School of ROK's Top 5 "Insights" about Korea

Well, Nana and I have been back in the States for a little more than a week now, which means three things: 1) Jet lag is wearing off, 2) We've delivered our Korea schtick about 35 times now, and 3) We've found out more people were reading School of ROK than we ever imagined. All of this adds up to a sudden desire to post something coupled with an utter lack of excuses. Hence, this post, and my out-on-a-limb promise to have our Yeoju pictures posted within a few days.

So, without further ado, here are the top five most-popular numbers in our already-getting-old act (in no particular order):

What are Korean schools like? Everyone we've talked to has been fascinated (read: horrified) by the Korean education system, or even moreso by how little sleep our students get. You see, in Korea, the chances of your daytime school grades ever mattering are slightly less than the chances of a Korean student staying awake through an entire class. Which is to say, appallingly low. (Don't worry, though, we've gotten our kids to stay conscious through the entire day.) In the Korean system, all that matters is your score on the next standardized test, which you study for at your nightly cram schools, called "hagwon," six days a week. What's worse is that families have started using the hagwon as a means of conspicuous consumption: Whereas in the States you're apt to hear yuppie dads beaming about their Beamers, in Korea they're bragging about how many cram schools they send their kids to in a day. All of which results in the high and rising cost of raising a child. That's why so many children are still adopted from South Korea, even though it's a very safe, politically and economically stable country: in a situation where dual-income professionals have trouble affording children, young couples and single mothers don't stand a chance.

What does Seoul LOOK like? I've had a few requests to compare Seoul to various other East Asian cities. Does it look like Tokyo? Shanghai? Beijing? Of course, never having been to any of these other places, I'm in no position to compare (though Nana assures me Seoul does not look like Beijing). The pictures don't like: Seoul looks a lot like this, with bits of this and this sprinkled in. In our part of Seoul, everything's new, and most of it is made of concrete. High-rise apartments everywhere. The defining features of Seoul, though, are the Han River and the surrounding mountains: the first cuts a wide swath right through the middle of the city and the second slice deep into the city from its edges. It's a clean town, pretty safe, with many unexpected great views.

Can you speak Korean? Sadly, the answer is no--we start our official Korean lessons in a couple weeks--though we have learned some Hangeul to trot out as a party trick, plus a few key magic words that can get us food, beer, bathrooms, and transportation home.

What's Korean food like? Ahh, Korean food--a bit of a touchy subject. If you want my advice as to whether or not you should go to that Korean bbq across town this weekend, I'd tell you heck yes. But if you wanted to know whether you should eat nowhere but the Korean buffet for three months straight, you'd get a very different answer. There is some really delicious Korean food and some REALLY gross Korean food. In other words, we've had to supplement the local fare with a lot of our own cooking and with pretty frequent trips to the little foreign enclaves downtown. I will say that there are two things you don't realize about American food until you live outside the US: we have an amazing variety of ethnic food to choose from and almost all of it comes with cheese.

This leads us to our final question:

Do Koreans really all look alike? No, though since it's a fairly homogeneous country as far as ethnicity goes, there are fewer general categories of appearance (ie, you've only got "fat guy" instead of "fat white guy"), fewer hair colors, really only one eye color, and almost no facial hair. But Koreans ARE shorter (possibly because they sleep four hours a night when they're kids). I mean, I feel like a circus midget back here! Though all these growth-spurting cousins certainly don't help.

Anyway, time to go help with our very American Christmas Eve: pickup football followed by piles of food either shot through with sugar or smothered with cheese. Yum!