My 500th day in Korea came and went with no ceremony. Oooh well.
Yesterday, however, was the national Korean SAT, the soo-neung. This is nothing like the American SAT. The soo-neung is only given once a year, so if a high school senior wants to go to college, they've got to study their entire life for this one day. College admissions here are pretty much entirely based on the outcome of this test, so if you feel sick on test day you've got to just get through it anyway. For a top Korean college, you'd better get a perfect score. Students feel the pressure of this exam long before they even start high school.
The entire country shuts down on test day. Most middle and high schools have classes canceled (middle schools must take a high school entrance exam too). Businesses open late and employees start work later so that the students have clear streets to get to their testing sites. It's a massive affair, with celebrities recording messages of encouragement and songs to give mental strength to students.
I've even heard of some crazy parents sending their kids to Japan for some kind of immune-boosting series of injections (remember, if you're sick, there's no alternate test day, you've just got to deal with it and take the test while you slowly die).
Anyway, all this is really just a build up to the observation Doyup made earlier this week.
We were at HomePlus, the Korean Walmart, and as we left the store we saw one of my third year students working his part time job: pushing carts. (Remember, this is the week of the massively important soo-neung. Most students are buried in a study room or a library.) The student and I went through the awkward acknowledgement of each other and that was that. Doyup, driving me home, asks me,
"When we go to the dalkgalbi restaurant, we see your students. When we go to the movie theatre, we see your students. When we go to HomePlus we see your students. But we never see your students when we go to the library."
yep.
