JOURNAL: Miracle of Life?

Something that keeps coming up at the oddest moments has finally provoked me to discuss a subject I have broached before. I bring it up again because a. it both puzzles me and frightenes me and b. it keeps coming up in my conversations with Korean women. Call me Margaret Meade. It is Korean men and women's ignorance about their own bodies.

Remember that, just a few months ago, there was a scandal attached to a professor at a prestigious university in Seoul, a man who fudged his own research in regards to stem-cell research. How did this fact get by so many people on his project? You may well ask. Given the complete ignorance about human reproduction I have encountered among well-educated and otherwise intelligent Korean adults, I am no longer surprised. This does not even only cover the more...er...earthly aspects, I am talking simple cell division, DNA, and the life cycle of cells.

First, let us discuss the touchy issue of sex education in American public schools. I see nothing wrong with teaching a few basic facts about how babies are made, birth-control, and the amazing miracle of conception; someone likened it to the odds of 1078 blind people solving a Rubik's cube at the same exact moment!By about fifth grade, the average American child (especially if they have cable tv) has a rough idea about where babies come from. The details are a little hazy; this can be problem if incorrect guidance is provided through the dubious avenuse of peers, television, or older siblings. Educators are well-trained to deal with the more technical aspects, and should be given a chance to offer cold, hard facts. What my parents didn't cover I learned through my sixth grade science teacher.

My parents were quite open all through my childhood about information concerning where babies come from, though I was a bit confused about when my mother told me (at age 8) that some women "sold their body to men." I innocently thought this was a good thing; there are many accident victims out there missing body parts after all who might want a new arm or leg. But I digress... My point being I had a general idea of what went where, and that what went up must come down...presto chango - a new life.

My church took our sixth grade girl's group through the ubiqitous (in the fundamentalist Christian childhood of the 80s) Dr. Jame's Dobson's "Preparing for Adolescence." I was already prematurely developed, so none of the information about periods, breasts, or copulation was new to me. He was very vague on spiritual issues, I found, and I'm afraid he left me more confused than enlightened. That was my problem with Fundamental Baptist Christianity, "Because God said so."

The other milestone of my knowledge was a video shown on NOVA in the mid-eighties. I had a childhood addiction to science programs, and my mother watched this "new documentary" with me; I must have been about 8 or 9. It was, as you may have guessed, "The Miracle of Life," a still-wonderful and astounding video of the process of life from conception to birth. There was nothing titilating or sexy about it; we watch the sex act from INSIDE the woman rather than externally, though the film ends in a graphic filming of the birth of this being we have watched from conception to live birth. The photography is astounding, and it is because of this film I became rather strongly pro-life (except in cases of danger to mother).

The film was remade with updated technology in 2001, and was retitled "Life's Greatest Miracle." You can watch the new version at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/miracle/
It has a TV-14 rating, so it is pretty safe.

In sixth grade public school, we separated boys from girls in Health class, and were allowed to ask questions. We did group work together on diagramming the reproduction system, and we were given a basic knowledge of the hydraulics (male) and receptors (female) involved in conception. No specific moralizing was done except to remind us that this sort of activity created pregnancy; we listned to a teenage mother speak about her experiences to drive home the point. Most of the education was basic - how to take care of your smelly, awkward, and weirdly-functioning adolescent body, why boys were weird, why girls were moody, how not to annoy each other too much, and group dating (in the late 80s, this was considered a safe way to interact between the sexes during the tween years without getting into too much trouble.)

In ninth grade biology, we went into more detail of the science of reproduction. We watched the "Miracle of Life" again, but, as I was in a prviate school, a little moralizing was done, albeit in a strange way. I had already seen the documentary, so I was unperturbed by the live birth scene. Some of my classmates, however, were quite traumatized. Instead of taking compassion on these poor girls, who never even knew how babies got into their belly, seeing one come out (remember, men, girls can't see their equipment without being trained contortioist with a hand-mirror) was quite frightening. Some of the girls cried or covered their eyes; the boys snickered or blushed. The teacher, instead of taking compassion on these students, rewound the tape, and played the live birth scene TWICE MORE. He then quietly said, "This is why you don't have sex before you are married." His point worked, because we only had two pregnancies in the class of 1994.

So, what kind of education do they get in Korea? Nothing. Nada. Zip. At least, as near as I can tell.

I spoke to a forty-something unmarried woman, who had only a vague sense as to how children came into this world. She was not embarrassed; she simply did not have a clue. This came out after a vague reference from a gyopo (Korean American) to the process of childbirth. None of the women (singles) even knew what he was talking about. I thought it was odd, but continued the conversation in another direction (defending a woman's right to gossip!) with the young man. The single older women looked puzzled, and I hesitatingly asked if they knew what we were talking about. They admitted that they were clueless. I gently explained that in some Western cultures, childbirth is openly discussed among women of a certain age, whether they have had children or not. Any gathering of close female friends will result in some discussion of this subject (see "Sex and the City"); in married women, it tends to be childbirth-oriented, rather than process-related. I then bluntly asked the oldest woman if she had ever learned about or seen a baby born. She said she hadn't. This conversation happened months ago, but it stuck in my head.

