Reflective Response to "Spring" in Kim Ki Duk's Film

For this 25 minute writing exercise, you can repost the following html code to have the condensed version of the video in your blog for the sake of context:


 
 
 
          Children can be so cruel. Often times, we consider children as a pure, innocent ones that we all started from at the very beginning of our lives. They view the world as it is. They express how they feel, and behave as they feel. But often times, we say children can be so cruel. Their childish innocence reflects their inner feelings and thoughts so directly, that it sometimes is shown to us as ‘cruelty’. They show the most basic and instinctual desires hiding in human minds.




          Mr. Kim Ki Duk’s film, ‘Spring’ showed us more than just children’s cruelty. It showed children’s process of learning. When a little boy did a wrongdoing, the monk punished him. The focus is, that the monk’s punishment was based on the method ‘an eye for an eye’. He did the same thing a little boy had misbehaved, trying to make the boy feel chastened and apologized. His punishment worked. Deeply realizing his mistake, the boy wept sadly. But this punishment seemed a little too harsh for modern society.



          Did the monk really need to tie a rock to the boy’s little back? Did the boy realize his mistake because there was a heavy rock tied to him? The rock might have worked as a motivation for the boy to be more obedient to the monk, but no, it was never the main factor that made the boy to actually find out his mistake. Let’s think of a case when the monk didn’t tie a rock to the boy. Just by looking at dead creatures, don’t you think the boy would have deeply felt guiltiness of what he’d done?



          We call children’s misbehaviors ‘mistake’, not ‘sin’. There’s a reason why. Their mistakes are mostly from their immature minds. They are mostly from the basic instinctual desires. They are not from children’s evil minds. Children just need shaping. They don’t need to be penitent for their mistakes. We call their misbehaviors ‘mistake’ because they lack judgment. Unlike adults, they do not know the line that distinguishes morality and immorality. Unlike adults, their misbehaviors are originated from their instinctual minds, not from their scheming intrigues. Being penitent for their misbehaviors is also important, but what they truly need is learning that such behaviors are bad. When they learn so, they would be able to repent for what they’ve done.



          People say children can be so cruel. And this is perhaps the main justification for punishing children harsh. But I’d like to call this children’s cruelty as ‘children’s truthfulness’. Children are ready to receive what we give. They are ready to learn what we teach. They have their ‘truthful emotions’. They are like blank sheet of paper that can reflect anything on it. We, as teachers in their life, need to draw right things on that sheet of paper softly and have our children on their right way.