From: msy@siemens.com. (Marcus S. Yoo)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.korean
Subject: Re: Korea
Date: 29 Sep 92 20:46:18 GMT

In article <1992Sep29.150448.27284@news.acns.nwu.edu> phantom@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (James Choi) writes:
>As someone who often served as an interpreter between parents and children,
>(in my ga-jeong-gyo-sa tutoring days) I am aware of this problem
>first-hand.  However, the depth of the language required for this type of
>communication is far beyond any college level language course offered in
>the U.S. and even further beyond what sunday schools can teach.
>
>The words that are needed for this type of father-son communication is
>seldom used anywhere else.  And it takes a whole lot more than "did you
>have dinner?" to understand each other.

I believe this problem is a part of larger problem. Namely, the lack of
parental participation in their children's education. Or some times,
the parents pushing kids in a wrong direction. I've seen so many korean
kids born in the US who can fluently speak both Korean and English,
while there are still many who can not speak Korean at all. I can't
believe that it has to do with one's IQ or any Sunday school teachings
that made this difference. Many Korean parents, being frustrated from
not being able to communicate with the "rest of the world" (in English),
push their kids into learning proper English by not speaking Korean
to them. I've seen some parents who are too busy in their work
(putting in 16 hours or more per day into their bussiness) to put their
kids through the best colleges and universities. This has the same
effect as simply neglecting the kids. Speaking with a personal experience,
if the parents continues to have normal conversations with their kids
in Korean, the kids will not forget Korean language/heritage/etc.
I am probably more efficient in English, but I can still communicate
in Korean fairly well, except perhaps I may lack some of the vocabularies
and not as good as I should be in writing. But the point is, because I
kept on speaking to my parents in Korean, and because I still speak
primarily in Korean at home with my wife, and my parents, and with my kids,
I will probably never forget Korean language. My 4 year old and 3 year old
kids also speak Korean at home. I'm not too worried about them having
problems at school later on because I see my 4 year old speaking English
fairly well simply by watch TV and going to nursury school 3 times a week.

Some one else noted that a single 4 hour session per week at your local
language school probably won't be enough. I agree completely. Parental
involvement in children's education is the key - not only in teaching
our kids Korean language, but also in all other matters, such as our
heritage, social behavior, showing respect for the elderly, etc., etc.

If you doubt this, just look at all those "problem" kids - by far, most
of them comes from broken home, single working parent home, etc. The lack
of parental attention will weaken any kid's moral, and their education
will suffer. For the 1.5 or 2nd generation Koreans, this partly shows up
as lack of knowledge of Korean language/heritage/history, lack of interest
in talking to their parents or any others who whould rather talk in
Korean, etc. For those parents who worry about their kids ability to
speak English, teaching your kids English so that they will get a head
start in their life is one thing. Ignoring other aspects of their education
(e.g. Korean language, responsibility, respect) to teach them English
is quite something else. We shouldn't loose our perspective on this.