The following articles concern reactions
to the recent tragic and sensitive incident that occurred at an
institute in Pusan where an American male teacher was involved with
a student. The girl tried to commit suicide by jumping off the 7th
floor landing of the teacher's apartment because she was hopelessly
infatuated with the teacher who, by the way, was engaged to be
married to another Korean woman. Fortunately, the girl hit a parked
car, which resulted in saving her life but leaving her with a broken
back.
Now her family is
seeking liability compensation from our institute to help defray the
costs of the extensive and expensive surgery she'll need. The
parents are compelling the girl to claim she was pushed by the
foreign teacher in order to make their case more convincing.
Fortunately, so far, the police seem convinced she suffers
psychological problems and are writing this off as a suicide
attempt, plain and simple. But is it? There are still issues of the
girl's age (just turned 18) and the fact that our teacher had had
relations with a minor. There are also issues of the indiscretion of
this teacher having taken her out binge drinking then back to the
teachers' apartment to spend the night on several occasions. Of
course, there are the burning questions: "Where were her parents
during all this? Why weren't they minding their daughter and curbing
her carousing?" There are lots of things wrong with this
picture.
For me, this makes the
third criminal investigation of foreigners I have been involved with
in Korea. The first two were in Seoul in 1988 and 1989 where we had
a horrendous incident: two American female teachers murdered a third
in a kinky drug induced "lovers' tiff." Some months later as
collateral damage to this case, one of our male teachers who'd been
framed for the crime, committed suicide. In both incidences the
police interrogations were not pleasant, the anti-foreign sentiment
ran high, and the press went wild with all sorts of tabloid-style
renditions of what happened. We lost half our students and about a
third of our teachers who simply split. Somehow, we survived it all
but the stress took its toll.
Although the above
cases principally involved foreign perpetrators and victims, our
Korean students were not excluded from the interrogations and
intense scrutiny focused on our school. Students were arrested, held
incommunicado for days, harassed in their homes, publicly chastised
for associating with "foreign devils." In other words, our actions
-- the parties, the fraternizing, the hanging-out together --
affected the Koreans around us. They were guilty by association and
duly punished for it.
Now I find myself in
a similar nightmare, but this time the injured party here is a
native Korean and a minor. My biggest fear was that of the Korean
police arresting and indicting the foreigners involved for attempted
murder as solely based on the girl's allegations. To my pleasant
surprise, the police have been decent, considerate, rational, and
thorough in conducting their investigation. They are convinced the
girl has mental problems and have officially stated as much. In
fact, they have gone so far as to downplay the case to the press. So
far, there have been no sensational scandals or anti-foreign
claptrap or any articles at all on it. Sigh of relief!
But this doesn't mean
all is forgiven or forgotten. The poor judgement of our teachers and
their total lack of discretion about their relations with students
are still costing the rest of us dearly. Now there is great tension
and distrust between the Korean management and foreign teachers.
Even among the teachers themselves, there are soured relations
because of the inconsiderate and disrespectful behavior on the part
of those who've brought Korean strangers into their shared living
space. Then there is the very real threat of a lawsuit brought
against our school by the girl's parents. This could lead to a
courtroom trial and great cost in legal fees and lost work hours for
those who'll have to take time off to testify. All this grief
because of someone's impulsive and careless actions.
So, as the fate of
our school and our jobs hangs in the balance while the police and
the lawyers decide what the next move should be in order to pursue
justice, my colleagues and I admonish those of you living and
working here to mind yourselves. What you think is a fun night out
drinking with students could turn into an ugly entanglement whether
you intended it or not. If you do get involved with a Korean, be
discrete about it. Don't bring them into your living quarters
especially when others share the space. Don't show your hot Korean
date off at parties. Many Koreans are still stigmatized by their
society because they are seen associating with foreigners. Above
all, be careful whom you get involved with. The general
anthropological rule of thumb when doing ethnographic research in a
cultural context other than your own, the first people to approach
the foreigner are more often than not that society's socially
marginal: the mainstream rejects, the oddballs, even the
mad.
Keep in mind how
conservative and Confucian Korean culture is. Even though they
express desire to globalize and adopt western ways, they are
fundamentally steeped in lessons on filial piety (respecting their
seniors) and maintaining social harmony through "nunchi" (being
perceptive of other people's feelings and acting in respect to
them), and "hwahap" (creating and maintaining social harmony). One
aspect of achieving this is that of keeping up appearances.
Everything must fit the norm and nothing must look out of
place.
Another very important
dimension to the Confucian rule of social order is the "host-guest"
relationship. The host is obligated to offer the best accommodations
in his power to his guest while the guest should act ingratiatingly
to the host. To humiliate or embarrass the host in any way would be
an unforgivable faux pas. Likewise for a host to mistreat a guest is
in very bad social form. Many of the problems foreigners experience
here are due to the breakdown of this principle, mainly because the
foreigners are insensitive to the expectations of their hosts. These
expectations revolve around the Confucian code of conduct. When
visiting foreigners act in self interest without regard for the
feelings of the others around them or caring about how they appear
in the eyes of their Korean beholders they only serve to reinforce
anti-foreign sentiment in a traditionally xenophobic society. The
consequences are ruinous to the relationship.
Given the basic
workings of the culture here, I think it's high time that we, the
foreign guests in this country, take the time to learn about our
Korean hosts and behave in a manner that won't put anyone's
proverbial nose out of joint.
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