yet another survey: Korean kids unhappy

[wrinklebump]

http://kid.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/05/06/2012050600847.html
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/05/07/2012050700775.html

korea has quietly built a pretty miserable place for its children to grow up.

[confusedsafferinkorea]

Yes, the sad thing is that many people are aware of it but they are not able(or willing?) to break the cycle. I often talk to my co-teachers about this school - hogwan- school 365/365 cycle and ask if they think it is good. They all say how bad it is but all their children do it.

They tell me it is the only way for them to have a chance to get into the big 4 universities and therefore they will perpetuate the system.  Nothing will ever change till the system changes and Korea realises that there is more to life than going to university and that you can make a success of your life without it. We live in a world today, that says unless you are a graduate, you are worth nothing on the job market. The problem is that we have so many graduates now that their degrees are meaningless.

Many people in this world have made a success out of their lives (and I don't mean they are stinking rich) without a University education. We need people that can work with their hands more than we need people that can only work with their heads.

I recently did a camp at another school and asked one of the Grade 4's if she was enjoying her vacation. Her reply was that she 'hated it'.  I asked her why and she told me that her mother has enrolled her at 'every possible hogwan' for the duration of the summer vacation. She would go from English Camp to hogwan after hogwan and only get home at 11 pm every night.

What kind of life is that for a kid that should still be playing dolls? Would hate to have grown up here.

[loswillyams]

No bueno. I wouldn't have lasted a minute as a Korean youth (well, I mean, in the magical world where I'm a Korean youth with my American sensibilities). I skipped school coonnnnstantly to go swimming, get food, run around town, skateboarding, smoke some pot, drink beers - pretty much just Huck Finnin' it. One of the Korean teachers at my school said that a lot of other Korean teachers wanted the education system to go through a "revolution", but that they didn't know what to do. I said that in America, we have different problems, but that we also need a revolution and nobody knows what to do either.

[Cereal]

I live in arguably one of the nicest places in Korea. It's rural, lots of green, not at all crowded, a few awesome beaches and the kids here seem fairly happy.

I think a lot of the aspect of being unsatisfied is where the majority are, which is of course, cities. In city environments, there's more to do and see: shopping, clubs, movies etc, but there's very little sense of openness and freedom.

Kids need open space, in my opinion. Living in a concrete jungle would just plain suck. They're noisy, overcrowded, polluted...

No thanks! I live a life, not a life sentence, which is metaphorically what I think most Koreans (kids and adults) are living.

[wrinklebump]

I live in arguably one of the nicest places in Korea. It's rural, lots of green, not at all crowded, a few awesome beaches and the kids here seem fairly happy.

I think a lot of the aspect of being unsatisfied is where the majority are, which is of course, cities. In city environments, there's more to do and see: shopping, clubs, movies etc, but there's very little sense of openness and freedom.

Kids need open space, in my opinion. Living in a concrete jungle would just plain suck. They're noisy, overcrowded, polluted...

No thanks! I live a life, not a life sentence, which is metaphorically what I think most Koreans (kids and adults) are living.

space, perhaps. free time, yes. kids should play. whether its on the street or in a field. play is necessary for social and psychological development, and kids should do lots of it.

a decent read on the matter: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514

[actualstarfish]

No surprises there.

I don't mean this in an insulting way but I have to say Korean people are probably the unhappiest people/culture I've experienced. Now I'm sure there are other cultures who are arguably more unhappy but I for sure haven't come across one yet. I couldn't imagine growing up as a kid in this country. Having taught both elementary and middle schoolers and seeing the transformation in my students as they become more depressive and brainwashed as they get older is saddening.

In a way, it makes me feel a little better that I'm a public school teacher and I'm not contributing to their stresses per se. Probably the best lesson I'll take away from being in Korea is about the importance of happiness in one's life. Before I had some idea of it but now I think I really understand the meaning of it.

Anyways, I digress.

[KevinTeacher84]

For the record I had not read the article posted, I was responding directly to your latest attempt at pompous self-aggrandizement, and true to form you responded with an arrogant, dismissive retort.
Children here are unhappy for a number of reasons, the underlying reason (imo) being the crippling pressure put upon them by their parents, which manifests itself in self-deprivation and long hours spent at various after-school academies. Couple this with the Bali Bali culture, and you have a toxic developmental environment. I have tutored children whose only socializing outside of school was with relatives who lived close-by, since their life was a constant shuffling from one school to another.
Korean kids are playing catch-up in regards to social development here, and this persists into their late 20s early 30s.

