"I was bullied."
Imagine you are a reporter and you are reported to. Would you do a close-up investigation?
Firstly, one would have to verify the credibility of the report. Sources of solid evidence and specific examples would be needed and proven. However, there is one limitation. Needless to say, most of the school violence cases happened several years ago or more. Therefore, there are only statements to rely on and hardly no evidence.
If a 'School Violence Committee meeting’ was held, then the whistleblower's words would have power. Or even a school report from back in the days would be a credible reference point. More so, if there are hospital records from the time, due to school violence and bullying, then of course the credibility of the allegations would be higher.
Contrastingly, the only ‘evidence’ that had been submitted was the graduation album, proving that they were really classmates in high school. Nonetheless, the stigma cannot be ignored. This is because the psychological damage and hurt that the informant must have received is also classified as bullying. So in this case, it is important to examine the specificity of the statement.
Actor Nam Joo-Hyuk is the new hot potato as reports started to emerge that the actor was allegedly a school bully during his middle and high school years. The accusations were made by informant ‘A’ and ‘B’ (and their mother) who told local news outlet 'T' and 'S' media about their high school days of being bullied.
There are approximately five cases of bullying that A and B have listed including: "He threw thin pencil leads at me”, "He made me the bread shuttle", "He used violence regularly", "He used my phone to pay for paid mobile games” and "I was forced to wrestle.”
Dispatch decided to dig in deep and asked reporter L, who works at S Media, to connect directly with the informant. After requesting to talk about the allegations, there was no answer but only to hear back from them saying "the statement is all true.”
The reason Dispatch made attempts to meet with the informant was because of the credibility of the report. In fact, the high school life of Nam Joo-Hyuk confirmed by this magazine was very different from the bullying cases allegedly reported by the informant.
The premise of reporting on a school bullying is that no story should be ignored. However, it is necessary to cross-check the relevant stories with various reference materials. This report by Dispatch is a verification report that was not done by T and S media.
All in all, to summarise, what is out in the air so far is that Nam Joo-Hyuk's school violence controversy has no evidence but only statements. Already, two anonymous informants have revealed their sides of the sory but next in line is a list of twently informants who were willing to speak out what they had seen, even revealing either their first or last names.
<List of informants>
Seo Seok-Hoon (same class in the 1st year), Lee OO (same class in the 1st year), Shin OO (same class in the 1st year), Park OO Park (same class in the 2nd year), H (same class in the 2nd and 3rd year), L (same class in the 2nd and 3rd year), Shin OO (same class in the 3rd year), S1 (same class in the 3rd year), S2 (same class in the 3rd year), Kim OO (same class in the 3rd year), Jo Bu-Hyung (classmate), Lee OO (classmate), Park OO (classmate), Son OO (classmate), Y1 (classmate), Y2 (classmate), J (classmate), H (classmate), Park Tae-Gyu (1st year class teacher), Hong Seong-Man (3rd year class teacher)
① Iljin (a Korean term used for a school bully)
"If being an iljin is used to describe somebody who hangs around with their close friends?... Then you should have no friends in school.”
Classmate Shin said, "How on earth are you supposed to go to school? Everybody hangs with their friends at school so I don’t know why this is a problem. The kids who like to study hang together, the varsity who like sports hang together, school is just hanging with friends who you get along with. That was the case for me and for Joo-Hyuk too.” (Shin)
Informant S1 and Shin who attended Suil High School in 2012 said that the new allegations of school bullying could not be true in any way, and anybody who was at school during these times would know. Classmates H and L, who spent their second and third year in the same class as Nam together, spoke in the same way.
“In school, corporal punishment was severe back then. It was a very strict environment. If there was a major bully or big group or bullies, we would immediately have been punished.” (H and L)
"There was no iljin culture at school. If you tried to create an atmosphere like that, Suil High School was a school that would make the bully look strange. It was to the extent that the alumni asked Nam’s classmates to speak out about the truth and cooperate with the police investigation after seeing accusations from the whistleblower in the news.” (Y1)
Classmates Seo Seok-Hoon and Jo Bu-Hyung even allowed revealing their real names.
"I am only standing up and speaking out because this is the truth. Obviously in school there is a nature of having a group of friends, and if the group was of bullies, everyone would be aware of it. However during my time at school, no such group existed and even if it did, Nam Joo-Hyuk definitely was not a part of it.” (Seo Seok-Hoon)
If so, what kind of a student was Nam Joo-Hyuk?
