I’m sure you know all the dust stirring around because of what I wrote here. It was in The Korea Herald, and other media outlets are picking up on the story too.

If you have been out of the loop, I’ll fill you in. All that factual information I wrote regarding my case against L.N. to help other people in the same situation (of which there are many) has gotten me into some trouble. I seem to have run afoul of Korea’s libel laws, and they’re actually investigating me for criminal libel.

Criminal libel.

Now, criminal libel still exists in the world. It still exists in the U.S. Yet it is rarely enforced anymore. Worldwide it is becoming passe because it can (and is) abused by people in power to shut up dissenting voices. In Mexico they recently decriminalized libel. And it is becoming a pariah for modern democracies to actually have criminal libel on the books.

Nonetheless, unscrupulous crooks still use criminal libel in South Korea to stifle anyone from exposing their crimes to the public, even if the crimes are on the public record.

I have been getting some good advice from some pretty prominent experts in the field, and they are assuring me that Korea is going the way of the rest of the world. It just needs some court cases to establish more judicial precedents against criminal libel.

This case may become one of them.

You see, on this little blog, I never said anything like “This school is bad” or “Don’t work at this school.” I just reported what happened, things like “Today we froze (Unnamed Hagwon’s) assets.”

And with that, the crooked owner of the school has tried to peg me with this.

This past week was my interview with the police. I won’t go into too much detail because I know I am being watched thoroughly now. I just want to point out that the police acted very professionally and congenially. Even though they didn’t seem to understand some of the finer points of the Internet (like claiming that I had written all the comments on a message board rather than just the ones under my name), they had done their homework. They had a big stack of print outs from the web site. I didn’t know I had written that much.

Yet at the end, even though I was pretty sure that everything was translated and typed accurately, I refused to sign the statement because they wouldn’t let another translator come in an check over it. I told them that I wanted at least two pairs of eyes to look over it and translate it before I signed it. Besides, even though he was a cool guy, the translator the police made me use had only taught himself English for three years, the same amount of time I have been learning Korean. And my Korean is nowhere near the level of interpretation. I can hardly tell the taxis where to go.

In the end, I got a hint that the charges would be dropped, but it was not a definite hint. Nonetheless, we have to stop these dirty hagwon owners from using these tricks to cheat hard-working people out of their money.

The court case(s) are taking up much of my free time now, what little is left of it. My work with EBS had only given me two days off last month. Last week was the Spring Sh-wing Wing Fling. It was Brant’s brainchild.

There were a lot of last minute cancellations, but that was fine. Turned out that Sh-wing was closed. Don’t know if it’s out of business. But it was definitely closed on a late Saturday afternoon.

So after Hooters and finding out Sh-wing was closed, we decided to celebrate Cinco de Mayo and eat at the Mexican place, King Taco, on Rodeo Street. The tacos there were decent and perfectly spicy. You should try it if you’re in Apgujeong.

Friend Lee is back in the picture. He has been helping us out a lot, and we have been spending a good many nights at his hang out, Hi OB. It’s his own personal kingdom. He sits at a big table and is very close to the owners. They let him tap his own beers and his friends’. It’s like he’s holding court there.

A.’s appeal in the court case came in the mail. Well, the letters from her attorney did, and they’re a joke. Again, there are the wild claims, including the one where I stole a cell phone that she has had in her possession since before the Labor Board case. She’s also claiming that students left the school because parents read this web site.

Hey, if there are any parents of students at the school reading this web site, please email me or leave a comment. That would be impressive.

I am getting tired, though. We are working on the class movie projects at my regular job, and it takes up my mornings and evenings editing video. Plus I proofread the EBS scripts, and I’m working on the court case(s).