[peasgoodnonsuch]

Boys, take it outside (private message your love for each other). Or this thread will get locked down instead of being a place of fruitful discussion.

I have heard that the most common cause of death for Koreans in their 20s is suicide. If this is true, it is incredibly heartbreaking. I have also read that Korea has the highest suicide rate in the OECD. Their misery as children clearly contributes to the struggles they face in their 20s, which clearly contributes to the rate of suicide.

Most Koreans I know view life as a matter of survival and struggle in which they try to glean joy from whatever accomplishments and name brand possessions they manage to acquire. I don't think that's a set-up for a happy life.

They grow up without optimism. They grow up in high stress environments. They live with their parents until they marry and mommy takes care of their basic physical needs even beyond marriage. This does not psychologically equip them to deal with life's greater difficulties when they're older and I think that such poor equipment leads to the high suicide rate. Throw in alcoholism, a booming elicit sex trade, and intense materialism and yeah, you have the recipe for misery.

While we cannot do much to change this country's culture, it is our responsibility as teachers to provide what light and love we can to the children and students around us. It's also helpful to support our co-teachers with encouragement when they attempt to parent alternatively. If you are religious, pray. Beyond these, I don't see other ways to help the situation.

ps. I did not read the article, so I don't know what reasons the article gave for the lack of happiness. I'm basing this off of my experiences and previous reading alone.

[loswillyams]

Awwww yeh - come with it peasgood.

Here's a question for you guys - (I gotta set it up first) as a component to Teacher and ED training I went through, I also studied creative writing and performance art. I came to really value what help the arts brought to development and lateral thinking - how could a theater unit help this History unit and will it boost test scores?(etc). I'm usually buzzing around the school for the hours I'm here - and when I break, I BREAK. I see a couple of art projects in the back of some of the rooms I'm in, but even still a lot of them come out looking the same (allow me to mention I totally see the value of working on paper arts and using these art projects to work on gross and fine motor skills and spatial relationships) - but I never see projects where the kids can just GO.

Question: What free and creative elements or lessons do you guys see in other classes at your school? peasgood makes a really attractive point about supplementing that aspect of their development where we can, so what kind of projects have you guys done to help massage that wild part of their brains?

When I first arrived here, I had a short talk with some expats at a bar about the relationship of art to the artist's environment. I had sort of focused on the point that art seems to live in dissonance (at least the kind I like) and brought up street art, guerrilla art, and work like Picasso's "Guernica". This was not to say that all art has to come from direct conflict - one of my favorite artists is Japan's Takashi Murakami whose work explores social conflict. Is there a Korean artist I should check out? Someone whose work might fit somewhere in the realm of previous mentioned work?

We all seem to recognize (the people on this board and the Korean populace) that there is a great deal of dissonance here - one would expect some incredible art. If there is not, is it fair to assume that an education that lacks encouraging lateral thinking a part of that?

[actualstarfish]

Awwww yeh - come with it peasgood.

Here's a question for you guys - (I gotta set it up first) as a component to Teacher and ED training I went through, I also studied creative writing and performance art. I came to really value what help the arts brought to development and lateral thinking - how could a theater unit help this History unit and will it boost test scores?(etc). I'm usually buzzing around the school for the hours I'm here - and when I break, I BREAK. I see a couple of art projects in the back of some of the rooms I'm in, but even still a lot of them come out looking the same (allow me to mention I totally see the value of working on paper arts and using these art projects to work on gross and fine motor skills and spatial relationships) - but I never see projects where the kids can just GO.

Question: What free and creative elements or lessons do you guys see in other classes at your school? peasgood makes a really attractive point about supplementing that aspect of their development where we can, so what kind of projects have you guys done to help massage that wild part of their brains?

When I first arrived here, I had a short talk with some expats at a bar about the relationship of art to the artist's environment. I had sort of focused on the point that art seems to live in dissonance (at least the kind I like) and brought up street art, guerrilla art, and work like Picasso's "Guernica". This was not to say that all art has to come from direct conflict - one of my favorite artists is Japan's Takashi Murakami whose work explores social conflict. Is there a Korean artist I should check out? Someone whose work might fit somewhere in the realm of previous mentioned work?

