Japan's Best Bottoms and other news

Burnt backside no bummer for beautiful-bottom babe
Mainichi Daily News

An 18-year-old girl was surprisingly crowned "Japan's best bottom" babe at Triumph International's "Show Me Your Sloggi" Japan contest held on Tuesday in Tokyo after a freak accident scorched her rump days before the contest.

"I always take care of my bottom, but I'm embarrassed to show it today because I burned it by sitting on a hair iron the other day," Kaho Watanabe, clad in pink baby doll lingerie, said in her short self-promotion spiel. Read More...and See Pictures!



From today's Marmot's Hole...

Need to Check English Teachers? Good Luck!
As it would turn out, the 32-year-old Canadian suspected of molesting young boys in Southeast Asia taught in Korea for four and a half years, teaching in the Seoul and Gyeonggi-do area on and off since 2000. Since August, he’d been teaching at a foreign school in Gwangju, Gyeonggi-do. Before that, he taught at a high school somewhere in Gyeonggi-do.

A Gyeonggi-do Department of Education official said the suspect was remembered as a rather upright character who hardly ever drank, and his former coworkers are shocked by the news.

The suspect apparently fled to Thailand just two days after Intepol posted his face on their website. A police official said they’re still investigating whether the teacher molested any of his students in Korea, but they’ve yet to discover any such cases.

BTW, congratulations to Dave’s ESL Cafe for the media spotlight, although I’m not sure if this is what they wanted it for.

Oh, and I’m sure this will drive Western Confucian up the wall. As an ex-Catholic, though, I have to question the veracity of the report — how could the guy have been a priest-in-training when the Gyeonggi-do Education Department said he hardly drank?
OK, I’m definitely going to Hell for that one.

Anyway, the Seoul Shinmun, JoongAng Ilbo and Hanguk Ibo have run editorials deploring the porous state of Korea’s foreign teacher hiring system. The Seoul Shinmun was in particularly rare form — I especially liked this line:

Korea has been a “dupe” for a long time, allowing foreigners who speak English to get jobs easily and treating them well, but with this, we really can’t help but worry whether Korea will become a “paradise for criminals from English speaking nations.”

Dupes, they are. Dupes! The JoongAng expressed concern, too:

The insecurity of school parents concerning native speaker teachers and instructors is growing by the day. This is because the teachers’ shameless crimes are growing. Just a coupe of days ago, a Canadian wanted by Interpol for sexually molesting small children in Southeast Asia fled abroad after working as an English teacher in Korea as police moved in for the arrest. A while back, there were incidents of a teacher molesting children and a group of teachers smoking marijuana. There must be even more crimes that have yet to be revealed. It’s time to hurry and formulate measures.

Good luck with that. The papers’ rhetorical hyperbole aside, it’s true that teacher hiring practices are borderline criminal — it would seem to me that most people in the English education industry or who’ve spent time in said industry would admit as much. But a revamping of that system would require change at the bureaucratic level and increased cooperation between law enforcement agencies here in Korea and abroad. Change and cooperation requires effort, however, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Or at least not before some poor kid gets molested or killed by a guy who should never have been here in the first place.
See original @ Marmot's Hole



Striking Unpaid Teachers Blamed For Nova Branch Closures
Japan Probe
Translation of a Sankei Shimbun article from Let’s Japan:

NOVA continues to close schools due to instructor shortages.

October 18, 12:51 Sankei Shimbun delivery

METI’s order to suspend part of Nova’s business has forced the Nakamozu school in Osaka and schools elsewhere to take it upon themselves to close the schools and stop accepting reservations for lessons. It is believed that the schools acted on their own in an attempt to cope with students being unable to make reservations for lessons at the times they want due to the lack of teachers.

The schools that closed include Nakamozu, in Osaka, and the Ichigaya (closed on the 17th) and Suidobashi (closed on the 18th) schools in Tokyo.

A Nova spokesperson said that the schools were not told to close. The repeated delay of teachers’ pay and the Japanese staff ready to revolt underscores the steady decline in Nova’s ability to remain in control.

The Nakamozu school reportedly closed on October 16. A notice on the entrance to the school read: Notice of school closure and that the school would be closed from October 16 until the 31st. The notice also contained messages scribbled in English from teachers saying they would miss the students.

The Nakamozu school was scheduled to close its doors at the end of October and merge with the Tennoji school (also in Osaka). Nova is reported to have sent a notice on the 19th to the approximately 400 students at the school informing them of the merger.[Comment: This was pointed out in the forums as not making any sense. The 19th is likely a typo.]

After Nova informed its foreign teachers on October 12 that they would be paid on the 19th instead of the usual 15th, around 200 teachers a day continue to be absent from work. To cope with the sudden shortage of teachers, schools have reportedly been switching to ocha no ma ryuugaku lessons taught over a videophone, but some schools have been unable to fill the gap.

According to a representative for Nova schools in Osaka, “Reservations can’t be made for lessons this week. We apologize to the students for the schools closing on their own and are refusing reservations.”
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So the very visible and easily blameable foreign teachers are the cause of the trouble this branch is and others will soon be experiencing? The lack of teachers or even the decision to stop accepting reservations at any branch is the decision of the teachers?

Another interesting fact: the number of ‘topatsued’ teachers on the day of the union called demonstration was pretty much the same for that day (10/16) as for every other day so far this month, about 10% of the total workforce of Nova teachers.
Japan Probe



I noticed this story today in the Korea Times and wanted to point out one thing...NONE of the suspects arrested were Canadian English teachers!!!!
Six Drug Traffickers Arrested