The Boy on the Stair
high school students
For the last two years my alarm call has been the footsteps of a high-school boy. I’ve never seen him and the only reason I assume it’s a boy is the manner in which he descends from the apartments, perhaps two stories above; he seems to take five steps at a time and it only takes him seconds from beginning his descent to exiting the building. The head of my bed is against the wall at the foot of which he lands as he jumps down each flight of stairs. And I assume he is a high school student because no middle school boy would be in such a rush to get to school.
With the winter vacation, his footsteps and my alarm call have been absent but with the start of the ‘prep’ week during which students return to school and settle into their new classes, his feet once again provided a noisy reveille. The ten-day spring break now begins and their will be a short respite before he returns, all the more frantic as I would assume this is his third year (고삼) and the most frantic year of a Korean student’s life.
© 林東哲 2011 Creative Commons Licence.
Suneung Thursday 18th of November 2010 ‘D Day’
On Thursday 18th of November, suneung (수능), I set off at 6.45 am to watch the arrival of students at Song-So High School. By the time I arrived, around 7.30, most of the students had passed through the gates but a large ground of parents and supporters, plus a lot of police, were still in place and students were still arriving. I hadn’t even stopped to watch when a cup of grapefruit tea was thrust in my hands and a few moments later a woman police-officer handed me some chocolate gold coins.
Song-So Boys High School
plenty of hot and sticky drinks
The event was a little disappointing as even by seven am many students have entered their schools and nothing special was happening outside the Song-So High School other than there being lots of police and plenty of people taking photographs.
Students arriving
celebrity treatment
'Junior students rallying the third year candidates
Paying respects to exam candidates
a mother prays
sticking toffee on wall in the hope of success
I bought some chocolates for an old student resitting suneung but I couldn't get hold of him on the phone to get his address. He's currently doing his military service. So, 박진영, if your reading this I hope you did well. As for the chocolates? They were truly gross and greasy ersatz chocolate the type of which predominates in the USA (eg, Hershey) '왝' But I still ate it!
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
D-Day and Korean Hooliganism
D-DAY!
Today is the day of the high school suneung examination (수능), which for third year students is not only the culmination of their schooling that largely determines their futures, but for many is the unofficial arrival of adulthood. The exam results are released in December followed by graduation, in the New Year.
Boys cheering after finishing their exams
As I wrote previously (A Day of Reckoning), the effects of suneung reach deep into all levels of Korean society and provide an opportunity to both support students and celebrate with them. Suenung is very much a social event and first and second year students, and supporters congregate outside schools in the early hours of the exam morning where banners are waved, chants shouted, students cheered and encouraged. If ever Korean students are going to be rowdy or get drunk, which occasionally happens, it is likely to happen in the evening but as usual, it will be tame compared to western teenage rowdiness.
Too much excitement is quelled
If ever you see a group of British lads with their shirts-off, anywhere other than on a beach, you can expect rowdiness. British males, normally the Neanderthal type, pull their shirts of when England has won a football match or when they are drunk and it is all part of a display of revolting masculinity. If, on Thursday evening, you should witness a crowd of lads stripped to the waist outside a school, it won’t have anything to do with masculinity or aggression. However, lads with their shirts off is also viewed as coarse and improper by many Koreans. In a cute kind of way, taking off your shirt, perhaps tearing it up in the process, and then singing a round of songs with your classmates, is about as radical as Korean youngsters can get. And if you stand and watch you won’t be intimidated, assaulted or abused.
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Interlude (5) and Suneung Countdown – 수능대박
D-Day Minus 3
Suneung Dae Pak (수능대박)
Dae-Pak (대박), means ‘awesome,’ ‘excellent,’ ‘jackpot,’ and so suneung dae-pak (수능대박) can be translated as ‘suneung jackpot,’ or, ‘have an awesome suneung.’ Of course, you still need the ‘fighting’ spirit. (화이팅!)
As someone permanently struggling with Korean these are my notes on words and phrases I find useful and which are usually not in a dictionary. Any amendments, recommendations or errors, please let me know.
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
A Video Tour of Suneung
Suneung (수능) will take place on Thursday, this week (November 18th). Here is a selection of videos which give a taste of the activities that take place on what is the most important day in a Korean students life. The videos highlight the communal and commercial nature of the day.
VIDEO 1 Early Morning
Up early in the morning, supporters congregate ready to cheer the third year students (고삼), wave encouraging banners and pass around anything which is edible and sticky. Meanwhile, the exam candidates are focusing their mental energies on the day ahead.
