Insadong, Seoul, 9 May 2023. This year’s Korea trip has no specific theme. Its timing has been determined by events in London. While I normally like to be in Korea for Buddha’s Birthday, that day falls rather late in the international solar calendar this year: 26 May. I need to be in London that week to see Hwang Jihae’s Jirisan garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. And the departure date for Seoul was determined by the need to be glued to the TV set on 6 May and generally to be around in London that weekend in order to enjoy the festivities around the coronation of Charles III. So it was on Monday 8 May that I took off from Heathrow.
I arrive at my hotel in Insadong at 7pm, just in time for a quick freshen-up before heading round the corner to attend the regular 7:30pm Tuesday evening lecture for members and guests of the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch. I always check out the RASKB’s calendar when I’m planning my Korea trip. Their schedule often provides me with interesting things to do in Seoul, and sometimes – if there’s an extra special event such as a trip out of Seoul that I want to join – it even determines the timing of my trip.
This evening’s talk is a departure from the regular series of lectures on learned topics by noted experts. It’s a chance to hear two young Koreans talk about their life experiences.
Hyunjee Cho and Myungseo Kim, students at Hanyang University and Seoul Women’s University, talked about the pressurised and hyper-competitive lifestyle of being brought up in Daechi-dong – the hagwon capital of Gangnam – with the burdens of high expectations from parents and the rest of society; they also talked about the stress of the job application process.
Video of the talk is now online, and a polished version of the texts may be available in the RASKB Transactions in due course. Well worth a listen.
The picture presented of dedicated students studying at Hagwons subjects which won’t come up in regular schools for a couple of years, just so that they have an edge in the important college entrance exams, should not be thought of as applicable to all Korean schools. Later in my trip I was to meet up with a teacher of 16 and 17 year-olds at a school in the Dongdaemun area. For her, struggling to teach English to students who had not even mastered the alphabet yet was the order of the day, and she lived in genuine fear of some of the students who towered over her and threatened her if she gave them bad grades. She observed that there are all sorts of protocols to protect students from violent teachers, but none that protect teachers from violent students.
RASKB lectures are worth going to in person, in order to benefit from the post-talk socialising in the Insadong area. Usually a group heads off in search of one of the many informal eating and drinking places that are to be found in the winding alleys off the main Insadong drag. The makgeolli place that we went to that evening I don’t think I would be able to locate again, but it was a fun hour or so, and a perfect way to make sure I was tired enough to get a few hours sleep after my long flight.
Links:
- In A Collectivist Society, ‘We’ Are the Happy Mutants – lecture summary on RASKB website
- Faced with violent students, schools increasingly forced to ‘pass the bomb’, Korea JoongAng Daily, 10 June 2024