We all seem to recognize (the people on this board and the Korean populace) that there is a great deal of dissonance here - one would expect some incredible art. If there is not, is it fair to assume that an education that lacks encouraging lateral thinking a part of that?

It's an interesting thought but perhaps a little bit too far off topic. I'll respond with my opinion anyways heh.

While I don't think it's fair to say that that dissonance produces the best quality and quantity of art in people,  it is certainly a trait that occurs frequently in art. Look at the f-ed up nature of some of the big movies produced by Koreans in the past decade or so. Of course not every big Korean movie is like this but some famous Korean directors come immediately to mind like the films of Park Chan Wook, Joon-ho Bong, Kim Ki-Duk, Jee-woon Kim, etc.

If you want to do a  Korea vs. Japan comparison that will be a tough one considering their cultures are similar in many ways. I do think that while the Japanese have similar social limits on self expression, they have a (forgive me if this sounds redundant) culture of subcultures that allow for various forms of self expression. Korea has some subcultures but I don't believe that they match the magnitude of Japan's. I think this, combined with a slightly greater freedom for self expression in certain aspects of their society is arguably the reason why the Japanese are perceived as being more creative. This all does come down to perspective in the end. There are definitely some ways in which the Japanese may be more closed off than Koreans.

Now to make a huge leap of faith here, look at how the suicide rate in Korea has passed that of Japan's even while the economy and the population in Japan continues to shrink (I believe the suicide rate in Japan has mostly stabilized in the past few years or has risen only a bit). I don't know enough to say if all these variables are related or not but it makes for an interesting discussion.

To get back to the topic, if one believes that happiness and suicide rates are directly linked, then one could look to that topic for more answers. It is a highly unpleasant subject however and not one that I'd like to probe too deeply into as it may start bringing me down as well. I wish these people could be happier, dammit! Unfortunately that may require a greater cultural shift than they are willing to allow.

[woman-king]

Awwww yeh - come with it peasgood.

Here's a question for you guys - (I gotta set it up first) as a component to Teacher and ED training I went through, I also studied creative writing and performance art. I came to really value what help the arts brought to development and lateral thinking - how could a theater unit help this History unit and will it boost test scores?(etc). I'm usually buzzing around the school for the hours I'm here - and when I break, I BREAK. I see a couple of art projects in the back of some of the rooms I'm in, but even still a lot of them come out looking the same (allow me to mention I totally see the value of working on paper arts and using these art projects to work on gross and fine motor skills and spatial relationships) - but I never see projects where the kids can just GO.

Question: What free and creative elements or lessons do you guys see in other classes at your school? peasgood makes a really attractive point about supplementing that aspect of their development where we can, so what kind of projects have you guys done to help massage that wild part of their brains?

When I first arrived here, I had a short talk with some expats at a bar about the relationship of art to the artist's environment. I had sort of focused on the point that art seems to live in dissonance (at least the kind I like) and brought up street art, guerrilla art, and work like Picasso's "Guernica". This was not to say that all art has to come from direct conflict - one of my favorite artists is Japan's Takashi Murakami whose work explores social conflict. Is there a Korean artist I should check out? Someone whose work might fit somewhere in the realm of previous mentioned work?

We all seem to recognize (the people on this board and the Korean populace) that there is a great deal of dissonance here - one would expect some incredible art. If there is not, is it fair to assume that an education that lacks encouraging lateral thinking a part of that?

It's an interesting thought but perhaps a little bit too far off topic. I'll respond with my opinion anyways heh.

While I don't think it's fair to say that that dissonance produces the best quality and quantity of art in people,  it is certainly a trait that occurs frequently in art. Look at the f-ed up nature of some of the big movies produced by Koreans in the past decade or so. Of course not every big Korean movie is like this but some famous Korean directors come immediately to mind like the films of Park Chan Wook, Joon-ho Bong, Kim Ki-Duk, Jee-woon Kim, etc.

If you want to do a  Korea vs. Japan comparison that will be a tough one considering their cultures are similar in many ways. I do think that while the Japanese have similar social limits on self expression, they have a (forgive me if this sounds redundant) culture of subcultures that allow for various forms of self expression. Korea doesn't have anything that compares to this subculture phenomenon in Japan. I think this, combined with a slightly greater freedom for self expression in certain aspects of their society is arguably the reason why the Japanese are perceived as being more creative. This all does come down to perspective in the end. There are definitely some ways in which the Japanese may be more closed off than Koreans.

