Korean Job Discussion Forums

[blue.sky]

I was reminded recently of this incident which happened at a high school I worked at during my last time in Korea. I've learned a lot about apparent strange cultural behaviours and illogical management decisions and accepted them within the local cultural context, but I could never work this one out.

I went into one of my classes and collected whatever few scraps of copied homework I could scavenge. I noticed that one of my brighter students who always made the effort with homework hadn't handed any in. Noticing he wasn't in class, i asked the class captain where he was.

"he die"

I thought this was a joke but nobody was laughing. It turned out he had collapsed after sports day and died later of some form of heart failure from a medical condition unknown to his folks or the school. I don't remember seeing or hearing anything about this situation that day and I was fully involved in the activities. This occurred the week before the above class.

The first time I find out that a student has quit/joined the high school is when there is a missing/new body in class - I can accept not being informed. I thought I might have been told that one of my students (whom I had taught for nearly 2 years at that point) had collapsed and died during school. None of the Korean teachers would discuss it and some just gave an embarrassed grin and waved their hands on the air. I was just told to put a red line though his name on my class register. The principal wouldn't let me go to the funeral, and I later heard that none of the teachers went either. It was like some weird cover-up.

The following week or so, an ex-teacher died (he was pushing 100, i think) and lessons were canceled for a day (just before exams) in exchange for a mammoth white-glove ceremony in the school hall. There was no mention of this student here either.

I'm not bashing, just trying to work out the cultural motivations here. Death seems a bigger "rite of passage" here than in many other countries, yet a young person's death was forgotten and brushed under the carpet ASAP. My gf suggested that because he died at school, they may be worried about being sued or something. I can testify to illogical reasoning in the justice system after having experience with the bizarre decisions of courts involving traffic accidents and blood money payments from prisoners' families. In light of this, I still don't understand the school's or staff/student apathy towards the event.

Can anyone shed any light on this situation? A kid died in a neighbouring school delivering pizzas and I heard about a similar (lack of) response there.

[bluelake]

A similar thing happened to me many, many years ago (back in the mid-90s). I came into a university class one day to find the front-center desk empty. I asked the students what happened and my students said pretty much the same that yours did. However, they explained a little further. The student was from Jeju and he was riding his motorcycle either to or from school and was hit and killed by a car no more than 100 meters from the school's gate (ironically, in front of the university hospital). His family had to come to the mainland to collect his body. For months, a reminder was at the place he was killed: a dark spot on the road circled with white paint. It was really very sad. He was a nice kid.

[fermentation]

I'm just taking a stab in the dark, but perhaps there's a possibility that it was the school's responsibility. Like there were these two kids at some middle school a few years back who died because their PE teacher pushed them to run and refused to let them rest or drink water.

I don't know why they would be so apathetic otherwise. When a kid in my middle school died, I remember having at least a moment of silence before class. But what do I know.

[Whitey Otez]

Way back in high school, the girl that sat beside me in algebra died. She was gone a week before I asked about her and one of her distant friends said she died. Since she wasn't an athlete or part of the clique, they just shrugged her off as a bulimic with a weak heart. Two years later, my school finally got around to writing her obit as a warning on eating disorders.

You might hear some folks say that a youngster cut down before his prime is such a sad affair that Koreans don't know how to express their emotions over it, but inside they're all crying. The old man was so senior that they had to pay homage.

[blue.sky]

[poeticjustice]

[UknowsI]

There seems to be suicides at my uni fairly often, but I never hear anything official about it, just rumours from other students. I guess there might be some official statement in Korean which I don't understand, but from the lack of knowledge from the Koreans it doesn't really seem like it.

[ewok]

at my uni, a bunch of students from my department went on a summer trip to mexico. while there, one guy drowned. Not a word was mentioned to me, and when they returned, nothing was said either. When I asked about details from the dept. secretary she said his family had taken care of his body, and nothing else... I never heard about him again.

[schwa]

A girl in my middleschool jumped to her death in july. 1st-year student, nice kid, a bit bookish but not unpopular. Just out of the blue.

I dont know how you could suppress news like that -- the whole school knew first thing the next morning. Somber mood for sure. Her classmates were inconsolable & counselling was available. Her class of course was excused from lessons.

All the teachers (including the foreign teachers) were required to attend the funeral that afternoon to pay their respects, along with her homeroom class & any other students who knew her. It was heart-wrenching. Once one wail went up it was a roomful of girls all crying their hearts out. Cathartic, I think.

The next day they were still emotionally shaky. A hearse (actually a bus) brought her to the school & slowly circled the playing field before heading off to the crematorium.

By the end of the week things were getting back to normal. All in all I thought the whole deal was handled with suitable sensitivity.

[asams]

I think there's two possibilities here:

1. The death of a young person is so painful that instead of letting it cripple a community for a week (such as what happened when one of my friends and her mother were shot to death by her estranged ex-husband) Koreans instead choose to sweep it under the rug. I believe this is also something that leads to the amount of depression-induced suicide (the lack of proper mourning).

2. Koreans just don't have much respect for those outside of their family and thus the death of a young person is just that, the death of a young person and not a family member that they should be grieving over.

[thoreau]

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[benji]

A few years ago a friend started work at a private elementary school in eastern Seoul. On her first day there were cops all over the school. A young girl was kidnapped and being held for ransom. It seems that her father got into some shady business dealings with gangsters and he didnt pay up. The little girl got got. Dad didnt pay up. The school treated her great the whole year because she had to witness this debacle right at the beginning of her new job.

[bluelake]

While my wife and I were out for a stroll tonight, I told her the OP's story and asked for her opinion. She was very strong in her response (and she was also depressed the rest of our stroll--I'll never do that one again ). She said the most likely reason being is that the family holds the school responsible and that a faculty or admin showing up would be most unwelcome. Likewise, the school admin probably feel responsible. Also, she pointed out that, unless it was someone very close who died, it would be unusual for a stranger to show up.

[hugekebab]

But that doesn't make sense, I thought the teacher-student relationship in Korea was deemed as pretty important. To say that a teacher of two years is a 'stranger' seems a bit odd.

It probably was because of a legal dispute or the school being worried about being sued or prosecuted, it's the only explanation that really makes sense. It's totally appropriate for the teacher of a student to go to his/her funeral.

[KOREAN_MAN]

School principals here would do almost anything to cover up any incident that might happen in their schools, whether it's the school to blame or not. They also try to shut everybody up (teachers, students, etc.) as much as they can. They claim that they're just trying to save the school's reputation from being ruined. That's the first priority for them.

In the movie, 여고괴담, a teacher hangs herself (supposedly) in school. A few students witness the scene and later they are told by a teacher that it should be kept a secret or they'll be responsible for it. All the teachers don't talk about it as it never happened. Trust me. Things like this also piss off a lot of Koreans.