[Opinion] Commerce High Schools

The night of the 19th, when the chance of victory for the President-Elect Roh Moo-hyun was getting secure, even old alumni got out to the Busan Commerce High School campus and congratulate the victory of their alumnus. The former Congressmen Lee Ki-taek and Shin Sang-woo, unlike the other Democratic People’s Party members Park Chan-jong and Kim Gwang-il, helped the President-Elect Lee during this Presidential Election. The President Kim Dae-jung graduated from Mokpo Commerce High School, the next President graduated from Busan Commerce High School, and the future first lady Mrs. Gwon Yang-sook dropping out of Gyesung Girls` Commerce High school. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Choi Jong-young graduated from Gangreung Commerce High School, and Chairman of the Board of Audit and Inspection, Lee Jong-nam graduated from Duksoo Commerce High School. It seems to be the first time that this many commerce high school graduates took the important position of the government since the foundation of the country.

▷Although majority of the window clerks of the banks graduated from junior colleges, still more than half of the branch managers graduated from commerce high schools. Since there were abacuses in the side of the book bags of commerce high school students, they were different from the regular high school students. When the commerce high school alumni met, they still tease the alumni, who did well on the abacus, by calling them ‘reckoning.’ When students were using abacuses, the students laid their fingers and got ready when a teacher said in clear voices ‘reckoning.’ ‘Reckoning’ is a prepare sign originated from ‘to reckon on the abacus.’ Since the computers have been generalized, the abacus that represented commerce high schools went to museum like a yarn-producing spinning wheel.

▷In the middle of the 60`s, when the President-Elect Roh was going to Busan Commerce High School, it was the time when there were not many jobs available. Bank was the best work place that brides-to-be were lined up. If one graduated from a commerce high school and got a job in a bank, neighborhood butchered a hog and gave a party for him. According to his biography, the President-Elect Roh wanted to get a job in the bank after graduating from the commerce high school; however, he gave up his dream because he got lazy being hanging around with friends during his high school years and didn`t study well, so he failed the employment exam for the Agricultural Cooperative Association. If he got a job in the bank and stayed being a bank clerk, Roh, Moo-Hyun of today might not be here.

▷Since many commerce high schools suffer from shortage of students because the popularity of industrial high schools, the old premier commerce high schools are changing into regular high schools. And few remaining commerce high schools changed into information industry high schools, and teach computers intensively rather than abacuses. Mokpo Commerce High School, founded in 1920, changed into a regular high school and changed its name to Cheonnam First High School. In the 107-year-old Busan Commerce High School, there are assertions coming out to change into a regular school with the alumni as leaders. It is the decay situation of commerce high schools that the age of the academic clique created. I hope that commerce high school graduate, President-Elect and girls` commerce high school dropout, future First Lady can give hope to young people that can be easily hurt because of the academic clique.

Hwang, Ho-Taek, Editorial Writer. hthwang@donga.com