. Lee says they told him to his face that “Korean Pussy is Best!” “Best” was a sarcastic way of saying “easy.” Seeing this, Lee said he founded the group to inform people about native English speaking teachers and the seriousness of the English flunkyism raging in our society.

Switch this around and make Lee a gringo railing on darker folks in his midst in order to warn us about illegal and/or unqualified Mexicans, and I'd have a serious problem with this guy (and sadly, that's an awful lot of gringos in OC).

Hmm... what to do... what to do? Oh, maybe get this guy's organization listed as a hate group. What a wonderful idea.

I did find this part interesting...

Because the media isn’t reporting how dangerous Itaewon is, there’s lots of Korean women loitering about Itaewon on a Friday or Saturday night looking to hook up with foreign dudes. Government bodies and civic groups pushing multiculturalism and foreign tourism were blowing off the danger as racist rumor mongering, while journalists — by necessity socially critical — take a sympathetic view of foreigners and deny that any of the nonsense is going on.

... because it underscores the idea that not only is Lee not necessarily representative of the young ajŏshi, but even he believes that his xenophobic views stand contrary to government policy. The Feds are concerned about racism-mongering, they don't particularly mind Korean women hooking up with non-Korean men, etc.

I should add one other thing, and that is that this is not the first time I've heard such thoughts as those in Mr Lee's interview. Particularly in relation to the Nigerians and the Southeast Asians, I have a Gen X English coworker and a Baby Boomer American acquaintance who would frequently say the same things, if not worse.  Of course, that doesn't make what Mr Lee said okay; they were often quite racist themselves.

English robots deployed in the classroom — Oh, the humanity!

AP and the New York Times have been reporting on the deployment of robots in South Korea, both the military kind and the pedagogical kind:

Over the years, this country has imported thousands of Americans, Canadians, South Africans and others to supplement local teachers of English. But the program has strained the government’s budget, and it is increasingly difficult to get native English speakers to live on islands and other remote areas.

Enter Engkey, a teacher with exacting standards and a silken voice. She is just a little penguin-shaped robot, but both symbolically and practically, she stands for progress, achievement and national pride. What she does not stand for, however, is bad pronunciation.

“Not good this time!” Engkey admonished a sixth grader as he stooped awkwardly over her. “You need to focus more on your accent. Let’s try again.”

Engkey, a contraction of English jockey (as in disc jockey), is the great hope of Choi Mun-taek, a team leader at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology’s Center for Intelligent Robotics. “In three to five years, Engkey will mature enough to replace native speakers,” he said.

Oh, dear God. I know I sound like a ranting John Connor's mom when I go on like this, but I've seen the future and it isn't pretty.

I'd prefer if his face were on a milk carton

Mister Yie's fifteen minutes of fame is being stretched even further: He's now on a t-shirt (HT to Brian).

Frankly, I don't think that's the most original thing to put on the Mister Yie shirt. I'm not sure what would be better (maybe we need another contest?) but maybe something like this might work:

Name: Yie Eun-woong

Age: 40

Blood Type: B

Zodiac: Virgo

Likes: long walks along the beach inside apartment complexes
Dislikes: Korean women who have been adulterated

Looking for: women or men

Preference: Blonde haired women 
with used condoms in their garbage
Favorite song: I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me
Favorite color: not white

That's all I've got. Anyone else?

Here is what your enemy looks like

The Los Angeles Times, sticking to its tactic of writing up lengthy pieces on topics that were news two or three months ago (I kid! I kid!), now brings us: Anti-English Spectrum.

Ah, but what a scoop they have, because they actually have a picture of the arch-nemesis of English teachers on the peninsula, Yie Eun-woong:

Hmm... he doesn't look like he's pasty and sickly from living in his mother's basement and living off of ramyŏn and choco-pies. But those girls on the left are just walking by without paying any attention to him, and maybe they're off to meet their English-teacher boyfriends, so that could be the source of his ire.

Anyway, here's an excerpt:

Yie, a slender 40-year-old who owns a temporary employment agency, says he is only attempting to weed out troublemakers who have no business teaching students in South Korea, or anywhere else.

