I have been intending to write this blog entry longer than any other unwritten blog entry.
The story behind it is that maybe 4 years ago, I ran across a book in a bookstore entitled Quick and Easy Korean for Migrant Workers. Of course, my interest in immigration policy combined with my interest in the Korean language made the book a guaranteed “win.”
I was prompted to write this entry now, after so many years of having it just beyond my consciousness in the back of my mind, because I’d pulled the book off my shelf to show to my brother Andrew, who is visiting.
After spending some time with the book, I discovered some really revelatory and interesting phrases. Of all of the worst of these phrases, however, this phrase, from page 82 (image below right), takes the cake. I remember very hard and yet bittersweet laughter because of reading this 4 years ago.
폭력을 당해서
pok-ryeok-eul dang-hae-seo
violence-OBJ experience-CAUSE
이 회사를 떠나고 싶습니다
i hoe-sa-reul tteo-na-go sip-seup-ni-da
this company-OBJ leave-CONN want-FORMAL
I want to leave this company because I have experienced violence.
I rather like the poetic version given by the googletranslate, too (although like most of googletranslate’s oeuvre, it is incoherent): “Five people I’d like to leave the company of violence.”
Or as the book translates it: I want to leave this company because I was beaten.
This is a sorry commentary on the state of migrant labor in Korea. Foreigners working in the hagwon and EFL biz don’t really realize that we are truly elites, no matter how badly we are treated.
