Family Life in Korea

I've been thinking a lot about the idea of family in Korea and what a family "unit" here means. Many people at our orientation and even now like to say that Korean family units are very close knit, more so that in the US or other Western countries. They stress how important it is in a Korean family for the children to succeed, to do well in school so they can get a good job and bring respect to their family, they stress how much emphasis parents put on supporting their child's education, how multiple generations live together under one roof, how they spend tons of money on cram schools for their kids, just so they can get ahead... Much of the second hand discussion of Korean family life that I've heard has emphasized education, probably because I'm hearing it all from teachers. Secondly it has emphasized respect for the family.

I agree with some of the above, but not the sentiment as a whole that Koreans have a closer knit family unit than do Americans. I agree with and see plenty of evidence to support some of these ideas; families do spend a lot of time and money getting their students into good schools or extra tutoring. Students also do respect their parents, they don't want to shame them, or their grandparents. Students also do take education seriously, because it determines so much about their lives. I also agree that extended families do make up a much greater idea of the "family unit" than they do in the West. I think of a family unit as a mom, dad and two kids. Here it is very common for extended families to spend lots of time together, for aunts to pick up nieces and nephews from school, for cousins to spend long amounts of time together, for daughter in laws to care for mother in laws. It is also not uncommon for children to reference their "younger brother" or "older sister" -- and then I later find out these people are not related by blood, but are a family friend's daughter or a parent's client. Yet the more I talk to students in my schools and observe the Korean families that make up my world I question the assumption that a family "unit" is ever so intact in Korea as we think it is. I think the idea of family is even more differently defined in Korean then in the US than had I originally thought, for both the good and bad.

I have numerous students who tell me how their father works in Seoul or some other far off city and they never see them, except on weekends or once a month. Yet their parents aren't divorced, that's just how it is, they go where the job takes them. Also in Korea all public school teachers have to switch schools every five years, private school teachers do not. Thus when a job position opens or closes, the teacher moves where they need to. Public schools have a better rep in Korea, and I think the changing of new ideas in and out of the schools in good, but I can see the appeal of working in a private school if it means you know you won't be potentially uprooted from your home every five years.

"Being a working Mom in Korea is very difficult." 


Case in point. One of my coworkers is a little under 40 years old and is an art teacher at Sangji. Sangji is a private school so she knows she doesn't have to transfer to a public school. Her husband works for Korean Air in Seoul and she only seems him on the weekends. She has two small children, a 6 year old boy and a 4 year old girl. She takes being a mom very seriously and loves spending time with her children, reading, swimming, making art. I think she is a very positive person and a great mom. She's invited me over to her house twice now to play with her children and have dinner. Its been great. Her son goes to an English Language Immersion elementary school and is already amazingly accomplished for a six year old, he is great at English, can already divide and multiply, is great at sports and plays piano... Somehow my coworker fosters and encourages all of this in him, and she somehow got him into that prestigious school, yet when I'm around her with her family she is so laid back and free, not strict at all, and her kids are still respectful and independent. I wonder how things will keep going throughout their educational career. She told me tonight she has a special dream that she could travel with them throughout many countries when they are in high school, because she thinks education is not just in the classroom and that is not her focus, and that is why she also is studying English, so she can travel all over. Sounds like a great little family. Let me remind you though that her husband is never in the picture because of work and perhaps personal reasons.

