Adoption in Korea

Recently, the New York Times has focused on women's rights and on the stigma of single parenting and adoption in Korea. Because sex is still a taboo subject in Korea, and family is of the utmost importance, children born out of wedlock are often aborted or put up for adoption. As Lee Mee-kyong, a 33-year-old unwed mother put it in the Choe Sang-Hun's Times article, “Once you become an unwed mom, you’re branded as immoral and a failure. People treat you as if you had committed a crime. You fall to the bottom rung of society.”

Many of the older generation Koreans do not see how it can be, or should be, any other way.  One woman told the Times about her older brother trying to force her to an abortion clinic and then insisting that she give the child up for adoption. Korean society can be so homogenous and comforming that to do something so dissonant from Korean societal norms is unthinkable. To keep a child without a husband or to adopt someone else's child, is not a common practice in Korea.  Many Korean orphans are sent abroad.

But today some Koreans are seeing that, despite cultural mores, this shouldn't be the way it is. There have been two groups formed by Korean adoptees in America who are trying to help stop the exporting of Korean babies. One leader of such a group, Jane Jeong Trenka, who is a Korean-born adoptee and leader of the Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea, said flatly that “culture is not an excuse to abuse human rights.”

The Times is also telling the stories of the Koreans who have been given up for adoption and adopted by American families. These Koreans have told stories of how they have struggled with their Korean identity, returned to Korea to find their family and have tried to understand why they were given up. One man told a story of meeting his grandmother who was unforgiving of his not learning to speak Korean.

It is a social issue, but also a very political one as the government has done little in the past to encourage adoption within Korea or help unwed mothers keep their children. But last week the Korea Times reported that the government is making more efforts to give financial and emotional support to unwed mothers so they can keep their children.

Hopefully the government will help change people's minds on children born out of wedlock. We'll see. For now there are many orphanages in Korea, mostly with Korean girls, that need volunteers to help them learn English and to have a little fun too.

If you are in Gwangju check out Sungbin's Foreign Volunteers, led by a very knowledgable and friendly foreigner:
sungbinvolunteers@gmail.com

Also see Sungbin's Foreign Volunteers Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7011422745

Check out our blogs about adoption and orphanages in Korea from a few months ago.

http://kimchicornbread.blogspot.com/2007/10/piggy-back-rides-and-paddycakes.html
http://kimchicornbread.blogspot.com/2007/12/look-at-korean-adoption-and-womens.html

Do Koreans want to reunify?

Twenty years ago today the Berlin Wall fell, signifying the reunification of a separated Germany. Twenty years from today it is entirely possible that Korea will still be divided by almost 3 miles of Korean soil, soldiers, fences and farmland. A fact of Korean life for 60 years now.



Cho Ju Hee, with ABC News, wrote an interesting article today discussing Korean's feelings on the subject. Many Koreans on both sides desire reunification, but politically neither Korea is prepared to compromise fully with the other. It would also be financially draining on South Korea to absorb North Korea's people and offer them the "South Korean-standard minimum social welfare."


But as Cho says in her article, young Koreans want to see their country reunited. Both see reunifying as a way of helping their separated brothers and sisters. Even North Koreans, with a national income 17 times less than the South, see reunification as a way of rescuing South Korea.

Our elementary students never hesitated to weigh in on the issue when I asked. Most wanted a unified Korea, but some made the economic argument, stressing the financial drain on the country. In our time in Gwangju our students put on a play about reunification and did a major art project with reunification as its main theme.
I think that if Korea reunited they would quickly become a powerful nation. Koreans are far to prideful and motivated to watch their country become anything less than the best. The question is more when can the Korea's come to agreeable terms?

Red plastic chairs

Something we missed from home during our first year in Korea was outdoor seating.

Those patios that accompanied all our favorite bars and restaurants back home. The places where a before dinner drink could turn into midnight under a starlit sky with your favorite friends.

In Korea, there is literally no space for such outdoor dining experiences, though more and more Korean-sized decks are being added to coffee shops like the Seattle Espresso in Kumho-dong, my personal favorite. (If you ever find yourself there, order one of their amazing fresh lemon teas.)

But after a year, we started taking more notice of the red plastic chairs sitting outside convenience stores--you know, you're 7-Elevens, Ministops, Family Marts and mom-and-pop corner stores.

These red spartan chairs, usually the cradle of Korean men in black suits sipping and soaking in soju, started calling our name.

Before long, we were making date nights with friends at the table on the corner. You know the one. The Ministop in our neighborhood where the nice clerk will always bring out glasses for your beer and wine and provides about three snacks an hour free on the house.

In spring and summer and even on a few rainy nights huddled beneath the narrow overhanging of the small storefront, we sat and sipped and soaked in our neighborhood Korea. Kids whizzed by on bicycles, hunched students walked home late at night after class, taekwondo vans dropped their students off at home, Korean men smoked, diners cooked their kimchi, and delivery drivers zoomed past on their scooters.



What at first seemed like a far cry from our old nights on expanded patios and deep wine menus turned into the perfect evening out. It was then I learned to never judge Korea by its red plastic chairs but instead to sit down in one and just soak it in.

Race relations in South Korea

There was an interesting article in the New York Times this week that highlighted the struggle with race relations in South Korea.

