Korean Job Discussion Forums

dulouz · Joined: 04 Feb 2003 Location: Uranus

The abortion analogy fails. It is not the same.

flakfizer · Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2005 9:53 pm Post subject:

Here is my take on this whole thing. Some people won't forgive you if you hurt them badly enough and some people won't forgive you if you help them too much. A proud person is resentful of the fact that they needed and received help and that resentment if often directed at the helper. As Koreans seems to possess an overweening national pride, they often resent those who helped them most. I have seen this in some Koreans' attitudes toward the US (Don't misunderstand, Koreans have every right to complain about many things regarding the US and they have every right to tell them it's time for them to leave. But some go so far as to claim that they never really needed the help of the US and other allies and claim that life here would have been better without their help. Or, as in the case of that bitter adoptee, they may admit that their lives would have been more difficult without the help they received, but they still resent the fact that they received help.) I also saw this during the "IMF crisis" which should have been called, "Cronyism Crisis" or "Chaebol Crisis" or "Massive Corruption Crisis" or "Bad Debt Crisis" or a host of other names but not "IMF Crisis."
Of course, there are many Koreans who are grateful just as there are many Korean adoptees who are grateful. But I think that because Korea has such a strong nationalistic (and ethnic) pride, it seems to produce a lot of people with the sort of pride exhibited here-the kind of pride that denies it ever received outside help or admits it, but resents it.

flakfizer · Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2005 10:00 pm Post subject:

dulouz · Joined: 04 Feb 2003 Location: Uranus

No, the analogy fails. Abortion is a serious life long psycological and physical matter. Not picking one baby out of an adoption catalog is nowhere near as serious.

flakfizer · Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2005 1:41 am Post subject:

dulouz · Joined: 04 Feb 2003 Location: Uranus

joe_doufu · Joined: 09 May 2005 Location: Elsewhere

Bulsajo · Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Angelina Jolie-

Great philanthropist or keeper of trophy-children?
Both?

flakfizer · Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2005 8:11 am Post subject:

On the other hand · Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Location: I walk along the avenue

On the other hand · Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Location: I walk along the avenue

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

I did some volunteer work in a Korean orphanage for a couple of months. My experience is limited to that one orphanage so I won't make any generalizations.

The place was run by a church and the facilities were quite good. Clean, bright, and not very institutional-looking. Each kid had a roommate. I don't know if there was government funding in addition to the church funding. There were about 25 kids and 6 or 7 adults who worked there. The two oldest kids were going to college.

All in all, it was not nearly as bad as I had been led to expect. I've heard the bias stories about kids in school not liking orphans because they must be 'bad' because no parent is there to teach them. It isn't good to marry an orphan because they don't have a 'good' family.

Anyway, this one place was a reasonable place to grow up, from what I could see.

Given that, I still think I would prefer to grow up in a family as an adopted kid. I have a friend who is an orphan and grew up in a Russian orphanage. He says the other kids are his family. Now that he's grown he spends time contributing his skill (dentistry) to the kids and doing fund-raising. He also says that he wishes he knew what it was like to have a 'real' family.

jinglejangle · Joined: 19 Feb 2005 Location: Far far far away.

jinglejangle · Joined: 19 Feb 2005 Location: Far far far away.

Ya-Ta, that's good to hear. Maybe the one I went to was a bad case.
Hope so.