A rather Westernized Korean male friend of mine brought up the subject in a recent phone conversation. This person learned the facts of life through looking up things in the encyclopedia! No one told him why his body was acting crazy so he decided to find out. This man is well-educated and intelligent, so I was a bit taken aback when he asked what happened to the cord after birth. Where did it go? I was puzzled by this question for a minute.

"Does it go back up inside the woman?"
"WHAT?! You mean, you don't know? Where do you think we get a belly button?"

That stumped him.

"The cord comes out with the afterbirth...." I prompted.
Silence.
(What's that? He wondered).
Exasperated by this hole in his education (and slightly amused) I patiently and thoroughly explained the process in very scientific detail. I can't imagine going through thirty-something years of life wondering vaguely, how does the baby eat inside the mother? Why do we have belly buttons?

I then began to wonder about other adults. I got a clue tonight in my sixth grade writing class. A few of the kids who have been American-educated do know basics; I try to keep the topic out of my classroom, but it does spring up in odd ways. Kids are very curious at that age, and Korea does them a great disservice by not explaining things. I have developing adolescents in grade five as well (they start school a little later) so these poor children must be traumatized by their crazy bodies. Tonight we were talking about where people were born. Some were born in Korea, but others were born in America or Europe. One girl piped up and said,
"I was born three weeks early."
"Oh really?"
"Yes, I was born at nine months, not ten."
I absently corrected her.
"Then you were born on time. Women carry babies for nine months."
"No. Babies are inside their mother's stomachs for ten months. I was too early, and they had to cut my mother open to get me out."
To my surprise, other girls in the room agreed with her about ten months. Now, I know Koreans reckon birthdays differently (you are considered a year old when you are born) but they count months the same way. Another girl piped in and said,
"Yeah. My mother and father didn't even have birth dreams before I was born."
Puzzled, I asked her what she meant.
"You know, when you dream that you are going to have a baby. How else are you going to know you are pregnant?" (Uh, big stomach?)
One girl described seeing a woman give birth on a plane; the baby came out from under the woman's skirt after a burst of water. That must have been a sight for a child.

I abruptly changed the subject to get out of the danger zone; this particular group really trusts me and confides in me, and I was afraid of the trouble I could get in. They do not hesistate to ask awkward questions.

Given the stigma attached to unwed pregnancy, it seems to me Korea should focus on arming its teenagers against ignorant mistakes. Unwanted babies are simply aborted, but if young women don't know how they get pregnant in the first place, shouldn't they be told?

I have seen more than one late night "alternative" Korean movie about the trauma of an unwanted pregnancy. A high school girl, upon hearing the news, jumps headfirst off a school building while her classmates watch in calm disdain. A guilty young father tries to raise money for an abortion. He is too late however; his girlfriend aborts herself in a bathroom stall, and dies in his arms.

One movie in particular haunted me. In it, a girl goes into a rather dingy abortion clinic. She lays on the table in her hospital gown in a dark room. The camera follows her eye movements; she scans the room, the tray of instruments, the monitor, and finally she comes to rest on the suction pail for almost a full minute. Her eyes go wide, and a silent tear rolls down her cheek. Blackout. The movie follows her with compassion as she recovers; the best friend of her boyfriend cooks seaweed soup for her (a Korean remedy for childbirth - very nutritious I am told), entertains her, and even changes her sheets. She is silent for most of the rest of the movie. Naturally, the boyfriend is nowhere to be found.

The Korean government keeps harping on the "low birthrate" in the country. Women are waiting to have children like their American counterparts, so the government is sponsoring incentives to promote pregnancy. Nature always finds a way to bring life, but I question how much of it might be snuffed out before it begins. It seems to me that knowing how the body works might be one way to control this problem. American women, for example, know that there is a window of time in their cycle where they are likely to get pregnant. Accordingly, they adjust their nocturnal activities to either avoid the danger zone, or embrace it. Would this scientific knowledge help at all? On the other hand, STDs are the lowest in the world; I suspect this is because they go unreported. There is qutie a bit of marital unfaithfulness going on. How many women are infected, don't know it (no one goes to the OB/GYN unless they are pregnant), and are accordingly infertile due to their spouse's unfaithfulness?

Public health campaigns work WELL here. Children and adults dutifully march to the bathroom with their toothbrushes after every meal, diet crazes are obsessively followed (I love the sweet potato diet!), and everyone takes their vitamins. Maybe a public health campaign for reproductive issues might be in order.