Last Friday, the second season of the Korean drama "Dark Glory" was launched in the expectation of thousands of viewers, and the heroine Wen Dong'en's successful revenge was very happy. Coincidentally, on the same day that the series was launched, the show's director An Jiho was exposed to school bullying. Yesterday, he admitted that he had committed school violence against others and apologized to victims on social media.
From "The King of Pigs" to "Dark Glory", Korean film and television works have unveiled the tip of the iceberg of the problem of school bullying for the public. Why has this social disease become a heart disease in Korean society?
The beginning of a nightmare
Although the Korean film and television industry has worked tirelessly to produce many dramas on the theme of school bullying over the years, school bullying at the social level has also repeatedly caused a national sensation. But judging by the data, school bullying in South Korea is no worse than in other countries.
School bullying has become a popular theme in Korean film and television dramas
According to the "2022 School Violence Report" released by the Ministry of Education of South Korea, 1.7% of students in 16 cities and provinces across the country said that they had "experienced school violence", of which 3.8% were elementary school students, 0.9% were junior high school students and 0.3% were high schools.
Of course, because many victims are afraid to reveal their true thoughts in the survey, and many school bullying incidents are not recorded, many people believe that this data is not true enough.
But globally, school bullying in South Korea is still not the most prominent problem. In 2018, the OECD surveyed 10 million 15-year-olds in 48 countries and regions, and reported that about 23% of students worldwide experienced school bullying at school, while South Korea reported 10% of school bullying in this report; The worst of these is Australia, where 30% of Australian high schools are victims of bullying.
Hong Kong, China, which is also in Asia, is also far behind South Korea, with the OECD surveying the prevalence of bullying at school at 29.3%, ranking first in Asia.
So if we want to discuss why school bullying has become a problem in Korean society, we must go back to the far-reaching "Busan Kaiseong Middle School Death Incident" that shocked South Korea in 2005.
According to the SBS research program "Want to Know the Truth", the cause of this conflict is only because the speed of turning books when the two sides read books together is inconsistent, and the perpetrator is a well-known fight king, who knocked the victim unconscious during the dispute, causing his liver to rupture two-thirds, and died four days after being sent to the hospital.
On the left is the victim's father, and on the right is the school uniform that the victim wore
The reason why this incident has had a huge repercussion in South Korean society is that it quickly circulated another version on the Internet, believing that it was the victim who first spoke ill of the perpetrator, which led the perpetrator to "teach" him. Many South Koreans believe that the top management of Naver (South Korea's main search site) is related to the perpetrator, so they actively cover up the truth.
On the other hand, after the incident, the perpetrator was sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in prison. But under the protection of South Korea's Juvenile Law, he was released on bail in November of the following year, and in 2009 he changed his name to enter Kaisei High School, writing on the Internet that "killing is also a good experience... Anyway, legally speaking, this is not murder" and so on. It is reported that he was finally successfully admitted to a well-known medical university, and his future was not affected in the slightest.
In contrast, the victim's mother suffered from depression after the incident, and the father was judged to be physically and mentally disabled in 2013.
The impact of this bullying incident in South Korea is evident in literary works: hip-hop artist RAMA released the song "October 1" to seek justice for the victims and their families; Manga writer Linins used this incident as a material to create the "shuttle chapter" in "Let's Fight Ghosts".
The heart disease that has haunted Korean society for 20 years
Twelve years after the death at Kaiseong Middle School, another horrific school bullying incident occurred in Busan: Busan middle school girls collectively abused another classmate, in one case they beat the victim for 100 minutes and took photos of the victim covered in blood and posted them on social networks, which once again shocked the entire South Korean society and triggered a petition to amend the Juvenile Law.
victim
This law stipulates that the age of "juveniles in conflict with the law" is 14 years old, that is, juveniles under the age of law are not criminally punished even if they violate the law, but are ordered to participate in social service activities or transferred to juvenile correctional facilities. After the mass violence at Busan Middle School, more than 250,000 South Koreans petitioned the Blue House to amend the Juvenile Law, and the South Korean government also proposed to change the age of "juveniles in conflict with the law" from 14 to 13, but due to ongoing controversy, it has not yet taken effect.
In recent years, the Korean cultural and sports industry has frequently exposed the school bullying deeds of celebrities, which has pushed the public's anger to a climax.
At the beginning of 2021, South Korea launched a "school violence metoo" movement: victims exposed the bullying and evil deeds of active artists on the Internet, and several righteous artists were exposed, and rookie actor Cho Byung-kyu, actress Park Hye-so, girl group member Seo Sui-jin, boy group member Hwang Hyunchen and others were treated differently by withdrawing from the circle and quitting the group.
Celebrities in the entertainment industry are burdened by fame and are barely easier targets for sanctions; But under the tip of the iceberg, the perpetrators of school bullying incidents rely on their identities to sit back and relax. School bullying is closely related to the environment of each country, and school bullying in South Korea is often linked to the ubiquitous "class" of its entire country.
Even in the ivory tower, class is still a giant tower that presses on Korean students: bullies are usually "golden spoons" at the top of the pyramid, and the victims of bullying are often "earth spoons" with inferior family conditions.
