Disturbing Thing I Just Learned about Korea and Something Universal

Here is a somewhat disturbing thing I learned about Korea last week:

In Korea, women are not allowed to work past the age of forty. Basically, this means that if you do not get married before you turn forty, your life will be extremely difficult and/or impossible. It's against the law to actually fire them just for being forty, but companies can do whatever they can to make women quit, including, according to my TP, things like moving their desks into the hallway so they cannot get work done, taking supplies away, giving impossible deadlines and then reprimanding them for not getting things completed on time, etc.

What the hell?

I knew that things would be different for women here, but in addition to all that, women make less than half what men make at the same jobs, and it is far more difficult for men to get fired. This makes me fear for my older female friends who are unmarried. Ten years to find a husband seems like plenty of time, but who knows? And what happens if they never meet anyone, or want to choose not to get married? Or what if, and I know this is really rare in Korea because of the culture, but what if someone is a lesbian in a committed relationship? Who takes care of these women when they turn forty? What options can they have?  I’ve done some research and found out that Korea is actually one of the worst countries in the world for the professional treatment of women.

As many issues as I can have with the United States, sometimes, in some ways, I am really thankful to be American.

Now, the universal thing.

Christmas concerts are nothing more than devices with which to torture teachers. Hello lots of extra work? Yes, she can take you right over there. That's right, the white one. Oh, tiny, high-voiced tone deaf children? Yes, again, over there with the white one. Oh and by the way white one, can you choreograph a dance routine while your ears are bleeding? Because otherwise you're rather useless aren't you?

Still, even I have to admit that as loath as I am to do the extra work, the kids’ musical numbers are coming together quite well.  We have to do two numbers each, and my kids selected “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” and “Jingle Bell Rock.”  As difficult as it was to refrain from teaching them the Mean Girls choreography, “Jingle Bell Rock” is still the cuter number.  At the end they all crowd together in a “one horse sleigh” and then Ryan, the class troublemaker, gets on all fours and whips off his Santa hat to reveal reindeer antlers.  It’s pretty cute, and they absolutely love doing it.

So Christmas concerts are, yes, universally destructive to teachers’ sanity.  However they are also universally adorable.