As I was in class today with my rambunctious second graders, I was instantly transported back to teaching in middles schools in America and the huge disparity in students behaviors between America and Korea. Coming from America, where you or I can go into any of our own or our friends medicine cabinets and find percocet, zoloft, cymbalta, paxil, prozac, wellbutrin etc. it is a trip to live in a country where any sort of ‘mental illness’ is swept under the rug. In America, you have heartburn, take a drug. You have trouble waking up, take a pill, trouble going to sleep, trouble talking to people, cant focus, trouble with social situations, anxiety, etc. take a fucking pill. In Korea, people don’t talk about this. I would imagine if one did ask for one of these, or were exhibiting characteristics of someone who ‘should’ take pills, one may be shunned.
Now I am against taking a pill to ‘cure’ these so called ‘illnesses’ that American television and doctors continuously cram down our throats at any chance they can get. But it is a trip, being in a country where NOBODY talks about it, there are no commercials pushing drugs to make you happy or to ‘fix’ you. I must admit, I would rather watch 500 commercials for banks and loans, then 1 commercial for Zoloft (but you have to love that it will cure your depression, though you may have blood shot eyes, trouble sleeping, blood clots, sensitivity to light…).
It is nice to not have to deal with I.E.P’s and read what medicines the kids are being forced to take. I do NOT look forward to going back to American schools, dealing with the over medicated youth of tomorrow….
