I'm on my 185th day of visiting Korea. My visitor visa only allows me 180 days. I have been forced to overstay my visit by immigration workers who wouldn't let me extend my stay because they obviously thought I was illegally working while on a visitor's visa. They can't fathom why anyone would not just come to Korea to visit a land where everyone thinks all tourists are criminals. Unless they were criminals. They can't believe I wasn't illegally teaching because I had illegally overstayed a visa 5 years before due to immigration not allowing me to extend it, so immigration did not allow me to extend my visa this year forcing me into an illegal overstay position, making me a recidivist and flawlessly VERIFYING their suspicions of my criminal activity while visiting Korea.
Me? I didn't teach any classes. Not a one. I didn't molest any children, rob any Family Marts or kill any misinformed, xenophobic, racist immigration workers with a Phillips head screwdriver then dump the bodies in the dumpster behind the Kimbap Nara on Unnam Dong road near the turnoff for Moodeung Stadium in Gwangju. That wasn't me. I mean if it happened.
I've just been wandering the streets like old Brooks in the Shawshank Redemption, a hardened criminal trying to find honest work in a world that is hostile and confusing. It all started with that little trip I took OUT of Korea to visit my family and attend my 25th grad reunion. I purchased a return ticket fully intending to come back to Korea, get a new one-year contract and move to the place where I got it. Nothing was said by the travel agent about new immigracism laws that don't allow me to do this. Maybe the travel agent just didn't know. Nothing was said by the immigracism officer at the airport who I TOLD I would be returning, looking for a new job and moving. She was the one who suggested I surrender my alien card and come back on my 180-day Canadian visitor visa, instantly making myself a suspected felon and unwittingly disqualifying myself for a majority of the jobs I'd be applying for. But maybe SHE didn't know that either.
After being forced to buy a plane ticket OUT of Korea so I could get back INTO it, I found out how hard it was to look for work, get a job and move without an alien card. Banking, renting videos, moving, ordering internet and cable, even applying for jobs - all these things are easier with an alien card. But I had a job. Nam Seoul University had pencilled me into their schedule. I had three friends whose hours were cut down to make room for me. All but the contract signing was taken care of. They called me and asked if I had my Master's degree just to confirm. I told them that I don't have one. They never got back to me and the number they had used was no longer in service after that call. THEY knew about the prevailing winds of anti-foreigner sentiment that would make hiring me a massive battle with immigracism because those with Masters can get E-1 visas. Those without have to apply for E-2 visas and as all Koreans, including immigracism workers know, E-2 visa holders and applicants are all just trying to compromise the integrity and purity of this, the greatest nation on Earth. You see crime amongst E-2 visa holders is out of control here! At least that's what newspaper and TV reports say. If they only knew the facts! Koreans are still committing crimes at 5 times the rate of E-2 visa holders in their own country. But I guess that's okay because it's THEIR country. Or maybe they just don't know!
I couldn't get a job since Nam Seoul U. pulled their switcheroo at the last minute just before the new semester started at universities and colleges around Korea and that's the kind of job I was after. So I had 3 choices: 1. Go BACK to Canada where I had just come from after buying a $300.00 ticket to Japan I'd just throw in the garbage, 2. Get a job at a hagwon, which would be a one-year crappy job, or 3. Take a few months off and stay in Korea. I chose 3. I figured after the semester was over there would be kids camps and intensive adult programs all over Korea where I could teach and make up some of the lost money from being off 4 months. And 4 months of doing nothing ain't so bad. Even in Korea!
The semester ended and I found some camps and intensive programs. I was asked to do a kids camp and some intensive programs. I chose the intensive programs at Dongshin U. in Naju because I also wanted to work there. The guy I talked with, Professor Oh, said I was in. I had the job and he would send the contracts. It was New Year's. The contracts didn't come my phonecalls and text messages were ignored and the hiring season for camps and such came and went. I finally got ahold of Oh and he said that he desperately wanted to hire me but that administration didn't. I asked why. All he could tell me was they figured it would be easier to hire somebody else. I thought that just meant someone who was already living in Naju. They didn't tell me it was this immigracism bullshit.
Then the final push for hiring at universities around Korea came in Feb. I was called to several places for interviews. Several places I talked to other applicants and knew that I was miles above the others in experience and thought I had the best chance of getting the job. Then was passed over. I called one place and asked why and she hemmed and hawed and got all mealy in the mouth lying and lying and lying when all she really needed to say was that immigracism would be impossible for me.
Then I GOT the job at Dongshin U. although once AGAIN it was yes-no-yes-no until finally at the 11th hour I signed the contracts. This was the day before my 180-day stay expired. Since it was a Friday it was the last day I had to try to get my visitor visa changed to a work visa. I didn't think we'd be able to do it because immigracism always makes you go back twice or more, but I thought we'd at least get it started. Go to part I of this saga to see that that wasn't to be the case. Nor were they inclined to extend my stay on that day. I went to Suwon Immigracism Office on Monday and was shooed away like a dog by the worker there saying I needed a new criminal record check to extend my visitor's visa. Then I called my would-be supervisor, Professor Oh to explain or maybe get him to explain because nobody at the Suwon Immigracism Office speaks English, but he just kept saying, "I hope everything goes well for you..." then he hung up, unplugged his phone and stuck his head in the sand like almost all the other Korean people.
This is how they handle things when they absolutely KNOW their government is totally screwing the pooch. Just ignore it, don't talk about it and wait till it goes away. This is not going away. It's going to hurt a lot more Koreans than foreigners.
I have seen lots and lots of Korean protests since I've been here. A lot of them were for things I didn't agree with like the mad cow protests or the Yankee go home protests, but if there were ever a time and an issue to protest, this is it. Instead there seems to be the opposite of protest. They are attempting to draw attention AWAY from the mistreatment of foreigners in Korea. Maybe it's because they are getting richer and more comfortable and just don't want to get off their comfortable leather couches and pull themselves away from their 50-inch plasmas to go out in the cold and protest. Or, maybe they just don't know...
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