::A Geek in Korea::

So, as Korean Beat translated, and the Korean media have reported this week, foreign teachers like myself in Korea are pot smoking, woman seducing, diploma forgers that will stop at NOTHING to teach kindergarten students while high. This is PRIME TIME NEWS, swiping forum blog posts and using “ex-girlfriends” confessions as “journalism”. Extra kudos for trying to link Foreigners higher salaries compared to an average Korean office worker as somehow explaining our “bad behavior”. Wow, it’s almost like they are trying to find reasons to be jealous or to bring about discrimination from people that would otherwise not care! Incredible.

We’ve got such an awful reputation! Boo hoo!

Anyway, with the recent set of high profile busts of Korean doctors with fake degrees in major Korean universities and other high prominent careers, it was inevitable that there would be a round of diploma stings on academies. Right now in Daejeon, there is a paper from the Ministry of Education being sent around to schools to prove demanding that foreigners can provide their documentation. Yeah, the Immigration Office should already HAVE all this information since they let us into the country, but the Ministry of Education wants it again.

I’m not technically required to show my diploma to teach anymore. I don’t have the E-2 visa, where this paper is a requirement to get into the country. My director needed to collect several other pieces of information from me to make the “Diploma people” happy. My foreigner card, my passport, and any other things that show I’m who I say I am, and that I got my education from where I actually claimed. She had to send them a spare copy of my diploma just in case, as well as the rest of the information so that I could continue to teach.My foreign coworker had to provide the same information. I don’t know if the Koreans I worked with were pressed to provide any proof that they studied English, or anything at all actually.

Anyone forging a degree to work at an academy is just…really lame. Seriously. This kind of job isn’t that good… no matter what the Korean media might tell you about our elaborate drug use, sex parties, and whatever mischief we might be causing in the country. I’m sure we’re the root of evil.

Of course, this set of “busts” has to happen right as I’m leaving of the country for the next few weeks. I can only imagine what the customs and immigration people will think when I return to the country after my vacation.

“Hmm, you were teaching in a school, but disappear with your Korean wife (Who you probably seduced and forced to take DRUGS!) right as we start checking for fake diplomas. You run off to England, though you claim to be American? Could it be that you went there to avoid detection, and to score another fake diploma! CHECK HIS BAG! He surely has THE MARIJUANA and THE ILLEGAL DRUGS! ” (Cue the dramatic music). Before my coworkers form any conspiracy theories, my degree is legitimate, I’ve planned the vacation for months, and I’m planning to return with the same visa with no drugs whatsoever… Really. I’m not even going anywhere NEAR Amsterdam this time on my trip.

My new students were quick to accuse me of being a shady foreigner anyway. I made a spelling mistake when writing something on the board. The students all asked me, “You are American right? You aren’t from Germany or something trying to teach us English when you don’t really know it, right?”

Somehow I had avoided detection for a year, but had revealed myself with a slip of my hand on the board in front of my students. Apparently I’m teaching Sherlock freaking Holmes, and he cracked the code of my elaborate deception! Quickly! I must flee the country!

And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for those pesky kids!