"Joo-hyuk is not someone to bully. He liked sports. Joo-hyuk laughed even when his friends joked about him. I just want to emphasise that he has a good personality. That's why he was popular amongst friends too.” (Jo Bu-Hyung
"He would always say he was going to be a model and at that time we all laughed at him saying that is nonsense. But he actually did go to a model academy, he loved basketball and slept a lot. The teachers all trusted him because he was a good kid.” (Lee OO)
Nam’s first year class teacher Park Tae-Gyu added an episode.
"Joo-Hyuk was a student who said, “kids, let’s be quiet” when classmates would talk. He was the type of mediator who said, “let’s not fight” when classmates fought. I don’t know what misunderstanding the informant had, but the accusations are not of the Joo-Hyuk I know.”
② Bread shuttle (a Korean term used to describe somebody who is bullied to buy snacks for the bully at the school canteen during break times and any other small errands)
"A bread shuttle?"
Suil High School alumni asked several times, "Is the bread shuttle a real story?"
Classmate H cut it off firmly.
"I think I can firmly say that it is a lie. I was going to post about it on the community page because it was such nonsense.”
Shin added, "I always went to the snack bar with Joo-hyuk to buy bread and snacks.”
Classmate L supported this by saying, “at our time, our classes were divided into boys and girls. The canteen therefore was a place where we could meet other friends in different classes. If Joo-Hyuk was a bully then because of the school atmosphere, the kids would have avoided Joo-Hyuk first."
An eyewitness account from classmate J continued.
"Joo-Hyuk liked to go to the canteen. Although we were in different classes, we met often during recess. Of course, I can't know everything but if you were a bully and you had made somebody your bread shuttle then rumors would quickly circulate. Rather, you would be the one bullied for being a bully at our school.”
Classmate S1 spoke up about possible assumptions.
"I actually think it may be a misunderstanding just blown out of proportion. Like asking a friend who is going to the canteen anyway to buy you something while they are there surely cannot be bullying?”
③ Wrestling
An anonymous informant B, reported to S media, "Nam Joo-Hyuk and his group made a circle in the corner of the classroom.
From this account, classmate L acknowledged the existence of wrestling but denied Nam Joo-Hyuk's participation. “It has absolutely nothing to do with Nam Joo-Hyuk” he nailed. "Honestly, how can you ‘force’ someone to wrestle? How can you force a fight? I don’t remember any of that but just joking with friends at the back of the classroom pretending to be WWE.”
Classmates S1, S2 and Y1 also recalled similar memories.
"Nam was in the liberal arts class and it was on a different floor to the science classes. Sometimes when I went to the liberal arts classes during break time, the kids were playing by wrestling in the back of the classroom.” (Y1)
Classmate Kim thought of 'P' who reappears later in the mobile phone payment case.
"I remember a friend named P having a fight with a friend named 'Lindaman' (a nickname for the classmate because he was 190cm tall) in the back of the classroom. It happened because P kept picking fights with Lindaman.” (Kim OO)
The eyewitness account of classmate H also coincided.
“Whenever I went to Joo-Hyuk’s class during recess, sometimes one or two classmates would be joking around and fighting.” (Classmate H)
④ Mobile payment
"There is well-known story of a classmate who secretly made a mobile payment. The classroom flipped so everybody knows of this incident.”
After asking if Nam Joo-Hyuk was the culprit, all of the classmates pinpointed P, who was mentioned above.
"The teacher got furious during assembly. Someone had stolen the teacher’s phone and secretly made a mobile payment. It was later revealed that it was done by a friend named P. All the kids in my class and year know. It was such a big incident."
"To say that Nam Joo-Hyuk made a secret payment using someone else's phone is just not true. Rather, it was P who stole the teacher's cell phone and was caught.” (Park OO)
"Paying with mobile cash? There is one incident that comes to mind. It's not Nam Joo-Hyuk, but P. P is a classmate who caused some problems in the boys' class. There was a big issue because P made a payment using the teacher's phone." (Son OO)
"The culprit for the mobile payment case is P. It has nothing to do with Nam Joo-Hyuk and to make Nam the culprit of such a well-known case in school is malicious and has bad intentions." (H)
"Everybody knows about the cell phone payment case. Why would someone say Nam Joo-Hyuk did this when everyone knows it was P. P was a bad kid, and was in the same class as Nam Joo-Hyuk in the first year. P was the one to pick fights with Nam saying rude things like “eat this you jerk with daddy long legs” so if anything Nam was bullied by P.” (Lee OO)
In addition, Suil High School had a system for submitting cell phones before class. This is the story from Park Tae-Gyu, a first grade class teacher.
