Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cybermutiny]

One of the things that kind of disturbed me when I first started teaching English in Korea is how young students (even kindergarten kids) talk about death like it's a laughing matter. For example, while taking attendance in the morning, if a student was absent I would often ask "Why is Andy absent today? Is he sick?" To which Korean students 9 times out of 10 would yell "Andy died! Hahaha". I also had a particularly argumentative class where students would often tell each other to "go die" so casually that it barely seemed offensive anymore.

I had a 7-year old student (western age) who took particular glee in drawing me dying in various ways. I thought the drawings were interesting so I've posted some of them.

Still, when I think back to my own childhood I rarely remember such grave insults being thrown around so whimsically. Has anyone else experienced this in their classes?

[Caffeinated]

Blame Korean dramas.

[highstreet]

Wouldn't really call them grave insults. They are what 7-10yrs old? They are probably just translating it literally from the Korean phrase. The Korean for "die" is used jokingly or seriously in Korean.

[nathanrutledge]

Maybe they just hate you.

Seriously, it's the culture. Great movie - Peppermint Candy - about a guy who kills himself, and before it happens he remembers his life in reverse chronological order, and you can see how society here destroyed his humanity. Really great movie.

Anyway, society here is not outwardly violent, but if you compare the kids here to the adults here, there is a noticeable difference in spirit. As such, the kids here are raised in households that are vastly different from where we grew up. People our parents age grew up during or shortly after the war, grandparents fought the war, younger parents and older siblings grew up under the military dictatorship, and then the military quasi-dictatorships, etc...

The value placed on life here is based on a completely different set of shared experiences and values. Nothing you can do about it.

[alistaircandlin]

[nathanrutledge]

I'm not saying that they place a higher or lower value on their children, but a different value. The whole society here has different values.

For example, the whole debate recently about trauma hospitals. They create trauma hospitals before because they would be too expensive. 30% of critical patients were dying, whereas 5% die in the west because society here didn't want to spend the money on trauma centers.

Ambulances that get stuck in traffic because people don't move out of the way.

Patients who don't get the care they need because the fire department argues with the doctors over the use of helicopters.

One of my students brought a pit viper to school. A venomous snake. It bit another student and they all went to the hospital. The reaction? Don't bring your deadly snake to school please. No suspension, no expulsion, nothing.

I'm not saying that people here don't care about human life - I'm not saying that at all. But I AM saying that the way people value it here is different than it is back home. If a student back home drew pictures of killing someone or hurting someone, it would not be tolerated. But here, it's par for the course.

[thegadfly]

I draw myself dying as an example all the time. Biotic matter? Dead Mr. thedgadfly. Humus? Dead Mr. thegadfly buried under the ground. Detritus? Dead Mr. thegadfly falling out of a tree. (Yeah, I teach science...).

If they care enough about you to draw you, then they actually care about you -- better than apathy, eh?

[jvalmer]

[nathanrutledge]

[jvalmer]

[samd]

[fermentation]

This is one thing I chalk up as cultural difference. It's just how people talk here. Just like there are more insults involving penises and sex in English, Koreans like to use death more. Sure language is influenced by history and social environment, and sure Koreans seem a tad bit more gloomy and suicidal than some westerners but I don't think (in this case) its a big deal.

[DorkothyParker]

I constantly threaten to murder my kids. I always say I will throw them out the window.
Not the older kids, though. I tell them, "Boom, boom. HEADSHOT!"

[cybermutiny]

Sure, perhaps I'm overthinking the kids' art. Just some small cultural difference, eh?

Well two months into my time in South Korea, a friend and I were on our lunch break and we saw a young teenage girl -- crossing the street and not looking where she was going -- get hit by a car and her body travel over 15 ft. Despite being within sight of probably more than 100 people, we were the first two people on the scene and were trying to call emergency numbers immediately. Meanwhile, few Koreans actually came over to try to assist in any way, did not try to call emergency numbers, etc (I at least tried to stand in front of the girl's body so incoming cars would slow down). One old woman put a parasol over the girl's body...that's basically it. The girl meanwhile lay motionless for 10 minutes when an ambulance finally came (even though the nearest hospital was only 5 minutes walk away). The EMTs walked out casually and seemed to have to sense of urgency, and clumsily hoisted the girl onto a stretcher. Meanwhile a group of onlooking teenage girls starting laughing uncontrollably at the scene. Me and my buddy were very pissed off about that. The whole time this was going on, the woman who hit the girl just sat in her car with no emotion on her face.

I've seen people in accidents in the West and the reaction is usually much more compassionate.

[minos]

Do you want to die? is a common expression. Some words have different meaning here.

Crazy is a casual word back home, but a serious curse word that can start fights in Korean. Hence why kids love using it in English class.