Reflections

A few days ago marked the end of my third month here in Korea, so I thought I'd share a few thoughts regarding life here in Korea. Here are a few things I've learned thus far:

1) Korean, like all Asian languages, is hard. It is also phonetically offensive, a brutal assault on the ears. But contrary to my initial beliefs, it is not stupid, nor useless. There are many interesting policy and social issues here, but speaking Korean would be pretty much essential for studying them.

2) Koreans for the most part live in a state of near lawlessness. Every day I see impatient Koreans blow through red lights, putting the lives of every nearby pedestrian (mostly students) in jeopardy. And they get away with it 100% of the time because the police here are corrupt, lazy, and useless, and do not enforce any basic traffic laws. I think it may be only a matter of time before I am involved in a confrontation with one of these drivers, and god help them if they put any of my students in danger.

3) I am a second-class teacher in the eyes of everybody in the school. This is not terribly offensive to me, because compared to the other teachers (who all have training AND experience whereas I have none) this is not an unreasonable opinion. I am also not bothered by this because the amount of work I do compared to the other teachers is fractional, and also because I have no desire to be a career teacher. I will do this for another 9 months and then I will likely never teach again.

4) I wrote an essay for some essay contest that the EPIK program was holding, mostly because I needed something to do during the 3rd graders' finals week. While writing this essay, I read a very interesting survey that was conducted around 1980 regarding happiness in Korea. Apparently, only 57% of Koreans were happy with their lives in 1980, and only 32% felt a sense of accomplishment in their life. These numbers are EXTREMELY low; 91% of Americans considered themselves happy, and 86% felt a sense of accomplishment. Given the way Korean society has changed over the last 30 years, I would guess that these numbers have either gone down or stayed the same in Korea.

5) Another piece of information that I got from my research: Seoul National University is the ultimate goal of any serious student in Korea, and most students qualify as "serious students". The acceptance rate at SNU is extremely low, and most students fail to get in. The amount of studying and private tutoring received by those who DO get in is unbelievable, and it has its effects on the students' mental health. About 14% of those admitted in 1980 suffered from nervous illness, character blocks, or nervous breakdowns. This is also the reason why 44% of students who study at universities abroad fail out, according to a recent article published by a Columbia University Ph.D. student.

6) Suicide is a HUGE problem here. The suicide rate in Korea is the highest among industrialized countries. The suicide rates tend to jump around exam times, as students who do poor on an exam are prone to suicide. Recently, several famous actors committed suicide within a couple of weeks of each other. One did it because he was facing money problems; another actress did it because a "netizen" started a false, malicious rumor about her. I could only think to myself, "these people wouldn't last 5 minutes as celebrities in America." There is no suicide prevention, no education, and as far as I know, no hotline or any type of help service. The Korean approach to suicide is simply to not talk about it. Koreans simply do not value life. They value school (for their children that is), physical appearance, and that's about it.

7) Koreans look in the mirror an average of about 10,000 times per day.

8) When not looking in the mirror, they are looking for a mirror in which to look.

9) The fact that I do not wear makeup of any kind is astonishing to my co-teachers, which in itself is astonishing to me.

10) I can get the most delicious food from vendors on the side of the street for dirt cheap, which is something that I am desperately going to miss when I do leave.

11) It is becoming increasingly less difficult to suppress a laugh when Koreans tell me they think the North and South will be reunified in the near future.


Unfortunately, I am starting to lose a lot of respect for the Koreans. I really enjoy my school and everyone who works at it, and I respect them all a lot. It's the rest of Korea that is making me cynical. They have so many problems, but they are all too lazy to do anything about them. It's considered normal to do as little work as possible here. When things go wrong, standard procedure is to ignore the problem until it goes away; if it refuses to go away, blame somebody else. The Koreans need a serious wake-up call, but I'm afraid they'll be too busy looking in the mirror whenever it comes knocking.