Death of A School Principal: Transition of Gender Ideology in Tea Service in Korea

The chapter closely follows the 2003 Posŏng Elementary School incident in Korea, where its Principal committed suicide after he was confronted by a young female teacher. The school was located in a small village and had only 61 students in 2003. Whereas the tea service was quickly disappearing in large cities in 2003, the Principal and the Deputy Principal expected a newly hired contracted teacher to serve tea. While the chapter examines why the tragic incident occurred in the geographical location and the temporal background, it will unearth the hidden gender hierarchy of female workers’ tea service and the implications of tea service. This chapter uses Norbert Elias’s theory of the civilisation process and shows how Elias’s concepts of shame and delicacy played a role in the 2003 incident. The chapter also compares coffee protests in the United States in 1977 with the 2003 incident in Korea to draw the cultural implications of tea/coffee service in the United States and Korea.