Now to make a huge leap of faith here, look at how the suicide rate in Korea has passed that of Japan's even while the economy and the population in Japan continues to shrink (I believe the suicide rate in Japan has mostly stabilized in the past few years or has risen only a bit). I don't know enough to say if all these variables are related or not but it makes for an interesting discussion.

To get back to the topic, if one believes that happiness and suicide rates are directly linked, then one could look to that topic for more answers. It is a highly unpleasant subject however and not one that I'd like to probe too deeply into as it may start bringing me down as well. I wish these people could be happier, dammit! Unfortunately that may require a greater cultural shift than they are willing to allow.

I wrote something strikingly similar to this, then decided it was too far off-topic and didn't post it.  :D
Which is not say you should not have posted it. This is something I've wondered about quite a bit before. but not so much in the context of happiness/stress levels in Korea and Losywilliams takes an interesting angle on this.  I think stifling free expression, creativity and insisting on rigid conformity can be an extremely stressful/painful experience for a lot of people, particularly young people who now have access to globalized media via the internet.  My middle-school students often express a sense of frustration about this to me.  They seem to feel really deeply that their personal freedom is circumscribed in many ways here. 

So yeah, all that pent-up angst you sense often in people here seems like ripe territory for some pretty heavy art--and like you said, there's been some pretty dark Korean films and I've met some pretty unique Korean individuals, but there seems to be basically no cohesive "underground/alternative" music/art scene here.  This would surprise me LESS if there wasn't one in Japan--you could chalk it up to something cultural within East Asia itself, but the fact that alternative fashion, music and art subcultures are so huge in Japan makes this aspect of Korea very puzzling indeed.  In what ways are creativity encouraged in also-homogeneous Japan that aren't employed in Korean society/education?  And can anyone compare the two to China/Taiwan/Hong Kong?  Which country do they resemble more on this?

I also don't think suicide rates can necessarily be used as "proof" of a countries' happiness level and I don't want to delve into that debate here, but it's also kind of the elephant in the room on this subject--hard to not think about it in the context of this discussion.     

[Frozencat99]

Not really no.

There are plenty here I know who have had a very poor education but are truly happy and in the 1%.

MC

I'm glad you're still a stellar example of unabashed white privilege.

Awwww yeh - come with it peasgood.

Here's a question for you guys - (I gotta set it up first) as a component to Teacher and ED training I went through, I also studied creative writing and performance art. I came to really value what help the arts brought to development and lateral thinking - how could a theater unit help this History unit and will it boost test scores?(etc). I'm usually buzzing around the school for the hours I'm here - and when I break, I BREAK. I see a couple of art projects in the back of some of the rooms I'm in, but even still a lot of them come out looking the same (allow me to mention I totally see the value of working on paper arts and using these art projects to work on gross and fine motor skills and spatial relationships) - but I never see projects where the kids can just GO.

Question: What free and creative elements or lessons do you guys see in other classes at your school? peasgood makes a really attractive point about supplementing that aspect of their development where we can, so what kind of projects have you guys done to help massage that wild part of their brains?

When I first arrived here, I had a short talk with some expats at a bar about the relationship of art to the artist's environment. I had sort of focused on the point that art seems to live in dissonance (at least the kind I like) and brought up street art, guerrilla art, and work like Picasso's "Guernica". This was not to say that all art has to come from direct conflict - one of my favorite artists is Japan's Takashi Murakami whose work explores social conflict. Is there a Korean artist I should check out? Someone whose work might fit somewhere in the realm of previous mentioned work?

We all seem to recognize (the people on this board and the Korean populace) that there is a great deal of dissonance here - one would expect some incredible art. If there is not, is it fair to assume that an education that lacks encouraging lateral thinking a part of that?

It's an interesting thought but perhaps a little bit too far off topic. I'll respond with my opinion anyways heh.

While I don't think it's fair to say that that dissonance produces the best quality and quantity of art in people,  it is certainly a trait that occurs frequently in art. Look at the f-ed up nature of some of the big movies produced by Koreans in the past decade or so. Of course not every big Korean movie is like this but some famous Korean directors come immediately to mind like the films of Park Chan Wook, Joon-ho Bong, Kim Ki-Duk, Jee-woon Kim, etc.