The volunteer manager of a controversial group known as the Anti-English Spectrum, Yie investigates complaints by South Korean parents, often teaming up with authorities, and turns over information from his efforts for possible prosecution.

Outraged teachers groups call Yie an instigator and a stalker.

Yie waves off the criticism. "It's not stalking, it's following," he said. "There's no law against that."

Since its founding in 2005, critics say, Yie's group has waged an invective-filled nationalistic campaign against the 20,000 foreign-born English teachers in South Korea.

On their website and through fliers, members have spread rumors of a foreign English teacher crime wave. They have alleged that some teachers are knowingly spreading AIDS, speculation that has been reported in the Korean press.

As one might expect, ATEK also makes an appearance in the story, which also mentions the death threat alleged to have been made by an anti-English Spectrum member:

In November, the president of the teachers group received anonymous e-mails threatening his life and accusing him of committing sex crimes.

"I have organized the KEK (Kill White in Korea)," one e-mail read in part. "We will start to kill and hit [foreigners] from this Christmas. Don't make a fuss. . . . Just get out."

Yie acknowledges that he has been questioned by investigators but denies any involvement in the threats of violence.

"To be honest," he said, "a lot of our group members believe the teachers made this all up."

Which reminds me, while on vacation, now that Christmas has passed, I forgot to put up my post about the English teacher death count. Anybody got a handle on the post-Yuletide carnage numbers?

UCI and AES

We've already seen a connection between the anti-AES movement and Irvine, where Andrea Vandom and ATEK sought to use Korea's vulnerability to "shame politics," in part by trying to get the mayor or Irvine involved with their effort to remove objectionable material from the Anti-English Spectrum site — solely because he's Korean-American.

I really wish they hadn't done that. What little opportunity for good to come out of that tactic is overshadowed by how badly it can blow up in a lot of people's faces: the Korean-American mayor for getting distracted with an issue that has nothing to do with his constituents but everything to do with him being a Korean-American, and Ms Vandom and ATEK themselves for making veiled threats in public that if the Naver thing doesn't go their way they will try to use that to tarnish Korea's image. People tend to not like things like that. Big resentment-builder and a bad way to win people to your cause.

Especially when you've failed to first go through proper channels anyway.

Anyway, the newspaper at my undergraduate alma mater, UC Irvine (Go Anteaters! Zot!) has written up a piece. It turns out Ms Vandom and I are alumni of the same school, which is why, it appears, she brought this to the attention of New University, the school paper. I'm going to fisk this later, after a project is over, but for now here's the link.

(HT to Popular Gusts)

Your daily anti-Anti-English Spectrum reader

The Korea Herald has a piece in the November 20 edition that makes the case that Anti-English Spectrum is a hate group. An excerpt from the article:

An issue many have with Anti-English Spectrum is its past use of racist language, such as referring to foreigners as "Black pigs," saying that foreigners engage in "sexual molestation," and that they "target children."

Another AES action that has gone further than your friendly neighborhood watch involves them engaging in types of vigilantism. The group's administrator admits to stalking foreigners. "Whenever I have to prepare a policy report or embark on the pursuit of an illegal foreign lecturer, then I end up working until dawn because I throw myself into it, braving fire and water. Then because I have to be at work in the morning, I don't get any sleep, and therefore am physically very tired." They have also stored information and photographs on their website of non-Koreans they have followed.

As for charges of racism, Anti-English Spectrum's host Naver.com, said they have received no complaints. The PR department for Korea's biggest portal stated that even though the cafe is rather large -- having 17,000 members -- prior to being contacted by The Korea Herald a representative said she was unaware of the group. When asked about the "black pig" comment, the representative stated that "in this case 'black pig' is definitely a racist comment."

"It is hard to detect all offensive comments. What's more important here is the measure we take against such actions ... If anyone reports to us about wrongdoings that are going on in this cafe, we will take measures and give sanctions to them."

And in the November 18 edition of the Korea Times there's a focus on the efforts of Andrea Vandom, supported by ATEK, to get Naver to remove offensive from the AES website. I've already given my opinion on this effort, but for the sake of brevity I'll just say that it's akin to having the sirens go full blast on the way to a raid.