The last day of school in December she came in late, looking very upset, like she has been crying. At the end of the day we walked out together, she asked me if I saw her "upset face" earlier. I said yes and asked if everything was okay. She said she has just found out the night before that she was transferred from Sangji Middle School to High School. Both schools are founded by the same person and teachers often switch between the two as they share the same grounds. She was shocked by this turn of events and did not ask for it. She said she was upset and had been crying and didn't like the high school. I took it as she just liked teaching middle school better. The other day day she came into school unexpectedly, we talked a little and I asked her how her vacation was going. She said it was wonderful to be home with her children, the happiest days for her. She also confided that she has been crying and nervous about moving to high school for the entire vacation. I finally got it as she kept speaking... In middle school we end at 4:30 and teachers go home by 5:30 or 6pm. In the high school they don't go home until 9:30pm three nights a week. In all of March they have to stay until 9:30 every night. This is because students stay at school doing "self study" all those extra hours and teachers have to stay and supervise them. She is heartbroken because she doesn't know what to do about her children. They already have a nanny that watches them after they return from kindergarten and elementary school, the nanny cooks dinner and stays until 7pm. My coworker has no idea how she is going to find someone to watch them until almost 10pm. She has no family in Wonju. And who will help them with their homework or read them their stories? I feel so badly for her. I asked if she could request not to be transfered, if their was anything she could do. She said no, she had asked, but because the boss already signed the paper, it is done. That's just how it works in Korea. You do what you are told, no matter what. She said she wished she'd been fired, because she wants to quit but knows she can't because her family depends on her income. She also explained that if she quit now she would be done for good. She is an older teacher and so high up on the pay scale that she would never be hired over a new teacher, that a school has to pay a much lower salary to. Her husband works in Seoul until 10pm every night. What is she to do? "Being a working Mom in Korea is very difficult." 


I understand that being a working mom in her kind of situation anywhere is difficult and that there are people out their with far less ideal lives. Yet it is shocking to me that she, a 10 year+ veteran teacher can at the drop of a hat be asked, no, told, that her schedule will change and her life will change and her children's lives will change is there is NOTHING, absolutely nothing she can do to stop it aside from quitting. How is that valuing the family unit? How is that a good education system? Perhaps I am just an outsider and I will never understand. But I think that is a shallow way to view the situation as well.

For another perspective, I have a student who sees her dad maybe once a month. She lives with her mom and her "older sister" who is actually not related to them at all. She is the daughter of someone they knew who is living in Wonju to go to high school, because she had to go to this specific, good school, that required her to leave home. She studies everyday. Her mother insists she sleep in the same bed with her. They watch dramas together. Last year she was forced to go to private after school tutoring until 11pm every night. This year thankfully she does not have to go and gets to study at home instead.

Lastly I have a student who said she wishes her parents would get a divorce. She says her mom does not go home during the day because her dad is there and she avoids him. Thus sometimes my student had to sleep in her mom's store instead of going home. This is the same student who is amazingly smart and dedicated. Who told me she has to get all A's or she gets in trouble, because her older brother got all A's and now goes to a good university. She studies for six hours everyday. She is not allowed to watch TV or use the computer during the week. She told me she slept for 20 hours last Saturday.

I don't know if all of what I'm saying is aimed more at dissecting the Korean family unit or at defending my opinions against those who will tell me "oh Koreans are much more close knit families than in the US." I really just think its a much different idea of family that I don't quite get. Childhood is very different here, more independent yet linked to pleasing your family. I know there are lots of absentee parents in the US but maybe here there is just less of a pretense of pretending to be around the family than in the US. Here people have what seem to be practical reasons for being apart and tell it like it is, in the US maybe reasons for being away are just as practical but kids aren't willing to accept that because they don't believe their parents are doing things for their best interest. I also think that Korean kids are becoming more and more westernized and are beginning to think this way too, a little. Maybe family life and educational life are linked more than I realize in Korea... kids spend more time at school than at home so who is their family? Their peers or their parents? Yet when kids in the US finish school at 3pm do they really spend time with their parents, or their peers, just at a burger joint or in someone's room rather than in study hall? I don't think its insignificant that Korea has the highest number of suicides than any other developed country in the world. And no one talks about it.

Or perhaps I am totally off base and these are normal stories for any teacher to hear. Or that I'm only hearing the slightly "bad" stories because those are the kids that need to talk and get the stuff off their chests. That is the nice thing about teaching that I am enjoying, getting to know my students and having them realize I can be a support for them. Also that "foreigner" card comes up sometimes in ways that people appreciate, like a breath of fresh air, as in "oh we can tell you this because we aren't offending you like we would a fellow Korean" or "I can tell you this because who are you gonna tell?" or "you understand and I envy that you don't have to put up with this crap like me."

Education and the family... two important things. Two things that no one can agree on how to do the "right" way. Two things people in America think are "deteriorating." Thinking positively I believe that cross cultural interaction like I've been experiencing here is the key to helping "fix" these problems. Or at least tackle them from new directions.