The Birth of Korean Cool Read Online Free PDF Page A

example. Overly roasted Seattle brew versus dishwater Nescafé. I had
taken Korean modernization for granted: yes, change has been rapid, but this does not mean that everything modernized at the same rate.
    Nowhere is this gap more apparent than in the Korean school system, which is why I was at the offices of the National Institute for International Education (NIIED), a governmental body
affiliated with the ministry of education. I was expecting some kind of sleek glass pavilion, because I’d heard about all these exciting high-tech developments in the schools, such as the
ministry’s plan to replace all physical textbooks with e-readers by 2015.
    So I was surprised to discover the building was in a sketchy part of town, and its dingy red exterior made it look like a Korean public bathhouse.
    One of the first things my interviewees told me when I arrived was that they didn’t want to answer my questions about the e-reader switchover. (I had submitted my interview questions in
advance, per their request.) They didn’t really give a reason except that they “couldn’t give an objective opinion.”
    I would later discover that the e-reader program was a matter of controversy and that even within the government, some detractors were complaining that the switch was not worth the $2 billion
price tag, and technology does not equal a good education.
    Additionally, the officials I interviewed were crabby, imperious, and entitled (at several junctures they barked things like “stay focused on the topic” and “we don’t
have time for this question”), behavior that was consistent with what I had observed about my schoolteachers. I began to wonder whether these were bad signs—whether all the vaunted
changes were overhyped. I had little faith in the Korean educational system’s ability to evolve. In sixth grade, when I was studying a chapter in my Korean literature textbook about Marie
Curie, my mother surprised me by quoting the first paragraph from memory. That story was in her sixth grade textbook, too.
    Yet surely the system had to have been revamped; I could not imagine that the new Korea could get away with running its schools as it did when I was a student.
    I’m of two minds about my Korean schooldays. On the one hand, the schools were Dickensian: marked by discipline, obedience, and relentless thrashings. I was so cowed by it that after three
years, I transferred to an international school in Seoul, with my tail between my legs. On the other hand, this system is at the root of Korean success.
    THE SCIENCE AND ART OF THRASHING
    The anchor of the Korean education system is the millennia-old Confucian belief that teachers are benevolent beings who guide you through your measly existence, and if you
don’t obey them, your life will be ruined. And this was no idle threat, given that your destiny was based on your performance on one exam—the university entrance exam.
    There is no getting around it: my Korean teachers were the most arrogant, entitled people I’ve ever met in my life, and there’s some pretty stiff competition out there. They were
responsible for some pretty surreal childhood memories, including the multifarious, almost admirably creative thwacking. As a young student fresh from the United States, I  wasn’t
prepared for how often this method would be meted out. We got hit for all kinds of reasons, crimes that have no name.
    Such as:
    1.
Putting my hands in my pockets
. It was considered slovenly, or maybe the teachers suspected masturbation.
    2.
Standing too casually during Monday morning assembly.
Ironically, this is known as the “at ease” military position.
    3.
Wearing an unzipped jacket.
It had to be zipped all the way up or removed entirely. Unzipped outerwear was considered disheveled and redolent of corrupt influences
     like the Fonz from
Happy Days.
    4.
Having a U.S.-made pencil case.
Buying Korean-made goods was part of our duty in “helping Korea pay off its foreign