As I've stated here and here, Ms Vandom and ATEK in particular should be using their clout to go to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) to get AES investigated as a hate group in order to erode their clout with lazy legislators and sloppy journalists.

Anyway, here's an excerpt from the KT piece:

Andrea Vandom sent a letter to the company's CEO claiming that the online community, which is also called the "Citizen's Movement to Expel Illegal Teachers of Foreign Languages" with over 17,000 members, violates Korean Law and Naver blog's operating principles.

"Considering NHN's obvious commitment to being an international and diverse corporation, it is very difficult to understand how NHN can offer its services as a communications network to a racial hate group," she said in the letter. Vandom has already filed a petition with the Constitutional Court against E-2 visa regulations that require native English teacher applicants to undergo AIDS/HIV and drug tests.

In the letter, she requested the NHN to remove articles saying foreigners are targeting Korean children in order to molest them and that some foreigners are seeking to infect Koreans with AIDS or other diseases.

She also called for deletion of content that involves vigilante activities such as the tracking or stalking of foreigners and those promoting racial hatred.

One thing I don't like about the Korea Herald article is the way the author subtly makes the jump from talking about "illegal English teachers" to English teachers in general, a blurring that is reflected even in the materials of the anti-AES posts on various blogs. This is ironic because the conflation of "illegal" English teachers with English teachers in general is one of the complaints about AES.

And frankly, I don't like the way this is all getting muddier and muddier. On the one hand we have lazy journalists apparently reprinting wholesale the claims of AES founder Mr Lee (I say "apparently" because it's possible AES and the lazy journalists are both getting their "information" from a third source), and now on the other side we have journalists in a different camp parroting blog posts opposed to AES.

Sigh. This is all the more reason to take it to the NHRCK and have them make a judgement: It will have weight, it will be authoritatively conclusive, and it will be clear.

And another thing...

I'm very tired, but while walking back to the dorm from the parking structure, I had this epiphany. Bear with me, please, as I'm in an altered state brought on from intense grogginess.

Deep in the bowels of the ATEK lair, a conversation takes place.

ATEK Figure 1 gloatingly holds up a headline in the Korea Times: "Xenophobic Group Opposed to English Teachers Forced to Remove Offensive Content from Site." ATEK Figures 1 through 8 raise a glass and laugh with giddiness at their success.

As the laughter subsides, a mirthful ATEK Figure 2 asks, "Well, what's the next order of business in our plot to take down Lee Eun-ung and his gang of bores?"

ATEK Figure 3 was gleeful: "We must kick them while they're down. We must pursue them into nothingness. We must vanquish them for good."

[above: ATEK's secret lair is located beneath an island in the middle of the Han River.]

ATEK Figure 2 recalled that several people in the K-blogosphere had suggested that ATEK first get their nemesis designated as a hate group. He wondered aloud if that wasn't a bad place to start the next phase: "I wonder if it's not a bad idea to get our nemesis designated as a hate group as a start to the next phase."

ATEK Figures 5 through 8 mumbled into their glasses. Going to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea and getting AES designated as a hate group had been passionately proposed by a moderately prominent blogger who was thought by many to secretly be opposed not just to ATEK, but to all teachers of English, something to do with having been jilted by one before going into exile on a faraway isle. Indeed, he posted letters of mockery — or at least letters interpreted to be letters of mockery — ridiculing teachers or English and calling them whiney. Following his plan would be beneath them... and possibly even a trap.

But ATEK Figures 1 through 4 were convinced that this was a sound idea. They had thought of it even before the mocking blogger had expounded its merits.

ATEK Figure 4 held the power, and he decided that this is what they would do. Immediately, electronic mail, traditional mail, and electronic voice communications were sent out to the Commission. The ATEK figures waited with bated breath for a response from the Commission. They had hoped their request would be accepted and followed up, for their case was strong. Evidence of AES's xenophobic and even racist hate was as copious as it was obvious.

[above: AES's secret lair is located inside a Daewoo Matiz.]

But soon their hopes were dashed. As ATEK Figures 1 through 8 sat around the telephone, they heard a member of the Commission state what was wrong: "We don't see what hate and xenophobia you're talking about."

