MARIEL R.
  • Blog
    • Second Blog
  • Happy Horse
  • Published
    • Free Stories >
      • Some Things Never Change
      • The Real Thing
      • For You, Mother
      • Meat Head the Worst Dog in the World
      • Boys As Nice as John
      • Meat Head
  • About
  • Green Gecko Publishing

My thoughts on the Sewol tragedy

4/27/2014

 
Picture
Eyes have been on South Korea since the sinking of the Sewol more than ten days ago. I normally don't follow these kind of story because... news like the forty students found in on dorm with broken fingers is heartbreaking. But I've been following this story since it happened, at first with the hope of finding survivors. I've been affected by this story differently than other disasters, perhaps because so many children were on board. Knowing that those kids could have easily been my students has...
I think of the kids I teach, all their different personalities, their crushes on singers, their smiles, their laughter and I'm devastated, because even though they weren't my students, I can picture them. I can see them excited about a rare break from studying, chatting with their friends and making plans about their futures. 

Korean bonds are strong. Good friends link arms in public and there isn't really a personal space boundary, so I also can imagine the children, boys and girls alike clutching to each other in fear, yet trusting the adults to tell them what to do and I feel anger that the people they trusted, were more concerned about covering their own asses.
I've written before about ordering a salad  (at Outback in case you're wondering) and the waitress needing permission from the manager to serve it with dressing on the side. In another place, people might have ignored the directive to stay put, but decision making is not fostered in the young, often by the time Koreans become elders and therefor leaders, they still don't know how to make decisions.

For this reason, I feel strongly that it is wrong to arrest all the crew.
Picture
The crew would naturally follow the captains orders and many job contracts in Korean are writing that employees must do exactly what their boss tells them to do unless it is against the law. This means if your boss tells you to get coffee every day and take his dry cleaning to the dry cleaners,  you have to obey. There are thousands of small tasks my Korean friend is asked to do and that she must do not to break this rule, but have nothing to do with the job she was hired for. If she were in a situation where she had make a decision-- say the water main broke and her boss was taking a tap, but she was given direct orders not to disturb her boss, she would feel like she had been put between a rock and a hard place.
Picture
Now, as the story of the Sewol has developed, so have lots of broken rules. The list of those are long, including but not limited to over loading the ship, poor steer (though I suspect that has more to do with an overloaded ship), leaving the helm, etc. But there was one pivotal decision: to prepare to evacuate or not to prepare to evacuate.



Precious minutes were lost-- perhaps has many as fifteen-- getting captain from his cabin (perhaps waking him up). The crew were not dithering because they were incapable of evacuating the ship, but because they've been trained from babies that they can't make them without permission when an elder is on board. 

This is one of the reasons the captain was nearly seventy. Even if the company had the best captain in the world, if he was younger than one crew member, that older crew member could disobey orders. But simply giving orders to an older person is considered rude. (Our financial manger at Yeongju English power simply by virtue of her age and pretty much runs the roost.)

More precious time was lost with the captain
trying to get the ship righted, trying and failing twice. Experienced as he was, maybe he could have done it if the ship hadn't been overloaded, but I deeply suspect that his decision to have the students remain below deck had more to do with covering his own ass. He wasn't where he was supposed to be and knew it. There are a lot of would of, could of, should of's.
But when its all said and done, there was one decision  that would have made all the difference: ordering the people on the decks below to come to the upper decks and prepare to evacuate.

There were a plethora of wrong doings, and perhaps more will come to like. But evacuation, while resulting in some life lost, would have still saved more lives than not.

My heart is with the families of the Sewol.
Picture
Disclaimer: None of the pictures are of the Sewol.

Question: Why don't ships h
ave rope ladders everywhere, so if the shop does tilt, people can use them to escape? Why don't boats have "air bags" that can inflate to slow down the ships rate of sinking? 

Comments are closed.
    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Mariel R. is an ESL teacher, horse trainer, writer, editor, sporadic blogger,  and lover of beer. She lives in South Korea with two house cats, three horses, a German Shepherd and three barn cats .

    Picture
    Bear (Gom in Korean) )
    Picture
    Yeongji
    Picture
    Oreo
    Picture
    Panther
    Picture
    Thor
    Picture
    Thunder
    Picture
    Super
    Picture
    Rex
    Picture
    Geumbi (Goldy in English) R.I.P February, 23, 2018
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Categories

    All
    Advice
    Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award
    Authonomy
    Author Interviews
    Awards
    Bear
    Cats
    Contests
    Contest Winners
    Getting Published
    Guest Posts
    ICANN
    Icon Not Find It
    I Learned Something New
    Kindle Scout
    Misc
    National Identity Crisis
    Observations
    People I Respect Very Much
    Pets
    Rejections
    Reviews
    Site Outage
    South Korea
    Web.com
    Weebly
    Weebly Woes
    WHOIS
    Words That Amuse Me
    Writing
    Writing Woes

