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eaguayo001 from San Diego California asks
Have you seen as bad as they make it out to be in Korea
and, if so, what do teachers do about it?
Now, before I answer this, I have to let you know that I'm Simon
and I'm Martina, and we're just two people expressing our personal opinions
Are these opinions about everybody in Korea? No
Or are these just about our personal experiences and what we're relating? Yes
Now that that's cleared up and we're never going to have to worry about that again,
Next week probably. Definitely
Let's try to clarify your question.
So we don't really know what you mean by "they"
but we're assuming you're referring to movies and dramas and manhwas
in which bullying seems to be a very predominant theme, much more than it is in North America.
As a big fan of dramas and manhwas and Korean movies,
school life is such a big theme, and bullying is always included in that theme as well.
So, that being said, we want to talk about our personal experiences with bullying in Korea
as well as the experiences that we've asked our fellow co-teachers about
and the things that they have to deal with as Korean teachers dealing with bullying.
Now, I think the first thing that we have to mention is that
Korea has a very different environment when it comes to bullying
because the school system is very different here.
The hours are SO LONG! I mean, when you're at school, you live at school!
You're there from 6 or 7 AM, and you're there until 10, 11PM, midnight, later than that
I mean, that's your ENTIRE LIFE.
And, on top of that, it's not like you have different classes with different students
Whoever you have in your homeroom class, you stay with them the entire day
So if you are being bullied, you're with the same people who are bullying you all day long from 7AM until 11PM.
And, on top of that, the classroom environment is almost like a second home, because you're there for so long,
So students will try to make it more comfortable, so they'll bring personalized pillows that they sit on
or they'll have their own locker with their toothbrushes in it, or they'll have face products
and they'll have lots of stuff that's important to them
So because you're living in this homeroom for such a long time
There are so many more things that victims can have targeted by bullies
So that's why when you see TV movies or dramas or manhwas
You see people's personal effects being bullied with,
like, they have tacks in their shoes, or insects in their desks or stuff like that
because it's all there, and it's personal.
So there are a couple of different experiences that we've had when we were teachers in South Korea
The biggest thing that people suffer from is isolation and separation from their peers.
There's actually a slang name for that: it's "Wang-dda"
and wang-dda means that you're kind of an isolated person
no one wants to talk to you, you're like an outcast.
It's like the whole class, when this person's been acknowledged as a wangdda, no one will talk to them.
If you don't particularly dislike that person, if you were to go talking to them
other people in the class will now push you out
So, in turn, nobody will stand up for this person,
and it becomes one gigantic group of people isolating one person
and they'll be isolated for the entire day
and not just the entire day, the entire year
and other grade levels will know about them, so nobody will talk to them
and it's so severe sometimes that they'll transfer schools,
but their wangdda-ism will go with them, and other people will know about it
and make them wangdda at that school.
So, from my personal experience, whenever I had a wangdda student in class
other students would always try to shy away from them
physically shy away from them: they didn't even want to sit next to them
and whenever that person would raise their hand to say something in class,
other students would laugh at them
I had the same thing happen as well. They'd be snickering when there was nothing wrong with what they're saying.
So, besides isolation and being ignored, it can escalate to a bigger, more serious level
like being beat on or having things stolen from you
and one that's called "bag shuttle"
"bag shuttle" is also slang in which, pretty much, the person who is the wangdda or bag shuttle
will have to carry everybody's bags when they're going from class to class
so, now, what would a teacher do in this situation?
Well, they told me that they would try to address the classroom,
either as a whole, or to the individual bully, or the individual victim,
but, the problem is, most people will remain totally silent and do the downcast eyes thing
in which they would listen to the teacher, but they would never acknowledge or not acknowledge that they were being bullied
Now, I had a very particular situation when I was at my school
in which a new teacher at the school found out that there was a bully in the classroom
Now what was very weird about this situation is that this student was one of my favourite students in class
he was a shining, grade a student, participated in the class,
but some victims from that bully wound up telling the teacher that he was harassing them and taking their money.
Now, when the teacher wound up calling the teacher of the students to ask them about it
the parents, instead of showing some concern bout their kid,
were just screaming at the teacher like "why are you trying to ruin my son's reputation?"
Yeah, and what's weird about it is that the mother should be worried about her son being a bully, not about his reputation, right?
So then the situation got worse, because the principal wound up siding with the mother
and the teacher was worried that she was going to lose her job,
and she got in a lot of trouble for this as a result
So, it seems to us that if the teacher acknowledges the bullying or doesn't acknowledge the bullying
it still ends up in the same result
That's not to say that there's no hope. When we talked to our Co-teachers
and we read articles about this online,
it seems that bullying is starting to be acknowledged as a problem in Korea
so, because of the rising suicide rates amongst students in South Korea
It seems like bullying is starting to become a hot topic in the Korean news.
But, it doesn't really seem like there are any initiatives being taken to stop it
You don't see posters up, or like a hotline for someone to talk to
We haven't seen anything.
And, also, there aren't any guidance counsellors for people to talk to
if you're being bullied in Korea, and that's a little bit shocking.
So, long story short, yes, bullying IS an issue in Korea,
and, yes, it is very difficult for teachers and students to deal with
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