"What are you talking about?" barked ATEK Figure 5. "It's right there plain as day."

The Commission member clarified: "We see contact information, some newspaper links, but not much else. There's a graphic of kids practicing their ABCs on a chalkboard."

ATEK Figure 5 was furious. She had been against this move from the beginning, but she was now incensed that the Commission could not see the conspicuous evidence in front of them. "What about the stuff about stalking, claiming English teachers are diseased sex fiends, descriptions of our whole lot as drug-taking incompetents? Why don't you recognize that as hate speech?"

"Perhaps it is, Ms ATEK Figure 5," responded the Commission members. "But there is no such stuff on the site."

Almost like an epiphany, ATEK Figures 1 through 8 realized their folly: In forcing the xenophobic group opposed to English teachers to remove its offensive content from its site, ATEK had inadvertently eradicated the evidence they needed to prove their nemesis was in fact a hate group.

NSETs versus AES in the KT (Or, yankers of wankers)

The news is a few days old by now, but the much derided Korea Times staff reporter Kang Shin-who wrote a piece on the efforts by ATEK (Association for Teachers of English in Korea) and English lecturer Andrea Vandom to get popular Korean web portal Naver.com's parent company, NHN, to yank racist material from the Anti-English Spectrum website.

This move is not without controversy. For starters, the original title of the Popular Gusts post that announced this move said that ATEK wants Naver to "pull the plug on the Anti-English Spectrum." The Marmot may not have been alone in thinking that ATEK wanted Naver to remove the AES site:

Personally, I think Anti-English Spectrum are a bunch of wankers, and their stalking activities, if illegal, should be dealt with, but pressuring Naver to shut them down? I’m not sure if I like where this is going…

His interpretation was the same as mine (pulling the plug on something means preventing it from continuing), but ATEK insisted they only wanted to yank the offensive material, not turn the lights out on the entire AES site, and matt at Popular Gusts changed the title to something considerably less incendiary: "ATEK on Andrea Vandom's letter to NHN Corp."

Okay, then. I can respect that poor word choice should not scuttle what might otherwise be a noble effort. And by "noble effort," I certainly mean that my hat's off to ATEK and Andrea Vandom for, at the very least, actually putting word into action instead of just sitting behind a computer complaining in the comments section of someone's blog and moaning about AES being such racists.

But, respectfully, I don't agree with how they're going about this. Back in September, I suggested that a case be made against AES:

Clearly [AES founder Lee Eun-ung] has enough influence that he's a go-to guy for lazy journalists at the KT and CSI, and insofar as he is apparently running a hate group, that should be put to a stop.

Among the stuff that he acknowledges on his site, what would constitute a hate crime or hate speech? How about in his television appearances or quotes in the printed media?

It's time to make a case against AES to a group like the National Human Rights Commission. Taint them like Acorn, preferably by hoisting him on his own petard.

Others agreed, and I put out feelers with the NHRCK about this. The following is the body of an email I sent a day or so later:

I am writing to you because I have some questions about how to proceed about a certain issue that has become very troubling in recent months.

There is a group called Anti-English Spectrum that purports to get rid of "illegal English teachers" in Korea.

There are many in South Korea's English-speaking foreign community that are concerned about this group because it appears to be promoting hatred and spreading false information about English teachers and other foreigners living in Korea.

In particular, the group claims to track (stalk) foreigners trying to find information to use to get them deported (such as drug use, illegal teaching, etc.). It appears they may be stalking people who are innocent of these crimes as well. Whatever the situation, they are singling out their targets based on race. It also appears that their motivation is due to animosity toward Koreans and non-Koreans who engage in interracial dating.

What makes this group further dangerous is that many newspapers like the Chosun Ilbo and the Korea Times routinely quote them in stories about foreign criminals, even though their data may be inaccurate.

What I'm writing about now is to find out what can be done about this group. Is it possible to investigate them for violations of human rights or promoting hate crimes? Is it possible to file a petition against them?

I appreciate any advice you can give me.

