Blood Types

Somehow or other we started talking about blood in Miro's 5 PM class. AIDS has gained some notice in Korea after some hemophiliacs were infected from the tainted blood supply (like the USA and Canada in the 80's). I don't know how bad the problem is, but I wouldn't want to get a blood transfusion here. The kids were talking about blood donation and how old you have to be and how you get a choco pie to thank you for giving. Monica said something along the lines of it's dangerous to give blood because you might get AIDS. Where'd she hear that?! Giving blood doesn't seem to be common because of the Confucian thing of keeping your body intact; Korea doesn't need a whole generation of people afraid to give blood! Organ donation is rare for the same reason, according to my adults. However, it's no problem for them to accept an organ if they're sick and need it!

I told Monica that as long as the needle is clean there's no danger of getting AIDS from giving blood; in fact, I do it all the time at home (as I showed them the scar on my arm). I wondered what other misconceptions they had about AIDS. Yeah my job isn't health teacher, but although I'm paid to teach English I usually end up teaching a lot of other things—mostly American culture or world geography, but all kinds of things. I don't know what info they get at school and the average kid doesn't hear anything at home, so I dove into the topic. You guys know how you get AIDS, right? From dirty blood or . . . hmm . . . just what is appropriate to discuss in English class? It's a small class—two 8th grade girls, one 7th grade girl, and a 5th grade boy. I don't know how common it is for teenagers to have sex here, but the girls are getting to the age that they need to know the risks. As I hesitated, I could see from Monica's face that she knew—blushing and saying that the boy didn't know about that kind of thing. He acted clueless and asked her what she was talking about. Monica then covered his ears and started humming while she motioned for me to utter the taboo word. Luckily the girls didn't need an explanation of what the word meant!

We also talked about blood types, which got me wondering if the percentage of blood types are the same here as in the West. They didn't know what types were common in Korea, but they did say that O was "clean." Why? Because it's not mixed? In that class there was one of each blood type, and it being so small didn't help me determine anything, so in the next two classes I asked them their blood type. The results:

O—8
A—8
B—2
AB—1

The classes also told me that there was another blood type that only 2 people in Korea and 3 people in Japan had. I skeptically looked at them—are you sure? I don't think that's possible! I thought it was an urban legend, but they kept insisting it was true.

When I got home that night I did some research into blood types and found that while everyone has one of the 4 blood types, everyone also has a string of letters after the main blood type which further defines their blood. There are some rare combinations that tend to stick to certain ethnic groups.

My research also agreed with how the percentage of blood types differs around the world. In the USA it's:

O—45%
A—40%
B—11%
AB—4%

In Korea (adds up to 101%, I know, no explanation on the site):

O—28%
A—32%
B—31%
AB—10%

So my completely unscientific survey didn't coincide with the official figures. I guess I could try surveying all 150 of my students, but some of them can't understand English well enough. Or is it that the percentage is different in the (presumably) higher class (those rich enough to afford multiple academies)?

In the three classes every kid knew their blood type! How many adults in the West don't know their blood type?! It's the whole "blood type determines personality" thing. Only a few kids knew if their blood was + or -, though.

I spent perhaps an hour browsing various "bloody" sites; it was all quite interesting.