In the United States, one often hears the adage, “Those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach”, indicating the low status of the teaching profession there. That isn’t the case in East Asia, however. In Japan, teachers have traditionally held an exalted position, and that position alone confers respect. This respect is given whether one is a professor emeritus at an elite university or a recent graduate of a fourth-rate college with an art history major teaching English at a juku for a couple of years before having to face up to finding a real job. The Japanese word for teacher, sensei, is in itself a semi-honorific expression. When addressing a teacher in the West, a student might say, “Excuse me, Mr. Smith,” but in Japan, the term sensei without a name is sufficient.

The basic rule for honorific language in Japanese is fairly straightforward—one either exalts the other party or humbles oneself. For example, people refer to others apart from their closest friends with the suffix “-san” affixed to either their first or last names, but never refer to themselves as OO-san. One also never refers to one’s family members with “-san” when speaking to someone outside the family, but the suffix is used inside the family circle for parents and older siblings.

That’s not the case in South Korea, however, as linguistic usage suggests that Koreans accord even more respect (nominally, at least) to teachers than do the Japanese. In addition to the semi-honorific expression of seonseng (the same Chinese characters as sensei in the Korean pronunciation), people also apply the honorific suffix nim. A Japanese would never refer to a teacher as “OO-sensei-san”, which would be the equivalent of the Korean seonseng-nim.

May 15 is Teacher’s Day in South Korea, and to honor their teachers, students will be bring them flowers, write compositions in appreciation of them, and even participate in sports competitions with them. Parents also often give gifts or gratuities to the teacher. According to an article in the Nishinippon Shimbun, surveys indicate that parents spend a minimum of 100,000 won on these gifts (roughly US$100.00), while cash presents can go as high as 30 million won (roughly US$3,000). Instead of cash, reports the paper, it is not unusual for teachers to receive gift certificates, gold bracelets, Western liquor, foreign cosmetics, or nutritional supplements.

While some Western teachers might read this and think they were born in the wrong country, Korean educators are growing leery of the custom. The Nishinippon Shimbun article reports that educators get nervous with the approach of Teacher’s Day because the gifts from parents can cause misunderstandings. Some schools have begun to adopt protective measures, such as prohibiting parental visits to school during the week before and after Teachers’ Day. One school district plans to put the parental gifts in a common pool and distribute them equally among the teachers. Educational groups have called for changes in Teachers’ Day customs, or for the day to be abolished altogether.

While doing research for the article, the Japanese journalist asked South Koreans what they thought of the custom. He writes that he was often asked, “It’s the same in Japan, isn’t it?” The journalist answered that he thought there wasn’t much similarity at all.

I don’t know what happens at either Japanese or Korean public schools, but I did spend some time as an English teacher here in Japan and can report that parents do give presents to teachers, usually during the o-bon season in mid-August, the traditional time to show appreciation to the people who have rendered you services. These presents, however, are almost always food, usually fruit or a confection, or beverages, such as fruit juices, coffee, or alcohol. These gifts were given more as a token of appreciation to the entire school rather than to individual teachers, and the food in particular was divided up among all the teachers and the staff. The beverages were usually kept and used for school events.

I did have one student whose parents gave me a canned ham every year, but the boy’s mother was a schoolteacher herself. She was perhaps more sensitive than most to the observance of this custom. Besides, this was just an English juku and the boy was still in primary school, so it was not as if I was going to help him get into the University of Tokyo.