A Lesson in Values

Ha, got your attention. No, don't take the title the wrong way, there is nothing explicit at all in this article. Read first and decide, in what is a lesson about what is happening to values, in other parts of the world:

Two weeks ago was our school's picnic day. Different homerooms went to different destinations. I decided to go along with the 2nd level teacher's trip to the Theater District ("Daehangno") in central Seoul, a long trip indeed. I went with three homeroom teachers: Mrs. Kim Ja-yong (the nice teacher), Mrs. Lee (the Chinese language teacher), and Mrs. Won (a math teacher who always wears a mean look on her face, even though she is nice).

I talked to Mrs. Kim most of the time because she knew the most English, but Mrs. Lee is actually pretty good at the language too. Talking to Mrs. Won was a funny experience because she hardly knows English, so I had to speak my terrible Korean to get to know her. Surprisingly, she's a huge fan of the Spider-Man series, and she told me that Spider-Man 3 was not that good. Shame, and I wanted to see it too (but I might anyway to see what the hype is about).

Long story short, after we went to a play and had lunch, we headed to Namdaemun Market, one of the busiest flea markets in South Korea. We had to transfer trains to get there, and we finally arrived at the market area. Meanwhile, while walking together out of the subway station, I saw a man selling magazines on near the wall. I thought they were just normal magazines like Korean Newsweek or some others for sale. Yet shockingly I saw that these mags were no normal mags, they were dirty mags, and I immediately bounced my eyes away in horror: what shocked me was that this man was selling them in the open public.

So I turned to Mrs. Kim and asked, "Why is he selling dirty magazines at a subway stop of all places, isn't that shocking?"

Mrs. Kim: "What's wrong with that?"
Mark (thinking): (You've got to be kidding me)
Mrs. Kim: "Our students (all boys) have those images on their cell phones."
Mark: "I'm not surprised."
Mrs. Kim: "Don't you look at those things (pictures of naked women) too?"
Mark (shocked): "No. That is very bad stuff, Mrs. Kim, its not good for the mind and soul."
Mrs. Kim: "I see..."
Mark: "Well think about what porn is..."
Mrs. Kim: "What's porn? Corn?"
Mark: "Not corn. You don't know what porn is?"
Mrs. Kim: "No."
Mark: "P-O-R-N."
Mrs. Kim: "So, you don't like to look at those pictures? I thought most boys and young men like to look at them?" (Keep in mind, her tone of voice is very innocent, she has no clue)
Mark: "No, Mrs. Kim, and let me tell you why: lust."
Mrs. Kim: "What's that?"
Mark: "Lust is the opposite of love. It turns a desire of love into a selfish mess, it desires the forbidden. It destroys relationships and marriage"
Mrs. Kim: "Yes."
Mark: "Well think about it, and I hate to ask this question, but what if your husband was looking at those images, would you be upset?"
Mrs. K: "...yes."
Mark: "So, as a believer in Christ, we believe that a relationship between a man and a woman is sacred, and in order to keep it that way the man must preserve a woman's beauty by not looking at evil things like that. What those magazines do is take a woman's beauty and turn it into a piece of meat. There have been men in the church who have fallen out of their marriages because of those kinds of materials." (i.e. Christian singer Clay Crosse, who has since cleaned up his life and uses his experiences to warn other young Christian men to stay away from porn)
Mrs. K: "Yes." (She says 'yes' alot)
Mark: "So I recommend you tell your students to stop looking at that stuff if you catch them..."
Mrs. K: "Yes."
Mark: "So, its important that you raise children who don't feed off that stuff, because it can destroy alot of people's lives..."

Okay, uhhhhhhh crud, a teacher has to use my classroom, so I will finish the conclusion to this really eye-opening experience later today. This funny experience has taught me a few things of what is happening in our world today when it comes to values and morals. And its not just the Western nations, its East Asia too, a bastion of conservatism and order, dealing with the issue of porn.

See you in a bit.