One of our P.E. teachers retired today. Miss Bang has been at our school for 34 years – “Not Likely at Home (anymore)” case 1. Amazing. And she’s not the longest serving current staff member. She’s retiring to take care of her grandchild when he/she is born (soon), so both parents can continue working – “Not Likely at Home” case 2. We had a ceremony at school, students and teachers, past and present attended along with close friends and family.
An interesting observation about Korean society is that they seem to require the national anthem, pomp and ceremony for the most trivial (from a Western perspective) things. I’m not suggesting Miss Bang’s retirement is trivial, but opening and closing ceremonies for the year and the semester and camps and sports day and this and that seem a little excessive and unnecessary. Again, this is from my point of view.
As an aside, we are a private school. We have a related High School and University, we all have the same name and are administered by a common board of trustees. Indeed, one of my co-teachers went right through system, attending our middle and high schools and graduating from our Uni. But we operate within the public system, government grants for renovations etc, set curriculum and I’m employed and placed by the Seoul Metropolitan Office Of Education. One big difference between private and public is that teachers can only stay at a public schools for a maximum of 5 years, then they have to go to a different school. That sucks.
Anyway, the soon-to-be-graduating 3rd grade students (another ceremony for that tomorrow) lined the halls applauding her from the theatre to the library where went to have a morning tea/lunch spread for the teachers and other adults. So I’m finally getting to the point here. “Not Likely at Home”, case 3 – there was beer and soju laid out on the tables along with the various foods. So there we were, headmaster included, consuming beer and hard liquor at school, during school hours, the occasional student coming in and out and we were back to work afterwards. It’s part of life here. Last year we did the same thing on a much larger scale for the then headmaster’s retirement. Admittedly we didn’t have any classes this afternoon and nobody was trying to get inebriated, but I had to stop for a minute and contemplate this happening back in NZ.
I couldn’t.
Too Many Questions, Not Enough Answers 