Multicultural Manners : To Avoid a Red Face, Lose Red Ink

This is the first “Multicultural Manners” column on social customs of different cultures in Southern California. The incidents are real, but participants’ names may be changed. If you have an experience to share or a question about such customs, please write to

Norine Dresser, c/o Voices Los Angeles Times Times Mirror Square Los Angeles 90053 or call the Voices phone line at (213) 237-7670.

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Mrs. Gussman is one of the best English teachers in the school. She spends every weekend reading her immigrant students’ compositions and making careful comments in red ink. To soften her criticisms, she says something positive before writing suggestions for improvement, using the students’ names to make the comments more personal. “Jae Lee, these are fine ideas, but . . . “

These red-inked comments send shock waves through the families of her Korean students, but Mrs. Gussman is unaware of this until the principal calls her into the office.

What went wrong?

Koreans, particularly those who are Buddhists, only write a person’s name in red at the time of death or at the anniversary of a death. Therefore, to see the names of their children written in red terrified the Korean parents.

Once the principal of the school discovered how the names in red upset the Korean parents, she requested that every teacher in the school refrain from using red pens on any student’s paper. All the teachers switched to other colors.

Ordinarily, many Asian parents would not complain to school administrators about a teacher. This would be considered disrespectful. However, the principal of this school met regularly with her international parents to discuss school issues. She created an environment that enabled the parents to reveal how much it disturbed them to see their children’s names written in red.