Deprivation of Childhood

This journal entry initially was going to be a topic on culture in Korea. However, I started with appearance, which led to children, which led to parents taking away their children’s childhood, to… well, let’s say it stayed on the topic of children and many of the frustrations I have with Korean culture and how they raise their children.


First, understand that every person- man, woman and child- are obsessed with their looks. Everyone thrives to be skinny and beautiful. This is their culture; something I do not like but I cannot say it is wrong. I have girls that will get up in the middle of class to look in the mirror and make sure their hair looks okay. Girls (5-year-olds) are afraid to run and do somersaults in gym class in fear it will mess up their hair. I had a kindergartner that told me she was on a diet. After attending ballet class, either her instructor or Mother noticed she was a little larger than the other girls, so she needed to start losing weight. A co-worker was once told to not feed a child much food so they could lose weight. These are growing children! They need to be fed! I did lunch duty for another class for a week. By the fourth day, the children said they didn’t like me. I soon learned it was because I actually made the children eat their food, whereas the Korean teacher never made them eat lunch (where they later would complain they are hungry). At the age of five, all I cared about was playing and having fun. Never did I worry about my looks or my weight. Pictures prove this; I was quite a chunk! ^^ Yet, this is the way it should be! It frustrates me and I become so angry when children are more worried about their appearance than having fun in life.


In addition, picture day at school was quite different than picture day back home. They literally dress the children up like young princesses and princes. The photographer brings in a supply of various dresses for the girls and outfits for the boys. It is adorable, but a little over the top I must say. Some of the girls wore a gold dress, with a sparkling choker necklace, sparkling headband, and sparkling bracelet. After the picture, the student takes the outfit off, gives it to someone else, and puts on another outfit. Due to time restrictions, some children had several different photos taken, and some children did not get one picture taken. I also noticed the more attractive children had their pictures taken. Two days later, we did pictures again. However, this time it was simple pictures, similar to back home. I never knew picture day could be such an ordeal.

While I am on the topic of children, and the frustrations I have with the culture, can I say how sad it is that children are having their childhood being taken from them? Children are stressed about school and studying while in kindergarten!! They are expected to sit in class for 40 minutes, and play for a 10 minute break. These children, at the age of five, are reading and writing English. English, their second language! Children back home are not even reading and writing until the age of seven and that is their first language! I am amazed by the intelligence, but also saddened that they study more than play. Majority of them also are in night classes for art, music or tae kwon do (boys only); or participate in   all of the above. As they get older, they attend a regular Korean school, and come to our academy after their regular school. English academies are their extracurricular activity. While I was participating in soccer at that age, they are becoming fluent in a second language. It only gets worse as they get older. Middle-schoolers have been learning all day and are at our academy until 9pm, sometimes 10pm. Some of them continue on after to another place until midnight for more studying! No wonder why they fall asleep in my class or just don’t care. I will not, and can not, punish them for not doing their homework whereas they will get punished if they do not have work completed for Korean teachers.  Although I can get frustrated with the middle-schoolers attitude, I remind myself of how much studying they have.

Lastly, when I ask the children what they did on the weekend, they either have visited their Grandparents or have studied. They are currently on a month break from school, yet they are still studying constantly. Remember, these are elementary children. The children’s intelligence is high, but is it worth it to take away fun in life? I could never raise my children in Korea. I want my children to learn, but also to play and enjoy life. Parents in Korea have in my eyes too high of expectations for their children.

I could go on about the behavior of children as they get older, and how parenting has positively affected it, but I will save that for another day.

As a side bit- I turned 25 years old this past weekend. We made it a girls weekend in Seoul (which I had never been to so that was exciting in itself!). The girls made it a very special birthday for me. On Saturday night we went out to celebrate. They surprised me with a cake at the bar, candles and all!! I was extremely excited! I definitely did not expect a cake for my birthday. I could not have asked for a better day with my girls.

Yesterday we had Open Class at kindergarten. This is when all of my students’ parents (and sometimes Grandparents), come and sit in and watch my class. I was told the only thing I could do was to be prepared because you cannot predict the students’ behavior. They most likely would be quiet or trying to show off their English. My students were extremely quiet, even the loudest ones in the class! Although this is better than them going crazy, it was sometimes even a struggle to have them speak when I called on them to answer a question. I am overall pleased with how it went, and am happy it is over! It is Friday and I am happy the weekend is here!

Tokyo!

This past weekend I went to Tokyo and met up with my friend Nick from back home. He is in Japan visiting his cousin for two weeks, so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to see Nick as well as see Tokyo. Although I only had 3 full days and 2 partial days, we kept extremely busy and saw quite a bit of Tokyo. We saw both historical sites and the trendy areas of Tokyo. We started Thursday night off with going to the popular and well-known Tokyo Tower. It was amazing to see Tokyo at nighttime! After, we headed over to Shibuya to witness the largest intersection in the world. After wandering around for a bit, and adventuring into a loud and crowded store, we decided to call it a night. 

