Stephanie on Studying
Monday, June 16th, 2008Last week Stephanie experienced some interesting cultural differences.
She has been staying at a house with twin girls about her same age. One day, after breakfast, she was helping to clear and wipe the table and the twins stared at her like she was doing something wrong. It turns out that the twins don’t do any sort of housework or chores. They were amazed that she would help (like it wasn’t her place). She has noticed that the school children don’t get home until late and then stay up even longer doing homework. But they don’t do housework.
We have noticed with the children that have stayed in our house too, especially boys, that they don’t do chores. Now it may be that chores have disappeared from American society too and I am just a relic but we have had homestay children do chores here. In fact, the boy who just went home said that he was helping his mother dry dishes (but I think he may have been joking). The “gentlemen first” attitude seems to be fairly normal in Korea, as opposed to “ladies first” here in the states. But Stephanie was somewhat surprised to find that children are not expected to do chores at all.
Another thing Stephanie was impressed about was that Korean children’s study habit. She amazed that even seven to ten year olds would study until 10 o’ clock at night without much parent superivsion, and that middle school students (중3) wouldn’t get home from 학원 until after 11:00pm. She really has a hard time understanding how they do it every day.
One parent wanted Stephanie and her son to go out to the movies together; he is one year younger than her. Stephanie thought that is felt like a “date” and it worried her a little. We had to explain that it wasn’t a date, just that his mother wanted him to get some more opportunities to practic his English.
Despite all that she really enjoys life in Korea. This past week she has gone to 노래방, made 김밥, had 산낙지 and 개불, and taken a tour on a sailboat. I think she is doing so many things that she doesn’t have much time to fill us in on everything.
Posted by steved in Travels in Korea, Steve's House |
June 17th, 2008 at 11:16 am
I never noticed actually…. but my mom never asked me to do chores. But I would always wash the dishes anyway. And she would always say 우리 아들 최고! As if she wasn’t expecting me to do the dishes. But now she has no problem telling me to do some chores.
June 17th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Isn’t it the same in China? I don’t live in China, but you read about it often in the papers/magazines etc. about how the little emperors and empresses (i.e. the children) do little but study, attend enrichment classes, study, day after day after day without a break. And because their most important thing is to study, chores are definitely out of the question…
Actually I really really pity children in these pressure-cooker environments, and I often wonder when they’ll snap.
June 18th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Some might argue that doing chores around the house is a better education than doing math problems.
Some might also argue that a teenager learns more by doing an evening part-time job than by attending a 학원 until 11PM.
June 18th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Shan, the sad reality is that during exam seasons there is s spike in suicides in Korea. Korea already has the highest suicide rate among OECD countries. Japan is no. 2, and China isn’t far behind if you consider ALL countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_suicide_rate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
Though this article suggests the reason are more than just the stress of academic demands:
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=390145
June 20th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
woww…
they aren’t expected to do chores?!
amazing.
my mother expects me to do housework and actually keep up my grades. both my parents work, and its nice for them to come home to a clean house.
i kind of envy korean and chinese kids. they have such determination for studying. Not to mention they don’t have to do much chores =]]
June 21st, 2008 at 10:56 am
The kids actually have private tutors come to their house at 11pm-12 or 1. I don’t know how effective studying so late is(2am is when they’re allowed to go to bed) … sometimes they just fall asleep on thier books. But yeah, they come home at like 10:30pm every day. They study on the weekends pretty much all day as well.
June 21st, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Wow, until now do i realise that my secondary school student life here in singapore is relaxed. though we have school activities till evening (and maybe some ppl study till that late) but wow won’t they be pretty much zonked out froms tudying so much?