Unfortunately, my several emails to the NHRCK contact email have not yet received a reply. If I were in Seoul, I would walk from my apartment to their offices in Ŭlchiro-1-ga, or at least give a call, but I'm a bit hamstrung being over here in Hawaii. [In a similar way, it has been difficult tracking down some of the HIV testing- and treatment-related information I need; emails get ignored much more readily than in-person visits or phone calls.]

At any rate, and this is the primary reason for this post, I think ATEK is going about this the wrong way and I think they should consider getting AES listed as a hate group or some such before they pursue other channels. As I wrote at Brian's:

Interested groups should go first to the human rights commission and have them investigate the group, and push the case there that AES is a hate group.

From there, dealing with AES vis-à-vis Naver would be an easier task and one that would be taken more seriously because it would carry more weight.

Ben Wagner, one of those spearheading ATEK-related causes these past months, told me I am free to file a complaint on my own:

You can file a complaint Kushibo. The NHRCK takes 3rd party complaints. Please do and post about it.

I have publicly voiced criticisms of ATEK actions in the past, and I detected in Ben Wagner's remark that he felt that I was taking more potshots than action, which is why I responded with the letter I had sent in order to pursue the very course of action I was recommending for ATEK.

While I could very well be wrong about my above assessment of Ben Wagner's tone, he was good enough (maybe because he was surprised that I had actually been taking this seriously as an issue) to point me, as I'd requested of him, toward someone to contact directly. That is something I shall do tomorrow.

But me doing that does not address the issue at hand: Is it a good idea for ATEK to be pursuing AES in this manner? Frankly, I think they are going through the wrong avenues in the wrong order, and perhaps even overstepping their bounds.

The overstepping their bounds part is where they are trying to enlist the aid of Korea-born mayor of the Orange County community of Irvine, California, where NHN's American offices are located, in their cause. As a former resident of Irvine and one involved in Korean-American issues, I find this quite troubling. Asian-American politics are a sticky business, and it is often detrimental to AA politicians to be seen as getting sucked into political positions based favoring or oriented toward one's "motherland." Seriously, would Irvine mayor Kang Suk-hee be dragged into this if he weren't Korean-American?

For that matter, why are NHN's American offices being dragged into this? NHN's original founders may both be in the US, but AES is not operating out of the United States, are they? The regulations ATEK is attempting to use in order to remove the offensive material are Korean regulations, aren't they? This is about playing the national shame card, and it has a huge potential to blow up in ATEK's faces.

One major problem with this approach is that even if it succeeds, the success will be short-lived. AES can remove some materials, but those could easily be replaced merely by toned-down materials that don't violate any regulations, even if the spirit of the group remains. Moreover, if the effort fails, it makes other action harder and makes ATEK radioactive.

ATEK is not playing the hand they've been given: AES is a hate group, and it should be outed as such publicly — via the NHRCK — so that its credibility will be shot to hell. It is not the site that does so much damage, if all the K-blog reports on AES are to be believed, but their connections with the media and the legislature. They must be discredited! Taking it to the NHRCK is the best course of action right now.

Sh¡t, I would seriously go over to the NHRCK offices right now if I were in Seoul, but I'm not. I'm not an English teacher, my visa is not an E2, and currently I'm outside of the country. I am not the one to go and spearhead this. I'm happy to lend my support in the ways I can, but it has to be someone who is there.

Seoul office of NHRCK (02-2125-9718 or 02-1331):

Pusan office (051-710-9716):

[Maps and contact information for offices in Kwangju and Taegu are available here.]

And maybe it doesn't have to be an NSET. If AES is really promoting hatred of foreigners, it is more than just teachers who should be concerned. Come on, people follow the links to the emails and do something. Or do as Ben Wagner suggested and write a letter. Here's the brick-and-mortar address of NHRCK in Seoul:

Gumsegi Building

#16 Ulchiro-1-ga

Chung-gu, Seoul 100-842

If I do not receive a response by the middle of this week, I will be doing the same. I am adamant that this is the best first step for any action against AES. In the absence of AES being designated as a hate group or receiving some other official scarlet H, the attempt to remove content posted on their site takes on an entirely different meaning, one that is not lost on Koreans or Americans. Asking Naver to take down regulations-violating material by an organization listed as a hate group has the air of proper procedure, whereas, in the absence of such a designation, it looks just like one group is just trying to silence a group they don't like.

