As you may know, depending on what time you're reading this, there was a recent disaster in South Korea. A ferry carrying 476 passengers, many of which were high school students on a field trip, capsized and sank, taking nearly 2/3 of the passengers down with it.
41 minutes.
That was the period of time between the turn that initiated capsizing and the evacuation order. I can't imagine being 16 years old, surrounded by my friends, on a boat that is tilted 50 degrees and being told not to move. For 41 minutes.
It was a terrible tragedy. Of course it was, no one is debating that. But the fact that it so easily could have been lessened makes me angry more than sad. It reveals a part of Korean culture that can prove dated, selfish, and potentially dangerous.
A friend of a friend wrote about the accident, and it is more well written and phrased than what I could say. So I'll quote it here.
"It's hard to escape the sadness of the Sewol ferry disaster here. It's hard going into school and seeing my students and knowing it could have happened to them. It's hard being swept up in the rush of blame and feeling that blame guiltily subside.
But this whole horrible event brings one of the biggest problems facing Korean society in to sharp focus.
Regardless of whether or not we define it as criminal, and although we cannot yet be certain of all the details, it seems that the Captain made a mistake. Rather than accepting deal with the consequences of that mistake, doing everything in his power to rectify it, his shame led him to try to escape.
The vice principal of the school, upon feeling the grief of the families of his missing students, killed himself out of shame that he could not protect them. Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world.
In recent history, Korea has witnessed a number of fatal building collapses. In order to avoid the shame of failing to complete their construction on time, corners were cut and safety issues were overlooked. So people died. Shame causes my students to be too afraid to even speak in the classroom in case they make a mistake. Statistically, shame will cause at least one of them to take their own life before the age of 20. Shame causes problems to be denied or ignored, causes mistakes to be covered up and causes society to buckle under the pressure of avoiding it. It is good to feel social and familial responsibility. It is good to try to avoid making mistakes. But they will always happen. And when they do, feeling ashamed is never more important than acceptance, and learning to make sure it doesn't happen again. Otherwise, you all but guarantee it will."
This past weekend, I went to Seoul with my friends to partake in the annual Lantern Festival. Typically it's a time of celebration and joy, but this year was haunted by Sewol. Many of the features of the festival were cancelled, traditional mourning services offered, and memorial lanterns and ribbons everywhere to honor the victims.
At one point, during a Buddhist ceremony to help the spirits of the dead find peace, I was intensely struck by the situation. Since the disaster, I've felt sad, but my anger and frustration overwhelmed the way I processed how sad it was. But watching the dance (to appease the ghosts), hearing the university student's letter to the ghosts, and seeing the raw pain on the faces of those praying hit me so hard that I began crying. All I could picture was getting a phone call that something happened. I saw my friends, my family, my students who have their whole lives ahead of them. I imagined the mother whose son would never come home. I imagined students whose friends were gone, friends they'd planned trips with, college courses, dates, everything that teenagers should be doing.
To all my loved ones, and to any strangers reading this blog: be careful and make sure the people you love know how much.
아픔을 함께
