Letters From A Korean Classroom: Where American violence shocks, yet suicide seen as option

By JENNIFER YAEL GREEN

The news out of America isn’t good.

Two shot dead at a Michigan college campus last week. A few months ago, a shooting in a Toys R Us in California. And in New York, the murder of 13 people at an immigrant center last month. Many of my students, especially my younger ones, think of America as a dangerous, gun-wielding nation.

This week, with the 10th anniversary of Columbine upon us, I am reminded again of the huge differences between academic life in the States and here in Korea. In one of my lower-level classes, we have been reading a book about the Salem witch trials. One of the examples during their workbook exercises involved Columbine, and I tried to move through it as quickly as possible.

“People today may not understand the Salem witch trials, but it is important for them to learn about it,” the sentence in their book read. The students needed to construct a new sentence, using the words “foreigner” and “Columbine.”

“Teacher!” What is Columbine?” Cindy called out.

I tried to think of a simple way to explain.

“Columbine was the name of a school where something very sad happened,” I replied.

Their eyes were the size of sand dollars.

“What happened, Teacher?”

“Uh, a student who was very sick shot some other students with a gun,” I said. There was an audible, collective gasp.

“Did students die?” Brian asked.

I nodded. “Yes, Brian. Some students did die.”

Please remember that this is a country of few guns, where policemen hold hands walking down the street (really) and the only weapons these kids will probably ever see are in American action movies. When I ask my students what the biggest problem in America is, their unflinching response is “Guns.”

Although most of them have never heard of Columbine, they all know about the killings at Virginia Tech, the name of the shooter. He was Korean, see, and a great source of shame for Koreans.

“We don’t want America to think Koreans bad,” one of my Korean friends told me.

Because in Korea, killing others is shocking, unacceptable. But what really disturbs me is the fact that suicide, especially among young people, holds no such stigma.

My students talk about “making suicide” a lot. In Pusan, many of the subways have glass doors that slide open only when the train has stopped, to prevent people from jumping onto the tracks. My students tell me that during college entry exams, suicides increase dramatically. And a few weeks ago in Seoul, a friend of mine watched a lifeless body be pulled from the tracks as she waited for the subway on her way to work.

Korea has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world, and it is the leading causes of death for people in their 20s and 30s, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. Most of my students casually chalk this up to “stress and many homework,” the pressure put on young people by their parents and Korean society. During one lesson, I was discussing credit card debt with my students, and I asked them what solutions they would offer to someone who was deeply in debt.

“Make suicide,” one of my middle school students said seriously.

I scolded him. “Peter, that’s not a good solution. There are other things you can do. Killing yourself is not the answer to any problem, so does anyone else have an idea?”

Jason waved his hand in the air. “But Teacher! What if you have so many money in debt and not good job? Then maybe making suicide is best choice.”

The way they talk about suicide and the frequency in which it occurs shocks and saddens me, just as the violence on American school campuses does. I was a freshman in high school when the Columbine shootings happened, but I still wonder – When did killings and education become so intertwined? I think that question needs to be posed in both Korea and the United States.

I read an article in The New York Times last week about gun-violence in the U.S. and how little to nothing is being done to prevent it. The same seems to be true here in Korea with suicides, where people who are taken to hospital with slashed wrists are stitched up and sent home again. There doesn’t seem to be much of a network to deal with the problem; a recent Google search of “Korea, Suicide” showed hundreds of sites where people can give tips or advice on how to commit suicide, but few support groups or government organizations.

But I’m only an outsider here, in Korea for a relatively short time, with just a glimpse of what it is to be a Korean student. I don’t know the answers to this problem, although I do recognize it as a problem.

Soon I will be going back to my own country, and its problems. But I do wonder if anything will change, for either Korean or American kids.