Such a designation would also leave AES with less power to retaliate, since that scarlet H would follow them around as they go to the press, the legislature, or to other groups. Think how easy it would be for ATEK or anybody else to simply discredit whatever came out of the AES founder's mouth if they just say, "Mr Lee and his organization have been designated a hate group."

In the absence of such a designation, it's simply a matter of his group's opinion versus ATEK's opinion, and most spectators don't have the time to read through every ATEK press release or Popular Gusts post to find out who's right.

So it is my hope that ATEK will quickly table (as in shelve) this matter for the time being and pursue instead getting AES designated as a hate group. This is prudent, it follows official channels, it makes it harder for AES to retaliate, and it is a simpler result for people unfamiliar with this issue to get their heads around.

And this is not even getting into the issue of free speech. I'm not the only one who has raised the question of who in particular has been harmed by AES's material. It's a hard case to prove that people have been harmed in such a way that this group's right to free speech should be taken away. Without this organization being designated as a hate group, it can easily be seen as a case of blocking things you simply don't want to hear.

And where would that end? The Korea Times comments section and Dave's ESL Café are full of comments just as racist and derogatory as AES, if not worse. The Orange County Register comments section, I've mentioned from time to time, is full of some of the vilest things you'll ever read about Hispanics (and occasionally Blacks and Asians). Do all these get shut down? Why AES and not other sites?

As a teenager, I recall when Beatles' songs such as Revolution or Sting's Russians were censored out of Culture Ministry-approved albums in South Korea. Others not much older than me recall when people were arrested, beaten, and/or tortured for saying the wrong thing. Consequently, a lot of people are squeamish about snuffing out someone's right to say something — even something nasty.

In other words, without the hate group designation, you're fighting a battle that is infused with meaning you don't intend.

That said, if ATEK insists on going ahead with this ill-advised scheme, it is my fervent hope that they succeed. A loss would be worse than a win, even if it's a better idea to have played a different game in the first place.

"English" names cause Korean speakers to shut themselves off from the outside world

Shut-ins, they're called. People who can't take being bombarded with all the "English" surrounding them on the streets of Seoul so they just stay home. The Chosun Ilbo has an article on them, complaining about how Korean names for food shoppes (innovatively named Chongno this and Chongno that) have been supplanted by Tous les Jours, Cold Stone Creamery, A Twosome Place, Red Mango, and other names that make little sense to those who haven't studied English since the twelfth grade (assuming they were even paying attention then).

Roh Moohyun was a man of the people who recognized that the very old and the very young couldn't figure this out, and so he ordered that no official government information be available only in a form other than Han•gŭl (the Korean alphabet). This included the giant B, G, Y, and R on the sides of Seoul's new buses, standing for blue, green, yellow, and red. For the elderly who also happen to be colorblind, this apparently would throw them into a panic or cause them to get on the wrong bus.

Anyway, the CSI feels your pain:

Coffee has become an essential part of the daily lives of Koreans. Each Korean drank 288 cups of coffee in 2008, based on the amount of coffee beans that were imported that year. But elderly Koreans, who cannot speak English, as well as some younger Koreans who are not yet au fait with the coffee jargon, say ordering the beverage is strange and difficult.

"Coffee is imported, so we cannot do anything about the names," says one man in his 60s. "But why are the sizes classified as 'short' or 'tall' in English?" he said. "I'm a university graduate and have lived without any problems until now. I never imagined I'd end up getting nervous ordering coffee."

Hmm... the collapse of the Hawaii state economy has emptied the coffers at the university where I study, and thus the third year of the graduate assistantship I was promised when I came here has dried up, forcing me to officially take a leave of absence from school because I can't afford tuition and leaving me, except for some at-home projects from Korea, essentially jobless and living off my savings. If not being able to figure out small, medium, large, and extra large at Starbucks is your biggest worry, then STFU (sorry, Matt, I'll try to stop saying that).

