Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gollum]

For those of you who are working in a public/private school, I want to warn you to be careful with these events. At least 12 of our students were injured today, and I counted 3 ambulances.

In case you don't know what it is: "School Attack," is a KTF-sponsored event where they bring pop artists to the school to "surprise" students and play a concert.

Our girls -- at least 900 of them -- were called to the gym in the afternoon. They were spread out across the gym on the floor, and were told they would be watching an "elocution" show of some sort. They had some people performing Tae Kwon Do or something like that, as a kind of diversion, and suddenly banners dropped and a singer named MC something or other jumps in. Explosions sound. Boom cameras were hidden around the corner, and the all popped out. Lights started flashing.

Students rushed the stage -- the length of the gymnasium, screaming. Several students were trampled and had to be carried and/or rushed out. Girls were crying all over. It was a mess. The concert was paused for several minutes until order was restored. The teachers were shocked, as were many of the students, at the result.

Our administration wanted to do something nice for the students, and our girls really love this sort of thing. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone was prepared for what would happen when 900 first and second grade girls rushed the stage. The "school attack" group had maybe 10 bouncer-types there in suits, but it wasn't enough. Not by a longshot.

We had to set up two rooms to hold all of the injured students until the ambulances arrived. Some fainted. Some had scratched knees and hands. One girl was in a neck brace. One student, who has heart/breathing issues, was carried out on a stretcher. At least two other students were carried to ambulances in shock. We had a whole room full of girls crying.

I seriously hope our administration raises holy heck with KTF or whomever puts this thing on and does crowd control. In my mind, this was one huge accident waiting to happen, and I am amazed that similar problems have not been experienced elsewhere. Had they known this would happen, I am quite certain that our school administration would have had nothing to do with this event. I feel deeply sorry for our administration and teachers here. I saw a lot of long faces. I know in their heart that they just wanted to make the girls happy.

A sad day here. Even worse when you can't speak enough of the language to know what's going on, or how to help.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I saw one of these things on TV - what a bloody stupid idea. I'll be sure to warn the staff of the high school I'm going to if they ever plan one of these - the school doesn't have a proper gymnasium so hopefully it won't get 'attacked'.

[Gollum]

The other one I've seen on TV was held outside on a flatbed truck. Perhaps they moved it indoors today, because of the rain. I don't know.

[fidel]

Yeah, I watched it on TV before and have marveled about how dangerous it looked. A nice idea which could work but it needs major crowd control, with the muso's in an elevated position so that there is no need to rush the stage.

Good opportunity to sue!

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Really sorry to hear about that at your school. The TV programme I remember seeing seemed to be showing a series of these events as if to see how much disorder they could suddenly unleash within a usually tightly controlled environment.

[PolyChronic Time Girl]

This thing happened at my high school last year. I worked at an all-boys high school, and this really cute, popular singer, Maya, came. I was in the stadium too sitting in the front row (this was in a stadium with rows of chairs, not an empty gym). I remember not know what was going on when she came out and the boys stampeded their way, jumping over chairs. I was freaked out since I was in their path as well. Some boys tripped over chairs and violently pushed others to get to the front. And what's funny is that there were no body guards and the teachers can't do crowd control. Just about 800 testosteron-driven high school boys (who rarely see girls) run like bloody-hell to see the scantily-clad singer on stage. I mean, at least have body guards all around..this thing can be very dangerous.

[JongnoGuru]

Sometimes they just don't have a clue about the consequences of these sorts of things. The kids may be too young to understand, but you'd think anyone over age 15 would anticipate the results. Particularly if everyone's seen it on TV already.

It reminds me of when I shared an apartment in Gangnam with another waegookin, and we were hounded by kids on bicycles every single time we left the apartment. It got so bad and so predictable that we would time our excursions to the supermarket in the complex & other errands around the kids' school day! ("lol" now, but I recall it was pretty unbearable at the time)

One day we went outside with a frisbee (I'm still looking for that box, JackTheCat) and the little hellians spy us and they all converge for another harrassment raid. Well, we're all smiley and friendly with them this time, and we tell them we're going to hold a bicycle race, with candy for prizes.

