Our hero, lets call her "Bittnee" works at an elementary school of some repute. Last year in fact they were a 'model school', a title that like Miss Universe comes with a great deal of scrutiny. Let's replace 'slim, attractive and successfully suppressing sex tapes' with 'slim, attractive and producing high test scores.'
Now it is an old hat that school in Korea is competitive. The middle school students are ranked from first to worst in every subject. High school's must be applied for similar to Universities. Elementary is no exception. So they have contests. Real winner and loser affairs that are not looking to spare anyone's feelings. Throw them in the spotlight and see who swims. Ok, fair enough, understood.
So Bittnee's school ran an English speaking contest. Third graders participated, sixth graders participated. Some other grades participated. A lot of English was spoken and it was good and it was bad and that's how these things always go. Two winners were picked. The second round of the competition was the creation of an entirely new speech for a city wide contest of school champions. This one was to be submitted in writing prior to the competition. So the children do the work, put in the time, and create new speeches. Bittnee takes a look. They aren't bad. Not exactly 'Paradise Lost' but then the writers don't look like this:
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| Crazy ol' John Milton |
They look like this:
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| Deserving of support an encouragement. |
And that's for the best I figure. So the winners of the school competition hand in their new speeches and what do their teachers decide? That they are not good enough. For example: the sentences are too short. These speeches will embarrass the school and so what they will do is they will tell the children their speeches were sent in but that they were deemed losers immediately and will not get to participate in the city wide competition. In reality, they will just, oh, I don't know, burn and swallow them to generate warmth to compensate for what their cold cold heart should be supplying them with. Bittnee asks the teachers if she could work with the students to help them rewrite their speeches. She is told no, there is no time. We will simply lie to the children, it is that best way.
And so I suppose that the kids will never know the difference. They have lost before and they will lose again. The teachers will not be embarrassed because no one but me and you will know and we'll forget of course.
Their decision though is cowardly, and their students deserve better.
A addendum: In the twisted psyche of the ex-pat, there grows the proclivity to look around and see everything as an example of THE CULTURE in which you are immersed. It is an easy thing to say "this is so typically Korean". The importance of saving face here is not to be unappreciated. What should also be appreciated though is that the decision of these teachers is not, I believe, representative of the decision that most teachers here would make. It instead represents a far more international culture, prolific although not popular throughout the world. Namely, being a fucking dick.
