SKY Castle (스카이캐슬)

Self-Injury

Before coming to Japan, I was an English instructor(or teacher) for about 15 years, during which I could interact with quite lots of teenagers on a long term basis(if it was short, just a few weeks, and if long, it became years), which is quite different from the current situation in which I see new customers every single day.

As a person who was involved in private education in Korea, I guess, I was quite accepting and tolerant of my students’ ways of thinking and behaving(in many cases, I was persuaded by my students over their claims that they don’t have to or should not study English or other subjects they were forced to cram).

However, one thing was seriously disturbing me. It was self-injury. Some students showed me her wrist covered with bandages, smiling proudly. Other students was scratching their injured part on their skin in my classroom and shouted at me with excitement,

“Mr. Park, look at this! Isn’t it awesome? It feels good!”

‘Feels good?’

I just blamed the stress they were taking. I couldn’t figure out why they felt good injuring themselves. Only one thing I knew or felt was that the number of students injuring themselves had been increasing year by year.

 SKY Castle(스카이캐슬)

from Google

Last week, checking news from Korea online, I happened to know a TV drama titled “SKY Castle(스카이 캐슬)” has been sweeping in.

In the title, ‘SKY’ doesn’t mean sky where birds or airplanes fly around. It is abbreviation of ‘Seoul, Korea, and Yonsei’ which are the names of the top three privileged universities in Korea, which most of parents in Korea are eager to send their kids to.

The drama deals with the uncontrolled desire of parents in Korea who want to transmit their reputation and wealth to their kids through education, suffering of their kids, and the tragedies of the families.

I haven’t watch any single episode(I am in Japan). Instead, I listened to a podcast which deals with the issue of why the drama has been attracting huge attention by the public in Korea.

A panel was invited to the podcast and joined the talk. Interestingly for me, he was quite experienced counselor and psychoanalyst. His name is Lee Sungwoo(이승우).

He revealed several behaviors and symptoms of huge population of Korean middle and high school students have been showing with their heavy stress and one of them was self-injury. He added that it had becoming more serious.

I checked a few articles over the issue of teenagers’ self injury. Hangyorae21(한겨레21) released special reports over the issue in November last year(2018). According to the reports, 7.9 of 100 teenagers in Korea reported to have experienced self-injury.

The anchor of the podcast didn’t seem to understand the psychological mechanism of self-injury like I didn’t and asked him why they do what they do.

Thank you, Freud!

 Mr. Lee explained the mechanism quoting principles of psychoanalysis,

“People commit self-injury behavior to make sure they are still alive. If you are bombarded with oppression and stress, their senses of existence become dull physically and mentally. They injure themselves to resist the dullness.”

Quite interesting.

He added,

“For example, if you feel comfortable with your stomach, you don’t feel it is there. You recognize that it is there, when you feel sick or uncomfortable having stomach.”

Alas! Suffering is part of our existence!

There were many reasons I quit teaching English in Korea and came to Japan choosing to do a bit humble job(I do sometimes cleaning, dishes and etc). One of them was that I felt that I had wasted my time and energy on something destructive not just on myself but others who have lots of potential.

It has been alarmed everywhere!

From small seminars to short discussion drinking beer, non-Korean friends start the conversation to praise Korea over its rapid growth from one of the poorest countries after the 3 year long civil war(Korean War) to one of the richest countries in the world. But, as time went by, the topic always goes to education. They just say,

“It is crazy for kids to sit on the chair from early in the morning to midnight.”

Even in the book I am reading,‘Global Game Change: How the Global Southern Belt Will Reshape Our World’, the authors(John Naisbitt and Dorris Naisbitt) point out the crazy education system in Korea(of course, he didn’t say the word ‘crazy’).

Let’s go back to the classic but most crucial philosophy: Know yourself! (Know yourself through psychology!) In East Asia, parents’ devotion for their children’s education has been absolutely virtuous sacrifice. It couldn’t be questioned.

Mr. Lee commented,

“We should know how extremely evil parents’ desires are.”

He introduced a case he had seen.

“ A son disappeared suddenly. He had just finished his intern term in his medical school. Before disappearing, he called his mom lastly and said," it was the hell to have lived as your son. Please, don’t try to find me." In his high school days, his mom had used to bow 108 times every single night wishing his success.”

He added,

“ We should try to figure out our desire thoroughly.”

These days, I often ask myself, (not that much related to the issue of the blog)

“ Why did I come to Japan at the age when I should have settled down and started a family in Korea?”

It is not about comparing myself with other guys, but exert my effort to figure out the direction I have been aiming for consciously or subconsciously.