There were some small kids on tricycles, bigger kids on bikes with trainer wheels, and the oldest boys on regular two-wheelers. We'd throw the frisbee way down to the other end of the car park and yell "GO!" -- the kid who got it and brought it back to us was the "winner".

You can pretty much guess the outcome. The first couple "races" weren't so interesting, as the oldest boys were fastest on their bikes. So we decided to stagger the starts -- smallest kids went in the first wave, then the bigger boys -- to make it fairer and to ensure they'd all reach the frisbee at around the same time.

Oh god... screeching brakes, screaming kids, the sound of metal and small bodies crunching into each other. There was one kid who was just bending down to pick up the frisbee when his friend crashed into him and ran over his arm. At one point they dropped their bikes, said screw the frisbee, and just start slugging each other.

Some mothers came running out, trying to figure out what happened, and their kids would be whooping each other's arse, crying, limping... And there was no way they could pin it on us! Us??!! Two kind-hearted foreigners?? We were taking time out of our busy schedules to play with these kids! Hell, we were making fun games, doling out prizes and all that.

EDIT: Lest anyone misunderstand, I do not wish to make light of what's happened to the children at Gollum's school.

[Gollum]

Well, the final tally is 18 students sent away to the hospital. Several teachers are looking stressed and trying to contact parents, I think.


Apparently MTV is in on this event as well.

[rumpolestitskin]

[Ya-ta Boy]

This is even more surprising because foreign bands were barred from having concerts for several years following a stage-rushing mess at a Michael Jackson concert way back when. If I can remember this, why can't they?

[Gollum]

Here are some pics from the event. They aren't shocking or anything, because during those times, I was helping to calm and move students around, etc. I heard it was on YTN news tonight, but they didn't mention our school name. Only our location.


BTW, the singer was MC Mong?? I had never heard of him.


Some happy girls enjoying snacks and waiting to go to the "elocution" event.



Students walking to the gym, out in the rain, with plastic bags over their heads. The event was held inside because of the rain.



Our students patiently waiting for the "elocution" display


Same thing, different angle


More students closer-up. You can imagine the mess as they fought to get to the stage, and scrambled over the top of students still sitting down.


Really hard to see anything at all, but these are teachers helping students who are on seats and on the floor in one of the rooms where injured/shocked students were rushed


One of the three ambulances that came to pick up students


You can about guess how far they jumped up and ran to reach the stage -- causing the havoc.


Students pick through table full of dirty socks. I think they were found all along the floor... several students must have lost them when they rushed the stage or something.


Another sock pic for the poster named, "Livinginkorea" hahah

[livinginkorea]

That's horrible but thank god that the picture with the socks is blurred!! Yuck!! What sort of injuries did the students have? Did anybody break anything? What a mess.

[Gollum]

[livinginkorea]

Sorry Gollum but I'm a little confused. Who's idea was it? The management or KTF or both? I'm sure that they have sore ears from the parents calling them!! It'll be a long time before they try that again!

[Gollum]

This is a reocurring event held by MTV and sponsored by KTF/Anycall.

They do this event at different schools and make music videos out of it, etc.

Students all know what "School Attack" is, and they anticipated this might be it. Rumor is that some students were told ahead of time by a teacher, and were ready to rush the stage as soon as the event revealed itself. They were probably already on top of the students in front of them before everyone else realized what was going on.

Some students wanted to blame the teacher for letting the cat out of the bag and causing the mess, but in my eyes, if problems arose, the full responsibility lies with the planners of the event (MTV and KTF).

If you plan something like this, you need to have more control over it and be prepared. I think they tried to be, but had no idea. They learned some things today, and certainly will be more careful next time. The MTV folks said they never had a problem like this at a school before, which I am amazed by, but maybe it had something to do with all of the girls beign inside the gym from the start.

If something like this happened back home, heads would roll and lawsuits would not be unlikely (people back home in the US sue for too much these days, but geesh).

Anyway, it sounds like none of the injuries were serious or life-threatening. Hopefully we can all just forget about it and move on over here. I'll hear more tomorrow. I sure hated seeing so many nice co-workers with long faces all day. They really love/treat the girls pretty well here, so it was very hard for many teachers.