Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Kain067]

I have my higher level Hakwan students keep an Engrish diary which I correct and comment on twice weekly.

Recently, one of the nicest, smartest, and just generally best-behaved female 6th grade students writes this journal entry (all [sic]'s intact): "Teacher, do you know Korean? Do you know eat dogs? Eat dogs is wellbing and delicious. Teacher, do you know Japanise? All Japanise is very very very x1000000 bad and very x1000000 immoral and very x1000000 evil." Followed by a nice illustration of two Hamboked Korean women smiling downwards nicely with a giant, evil-eyed, Japanese Samurai with a bloody sword standing over them.

This made me sick. What kind of country teaches its innocent children the complete and utter hatred of an entire race? This girl is no politician - what she knows has been spewed from (in descending order of likelihood) 1. her parents and/or 2. her teachers/textbooks and/or 3. her friends and/or 4. the media.

So I showed this journal to my Korean coworkers. They all ask what's the problem. I attempt to explain. They say she is right. I say why do teachers brainwash their students to hate a race based on the actions of its grandparents? They say teachers don't brainwash their students. The students freely read their textbooks and (only by coincidence, all of them) come to the fair and balanced conclusion that every baby born to a Japanese mother is evil incarnate. Of course the content of those textbooks is never called into question.

In conversation classes with some of the older students I have brought up the topic of Japan for discussion. I have gently suggested (never preaching) that perhaps at the very least young Japanese are different from the older generations, or at the very leastest not ALL Japanese are the same. I have asked students what they would do if they saw a Japanese person walking down the street their same age (I live outside of Seoul a bit in a rather foreignerless land). 90% of students say they would automatically hate them, and at least one in every class says (admittedly, with a certain level of joking) "Kill!"

Me questioning this journal entry has now officially set me out of the "WooRi" circle and into the "WaeGookin" circle (yeah right, like I could ever have been or ever be in the former), especially in the mind of one rather unbalanced female coworker. She is now literally sending me text messages in the middle of the night saying, in all caps, "NOT DAKISIMA BUT DOK DO!!!" when I try to respond she replies with "I DO NOT WANT TALK WITH A PERSON WHO DOES NOT OUR HISTORY. DO NOT TALK ABOUT IT!" I also suspect she is trying to turn my students against me in her classes, though I am a MUCH more popular teacher than she (currently).

What's with this goddamn country? Why do they all think the SAME? I have agreed with the coworkers that it IS Dokdo, never once saying anything contrary, but look where it's gotten me! I'm feeling up a creek. Any of you currently in / have been in a similar situation? What do I do?

[mithridates]

If you feel like arguing with them you could ask them why ����л� in Vietnam was okay, and why it doesn't appear in their textbooks. Ask them why it is they couldn't care less about what Vietnam thinks and see themselves as weak even though they are the fourth largest economy in Asia.
Show them this article:

http://emerge.joins.com/200002/200002_019.asp

Draw a similar picture with a big Korean guy with a gun and two little Vietnamese children cowering in the corner and ask her how she feels.

That is, if you feel like being confrontational.

Tell the woman that keeps talking about history that if she cares enough she should sit down with you and discuss it for 30 minutes a day until you come to an understanding. Maybe. It's hard to tell from here since I don't know them.

[turtlepi1]

[On the other hand]

[Ya-ta Boy]

I learned very early on in my time in Korea to avoid in class any topic related to Japan. It is not a subject to be discussed dispassionately. Especially not at this time with emotions running so high.

You should know that Koreans feel taking the case to the International Court is a defeat for them. Dokdo is theirs and Japan must surrender its claim. Must. End of story.

You might want to suggest to the office population that Korea's history is several millennium short of five, that kimchi causes cancer, that copying western technology massively funded by other countries does not add up to much of a miracle, on the Han or anywhere else and that you hope they forget to turn off the fan at night this summer.

[Pyongshin Sangja]

[VanIslander]

[Bozo Yoroshiku]

[desultude]

I have a couple of different responses:

Journal writing is not supposed to be corrected- it is an exercise in free writing. As the teacher, of course, it is your choice, but correcting journals impedes the free flow of writing, much like over correcting impedes the free flow of speech- fluency.

Second, having read and corrected a journal is one thing, showing it around, especially as ridicule, is a real violation of the student's trust and privacy.

Children write and say extreme things sometimes- they pick up on the broad strokes of what adults are saying, and don't have the cognitive skills for the fine points.

[Pyongshin Sangja]

Good point.

Holy hell.

A professional.

[sadsac]

This is becoming a common dilemma within the classroom. You must remain neutral. I had a 13 year old student tell me that he wants to nuke Japan because they are evil. The Koreans bitch about the bias of Japanese textbooks, but their biased historical text is fine. Get on a ferry to Japan on any day of the week and see how many Koreans are off to Japan to go shopping. There is no middle ground for the Korean psyche, it's either love or hate and they are so much better at hating.

[Real Reality]

[JongnoGuru]

[Real Reality]

[itaewonguy]