The next day we got up early and walked a good mile or two to Asakusa. The temperature during mid-day was about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, so it was always beautiful to walk places. We also enjoyed the scenery along the way. We walked around the Buddhist Senso-ji Temple, a very popular temple in Tokyo. Asakusa also consists of a shopping street filled with traditional Japanese souvenirs. I was proud of what we bought and didn’t buy as much as we definitely could have! I could have spent so much money there! 

In the afternoon we took the train over to the Imperial Palace. Although it was awesome to see from the outside, it was a disappointment to not be allowed inside the palace. You were only allowed if you were an official tour! So instead we walked around it and took pictures, soon leading us to a park. 

After enjoying the beautiful weather, we walked through Ginza district and viewed many buildings with popular brands we know well from the states. I was the most amused by the Sony building which had a display of fake snow. A child was playing in it, but Nick said I was too big to play :( We also saw Samsung, Yamaha, Toshiba, and many others I cannot remember at this time. We decided to watch the sunset on the 35th floor of a building near Tokyo station (I believe it was called Marunouchi). While chilling out, we got a call from our friend Courtney saying she had just arrived at the Tokyo airport. Courtney has been living and teaching English in Japan for 1 ½ years now, but went home for the holidays. She was planning on being back in Japan around New Years weekend, but flights continued to be delayed. She took the train to Tokyo station where we met her and spent the rest of the night hanging out. We walked around Ueno park for a bit and then hit up Akihabara, the district for electronic goods. We explored a 6 story floor (I believe) of electronics. I enjoyed it much more than I expected! They had everything imaginable- from the expected cameras and computers to rice cookers, hair dryers, virtual picture frames and globes. Courtney and I took some time finding awesome new camera cases ^^. We then went in an 8 story book store! If it was in English, I would have been in there for hours! It was still cool to see the assortment of books available! Following some more wandering around, Courtney brought us out for some good Japanese food. It was delicious! We also tried a drink that consists of whisky and iced tea. It was really tasty, despite the sound of it! And of course we enjoyed some sake before calling it a night. 

Early the next morning, before the sun rose, Courtney left to get back home. Nick and I slept for a few more hours, but got up early enough to have another full day of site seeing. We went to the area of Harajuku and visited Meiji Jingu. We first walked around the garden which was very peaceful and away from the busyness. The garden also had a tea garden which was neat to see. Meiji Jingu also has their well-known temple where we witnessed a few weddings. I loved seeing the beautiful dresses and definitely was the tourist that got some photos! 

In contrast to the peaceful gardens and traditional temple, we adventured to Harajuju- a central area for a young, trendy population. The style of dress was extremely different from Korea and other parts of Japan. We walked through a crazy street filled with stores of crazy clothing- including netted shirts and tights, a fully “pink” store, gothic and black clothing as well as really puffy, tutu type skirts. I absolutely loved this place!! This was one of my favorite places we saw; I really enjoyed the culture. After the hip, young culture, we went to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. Again, it was very peaceful which was well needed before meeting up with our friend Mai (she is Japanese and lives near Tokyo) for a crazy night out. We began first at a Japanese restaurant. Once again, it was all so delicious. She then brought us to Roppongi, a place known for bars and clubbing. It was a bit overwhelming to walk down a street filled with people yelling and trying to get us into their bar. Mai brought us to her favorite club, where we enjoyed ourselves and got to know a few of her friends. 

After a few hours of sleep, we got up and ate at a Denny’s! It sounds funny to eat at one in Japan, yet it was clearly an Asian Denny’s. The breakfast menu consisted of numerous rice dishes. I, however, was extremely excited to eat some French toast- and it was wonderful! ^^ Before I had to get my flight back home, we visited one more garden, the Hama-rikyu Gardens. This garden also had a tea house, but also had flowers and a 300 year-old pine. The flowers were exciting to see in January! 

As you can see, we covered a lot of Tokyo in a short amount of time. We also loved the various machines on the streets where you could get any type of drink you want, including hot coffee!! That was our favorite! ^^ There were also machines filled with cigarettes and have heard they have machines with umbrellas! Crazy, huh? Japan was very foreigner oriented, so it was easy to navigate around the city. We could wander the districts of Tokyo knowing that at almost every block there would be a map that could help us get back to the train station. 

I absolutely loved Tokyo and wish I had more time to visit. It was wonderful to see Nick, Courtney, and Mai. It is crazy how we all live in different places around the world, but could all meet up over a weekend in one city!