Okay, okay. As one who has written that signs in Koreatown and Little Saigon should be accessible to people who only speak the dominant language (which is English if you're in Orange County, for the time being at least), I can sympathize with this up to a point:

An office worker in his 30s said, "When I order coffee, I wonder whether I'm in Korea or America, hearing all the words that are used mixing English and Korean." One Internet portal even posted advice on how to avoid humiliation in coffee shops. "Just ask for 'original' coffee if the shop worker keeps using strange words," one advice reads. At Starbucks in Korea, milk is the only item written in Korean on a menu listing around 50 different drinks.

Oh, boo hoo! If this is what you're complaining about then... Oh, right. I promised to be more sympathetic. Sorry.

The truth is, even native English speakers in America have trouble figuring everything out once they step into your typical coffee house. I know that sometimes I set foot in a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and try to order my regular and can't always find it, even though I know it's there, somewhere, on the ever-shifting menu. And really, Korean governments from decades ago have decided that the road to South Korea's future runs right through Englishtown, so come on, what are you complaining about? It's not like you're unprepared. Enjoy the thrill of international travel while staying close to home and your precious kimchi.

Some people do take this seriously, though:

Stress levels began rising in the mid-1990s when so-called "family" restaurant chains began to pop up in Korea. T.G.I. Friday's, Bennigans, Outback Steakhouse and other restaurants featured menus in English, or words created by mixing Korean and English.

Um... I was living in Seoul at that time, and I'm pretty sure that stress levels began to rise when the economy collapsed. I think that's when people took a look around and noticed all the foreign-sounding family restaurants and said, "Holy sh¡t! I've got to blame someone for this mess, and you guys are easy targets."

So they all started going to Lotteria again, and they bought tickets to Shiri instead of that movie about the boat... the one with the girl... where all those people died. You know the one I'm talking about. It has the annoying Celine Dion song. Oh, right. They're all annoying.

And as usual, the conservative CSI takes the Mrs Lovejoy approach, screaming, "Won't somebody please think of the children?!":

The problem gets worse when it comes to children's snacks. According to a study by a newspaper last year, 54.6 percent of 449 different snacks in production had names that included foreign words. Only 31.2 percent of the snacks had purely Korean names.

Pardon me for making lemonade out of lemons, but wouldn't the preponderance of Roman characters on their fish puffs cause little kids to become accustomed to seeing those strange letters and thus make them less intimidated by them when they encounter them in school? Or it that familiarity breeds contempt?

Anyway, what do kids know?

But children and teens who are loyal customers of the snacks do not look favorably upon the foreign names. Eight students at Doseong Elementary School in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province sent a letter in 2007 to the heads of confectioners asking them to use Korean names. The petition drew support from around 1,000 people after it was posted on an Internet portal.

Guess whose sŏnsaengnim is part of the chinboista teachers union. Can you guess? Can you guess?

At about the same time, a survey of third- and fourth-graders in elementary school showed that 79 percent favored Korean names for snacks, saying they sounded more familiar and made it easier to determine what kind of snack it is.

Unless they're writing "fattening," "rots your teeth," "excessive consumption now will cause heart problems later in life," "would be considered animal abuse if fed to your pet," etc., in Korean, then I am skeptical that such labeling does actually make it easier to determine what kind of snack it is.

[above: From the Korean writing on the package, I know that this product contains 짱 and 구. And probably several chemicals that will give you toxic poop.]

And it's not a save-our-language story unless the nationalist angle is brought into the picture:

Korean language experts say we may end up thinking that it is only natural for products to have foreign names. This perception becomes ingrained as we become adults and create stereotypes that favor foreign words and developing disdain for our own words.

Forcing people to use "our own words" while simultaneously feeding them a narrative that causes them to feel that their own language and culture is under relentless assault because 0.5% of the national lexicon is not originally "our own words" is a sure-fire way to get them to feel disdain.

Look, Korean culture is dynamic (a gross understatement, seriously), and the constant injection of foreign words into localspeak is part of that. And this preference for freshness and novelty is also reflected in the often clever and innovative way in which new Korean words are also developed, not just in the proliferation of borrowed (and then often mutilated) words. It's just the way "dynamic" Korea works, and it's time to go with the flow, unnamed Korean language experts and anonymous thirty-something office worker.