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[그렉의 한국 엿보기] The Color Red
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코렘어학원
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As class begins, I take out my marker and write the students names on the board. It's one of my first classes in Korea so I am careful to remember each student's name: Peter, Sarah, Mark... There are whispers from the students behind me so I turn around. Everyone is quiet. I go back to writing: Grace, Thomas, William... One of the students lets out a small gasp. I turn around and face them again. "What is it?" I say. "Teacher," one of the boys says, pointing at the names I had written on the board, "red!" I look back at the board and sure enough, all of the names are written with my red marker. This didn't seem special to me but it had a great effect on them. Confused I asked the students, "Why, is red bad?" They made a sharp motion with their hands across their necks. Red was death.
After class one of my co-teachers gave me the explanation. In the past red had been used to write the names of the deceased so now there is an association with red names and death. This cleared up the reaction of the students and brought me to understand this difference. In Western English speaking cultures, some colors do have symbolic meanings, but red is not connected to death.
 [그렉의 한국 엿보기] The Color Red 청취
White, red, green, black and other colors sometimes have special meanings attached to them. For example, white is often used to symbolize purity, as it is the color of snow, or innocence. In the same way it is the color of cleanliness as seen in doctors and nurses uniforms. Green can symbolize jealousy, as if the face of the person becomes green with envy. In addition green can represent everlasting life, seen in the example of evergreen trees. Red generally is associated with strong passionate emotions, either intense anger or love, seen through the predominance of red on Valentine's Day. Black tends to have negative associations, connected to night and evil. We can talk of having a black heart, or a black soul. However, even with these symbolic colors, there is not a specific color that in certain cases stands for death.
Whereas I was once surprised to find out the meaning of writing names in red, these days it doesn't seem so unusual. When I go into class I reach for my black or blue marker or pen to write down the students' names on the board or the attendance sheet. However, every once in a while I slip and forget and as I'm part way through writing, I usually hear a soft voice behind me say "Teacher, red." If this happens I grab my eraser and wipe away the offending color and switch to blue or black. The class moves on smoothly and next time I make sure to remove the red marker from my basket so there's no chance of anyone seeing the color red.
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 / 입력시간: 2008. 03.18. 11:40
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