Interesting. Do they use public shame and ridicule as an incentive to get people to pass?
Yes. This is a shame-culture. Much different than a blame culture. In the West, we have a blame culture. If you fail, it’s probably your fault for not studying. Go study and try again. In Korea, if you fail, you bring shame on yourself and your place of employment. The teachers at your school are not good, not smart enough to pass the test. It will be the gossip of the town. Shame is a big thing. When Koreans get stressed because of school work, problems in the home, or with their employment, they kill themselves to avoid the shame. When Americans have the same problems, they bring a gun to work, blame everyone else, and start shooting. People who fail, have run from the hall crying.
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I’m suprised.
Why not approach failure as an opportunity for further growth and self-improvement?
If people agonize about failure, then how does one get the courage to better oneself?
There is no ‘one’s self.’ There is family, community, and nation. Each person has a role. If everyone does their job, harmony is achieved. If you fail at your job, you bring the system down. You embarrass your family, your community (work place), your nation.
This is basic ‘Confucianism.’ Korea is a Confucian country like America and many countries in the West are Christian. That does not mean that the people or even the nation is Christian or Confucian but the history and social mores, have their foundations in the history and traditions of ancestors.
I once worked at a counseling agency where we had an Asian counselor. When the students had behavioral problems in school, he would yell at them and tell them how they had embarrassed their parents. Then go on about how he made Vietnamese people look stupid because of his behavior. This was my exposure to counseling from my Asian counterpart.
Korean culture and its focus on rituals, familial respect, and obligation to others (Family, Work, Community, The Government, The nation, worship of ancestors, and self-discipline) remain greatly influenced by Confucian teachings.
Here at my school, we teach the traditional tea ceremony once each month. Children are taught to bow to their elders and demonstrate deference. Morality is taught in the school system. Not at home.
Korea is a very crowded place. Traditionally it was an extremely poor, agricultural country. After the Korean War, it began to open up. (It is called the Hermit Kingdom.) It was long isolated from the world.
In just 50 or 60 years, Korea moved from an agricultural country to an industrial nation. Its growth has been amazing. In one generation the changes in this country have been massive. When I talk to Koreans my age, they tell me stories of digging in the mountains for ferns just so they could make soup and survive.
I had a girlfriend who told me a story about her first soda. The salesman would come around once a week with his cart. On his cart, he had Orange Crush. My girlfriend took one of her mom’s good cooking pots and traded it for an Orange Crush. She said it was the most amazing thing she had ever tasted in her life. Her mom was very angry and beat her, but she would do it over again if she had the opportunity.
This is another world with people who have different ways of thinking. And yet they love their kids, go to work, buy homes, and do all the same things we do. They just do them for different reasons.
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I have a collection of soap. I know it sounds funny but I have a room full of bars of soap from around the world. People have been sending them to me for years. Each Christmas, I have a hell of a time choosing which bar of soap I am going to choose for my annual bath. Choosing the wrong soap could be a disaster. Imagine smelling like a daisy and then having to wait for your following bath the next year to wash the scent out of your fur. Just Horrible!
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I should imagine Daisy would be very offended by that remark.
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As an individualist, I might have a problem existing in that framework . . . but if I’m to be fair, I could argue that American standards of individualism cause a huge number of social ills. Instead of harmony and unity, we have students coming to school and shooting their teachers (as you indicated), we have drug addicts passed out on the sidewalk when you’re walking to work, and entire families that live off of welfare as a lifestyle (in some cases for 3 generations!) instead of treating it as a safety net.
If we had more of a sense of social unity and obligation, then I think that a lot of this shit wouldn’t happen.
I’m not saying that I would like the society that you describe in Korea . . . but I (very often) don’t like my society either, as I believe that our materialism has taken the place of spirituality, and this materialism is destroying the world with pollution, cause vast numbers of animals to become extinct, and creating political unrest (and wars) in other parts of the world.
An example that supports this last point is the shit that goes on in the Middle East because of our lust for oil.
If there was an answer that worked, we would all be doing it the right way… Like the Christians!
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Interesting ramble but back to the original question, my hobby is photography. I got started in the early 70’s and have been clicking off and on ever since. I am with a semi formal group of photographers. We meet monthly to share photos and techniques. We are getting ready for a show beginning tomorrow and running for a month. Wall space donated by the local brewery. I have been away from the group for sometime but since my wife’s death I decided to make an effort to get out more.
I also enjoy puttering around in my wood working shop but less so in the winter but really that’s an excuse because for a while I have cast aside anything that gave me joy. Writing that bit helps me to see just how crazy I sound. But on a positive note I have to say that reading the posts here and the back and forth between you folks has helped me gain a more healthy perspective on living and dying.
Oh and I am trying my hand at water colors and have been amazed at how, something that looks so easy is so frustratingly complicating hard.
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Yeah! We like healthy perspectives on living and dying. Fuck the assholes that can’t take a cosmic joke. And flip them the bird as you shed your yoke. There is something to do each day that will make your life amazing. I’m eating a cookie and dipping it in hot steamy coffee. Fucking amazing!
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I sometimes wonder why I don’t bring up religion with my friends but not having you all to talk with I brought the subject up with some friends over the past few days. Of the four I talked with they all thought religion was a bunch of bullshit and one woman who was raised in the catholic church got quite wound up about what a bunch of hypocrite lunatics catholics are. So now I know why the subject never came up. There is nothing about religion worth talking about. It has no relevance except as joke ala George Carlin, Ricky Gervais, Flip Wilson although, “the devil might have made him do it”.
My hand crank popcorn machine arrived yesterday. I promised myself a popcorn reward for cleaning my house. So this weekend is the trial run. We do popcorn differently here in the East.
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That’s not a popcorn maker. That’s a home defense system. Holy shit!
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They sound like a defense system as well. These things run around town on the backs of trucks. They are like the American version of an ice cream truck. When you hear them go off, you know you can buy bags of treats.
I can puff wheat, rice, beans, and all sorts of things in this contraption. I can’t wait to try it on my collection of toenails. This dang thing puffs anything.
It’s my new hobby. The neighbors are going to love it.
The one I have is a mini -bang-Twee-gee machine. So the popcorn is on me for the next eggnog party.
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Here is a picture I took yesterday but I have to screenshot it because my phone using crashes the browser. It is a resort town named Parys I will took more pictures later.
Wondering when you puff beans do you get enough methane to run your gas lights? Also have you had any flatulate backfires.
The holy diet of wafers and holy water is taking care of all that.
Here is a funny street name if only the “I” was a “U” it would be “Fuck str” 
.
Here is suspension bridge pictures I took .
Well, “fick” carries a certain meaning in German…