If you want to do a  Korea vs. Japan comparison that will be a tough one considering their cultures are similar in many ways. I do think that while the Japanese have similar social limits on self expression, they have a (forgive me if this sounds redundant) culture of subcultures that allow for various forms of self expression. Korea doesn't have anything that compares to this subculture phenomenon in Japan. I think this, combined with a slightly greater freedom for self expression in certain aspects of their society is arguably the reason why the Japanese are perceived as being more creative. This all does come down to perspective in the end. There are definitely some ways in which the Japanese may be more closed off than Koreans.

Now to make a huge leap of faith here, look at how the suicide rate in Korea has passed that of Japan's even while the economy and the population in Japan continues to shrink (I believe the suicide rate in Japan has mostly stabilized in the past few years or has risen only a bit). I don't know enough to say if all these variables are related or not but it makes for an interesting discussion.

To get back to the topic, if one believes that happiness and suicide rates are directly linked, then one could look to that topic for more answers. It is a highly unpleasant subject however and not one that I'd like to probe too deeply into as it may start bringing me down as well. I wish these people could be happier, dammit! Unfortunately that may require a greater cultural shift than they are willing to allow.

I wrote something strikingly similar to this, then decided it was too far off-topic and didn't post it.  :D
Which is not say you should not have posted it. This is something I've wondered about quite a bit before. but not so much in the context of happiness/stress levels in Korea and Losywilliams takes an interesting angle on this.  I think stifling free expression, creativity and insisting on rigid conformity can be an extremely stressful/painful experience for a lot of people, particularly young people who now have access to globalized media via the internet.  My middle-school students often express a sense of frustration about this to me.  They seem to feel really deeply that their personal freedom is circumscribed in many ways here. 

So yeah, all that pent-up angst you sense often in people here seems like ripe territory for some pretty heavy art--and like you said, there's been some pretty dark Korean films and I've met some pretty unique Korean individuals, but there seems to be basically no cohesive "underground/alternative" music/art scene here.  This would surprise me LESS if there wasn't one in Japan--you could chalk it up to something cultural within East Asia itself, but the fact that alternative fashion, music and art subcultures are so huge in Japan makes this aspect of Korea very puzzling indeed.  In what ways are creativity encouraged in also-homogeneous Japan that aren't employed in Korean society/education?  And can anyone compare the two to China/Taiwan/Hong Kong?  Which country do they resemble more on this?

I also don't think suicide rates can necessarily be used as "proof" of a countries' happiness level and I don't want to delve into that debate here, but it's also kind of the elephant in the room on this subject--hard to not think about it in the context of this discussion.    

I agree with this. Contrasting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Planet_Index (Wikipedia for simplicity's sake) is an interesting exercise.

[loswillyams]

actualstarfish: Ah, I'm sorry, let me just clarify a couple things. First, I don't believe that dissonance within a culture produces the best art, I think the term "best art" is an impossible one because we live in an era of postmodernity (or post-post or whatever, god damn it all) I simply think it's my favorite. Rather than the work of the abstract or impressionist, I like artists that exhibit control and make good use of semiotics. I didn't really want to compare and contrast subcultures in Korea and Japan; I was looking more for suggestions like, "You should check out X artist, they do a lot of work in ____ medium and it deals with ___ and ___ in modern Korean culture." But, I'm really glad you brought it up because it's a good lead in to a point I was trying to make: you point out that Japan has a "culture of subcultures" which is a great term because I think that's exactly what it is! You did a good job of bringing up the fact that there are some real outliers and outspoken people when it comes to film directors in Korea, but I think woman-king was more picking up what I was putting down when she brought up the suggestion that there was no underground/alt. scene here - or at least not one with a pronounced presence - globally or socially (if there is, I'm only saying this because I'm ignorant of it-! I'd love for someone to lead me to it or send me some links!).

