Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Smithington]

I'm currently teaching at an elementary school. I've just come from my classroom. I went to move a fan to the front of the room. I went over to it, bent down to unplug the fan from the power cable and got the most powerful electric shock of my life. I yelled out louder than I've ever yelled in my life. They must have heard me across town. The shock was so powerful that forty minutes later my hand is still semi-numb. This is at a public school. After I recovered from my shock I became angry. What if I had asked one of my students to unplug the fan? I'm a large man, and the shock hit me hard. What if instead of me one of my students had taken the hit? What if the child had a heart condition.

Every day I find some child safety issue that really bothers me. From parents teaching their childen unsafe road-crossing habits, failing to put children in safety seats, motorcycles on the sidewalk, people flying through red lights in front of my public school, jagged shards of concrete jagging out through the sand in children's playgrounds,...even friggin barbed wire wrapped around the fence at children's playgrounds.

This country has absolutely no child safety culture and it's pissing me off.

But of course we are the threat to their children's safety.

[jvalmer]

How old are you?
Can't expect a country to change it's habits in a few years. It takes a generation. Go back to the 80's in Canada and you'd be shocked at how unsafe things were. Wearing seat-belts were optional until the late 80's in my province. And 16 year-old kids were legally allowed to buy cigarettes until the early 90's where I grew up.

[ttompatz]

Sounds like you need a quick vacation on the streets of Manila or Deli.
Korea is a children's paradise by comparison.

Is it bad = yes.
Is it improving = yes, albeit slowly.
Is it better than it was = yes.
Is it the Litigious States of America = no.
Will it ever be = probably not (thank Ghod).

You had a bad electric cord so obviously you removed and disposed of it so that someone else won't get hurt in future?

.

[crescent]

[djmarcus]

I think what's happening here is that S.Korea has developed so quickly over the years as far as technology that we assume other things should have developed along as well, i.e. laws, environmental concerns, dangling high-voltage wires, etc. I think Korea is trying its best to tackle issues, but there are so many to deal with. What should be priority. Not sure. But at least as I look around, there are things changing to make things better.

One example, not sure if this is along the same lines as what the OP was saying, but I recently noticed that the Bundang Sinsaegae Department store created a net to prevent people, especially small children from falling to their death. I think we all imagined that senario while gazing down at the 9 floors wondering if some kid accidentally made it through the little spaces of the guard rails. So I think it's great that this kind of mentality about safety exists on a big scale. I'm sure that over time, all other issues will get resolved eventually.

[fermentation]

Next time you should get a student to do the unplugging for you. That'll teach the school.

Last year I saw a kid on a bike get thrown in the air after getting hit by a car. The kid got up and didn't have any visible injuries so the driver drove off. The kid did call his parents on his phone so I bet something got settled. Still, it was funny seeing the driver just drive off after hitting a person.

[Savant]

Why is development being linked to common sense?

A lot of Korean parents lack common sense or lack the will to instruct their child about dangers or right and wrong.

Time and time again, you see Korean parents who don't have their eyes on their child or could care less what that child is doing.

Young children who are allowed to walk ahead/behind of the parent(s) unaccompanied; children who run about in supermarkets and restaurants; parents who cross the roads, bike paths in Yeouido and other river parks and just expect their little one to blindly follow them behind.

It's parents who don't realize the dangers and hazards of these situations and yet do nothing to change their behavior to protect their child.

[yodanole]

Litigation isn't really an important issue compared to the safety of the children, albeit comparing litigation in the US and Korea, Korea wins this fight like Bambi vs Godzilla, if only for the fact that Korea licenses so few lawyers. They don't wan't to waste their time on frivolity.

But there is a limit to how much you can or should protect children. People fret over the amount of unsupervised time Korean children have. I used to tell mom I'm going out to play and 16 hours later I probably would come home. And she knew I wasn't going to a school or a hogwan. And after I was 8, i almost always had a gun, especially if I was going out into the river or swamp. Kids are mostly smarter than we give them credit for, and PC is out of control.

Of course I agree that the most obvious precautions should be taken, but my director thinks that it is too dangerous to have floor setting fans in the classroom.

quote="ttompatz"]Sounds like you need a quick vacation on the streets of Manila or Deli.
Korea is a children's paradise by comparison.

Is it bad = yes.
Is it improving = yes, albeit slowly.
Is it better than it was = yes.
Is it the Litigious States of America = no.
Will it ever be = probably not (thank Ghod).

You had a bad electric cord so obviously you removed and disposed of it so that someone else won't get hurt in future?

.[/quote]

[goreality]

Korea is a global leader in beach and swimming pool safety.

[Steelrails]

They got some things right and some things wrong. On the one hand the sidewalks by my school are all padded and there's other eyes towards safety. On the other hand I've seen designs that would be a good way to catch live game but instead are right next to running children.

I think Koreans view things the same way other parents do when it comes to sports. Koreans are kind of worryworts when it comes to sports injuries, but they let the children run wild so they aren't scared and whatnot. American parents let kids play sports where the object is to run into someone at whatever angle brings them down, but some keep their kids under FBI-level surveillance.

Personally I subscribe to Justin Halpern's Dad's view when it comes to kid safety and supervision "There's chips in the cabinet... Stay away from knives and fire. Okay, I've done my part. I'm going to bed."

[JustinC]

Korea is actually taking a different (and often pragmatic) approach to child safety. A couple of examples;

Child car seats are not proven to save enough lives to justify making them mandatory. As long as kids are belted up and not on a lap in the front seat they stand almost an equal chance of surviving a crash as if a $200 seat.
Swimming pools kill 1 in 10,000 children (guns 1 in a million), some rough concrete will graze your knee and teach you about taking control of your actions (as will barbed wire unless you're extremely unlucky).

Those people flying through red lights are irresponsible but so are the nanny-state, super-concious, paranoid parents who drive their kids everywhere and wrap them in cotton wool. How will they ever learn about personal responsibility and taking risks when the most risky action they will take is choosing rock, paper or scissors?

goreality is spot on; I was at a water park on Saturday and you had to wear a life jacket to use the 'rapid river' (which wasn't rapid and was only 1m deep), even if you're a 6 foot plus adult !

I'm not taking away anything from the shocking (phnar phnar) experience you had today though, Smithington, but haven't you been accidentally electrocuted before? It happens pretty often in my experience and is just another thing life throws at you. The skin's resistance is about 5,000 to 15,000 ohms. If you get a shock from static electricity, the voltage involved can be in the millions of Volts range (mega-Volts), but the momentary current is millionths of Amperes (micro-Amps). Makes you jump, but that�s all. Unless you get shocked whilst standing in a puddle in bare feet and don't release your grip immediately you should be OK from it.

[crescent]

[comm]

[noobteacher]

[Adventurer]