Tuesday, July 24, 2007

This just in: The heart wants what it wants

There is a ridiculous article in Chosun Ilbo Online from July 18th entitled "Obscenity Turns English Students Off Skype", about English students who go in Skype looking to practice their English with people who have clearly gone on for the duel purpose of sex chat and making fun of earnest foreigners. Here is a comment ironically more insightful than the speaker may know.
"Most foreigners using the Skype chat service seem to just want to meet girls and make filthy jokes. So I felt bad and deleted the program just two days after installing it."

Yes. What is the response?
"It’s impossible to monitor every Internet conversation. We are aware of the problems, but we can't take responsibility for them. In the future, we will discuss possible solutions to the problems such as word filtering, throwing abusive people out of chat rooms or making a blacklist.”

It's times like this that I wish all web-based programs were designed in Korea.
But the best part of the article is the illustration of just how lewd and debased the users on Skype are.
First of all, it is not apparent that 'Sperm for Girls' initiated this conversation. Furthermore, 'Jiyoung' herself is without a doubt a tease.
I would say what we have here is a clash of objective, in which you have a group of young Koreans single-mindedly thinking about improving their English without a thought given to the actual person on the other end of the internet connection and a group of young English speakers looking for cheap laughs and sex chat without a thought to the actual person on the other end of the internet connection. No one would blink if an ajeosshi went to a soldier bar in Itaewon on a Friday night and complained later that no one was interested in improving his English. There is likely no place, on the internet or otherwise, where foreigners who don't do some kind of martial art are willing to sit and listen to broken English for free.
Also, damn, get yourself together Chosun, it's spelled 'foreign'. You are a news organization for crying out loud, not some blogger.

2 comments:

Jeff said...

Here is a comment ironically more insightful than the speaker may know.

Because if you want to improve your English, sex chat and filthy jokes are actually the way to go.

Joe Mondello said...

Exactly, and yet these are the same people who think having the same 'In my country we use chopsticks' conversation again and again will improve their English.