"Ten years ago, the school had rules for students to hand in cell phones in the morning before class. At that time, if you did not hand in your phone, you would be told off. Unless a student had two cell phones which is in the unknown, no student would risk keeping their phones because the school environment was very firm and strict.
L added a testimony which backs up the story of forced use of 'hotspots' and mobile data.
"If you get caught using your cell phone, it would be confiscated for a week. You hand your mobile phone in every morning, how can you use hotspot? Or maybe somebody wants to make up that only the informant and Joo-Hyuk didn't hand in their phones? This is nonsense! The teachers were fair and for the students it was a school where getting caught was a big problem." (L)
"I want to ask why you would lie like this. If you talk about things that don’t exist as if they are true then how are you supposed to go against them and prove it? The public are exposed to media and many believe unconfirmed lies as the truth... It is really unfair." (Kim OO)
⑤ Mechanical pencil lead, and cutting the line
Again, to summarize the original argument, reporter A claimed to have been bullied for 6 years, then he allegedly changed it to 3 years. He said, "Nam threw pencil lead at me from the back seat” but then corrected it again, saying, "the lead was thrown by another group."
Regarding the issues above of 'iljin', 'bread shuttle', 'wrestling' and 'mobile payment' claimed by informant B, we were able to hear counter-testimonies in ①, ②, ③, and ④. If so, the last remaining case of bullying is 'cutting the line' for the lunch queue.
Alumni Park OO said, "Since we were in an all boys’ class, we often fought to eat quickly. At that time, there was no separate eating area for lunch so we all ate in the classroom. If you were first in the line, it meant you could eat first so there was a lot of competition.”
"Skipping the lunch queue? I would say it’s ambiguous. It was important for the boys to eat quickly and more so when there was a silly competition for the day.” (S2)
If informant A was hurt by what happened during lunch, it would be right to apologize. Naturally, his feelings are more important than what Nam Joo-Hyuk's intentions were at the time.
The problem is that we have no idea who informant A is. The first media outlets are silent about A, so it is highly likely that the two will meet for the first time at the police station for further investigation.
⑥ In summary
Dispatch met 18 alumni from Suil High School, as well as 2 class teachers. They all agreed by saying “there was no such thing" about the reported allegations. Of course, this is also just a counter-testimony and one could say that supposed claims from 20 people cannot be solid evidence either.
Lastly, to add to the article, Dispatch managed to reach out to the class teachers from the 1st year and 3rd year for Nam Joo-Hyuk. Unfortunately, the 2nd year teacher has retired so it was not possible to hear their testimony.
"I can risk my teaching career to speak up about this issue. When Nam Joo-Hyuk was a student at our school, there was still the existence of corporal punishment meaning even female teachers carried rods. Parents made rods for the teachers to carry around so that their children could be educated properly in school. Therefore, bullying could not have happened in any way.” Park Tae-Gyu specifically requested for his words to be “included in the article.”
Mr. Park added, “I saw a comment saying that this was just world play, making an innocent kid the culprit. I really empathized with this comment, which made me want to speak up because Nam Joo-Hyuk truly was a positive and enterprising child. He also had a sense of justice. He was not the type to bully. Please use my testimonies as much as you like.” (Park Tae-Gyu)
Hong Seong-Man, the 3rd grade class teacher, had a similar memory of Nam Joo-Hyuk as a student.
"Nam Joo-Hyuk was a kind kid, humble but pro-active who got along well with peers. I remember him as one of the sweetest male students I taught. Although he didn’t study hard, he was a student who gained a lot of trust and praise for his positive character and good personality.”
Mr. Hong warned, "do not judge a person's life based on a one-sided story. It is right to take responsibility for what happened, but it is wrong to bury a person with false facts." (Hong Seong-Man)
And as of today, this is all there is that has been cross-checked for Nam Joo-Hyuk.
