Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

Arbor Day Won't Be a Holiday Next Year
Starting next year, Arbor Day (April 5) will be excluded from the list of legal holidays. Constitution Day (July 17) is also expected to be removed from the list in 2008 when the five-day workweek will be applied to all businesses with at least 20 employees.

The government will decrease the amount of parental bereavement leave it gives from seven days to five days, and cutting the amount of child bereavement leave from three days to two days. Also, the five-day holiday for death of one's great-grand parents and grand parents on both the father and mother��s sides will be abolished.

In addition, special holidays for female workers will be changed to unpaid holidays, while maternity leave (90 days), holidays for marriage (seven days) and holidays for pregnancy tests (one day) will remain unchanged.
by Yong-Gwan Jung, Donga.com (March 2, 2005)
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2005030303038

[tzechuk]

Holiday for pregnancy tests?????? Oh wow.... I didn't know that! I should've asked for a lot of holidays last year then !!!

[Swiss James]

wtf? You pee on a stick and look at the colour- I know girls have to sit down to do that, but it still can't be a full day's work.

[Howard Roark]

Child bereavement, 2 days?!! I don't think most people would be ready to go back to work two days after their kid died.

It doesn't make any sense! You get a whole week to get married, a whopping 5 days if your parent dies, even one whole day to take a pregnancy test! But if your child dies, probably the most awful thing that could happen to you, you better be back at your desk in 2 days.

Where is the logic?

[Swiss James]

I guess these rules are going back a while- child mortality rates must have been grim back in the day, hence all the hoo-haa about a child's 100 day anniversary. Isn't there some kind of official mourning period for the death of a parent where (at least) the eldest son must be present for the whole time?

That pregnancy test thing still burns me though, did Emilia Pankhurst die for nothing?

[peemil]

If your boss wouldn't give you at least a good few weeks off after losing your kid, he's not a human and not worth working for.

[Real Reality]

peemil wrote,
"at least a good few weeks off after losing your kid"

Do you think this would happen for a foreigner?

[peemil]

A snowflakes chance in hell for a foreigner.

[Real Reality]

peemil,
You are too optimistic.

[just because]

I was thought it was a bit of a fairy holiday to have one for trees.

I remember my first year here...you know how there is a holiday or two every month for the 6 months.

I found out that we had a tree day...I thought to myself, this place is awesome

[Real Reality]

just because wrote,
"I found out that we had a tree day...I thought to myself, this place is awesome "

So, if the holidays are eliminated, does this mean "this place" is not awesome? Is "this place" getting worse or better?

[jaykimf]

[just because]

[iiicalypso]

What would be really nice would be if they actually planted more trees. I was talking to one of my classes about Arbor Day, and a few of them said that they actually planted trees, or at least some kind of plant. Would it really be so terrible if we were to demolish every one hundreth five story building housing a convenience store, a PC room, doctor's office and hagwon and replaced it with a park?

[just because]

50 years ago all the mountains that you see around us were stripped bare of trees from the Korean war.

I can assure you there are a lot more trees now, than what there were before.

Maybe the government doesn't feel the need to plant anymore trees.