Don’t know why, but general people’s general opinions about public health everywhere (not just Korea) are pretty damn dumb. Fans, fainting, contraceptives, drugs…

Go, Slate! You tell ‘em!

Moral panics rip through cultures, observed sociologist Stanley Cohen in 1972, whenever “experts” and the “right-thinking” folks in the press, government, and the clergy exaggerate the danger a group or thing poses to society.

Immigrants have been the subject of moral panics, as have alcohol, jazz, comic books, sex, street gangs, rock, video games, religious cults, white slavery, dance, and homosexuals. But in the United States, moral panics are most reliably directed at illicit drug users. No exaggeration or vilification directed their way is too outrageous for consideration.

The rest of the article is about side effects from crystal meth use. Of course, this is not meant as any kind of covert endorsement of meth use on my part.

I came to Korea, in part, because of a great group of Korean grad and non-students who were in France learning French while I was studying there. They told me a lot about Korea, and of course, they gave me the rosy view. They also gave me the conservative view, and they were more conservative, at least outwardly, than many of us non-Asians in the international dorm….

So, I was very suprised at how much prostitution and sheer variety of prostitution places there were in Korean society as, after about 6 months in, some of my long term students (adults 20 -50+) began clueing me in about the real Korea. And I started to know what a “room salon” was and why my students were so adamant I not go to get my hair cut in the places that had the American style red, white, and blue barber’s poles in front.

Later on, I got to where I would go out with some younger Korean adult students to the nightclubs. These were usually not college students, and we didn’t go too often to the university clubs, but I remember the first time I went to a Korean only night club where a lot of university students were. I thought, “OK. Now I’m getting to see more of the real Korean contemporary society.”

So, this news made me think of that and a comment on the GIs behaving badly that mentioned among the acts he had seen by his fellow GIs off post was bumping and grinding to simulate anal sex, and he had no problem understanding why Koreans were disgusted by such behavior.

Yeah. I find it disgusting too. But, it ain’t exactly limited…..

It reminded me of that first night at the Korean club with mostly univeristy students. In a dance contest, one guy turned around away from the crowd and was doing something and not really dancing. The girl he was dancing with didn’t seem to know what was up either, then he turned around and was dancing — he had taken his arm inside his shirt and stuck it through his undone zipper and was flopping it around under his boxer shorts that were now poking through the hole — to simulate having a mammoth Kochu.

I didn’t make the sign of the cross or cover my eyes in holy dread, but I thought it was stupid.

Most of the other people there, however, got a big kick out of it and laughed hard…..

If you don’t make an effort to get to know Korean people and don’t make an effort to get around in Korea with Koreans, there is a whole lot you miss. And I’m sure with my horrible hakwon teaching hours, even though I was in country for many years, there is still not a small amount of regular Korean culture I never got to witness.

I think, from my experience, those who are in country one year and out — like most hakwon teachers or GIs — usually leave without a whole lot of a clue about what they didn’t get to see…..