Glenna Stearman Park
Editor’s Note: Glenna wrote this as an email in 2014 in response to the mayor of Soichi assuring the world that no gays would be present to spoil Russia’s Winter Olympics. It adds details to Glenna’s story about Living in South Korea.
I must tell you that the two years we spent in South Korea were in a homosexually free environment. I taught conversational English at the local university in Daejon. My college students assured me that they did not have gays in Korea. They also did not have boobs, or any other slang referring to women’s data points. When I explained jugs, grapefruits, apples, oranges, watermelons, fried eggs and knockers to them, they had to be scraped off the floor in shock. They told me that Koreans did not have a tradition of slang for those body parts. But they did know what clam shells were, and the girls said they knew little hot peppers.
I finally realized that until the 1980’s Korean women wore loosely fitting clothes that went straight to the floor with never a hint of what was under the dresses. The international style of T-shirts and jeans was a very new fashion change, and common language had not quite caught up. My freshmen and sophomore students had never been on dates. To their families, a date still meant an engagement. Many of my students were from the peasant class of rice farmers coming to town for an education.
Even my more liberal friends said there were no gays in Korea. I felt as if I recognized gay people around, but they would have been discreet in this very tight society. One would have to be very careful about being on the streets.
Social development was severely restrained. High schools did not have competitive sports or school parties and dances. The only after hours activities in Korea were the numerous study halls that stayed open until midnight. If students did not do their homework and made a lot of mistakes, they were assigned to after school-evening study halls. Parents had to deliver dinner to the students at the school, which allowed them to go home at midnight. They were all back in class by 7:30 the next morning.
Korean students wear the same navy and white uniforms and all have the same haircut. They go to school for a half day on Saturday. Then Saturday afternoon, the whole place goes crazy with the cartoon-like fashions that have made them world famous.
Korea kicks ass in academics. They do lack creativity and daring, which catches up with them in college and in research. Nevertheless, they will figure that out eventually. Social life is abysmal at all stages, including for married couples.
