You may have heard of the recent sad news (under the title of 서울서이초등학교 교사 사망 사건) of a Korean teacher in Seoul who committed suicide inside her classroom after overwhelming stress mainly apparently having come from students' parents. If not, read this: Korean teacher’s suicide sparks massive outpouring of grief, calls for protections for educators
One awkward note about the issue is that if you were using Google Translate to look through Korean news of the event, you would get, let's say, some strange results.
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| Various results from Korean news on Google, auto-translated by Chrome |
Why would so many articles show up about the teacher having joined a theater troupe?
It's because the original Korean articles shown above all reference the teacher as having committed a "극단 선택". This is a common euphemism for suicide in Korean media. 선택 is just "choice" but Google is confusing the first part among two potential Hanja originated meanings:
- 極端 = "extreme end"
- 劇團 = "drama company, theater troupe"
So instead of her making an "extreme choice" it thinks she made a "theater troupe choice".
I think 9 out of 10 times, when auto-translations seem screwy or weird, it comes down to issues like this.
On a serious note, condolences to her family and students. Teachers around the world need more support and respect these days. Take a minute to imagine how much she was dealing with, nearly all of it needlessly. If you're a parent, don't be a butthole to your kid's teacher. 9 out of 10 times, they care about your kid and need your help in raising them right. Note that "right" doesn't just mean successful from an academic score point of view.
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