Back at School

It’s been a wonderful and successful first few weeks back at school for the 2012 school year. Lots of the kids grew, and some of them seem a bit more mature. It’s exciting to see how they change. The kids are more comfortable with me and have repeatedly used the extent of their vocabulary and gestures to communicate the important things they think about.

I was most proud and happy when one of my students who was challenging at the beginning uttered the phrase, “Teacher! Help me!” Hahaha. It’s the first full English sentence ever spoke to me without being coached. Another teacher was dragging him off for something he didn’t want to do. This kid is alienated by school. He has learning difficulties and is behind in all subjects. He did his utmost to derail the class for the first month. It took a lot of strategizing to build a positive relationship with him, so it was really satisfying to hear him communicating with me.

The first few chapters for every grade varied in difficulty for the same theme of names, introductions, and greetings. In several of the classes I used hand shaking in the activities as a way to share US culture. Bowing is the traditional Korean greeting. Hand shaking is new and occurs most often amongst men. If hand shaking does occur, then the person in the higher station (principal, elder, mayor, etc) offers their hand first. The kids were squirmy and giggly at shaking my hand. The kids who were very polite were so uncomfortable with hand shaking that they would bow and touch their left hand to their right wrist as they shook hands.

In Korea it is polite to touch your left hand to your right wrist when, shaking, exchanging items or making a purchase. This custom stems from holding back the long sleeves on traditional clothing to prevent spills etc.

Observations on Sickness

One thing I’ve learned through traveling, and through working at Sea Mar, is that medicine, is as influenced by culture and policy as it is by science. Case in point, Master Oh thought I should go to the hospital when I had the 24 hour stomach bug. In my mind going to a hospital for a stomach bug is out of the question. The I.V. would keep me hydrated and potentially speed my recovery, but the stress of being poked with a needle and staying in a strange bed surrounded by other sick people could slow recovery. The individualist culture ingrained in me responds indignantly to going to the hospital for a stomach bug. I don’t need an MD to tell me what I already know; I clearly had a stomach flu. Furthermore, even though I’ve been lucky enough to always have health insurance, I can probably count every doctor visit I’ve ever had. Most visits were for sports physicals, routine vaccinations, and female annual exams. People from the United States don’t go to the doctor. Insurance or not, doctors are expensive and a huge time suck.

In the Korean mind, the previous paragraph is unthinkable. Due to the value of education in Korea, and the importance of hierarchy, doctors are highly respected. Koreans are far less likely than someone from the United States to suspect a doctor of mistakes. In Korea, doctors and medicine are very affordable and accessible; even to the most low income citizens. On page two of the Wall Street Journal article “Who Lives the Longest – Countries with the Most and Least Effective Health Care” Korea ranks fifth most effective. Affordability compared to life expectancy was a major criterion.

People go to the doctor and the hospital all the time in Korea. When I first got here, and heard a kid was in the hospital, I got really worried. Nobody could tell me why he was there beyond, “He is sick.” Since I’m from the Unite States, I imagined grave illness. But when I saw that same kid in school the next day, and asked them how they were, they were confused by my level of concern. Slowly I stopped caring as much because kids just kept going to hospital, and mostly kept being alright shortly thereafter. In general I think parents take their kids to the hospital quicker than they’ll go themselves.

Despite the general enthusiasm for hospital visits, I’ve never been to a place where so many people come to work and school looking completely miserable. When people are sick they wear a face mask and carry on. Basically, unless you’re in the hospital, or dying there is no reason to miss work or school in Korea. I’ve seen kids exhausted with fevers, sleeping on their desks instead of eating lunch. Occasionally my co-workers have looked suspiciously like zombies. Kids even come to school with all kinds of gross eye crud, including pink-eye. I don’t know why people push it so hard when they’re sick. Maybe it’s because they aren’t so worried about being bankrupted by a hospital stay?

To end on a random note, it isn’t polite to publicly blow your nose in Korea. Thanks for reading!