Foreign celebrity guests from JTBC‘s Non-Summit have been busted for visa violations. It has been revealed that Tyler Rasch and Zhang Yuan both did not have the right visa needed in order to participate in the recording of the show.Non-Summit is a variety show that debuted this July on JTBC. It features a panel of 11 non-Korean men living in Korea and debating various topics surrounding Korean culture. This Tuesday, October 21st, it was revealed that two of those men had been working on the show without having the required visa.
In Korea, in order to work in the fields of culture and entertainment you need to have an E-6 visa. Twenty-six year old Tyler Rasch, who is doing a master’s degree at Seoul National University, had a D-2 student visa while thirty year old Zhang Yuan had an E-2 visa which is issued for foreign language teachers.
According to sources, JTBC was aware of the visa statuses of both Tyler and Zhang but hired them anyway to shoot the pilot episode, before it was picked up for regular programming. The director of Non-Summit, Kim Hee Jung, has stated that they appeared on the first episodes without approval from the ministry because it was a pilot program and that they later on had sought the ministry’s approval. However she also stated that they will do their best to prevent future occurrences of such events.
The ministry had granted them conditional approval only for the show, but when Zhang was seen promoting China’s Tsingtao beer in Seoul, it seemed as if the ministry’s regulations were violated if he was paid for doing so. Tyler and Zhang were caught earlier in August, Tyler having to pay a 500,000 won fine while Zhang was spared from having to pay any fine.
Source: Korea Times
