this past week, harrie/증진 (the boy i tutor) graduated from my preschool, and i will now only see him on wednesdays when i tutor him at his house. sad. i didn’t see him for a whole week and i was so excited on my way over to his house today, but when i got there, he was in an awful mood. he did not want to study, he did not want to play an english game, he did not want to read the book i brought with me, he kept saying “i no play you (i’m not playing with you),” and pouting. he even told me to shut up and called me stupid! his mom had to come over and talk to him, but he still didn’t listen to her. finally, he broke down completely sobbing and we had to stop for the day. after that he wouldn’t even eat dinner!

a little while later his 8 year old brother came home (harrie is 5) and he heard me and his mom talking about harrie’s behavior. he was so upset with harrie for acting like that toward me that he started yelling at him in korean and was threatening to hit him. their mom had to separate them.

i bring up all of this to say that in general, i think that korean children are much more respectful than american children. i think all children have bad days (like harrie today – he is not usually like that), but i haven’t met an american 8 year old boy that would reprimand his own brother’s behavior like i saw today. from a very young age, korean children learn to differentiate 반말 and 존대말. i’ve seen very young children reprimanded for not speaking properly to adults.

respect is so much a part of korean culture that it is even built right into the language. i think this is part of the reason why korean children are generally more respectful than american children. the family unit has much more value in korean culture than in american culture, and i think that makes a big impact as well. the most respectful american children i’ve met came from very strong and caring families…

please don’t get me wrong, i am not saying that all american children are awful or that all korean children are perfect, i am just speaking from my observations. does anyone else have any thoughts on this? or perhaps other reasons why korean children seem to be so well behaved?

and just to make my blog more korean, the phrase i used the most today:

공부 해야 지~

i’m getting good at using this ^^ know what it means?