    Archives

    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011


Photos used under Creative Commons from cotaroba, Juliana Coutinho, Dare*2*Dream, Brett Jordan, plasticrevolver, Elvert Barnes, Dan-Scape.co.uk, Camp of Champions, Rowdy Rider, timsamoff, TiffanyMichelle Photography, expertinfantry, stormwarning., VarsityLife, Instagram: Brunobrunan, woodleywonderworks, HotlantaVoyeur, Ally Mauro, eBomb716, kalleboo, 1la, DonkeyHotey, trekkyandy, Dita Margarita, ZeroOne, Marina Aguiar Araujo, You Have Reached The End of The Internet, InSapphoWeTrust, Nina J. G., One Way Stock, Ronnie Garcia, +Angst, Anika Malone, evolvingblue, porschelinn, Horia Varlan, Fred Jala, Dyl86, Cia de Foto, mootown, boolve, final gather, Hexidecimal, Arya Ziai, h.koppdelaney, Fan of Retail, (Domino), Celeste Vasconcelos, I .. C .. U, Nomadic Lass, Risager, taylorpad212, Benny(I am empty), Nomadic Lass, aloshbennett, Ben Mortimer Photography, Suedehead, Kyknoord, Lunar Logic, simononly, mike138, Tim Sheerman-Chase, Rusty Clark, papalars, rocketjim54, dno1967b, Tomasz Stasiuk, Robert S. Donovan, Merelymel13, Crystl, Tirso Lecointere, Leo Hidalgo (@yompyz), david_shankbone, gpatague online porfolio, petersejersen, wadem, mikecogh, ravijain_92, mynameisharsha, World Series Boxing, Jackie L Chan, greggman, saebaryo, All Kinds of New, Dwilliams851, cuatrok77, woodleywonderworks, Alex E. Proimos, Average Jane, gagilas, LifeSupercharger, Incase., Robin Hutton, THX0477, greenchartreuse, BrtinBoston, Trev Grant, CocteauBoy, dno1967b, Matt Erasmus, Tax Credits, Josh (broma), Phillip Pessar, MoToMo, barmala, Steve Snodgrass, Ross Elliott, cell105, Hunter-Desportes, *clairity*, fauxto_digit, Hugo90, tauben, rococohobo, Spencer Cross, alexliivet, HelloImNik, br1dotcom, Jorge Franganillo, علي - ali, olgaberrios, glennharper, kyeniz, cogito ergo imago, chris.corwin, BagoGames, brewbooks, ϟnapshot 19, Pop Culture Geek, rockmixer, jphilipg, qwrrty, noniq, e53, 'Playingwithbrushes', Marcus Q, lowjumpingfrog, ingermaaike2, Bob Jagendorf, allaboutgeorge, mgrybos, Images_of_Money, Tambako the Jaguar, Foxtongue, DBduo Photography, Beige Alert, DieselDemon, Five Furlongs, danicuki, CamEvans, arne h, electricnerve, -Tripp-, bigcityal, Tim Pierce, Vidbynäs Golf Club, Anomalous Productions, Dovecoté Avenue, Shannon Badiee, Modern Event Preparedness, Amydeanne, Arenamontanus, snowpea&bokchoi, H.Adam, Victor Bezrukov, wwootton1, Bulldog Pottery, M.Ryan Photography, thskyt, Muscle Dominator, Pinti 1, crimfants, Maarten_G / GreenPictures.nl, gematrium, Helga Weber, jon_a_ross, stevendepolo, Starar Band, UT Connewitz, brad_holt, Looking Glass, NatalieMaynor, flowerguy, Peter Huys, The Good Reverend Flash, PhoTones_TAKUMA, greyloch, faceleg, odonata98, Blyzz, sgd, Jeffrey Beall, anneh632, Roy Montgomery, Ivan Marianelli, Lel4nd, autumn_bliss, briggz5d, orsorama, zzkt, Chasqui (Luis Tamayo), gruntzooki, Walt Stoneburner, marc falardeau, karlnorling, john antoni, Kris Krug, aussiegall, CarbonNYC, pheαnix - off 6/29 - 7/8, wwward0, Philo Nordlund, myhsu, US Army Africa, mrsdkrebs, bratha, Veronique Debord, susivinh, Wesley Fryer, Rubyran, Cali4beach, plindberg, Flikkesteph, Paul and Jill, Pilot Theatre, JoeInSouthernCA
  • Blog
    • Second Blog
  • Happy Horse
  • Published
    • Free Stories >
      • Some Things Never Change
      • The Real Thing
      • For You, Mother
      • Meat Head the Worst Dog in the World
      • Boys As Nice as John
      • Meat Head
  • About
  • Green Gecko Publishing