I highly, highly recommend you write me an e-mail, at roboseyo[at]gmail[dot]com

And I also recommend you contact Mike Hurt, the other administrator of this blog, by clicking the “contact us” button on the top right side of this page, who has worked in Korean high schools, whereas I have not, and who has also blogged extensively about this topic.

Hmm if people understood that Japan’s part in Korea is an aspect of their history that could be used for tourism, perhaps they would move to preserve buildings.

Sigh~ anyways…

No doubt Korea has an ungodly suicide rate for young people, and the extreme pressure parents put on their kids can be pretty insane. But just to play a little Devil’s Advocate, kids face this sort of pressure to achieve almost everywhere in the modern world. And unfortunately, suicide (or more often self-destructive behavior) happens in America as well. I taught at a private high school in the States for a while, and while perhaps less intense, the insane expectation game played by parents, using their kids as pawns, was pretty much the same. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (throw in Stanford if you like) are considered to be the gold-standard, and if your kid isn’t good enough to get into one of these places, let’s start assigning blame to her teachers and her school (actually, I’d imagine Korean parents probably just blame the kid and themselves, which is hardly an improvement).

I enjoyed reading your piece Rob. I just think there’s an opportunity to acknowledge that the American system isn’t all that different, in terms of set-up or consequences. The American SAT is a ridiculous test that has far too much weight placed on it, even today, and it’s a scam to boot. (Huge moneymaker for Educational Testing Services, who have their greasy mitts all over the GRE, LSAT, and GMAT as well. When I had to send GRE scores out to various programs for graduate school, I remember paying something like 40 bucks a pop, just for them to seal and mail my freakin’ scores. And this was in the ’90’s.)

As Japanese colonial legacies go, I wish Korea would stop tearing down beautiful old buildings built by Japanese, and tear down and reform/rebuild the ugly educational institution instead.

As expats we can look at every aspect of Korean life and see where it needs improvement. Sometimes it is hard for me to express my own pity for these issues, because I try so hard to keep myself objective. I try to tell myself “It is Korea” and that I didn’t come here to reform the country, I came to see and observe.

But I know firsthand the affects of such a system as I watch my boyfriend struggle to get a job.

I think like America change will only come once the younger generation grows into the old generation, and the old people who grew up during the 40’s – 60’s die off.

Could we not consider how amazing it is that expats do live here and somehow survive and adapt to the social systems that exist here?

I don’t know about every expat, but I bow and make sure I am respectful to the elders. I try not to make a scene in public. It seems I don’t do this by choice but as part of assimilation.

Underneath though it is all alien to me, and in my own space of my home can I feel “normal”.

…
Anyways, knowing that the exams cause great depression which leads to suicide it then points to the lack of psychological support in this country…again the conservative social system.

Sometimes…. ignorance is bliss.