The Most Serious Problem Foreigners Face

As I write this I'm feeling a little bad. I was looking over my old posts in just this blog and found the one on swine flu which is 1 1/2 years old this month. In that post there's a link to a podcast series about Korea. I decided to click on it to see the site has moved, however if you scroll down the old posts are still there including the one I mentioned above. After I found that I scrolled a little more to see a post about a foreigner and Korean wife being cheated out of their apartment deposit and taking their landlord to court. The podcast is 31 minutes long and I'd like to listen to it sometime. What I want to say is this though: I've heard so many stories of Koreans cheating each other or foreigners out of money. Almost all cases I've heard involved employers cheating employees. Other cases that I can think of would be salespeople in places such as Itaewon cheating customers. Being cheated out of a deposit....I may have heard of this happening but can't remember exactly. However, I can't say I'm surprised.

A few things come to mind when I think about this: Koreans just ignore the laws protecting people from these things. Why doesn't the government do more? Another thing I think of and I don't like to write is this: Do Koreans love money more than honesty? more than other people? There are so many stories that it seems to be something that a significant number of Koreans, possibly the majority have done. I wish somehow I could understand this whole situation.

Update Sept. 2011 - Sometime after writing this I did go and listen to the podcast. This foreign probably Canuck guy and his Korean wife went to court and fought against their landlord for an entire year before he paid the money. Near the end government officials broke open his apartment door and labeled some of his things which could be auctioned to pay off the debt. The story is pretty sad. When they first had a court date the landlord simply didn't show which led to a second court date. There were more steps they could'ven taken and the process could've gone on longer but after a year the person paid. Also as for the reason why he did it which most people would want to know, the people moving into their apartment said the landlord had had a dispute with the wife over money in the past. Sounds like she accused him of cheating them out of money somehow. Being offended by that he decided to stiff them out of 2,500,000 won of their deposit. That's about $2500. Deposits for apartments can be 10 million, 20 million or more. And then they had a hard time paying the deposit for their next apartment.

This reminds me of another problem. I don't have hard evidence of this but I believe that there are times when foreign English teachers and their bosses get into disputes over money or other things, and the bosses withhold money from them somehow as a way to get back at them. I'm sure this has happened to Korean employees.

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