I think that addressing the lack of an artistic voice and self expression is directly linked to student happiness and also this thread. The article linked at the beginning stated that Korean households ranked very high in material wealth but very low on happiness. I thought that this was also related to a thread that links to this one where the discussion was about the idea of whether or not money could buy happiness. The students polled in the article were all of house holds that, with their material wealth, had satisfied lower rungs of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (see: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/450px-Maslow's_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg.png)

Engaging in the arts is an act of emotional and intellectual athleticism. It is something that has to be practiced and learned to be fully appreciated - which is not to say that it is closed off. Anyone with the barest interest in the arts can cite movements and artists that were not born of academia, however, I will argue that there are levels. As an analogy - there are a group of kids at my school that love soccer, but they play it and look like a swarm of bees. They kick the ball, it goes loose and the whole mob chases after it - are they playing soccer? Yes! Do they love it? Yes! Consider then, someone who has devoted hours and sacrificed things to be better at soccer, the best, a professional. Are they playing soccer and do they love it? Yes - but it is markedly different from what the kids or weekend pick up gamers are doing. Likewise, the blogger, the backpacker with the sketchpad, and the Starbuck's novelist are all engaging in the arts and loving it, but I believe they are markedly different from the professional artist (which is, admittedly, a grey term in of itself).

The school system is a corner stone in creating culture in a society. I believe that the arts are not a panacea for student's woes, but I do believe the arts are vital to helping the students name these woes, which is the first step to addressing it - not to mention the invaluable effect of catharsis. Schools not teaching the arts and encouraging lateral thinking can be directly linked to happiness in the students. If the money is there, but the priority isn't, then there needs to be a priority shift. School-school-school - sleep - school-school-vacation(where they go to school) - where does life happen? When does discovery happen? When do they make mistakes and learn to get back up again? When do they steal kisses or shoplift candy or watch birds dart past the sunset? If they're stuck inside studying all night, when do they ever look up at that big, stupid, glittering sky and feel lost and whole? When do they learn to even recognize that they're feeling that? That all of them are feeling that - and that if they write a poem, or draw a picture, maybe they can reach out to 1 or 100 other students with it?

For me, my love of the arts started in high school - and it did change my life and save it. I'd really like to know about it happening in Korean schools, and I'd love to hear about how other NETS and GETS are doing it in their classroom.

[loswillyams]

tl;dr: The arts are a vital step into helping a person become self-actualized and education in the arts can and should begin in schools. If children are spending their bulk of their lives in schools as students, then schools should address their needs in training to be self actualized: the arts. This is directly linked to their happiness.

[Frozencat99]

Keep painting that self-portrait, man. Reaching back to your last moderation (well, probably not the last one) when you outright insinuated I was a child molester for liking a cartoon... I'd say you were grasping for straws, but you probably have someone to do that for you -- being in the 1% and all.

This is why I'll never grow out of my "honeymoon phase". I'm continuously inspired by watching bitter expats self-destruct online. Thank you for showing your co-workers, other expats, and people who are unsure of whether or not they want to stay in Korea what life looks like when you settle for something you hate.

You've provided a clear lesson much better than any Sailor Moon episode ever could. Kudos to you, my good sir. My tiara goes off to you.

tl;dr: The arts are a vital step into helping a person become self-actualized and education in the arts can and should begin in schools. If children are spending their bulk of their lives in schools as students, then schools should address their needs in training to be self actualized: the arts. This is directly linked to their happiness.

Yep. Couldn't have said it better myself.

[mzzl]

Yeah, some of the things that are expected out of these children is too much sometimes

[loswillyams]

Oohhh - okay, I think I see your point, MC. I'm sorry, I must have not seen your post and skipped right to talking to starfish and woman-king. I suppose then it might be useful to parse out our understandings of a poor and solid education are. I think I somewhat addressed your point about the 1% when I mentioned the article went out of its way to say that the students in the poll were from houses of high ranking material wealth and that there isn't always a correlation between affluence and mental well being. - Are you using 1% as a catch all term for the affluent, or do you mean the 1% as it pertains to the Occupy movement's definition? If that's more the case, I can't really speak to that as far as Korean experience goes, as my understanding of wealth inequity as a functioning player in social behaviors is limited in the Korean arena.

