Watching taekwondo black belt tests

Yesterday was a really busy day. With only four hours sleep I just about managed to get up and head to my dojang to meet my taekwondo Master. Some of his students were taking first and second black belt tests and Diana (co-worker and taekwondo comrade) and myself were invited to go and watch those taking part (people from the Bukgu area of Daegu). We drove downtown and none of the kids in showed any sign of nerves. Perhaps too young to think about it or perhaps it's not really a big deal for any of them.




The tests were around the Samsung Lions baseball stadium and the first thing that hit me was how many people were actually having their test at once. I think my master said around four/five hundred people although it is sometimes double that. When I took hapkido tests at my dojang there were sometimes around fifty people watching and I always was very conscious of being very conspicuous but this was on a much larger scale though to be honest nobody will be watching me when I get to take my test.




Watching all the action I was very impressed with most of the participants. First we saw a demostration which was a lot of fun to watch up close. I made a video and hope to post that soon. Then it was the turn of the kids who start off with those taking their 1st 'poom' test all the way up to those taking third or fourth ones. This being a small world and all, I naturally I bumped into one current and one ex-student of mine taking part. I watched them and they did well. When the kids finish it's the turn of the adults who take their 'dan' tests and here is when the arena emptied significantly.




About the tests themselves first the participants do the Taegeuk Pal Jang (eighth and final poomsae before being award a black belt) then two other poomsae's afterwards - these are drawn at random and could be the first two you learn or numbers six and seven which was what yesterdays students had to do, so in all three poomsae's. Finally there is a fighting element where you attack and defend yourself against an opponent supposedly not making contact but you do wear a helmet. This is similar to something I did in hapkido and is the easiest section. When doing these four sections you start off at one end of the arena and end up at the other and you take your test with five or six other people. The whole thing took about three hours though if there are more people then of course it takes longer.




As it took three hours there was plenty of time for consideration and reflection. I still feel inferior to many of those who I saw taking part yesterday. I am not fit enough yet, I need to lose weight, I am not flexible enough, my technique is inadequate right now. Will I really be ready to take part in two months time or will I have to wait an additional two more months? Right now that looks very close and although I would be confident of passing I am not so confident about actually being any good. I don't want to embarrass myself, my Master of his dojang. I cannot help thinking ahead of myself but need to stop and concentrate on what I am doing now. So overall it was good to see what's in store for me but there's a hell of a lot of work to be done between now and then whenever test time is.

Fingers crossed

Today is a pretty important day for me at work. Every six months or so, all foreign teachers at the company I work for are observed by one of our foreign managers. Later on we get feedback on how well we did or what mistakes we need to try and cut out. The feedback and some other things go into consideration when deciding to offer a new contract or not. I am not worried about my observation but like to well so I feel a little stress and I'm confident enough in the job I have done and am doing.

However, IF things go badly and I don't get a new contract I don't know what I will do. The chances of that happening I feel are slim. So far observations have gone very well from both my foreign and Korean managers. Also, though I don't know the percentages, overwhelmingly the company likes to keep its teachers. Unless there have been serious problems with staff they like to re-sign teachers as hiring new employees is always risky. I expect to get a new contract but it feels wrong to presume I will get one. If I don't get the new contract some of my plans are in jeopardy and the immediate future would be most uncertain. Fingers crossed.

Not the taking part that counts

Life for natives in Korea seems to be a never ending popularity contest. The more I see, the less I understand or want to. Style over substance. Appearance over content. Face over heart. A constant stream of award ceremonies to reward those who have achieved nothing of any importance and have almost certainly had plastic surgery to change what they didn't like or what wasn't deemed good enough. People whose talent is not always obvious to the untrained eye or to those who have not been brainwashed.

Korea also seems to have created a culture of Internet users who are so critical of people at times, for no real sane reason that some celebrities have taken their own lives. You must succeed, you must look good, you must be loved and you must not make mistakes. I have never pretended to understand the Korean people or mentality and perhaps I never will.

It's not just exclusively for the more famous people, it is there for the common man too. It seems like the pressure is there to look good, not just appearance-wise, but to have the perfect life/family/marriage/job. To appear successful, powerful and to be accepted by as many people as physically possible. The higher up the ladder you go, the higher the stakes. The idea of this blog is NOT to be as cynical as can be or be bitter about my Korean experiences but occasionally disillusion creeps in.

It takes a very special person to not care what people think about them, but at times here I feel like those people are as rare as unicorns. Stay with the group, don't be an individual. I genuinely wonder sometimes if people here are happy or are content to look in the mirror and see what they want other people to believe, not what is real. I am left wondering is it any different in my own country?

Pressures in Korea

Today in my 3rd class after the usual weekly test was finished I noticed one student, a boy of around ten or eleven years-old, hadn't finished one section. I asked him why he hadn't done it. He made a mistake and quickly realised it, but by this time it was too late, test time was over. He then broke down and cried for the remainder of the class. Head down bawling wildly, almost without stopping, for over thirty minutes. It was so loud that I had to tell two Korean teachers in other rooms that basically he's crying because he screwed up. The rest of the class had no sympathy with him and most of the students laughed at what was going on - though I tried in vain to stop it. The class objectives went out of the window and little of the lesson was taught. The boy knew what was coming.

My workplace has a system where if students have a bad test, don't do their homework or misbehave etc, then they have to stay behind after their classes finish - sometimes up to 2 hours and study. It's called 재시, or Jaeshi. It can be effective and is a good deterrent at times as nobody at all wants that. Especially Middle schoolers as their last class finishes at 10:20pm.

I have become partially immune to the tears of a child (at my workplace!). Though it is never nice to see and especially if they are young and maybe have somehow hurt themselves or if they are simply someone who is a great kid, you quickly realise that children do cry and they will get over it very quickly. You do your best with the situation and try to makes things better but kids are durable. The fact is though, Korean children have to put up with things like this because they study much harder and for much longer than most other countries. Certainly for much longer than I did. But this does not mean that their studying is better. Their English proficiency rates, when factoring in how much their parents spend on English classes are appalling.

I think back to my time as a student and I don't recall any pressure from my family and there was no external pressure from society to do well, to get to a certain position in life. Korea seems to be the opposite. It gets worse the older they get, until they graduate High School with numerous high pressure situation tests throughout the years. All students go to academies after school and often come home after midnight. They cannot get much sleep and certainly have a very restricted and brief childhood with very little playtime after the age of thirteen. Some older kids are like zombies and I've seen several falling asleep in class - as evidenced by the picture below I took when I worked at my previous academy. Would I be any different?


Long have I held the view that most students here don't learn subjects, they learn what to do to pass them. There is clearly something wrong with the demands of the curriculum where they have to get goods results to get to good universities. I'm no expert on this but I can only comment on what I've seen in the three years I've been here. You don't envy them and usually sympathise with them, but you have to acknowledge that they are also in a privileged position where they have the opportunity to potentially improve themselves with extra classes. It's at times cruel but they all have to go through it but I am very glad I didn't grow up like this.