I have now been in South Kor... for about 9 months. So in a weird sort of way if I was a baby I would now be taking my first breath in and out in this new world. For the past 9 months I have learned more things about the Kor... people and culture than I can reiterate in this post. Although, there is one aspect that I would like to bring up, censorship.
Even though I don't speak the Kor... language "Hangul", I do learn many things about the culture. I volunteer to teach a college age young Kor... woman English on the weekends, I teach an English speaking class full time during the week at a public high school, and meet new Kor... friends on the Kor... University campus I am near. I also play in a saxophone group that rehearses and performs together. I am the only native English speaker out of about 18 people. Needless to say, I have more exposure to Kor... culture than I could ever get from researching it back in the United States. Thankfully I tend to be a rather observant person.
DON'T CENSOR ME!!!!! Since this blog will be read mostly by Native English speakers from Western cultures, I will direct my comments to them. Below I will include information on the censorship within Kor.. from various sources along with personal experience. This is the place for you to feel free to post your thoughts and opinions. Please take into consideration that this is a blog viewable to all audiences. I would love to hear your opinions and questions. If I don't know, I'll ask a Korean friend or research it myself other places.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_South_Korea
“The nation of S. K. is a world leader in Internet and broadband penetration, but its citizens do not have access to free and unfiltered Internet. S.K.s government maintains a broad-ranging approach toward the regulation of specific online content and imposes a substantial level of censorship on election-related discourse and on a large number of websites that the government deems subversive or socially harmful.[2] Such policies are particularly pronounced with regard to anonymity on the Internet”
“Since 2008 illegal websites such as unrated games, pornography, gambling, etc., have also been blocked. Attempts to access these sites are automatically redirected to the warning page showing "This site is legally blocked by the government regulations”
“In 2007, numerous bloggers were censored and their posts deleted by police for expressing criticism of, or even support for, presidential candidates. This even lead to some bloggers being arrested by the police.[“
(Personal experience)
During my privileged time of teaching this year I have had several instances of both male and female students using the "F" word toward each other or various other words that would be deemed "inappropriate" for a professional school setting. Most people would simply tell the student not to say those words and move on. After punishing a student with typical Korean discipline (exercise) the first time it happened in my class, I observed the confused look on the students' faces. I then decided it was time to further investigate. In broken English that the students could understand (leaving out articles) I asked them, "what does the word "F" mean"? The students didn't act like they were holding back knowledge, they genuinely didn't know. You see, in South Korea censorship even extends to the big screen. What is on the big screen? Many American movies with many "professionally inappropriate" words in them. The catch is, when putting up the sub-titles, the "bad" words are simply all translated as the equivalent of "oh shucks" or "oh man!" So students then use these English equivalents in public in place of the non offensive or conservative Korean word they meant to use.
What are you thoughts?
1. For a country that prizes unity and looking at what is best for the whole first and individual last, instead of vice verse like the States does, is it a good or bad thing?
2. Does this share socialist characteristics?
3. Is this helping shield the public from dealing with many problems Western culture already faces?
4. If you have a Google account, please sign in a drop your comment on this actual blog instead of other places it may be linked to if you have time. Thanks again for your time.
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