Giggle Syndrome and the Blame Game

I know this has been touched on in other blogs but I just wanted to share some of my own experiences about the Korean way of dealing with uncomfortable situations, mistakes or confrontation.

In general, Koreans are not comfortable with confrontation as a way to resolve conflict or miscommunication. Back home, when there is an issue at work or you’re not clear on something, you go directly to the source and ask questions. Problem solved. Miscommunication cleared. For whatever reason, my guess is insecurity; my experience has been that my Korean coworkers feel extremely uncomfortable talking about certain issues particularly if it involves the possibility that they made a mistake somewhere along the line or could somehow be blamed for something.

It’s very interesting to me to see such a dichotomy in this society where, they have become extremely efficient in some ways (technology, construction), but cannot grasp basic problem solving techniques. It is frustrating to say the least. I know that “saving face” happens everywhere and in every country, but in Korea it happens to the extent that not looking bad in someone’s eyes takes priority over just admitting that you made a mistake and then looking for a way to fix it.

The biggest example I can give of this phenomenon is a schedule change or a special event that is suddenly added and they forget to inform the foreign teachers. This is common. It happens at least once a week and it is beyond frustrating. There have been so many changes to our classes and schedules lately due to a bunch of staff quitting and being replaced. Yesterday I went in and prepared for my classes as normal. In the afternoon I went to one of my classrooms, lesson in hand, only to run into my Korean co-teacher for that class who informed me that she would be teaching them for that period. Nobody had told me about this schedule change, and I now had no idea where I was supposed to be and was unprepared to teach a different class.

I wouldn’t have minded so much if this hadn’t been maybe the third time that this happened this week. Generally when a problem occurs more than once, a light bulb would go on and someone would say “hmm…how can we deal more efficiently with this problem that keeps coming up?” I feel sad to say that my terrible working environment has left me feeling more and more bitter and jaded about my experience here. I probably would have felt entirely different had I been placed in a public school, which has a government funded English program and is therefore regulated.

Anyways, when I approached the woman who is in charge of making the schedules, the one who keeps failing to inform me of these changes, she kind of just giggled and didn’t even apologize. The giggle is one way that they deal with an uncomfortable situation. The other is to turn around and point the finger at someone else.

Unfortunately, foreigners often serve as the scapegoat here. Whenever something goes wrong at my school it must be the foreigners fault. Oh we’re losing a lot of kindergarteners? It must be that the foreign teachers don’t play enough and laugh enough with the children. They must just be sitting there with the kids working on the pile of books and worksheets that we told them to do. It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that since I’ve arrived here in July, the entire Korean staff has quit and been replaced because they can’t deal with the tyrant of a director.

The other really disturbing instance in which I’ve noticed the giggle syndrome and the blame game coming into play is whenever I try to talk to my co-teachers about a child who I’ve noticed is really struggling and who may possibly have a learning disability. Learning disabilities and special needs are often not recognized here. I am not sure if it is denial on the part of the parents’, who again, want to save face and don’t want their child to be treated any differently, but they are really doing a disservice to their child and it deeply saddens me. I have one student who very clearly needs to be seen by a doctor. Obviously I cannot diagnose what the issue is but I strongly suspect he has ADD. The first time I pulled my co-teacher into the hallway to suggest that I noticed this student was struggling and that she should speak to his mother about this, she started laughing uncontrollably.

When I spoke to her about it a couple of weeks later, she again giggled (giggle syndrome) and said that she had spoken to his mother about it and the mother became very angry and suggested that his teachers just weren’t helping him enough (blame game) and weren’t paying enough attention to him. I pray for his future.

Unfortunately, there is no solution to this. It is deeply ingrained in their culture, this notion of not accepting responsibility and saving face. Does anyone else have insight or experiences to share? Please share them in the comments.

#rantover