Fan Death? WHA?

Dear whoever thought up fan death?
Seriously?

Well, here I am sitting in Incheon International Airport waiting to board my flight to Osaka, Japan and then continue on to Guam. But that's not what you will be reading about in the next several minutes. The week last week started out with a bang.

On Sunday night, I was able to hop on a bus and head to Seoul to have a mini WJC/ASP reunion with one of my roomies, Yvette and the ASPer Jason. Yvette was on a school trip and Jason has been teaching here since May. Although we haven't seen each other in such a long time, it was still so nice to see people who knew me BEFORE this big adventure. We had dinner and ice cream and good conversation. It was pretty great and definitely worth the long bus ride up there.

So, in our conversation on Sunday this theory called "fan death" came up. Apparently, many Koreans believe that if you leave a fan on during the night, you will die. Simple as that. They say it sucks all the oxygen out of the air..and my response would be..where does it suck it to? So, I asked my Korean friend about it this week and she said, "yeah, it's a real thing. People die from it. Every summer the news reports at least several cases of 'fan death'." I was flabbergasted. For the past 10 years, I could probably count on my hand the number of times I HAVEN'T had a fan running through the night. I am living proof that this is all a bunch of bologna.

Anyhow, the week was a good teaching week, but nothing too eventful happened. On Monday or Tuesday though, Mrs. Nam had me laughing once again. We were asking questions about future plans and someone asked Mrs. Nam about her future plans and she says, "I have no future. I am housewife." A few other classic Mrs. Nam quotes, "If I drove a sports car, I would look like a player." and "I would have to go on a blind date somewhere outside of Gunsan, my husband might see me here."

The weekend was also pretty full...Friday night, the director took all the teachers out for dinner. Besides my legs cramping up from sitting on the floor and my embarrassment of wearing two completely different socks, (I don't know if I've written this, but when you go to a traditional Korean restaurant you sit on the floor and you remove your shoes at the door) it was pretty good, a little spicy but good.

Saturday I went to a wedding reception for a couple from the church and Sunday was church services.

Since I'm pretty much finished telling you about my activities and whereabouts of last week, I'm going to now go on a little rant that's been on my mind. I'll try to keep it short.

Well, being here longer and observing more and more the mindset and attitudes of Koreans, I'm no longer surprised by the suicide rate here.

According to a Washington Post article, there are an average of 35 suicides a day in South Korea and Korea leads the world in suicide rates. At first I thought it had everything to do with the pressure of education on these kids. I mean the kids are in some sort of school from 7 a.m.ish to at least 8 p.m. at night starting in Kindergarten, and they go to school every other Saturday. Most of these kids go to different Hagwons after their school day. A hagwon is a private institution dedicated to a subject. There are math hagwons, science hagwons, English hagwons, etc. These of course are all optional, well at least to the parents. But the high school kids go to actual school from about 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. everyday. The pressure of passing exams and qualifying for extremely high level universities is tremendous. At the end of a high schoolers 3 years in high school he will take 1 exam that will be an all day ordeal. If he does very well on this exam he will have success throughout his career whatever that may be. If he does poorly, he can kiss his dreams goodbye. College doesn't matter in the long run, high school does. And in my opinion, that is just wayyy too much pressure on an 18 or 19 year old boy or girl.

However, these past few months, I've realized it may not just be the pressure of education and having a successful career that brings people to their breaking point. I've realized more and more the Koreans obsession with outer appearance. I know an obession with outer appearance is not just limited to Korea, but it seems in Korea there is only one "look" that is beautiful. Of course personality doesn't matter, but eyes that are too narrow, cheek bones that are too round, hair that is too black or too straight is unacceptable here. This isn't just a woman's thing either, the pressure to look a certain way is most definitely seen in the men as well. People seem to be so unhappy with the way they look.

And to make matters worse, the blunt comments Koreans dish out is not helpful either. If they think you aren't beautiful they have no problem telling you what's wrong. "You're hair is gross. You're eyes are too narrow. You're face is too round. You're skin is too dark. You're ugly." I've seen my students say things like this. And I've talked to my adult students about these issues. Plastic surgery is EVERYWHERE here..almost every Korean I've come in contact with has had some form of plastic surgery..most popular is making their eyes wider. We talked about plastic surgery in one of my classes and they said that plastic surgery is very dangerous, but also very necessary.

It's no wonder the suicide rate is what it is when you take a young teenage girl who already has insecurities about herself (and the pressure of school) and add in blunt/rude comments about the way she looks. It makes me sick to my stomach. And by no means am I saying America is much different, but I do believe because of the diversity in America, it's led to a wider allowance of what is beautiful. And I have come to appreciate even more the phrase most American mothers teach their children, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

I could go on and on about this and about the pressures of a good career, a good family name, the right blood type and blah blah blah, but it gets me all riled up. So, I hope you are having a great week and will thoroughly enjoy this Lunar New Year holiday...I know I will :)