One of the dangerous parts of teaching children not yet in middle school or high school is that they haven’t been taught to look at both sides of an issue, or to treat things objectively. This might be a child development thing, a Korean education thing, or a cultural thing, but I’ve been bumping up against super-nationalistic children all week and it’s getting on my nerves.
It all started on Monday. I gave the students their five topic choices for their writing challenge. They had to pick something and write an essay. One of the girls chose the following topic:
“Some people like to travel in Korea. Other people like to travel outside Korea. Which do you prefer. Why? Give reasons and examples.”
Her first question was “What is the word for ‘money from other countries?” She was writing about foreign currency, so I thought she might be saying that you had to buy other kinds of money, so it’s a little annoying or something. I asked her why the money issue was the most important issue to her when traveling.
She said that if she traveled outside Korea, she would spend some money. That money would not be going to Korean people, so she was in fact hurting her country. She would never travel outside Korea because she LOVES Korean people, and would never want to spend money that didn’t go to other Koreans. (Never mind she attends a school that pays my salary, and I’m not Korean.)
She said that she only travels in Korea because if a foreigner asked her about Korean culture, and she couldn’t answer their questions, she would feel embarrassed. Then the foreigner would think she hated her country, and she would hate that. So, she only wants to travel around Korea.
I told her that unless she’s spending a lot of money on vacation, her spending is not going to have a tremendous impact on the Korean economy. I asked her if living and working in Korea meant that I must hate The United States by her logic. I told her that I didn’t think that was a very fair way of looking at things, but my director chalked it up to the girl “loving Korea very much, and being very nationalistic.”
I didn’t mention that anyone as Xenophobic as she appeared to be wanted to travel outside Korea, she could book a Korean owned tour. They make SURE none of the money ever gets into a foreigners hands.
Next, the students had to talk about things they liked and disliked. For some moronic reason, the book used “Home Country” as a topic. I asked the students what they liked and disliked about Korea.
I don’t think students had ever been asked this question before.
“Korea is my home, so it’s just so-so, not good, not bad,” was the most common response.
After pulling a few teeth, some students said they liked Korea because their friends and family live there, or that Korean culture is from there.
Then, trying to get ANY student to write something they disliked about Korea was really, really difficult. I wasn’t asking them to write they hated Korea, or that Korea was bad, just that there were things they disliked in ANY degree.
Students told me there was NOTHING they dislike about Korea. This students complain about EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME. They complain about homework, English, tests, weather, classes, buses, friends, games, EVERYTHING. How could they not think of a single slightly negative thing about Korea?
I offered “Yellow sand wind making the air difficult to breathe. Choking bad air pollution from factories. Oil spills. Overpopulation? Online crime? Gaming addiction?” Anything? They couldn’t think of ANYTHING wrong with any of those things. The boys wrote about how it was bad one of their classmates lived in Korea, and the girls wrote how it was bad that the boys lived in Korea. Ho ho ho, what a waste of time.
Whatever indoctrination they are getting at school, it’s working. These kids are fiercely loyal to their country, which is admirable…to a point. When people start ignoring obvious problems that impact their health or lives, or worse yet, give excuses to justify why those things are actually strengths, starts to get into “creepy” territory.
I like Korea very much, but every country has it’s flaws. Ignoring them isn’t what you should do.