South Korea, a country where until recently people were taught to take pride in their nation’s “ethnic homogeneity” and where the words “skin color” and “peach” are synonymous, is struggling to embrace a new reality. In just the past seven years, the number of foreign residents has doubled, to 1.2 million, even as the country’s population of 48.7 million is expected to drop sharply in coming decades because of its low birth rate.

Many of the foreigners come here to toil at sea or on farms or in factories, providing cheap labor in jobs shunned by South Koreans. Southeast Asian women marry rural farmers who cannot find South Korean brides. People from English-speaking countries find jobs teaching English in a society obsessed with learning the language from native speakers.

For most South Koreans, globalization has largely meant increasing exports or going abroad to study. But now that it is also bringing an influx of foreigners into a society where 42 percent of respondents in a 2008 survey said they had never once spoken with a foreigner, South Koreans are learning to adjust — often uncomfortably.

Unfortunately, it is true that Korea is almost completely homogeneous and only in the last couple decades, have outsiders even been coming into the country in enough numbers for Koreans to notice.

It is true that there are unfair stereotypes pegged to Southeast Asian migrant workers in Korea, an issue that needs to get better in time as the country works to become more global.

But as a foreign English teacher (albeit with white skin) I could not have been treated with more respect.

As xenophobia is an issue that often comes up, I wrote this piece for Transitions Abroad last year. For an idea on how I dealt with what sometimes feels like living in a fish bowl, check it out.

Korean transportation at your fingertips

Korea has come along way since the days Whit and I would take the digital camera to the express bus terminal in Gwangju and take photos of the bus schedule/time/pricing so we can later plan our trips around that one blurry photo.

As Korea works to become more accessible to foreigners, they are providing more information in English.

And I came across a website this morning that looks to be the most helpful comprehensive site on public transportation in Korea that I have seen yet.

Use it for your next weekend away! Whether you want to take a bus, ferry, train, or subway, this is a one-stop shop.

Thanks Korea Sparkling!
http://traffic.visitkorea.or.kr/Lang/en/

ESL tips for teachers

So it's almost Monday and you're staring at scarily blank lessons plans for the week. Here are a few ideas to energize your class, add a little color to your lesson plans, and get your students speaking more English than you (and they) even thought they knew.

MES-English
As an elementary school English teacher in Korea, I could not have lived without MES English, a one-stop shop for all your ESL needs. Not only do they have the best materials on the web, but they're free. (Like what you see? They always take donations to keep their site running.)
On this site you can find fun animated flash cards for every possible topic you can teach, everything from adjectives to weather and everything between. After you print your flashcards out, you can also print along some corresponding worksheets that offer fill-in-the-blanks, crossword puzzles, word-finds (a.k.a. classroom gold), and more. And, most importantly (according to my elementary students), they have bingo cards for every set of vocabulary words. Check it out at www.mes-english.com.

Boggles World ESL (Lanternfish)
Lanternfish, also known as Boggles World ESL, is also a heavy-hitter when it comes to free down-loadable ESL materials. This site not only offers elementary school exercises but also some wonderful adult learning material like shopping, banking, and other basic role plays. They offer some great business English and travel English worksheets perfect for adults looking to learn some basic English very quickly. Check it out here: http://bogglesworldesl.com/.

Enchanted Learning
This is a great site for those ESL teachers out there teaching a few immersion classes in science. As an immersion teacher, I often used these worksheets to go along with the elementary school students' McGraw Hill science books. They were perfect. The site also has some good basic alphabet exercises for young learners. To get full access to the site, membership cost $20 and is worth every penny if this is something that fits your curriculum. Learn more about it here: www.enchantedlearning.com.

BrainPOP


This is one of my favorite tools as a teacher for my more advanced elementary students. The site offers short animated educational videos starring Tim, a boy, and Moby, his beloved robot. Videos are broken into categories such as math, English, science, arts, and more. Membership, which allows full access, is expensive and my school wouldn't pay for it. But you can do a 5-day free trial, so plan ahead and know which videos you want to use before you start your trial. www.brainpop.com.

Dave's ESL Idea Cookbook
Great for students of any age, this cookbook of ideas is a wealth of information supplied by ESL teachers around the world. You know it works because it's for ESL teachers by ESL teachers. The list contains hundreds and hundreds of games to try out in your classroom. They are great for icebreakers, the last 10 minutes of class, or during those pesky "open classes" when the parents come for the day and want to hear their kids speak English. Get some ideas to spice up your classroom here.

A multicultural Korea

The Korea Times reported today that Korea may offer dual citizenship to Koreans and foreigners. Now you are considered either Korean or foreign by the Korean government. Koreans born in the U.S. to Korean parents cannot be both an American and Korean citizen.

The Korean governement is now strongly considering allowing Koreans to keep their Korean citizenship even if they have acquired a citizenship elsewhere, like the United States. Also, foreigners will be able to get Korean citizenship if they marry a Korean, have lived in Korea for 5 consecutive years or those foreigners "with exceptional talents and who can contribute to national development" can get citizenship right away.

The Korean government is making this move largely in response to the dwindling population in the country due to better opportunities elsewhere and an extremely low birth rate. Korea's birthrate is 1.13, (compared to 2.1 in the US) one of the lowest in the world.

But Korea looks to be moving more toward multiculturalism. A big deal for a country that has been traditionally closed off from the outside. But as more foreigners come to the country for job opportunities a more multicultural Korea is inevitable. Hopefully, if dual citizenship becomes legal it will benefit Korea.