Tag Archives: South Korea

“Snitching” for Pay

I saw this story in the NY Times about how the South Korean government is paying out money for people to snitch on their neighbors: Busybodies with Cameras. People report and take pictures of minor crimes, and then they report it to the government for pay. They are, in a sense, using the availability of technology to crowdsource the reporting of petty crimes.

From reading the title, one might get the idea that people should mind their own business. But if you read the actual article, some of the crimes are actually quite serious:

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North Korean Women, South Korean Men

Man, can Kyung Lah’s reports from Asia get any more ridiculous?  She must be the worst reporter on the payroll.  I wonder whether anyone at CNN does any proofreading or fact-checking when she submits her work.  In her latest report, she talks about how North Korean women and South Korean men are getting together and marrying.  See the video above where she focuses on a “matchmaker” who sets up female North Korean women who have defected with South Korean men.  Ms. Lah provides many reasons why these couplings work out:

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Western Schools in South Korea

Saw this article in the Times today.  In South Korea, the government is financing a 940 acre city on Jeju Island where everyone–doctors, administrators, students, store clerks–will speak English.  The purpose is education; 12 Western schools have plans to open within the city, and the hope is that Korean kids can go to school and speak perfect English when done.  It’s better than sending kids abroad because it’s cheaper, it enables families to stay closer together, and kids will be more likely to retain their Korean and ability to work within a Korean system.  You can see the website for Jeju itself here

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Where Teachers Make More than Baseball Players

picture-1Saw this on my Yahoo page.  Top online course instructors in education-obsessed South Korea are making upwards of $4 million a year.  According to the report, these educators are like rock stars who have money and status. Because of the scalability of internet classes, some of these instructors make more than professional baseball players.  In the days before the web, there would be no way to get 50,000 paying subscribers for a single teacher.  The web has enabled these teachers to reach more people than ever before.

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