"There are plenty here I know who have had a very poor education but are truly happy and in the 1%."
What I'm reading from you (here and in other posts in this thread) is an idea that the current model functions like: study-good grades-good college-good job- life on easy street at the 1%. I think that could certainly be the thought process behind it, but I have to stand in opposition to it because I think it is almost ruthlessly predatory and neglects the reality of how luck and circumstance play into the acquisition of wealth. From here, what I propose to be a solid education, and frame as: well rounded with attention to art, math, history, and sciences - is not a factor that is entirely necessary to being happy (at least for those cases in the 1% with poor educatiions). To that I say this: Kudos to them! What about the rest of the 99%? Tough noogies? You didn't work hard enough? You should have studied more? You should have been born to parents with fatter wallets?

I'm also reading the implicit idea that someone can be randomly and suddenly struck with self awareness or can be self actualized on their own with no guidance  - that if you're not happy it's your own fault. Again, there could certainly be times and plenty of examples where that's true, but I have to stand in opposition to this idea as well. If we can help people who don't fall into this hopper, why don't we? Is it a waste of our time? If it don't make dollars it don't make sense?

"For 1% of society to be truly happy, 99% must suffer to make it happen.

The unhappiness you are reading about are the stories of those who failed to make it into the 1%." Are you happy with this model? or are you pointing it out, tongue-in-cheek?

[wrinklebump]

If you want to do a  Korea vs. Japan comparison that will be a tough one considering their cultures are similar in many ways. I do think that while the Japanese have similar social limits on self expression, they have a (forgive me if this sounds redundant) culture of subcultures that allow for various forms of self expression. Korea has some subcultures but I don't believe that they match the magnitude of Japan's. I think this, combined with a slightly greater freedom for self expression in certain aspects of their society is arguably the reason why the Japanese are perceived as being more creative.

this is true. when it comes to artistic self-expression, koreans have a lot more to do to catch up with japan.

do you know any koreans who write and play music? i mean, personally. poetry? fiction? it's like finding a snow leopard when you meet one. i've spent a total of zero days in japan, but japanese kids i met in college and in bars that have done all those things.

artistically, korea now is where japan was in the early 80s. sub/counter-cultural expression is still germinating.

[loswillyams]

do you know any koreans who write and play music? i mean, personally. poetry? fiction? it's like finding a snow leopard when you meet one. i've spent a total of zero days in japan, but japanese kids i met in college and in bars that have done all those things.

artistically, korea now is where japan was in the early 80s. sub/counter-cultural expression is still germinating.

Great point. I haven't met any yet - I know that one of the teachers at my school studied art in college - or at least that's what I was told; he's a cool dude, quiet though. I plan on bangin' around a lot of music venues and PNU (banging in this sense meaning hanging around -not ******) so hopefully I'll run into some Korean writers and the artistically inclined. I'd love to pick their brains - language barriers permitting of course. In the meanwhile, here's this, which I take as evidence of something somewhere in this country:

[wrinklebump]

The school system is a corner stone in creating culture in a society. I believe that the arts are not a panacea for student's woes, but I do believe the arts are vital to helping the students name these woes, which is the first step to addressing it - not to mention the invaluable effect of catharsis. Schools not teaching the arts and encouraging lateral thinking can be directly linked to happiness in the students. If the money is there, but the priority isn't, then there needs to be a priority shift.

a word on this:

the schools, methinks, have a place in your greater argument, but their role is actually quite limited. can good arts education foster a lifelong interest in music, poetry, painting or pottery? sure.

but the bigger problem, i think, is that korean kids and young adults don't have any famous artists to aspire to. name the best korean guitarist. the most renown violinist. the best poet. nothing but crickets, right? we can't even have that discussion because there's no one to talk about.

korean music, the most popular form of artistic expression, amounts to little more than a factory line of tight-tummied women and muscular gentlemen. most of them do not write their own lines or perform instruments. and while it's impossible to know this for certain, i suspect the dance moves for which they are so famous are not the products of their own imaginations.

the most famous and admired koreans are either athletes, babes, or hunks. not artists.

this is somewhat related to the other discussion about korean culture, in which its admirers are quick to move the conversation to 'the food! the food is soooo great!' well of course it is, but in my experience, the measure of a civilization's culture has always been primarily a measure of its art; of the collective expression of its people. whether its the handiwork of the egyptians or the symphonies of the austrians.

and it is by this measure that the korea of today fails. korea apologists will deftly redirect you to the transcendent jumeollak they had on thursday because they can't point you to the best novelist or the finest painter. the country's chief cultural export is leggy broads, which any serious assessment of cultural output will not value very highly.