The bullying plot in Dark Glory
For example, in a recent incident, the perpetrator was the son of South Korea's head of the National Search Headquarters (the highest person in charge of the police), who used his father's power to bully his classmates in high school, causing the latter to be severely depressed and unable to continue his studies, but he was "unharmed" with the help of his parents and successfully admitted to Seoul National University, South Korea's number one.
A still from "The King of Pigs"
In addition, South Korea's strict "seniority system" is also one of the reasons why bullying is repeatedly prohibited: "juniors" must unconditionally respect "seniors" and obey the latter's orders, and this strict hierarchy breeds many bad behaviors.
In the paper "A Study of the Experience of School Violence through Hierarchical Culture Between Upper and Lower Grades," the authors analyze a stable circular structure that operates in school bullying in South Korea: victim-perpetrator-bystander. After experiencing school bullying, junior students often can't help but become seniors, inflict violence on the next group of students, and even take the initiative to defend the legitimacy of this order when they become bullies.
As a key player in stopping school bullying, teachers are not only powerless in front of such a dilemma, but even contrary to it, but also become silent bystanders. Due to the reduction in education spending, many Korean teachers are now temporary "contract workers", who do not want to bear more blame than teaching, and when faced with bullying in schools, staying out of the situation is their best option.
After the whole society quietly gave way to the perpetrators, school bullying in South Korea is no longer an occasional phenomenon, but a dilemma under the social structure.
What's even sadder is that no matter how happy the revenge in "Dark Glory" is, in reality, the gang of five will most likely treat bullying others as a joke like at the beginning of the play, or completely forget what they have done, and continue to look for money on the smooth road of life.
Revenge business in the shadow of bullying
For 20 years, school bullying has become a problem in South Korean society, and the South Korean government has not done nothing about it.
In 2003, South Korea passed the Act on the Prevention and Response to School Violence, and established the Autonomous Committee for Countermeasures against School Violence (hereinafter referred to as the "School Violence Committee") in each school. In 2011, the law was amended so that whenever there is an exposure conflict, the school must convene a student violence committee to deal with it, increasing the initiative of the student violence committee.
A still from "Dark Glory"
Seemingly reasonable countermeasures are difficult to actually advance in reality. The school violence committee is generally composed of teachers, parents, and experts from all walks of life, and the perpetrator's behavior will also be recorded in the personal file. However, in South Korean society, which values further education, parents are more worried that such records will become a stain on students' lives than school bullying.
According to the "Follow-up Results of the 2021 School Violence Survey of the National Department of Municipal Education" compiled by the Ministry of Education, out of the 3.44 million surveyed students nationwide, a total of 52,336 violent incidents were witnessed, of which 96% (50,472) did not go away, and only 85 students were actually investigated by the police.
Not only is the rate of cases low, but the rate of overturning cases by the student violence committee is also quite high. According to a 2019 report by the Central Daily, many parents of perpetrators were dissatisfied with the verdict of the school violence committee and filed a lawsuit against it, with a reversal rate of up to 40%, mostly on the grounds that the committee composition violated the regulations, the incident itself could not be regarded as school violence, and the punishment was excessive.
The limited budget invested by the government is also an important reason why the problem of school violence has not been solved in South Korea. Taking the frequent exposure of sexual violence on campus in 2018 as an example, the Ministry of Education hopes to set up an "assistance mechanism to end university sexual violence" the following year, but the required budget of 3 billion won was only approved by the Ministry of Finance after deliberation of 300 million.
A still from "Dark Glory"
After schools and the Ministry of Education no longer expected to address school bullying, victimized students and parents turned to "lynching justice." In 2018, a company called "School Violence Professional Errand Running Center" appeared in South Korea, which provides "revenge services" for bullied students, divided into "uncle package", "evidence package" and "guardian package". Although seemingly illegal, the service was welcomed by many parents of victimized students when it launched, with more than a hundred commissions in six months.
As more and more school bullying incidents hit the courtroom, lawyers specializing in related litigation began to emerge. Samsung Insurance also launched a "special program" in 2020 that focuses on children's insurance, and as long as you pay a premium of 50 to 360 won, you can receive up to 500,000 won (about 2,631 yuan) in medical compensation when the school violence committee determines that the insured suffers from school violence.
In October 2021, Carrot Insurance Company launched the "Carrot Campus Guard" insurance. For example, 10-year-old students need to pay an annual premium of 18,000 won (about 95 yuan), while girls will pay 16,000 won (about 84 yuan), and up to 30 million won (about 160774 yuan) in compensation for the after-effects of injury, 1 million won (about 5,262 yuan) in treatment fees, and 1 million won in legal fees and administrative fees.
Whether it is various government measures or various types of school violence insurance, the problem of school bullying in South Korea has never been fundamentally solved. As Cui, the father of the deceased in the "Busan Kaiseong Middle School Death Case", pointed out in an interview: "Instead of discussing the protection of juvenile law, we should first discuss the prevention of school violence itself." ”
Rather than discussing fair punishment mechanisms, perhaps exploring the deep-seated causes of school violence and changing the strict hierarchy of dignity and inferiority in Korean schools is the root cause of changing the style of bullying.
Resources:
South Korea's Asian Economy: South Korea's Road to the End of School Violence is Difficult
Corner International: Students from Hell
Asia News Network：South Korean students see uptick in school violence as schools return to offline classes
Written by: Echo & tt
Edited by Echo
The source of the picture is the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the original author