Click on photo to activate Daum site video clip. (2008)
VIDEO 2 Late Arrivals
With the exam about to start, and despite the absence of rush hour traffic, some students are destined to arrive with minutes to spare. To the cheers of well-wishers, they arrive by police car and on the back of motor-cycles.
VIDEO 3 An Early Start
In this clip supporters arrive at 4.30 am. Lots of chanting and drum banging before the first candidates arrive, one carried on the back of an older brother. Meanwhile, mum straightens a candidates tie.
- Click on photo to activate Daum site video clip. (2007)
VIDEO 4 Commercialism
A collage of the commercial paraphernalia aimed at promoting the ‘fighting’ spirit as well as encouraging you to spend your money.
- Click on photo to activate Daum site video clip. (2007)
- Photo taken in my local bakers on November 13th, 2010.
VIDEO 5 Intermission
The best way to spend a five-minute break with suneung around the corner.
Click on photo to activate Daum site video clip.
Thanks to the owners of the clips, all taken from the Daum site.
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
A Day of Reckoning – 'Suneung' (수능)
D Day countdown
As I write, across Korea thousands of third year high school students, known as ‘go-sam’ (고삼), will be religiously counting down the days. Some began the count at ‘D Day minus 365,’ others, more traditionally, began at ‘D Day minus 100.’ Today, is ‘D Day minus 21.’ And within the space in which I have written this post, in exactly three weeks time, the futures of thousands of teenagers will have been significantly determined.
‘D Day’ itself will present about 600.000 of the nation’s ‘go-sam’ students, with one of, if not the most, important experiences of their lives and certainly their most important exam. The suneung (수능) or CSAT (College Scholastic Ability Test) is the Korean, standardized test taken by all final year high school students and although some alternatives are now offered, and more are supposedly on the way, for most students it is the sole qualification required for entry into Korean universities.
Of all the standardized tests globally, the suneung is seen as one of the most rigorous. The path towards that moment of academic reckoning begins in elementary school and every step in the development of academic ability from infant study onwards, is a preparation for the suneung.
a late arrival is given a police 'escort'
Taken on the second or third Thursday in November, the suneung temporarily transforms the face of Korea and on the day there is a sense that the entire nation is backing the candidates. The transformations are a reflection of the pivotal role education plays in society and despite the professed importance other nations give to ‘education,’ in most, only a national catastrophe or war would be sufficient to suspend capitalism or national defence. In Korea education stops everything, back in Scumland UK, it stops nothing and I can remember sitting the equivalent of the suneung exam to the accompaniment of persistent rifle fire from the nearby military base.
The Korean equivalent of Room 101
The exams last one day and are divided into a number of periods during which exams are taken in subjects such as: maths, social studies, English, sciences, vocational studies and foreign languages. The exams are largely multi choice. To guarantee candidates arrive in school armed with equipment, entry permits, a ‘fighting spirit’ and ready to do their best, a range of national procedures and contingencies come into effect:
♦All other students begin school after 9.am.
♦To help ensure transport system work to maximum efficiency, many businesses begin work at 10am. This includes the Stock Exchange! Yes, there’s only one Stock Exchange, it’s in Seoul and probably nowhere near a school, but it’s the thought that counts. For a few moments the success of students is of more importance than the economy.
♦During the periods when listening test are being conducted, planes cannot land at airports and those waiting to land have to circle above 10.000 feet. Even air-force movements are curtailed, within reason, to ensure silence at the appropriate times.
♦Korea Electric Power Corps places 4000 workers on standby in the event of power failures and each examination center, of which there are about a 1000, is sent a technician to monitor power supplies and await any emergency.
♦Police assist on the roads approaching schools and are also on hand to transport students who’ve encountered problems. Nerves thwart the plans of the best intentioned candidates.
♦Since 1993, there has been no evidence of suneung questions being leaked. In the days immediately prior to D-Day, specially selected professors are imprisoned in a hotel, denied any form of contact with the outside world, the hotel windows blacked out, and equipped with a library of resources, they formulate the exam questions. No doubt the hotel is 5 star, but nonetheless, they are kept in solitary confinement until the exams are officially over.
♦Schools are also supplied detectors with which to scan students for devices, hand-phones etc, which could be used to cheat.
♦Female teachers in high schools on the day of Suneung are not allowed to wear high heeled shoes or perfume.
'suneung exams transport support' provided by the military
Police support
Beyond official and bureaucratic procedures adopted to ensure both fairness and a conducive examination atmosphere, a host of other practices have developed aimed to improve the chances of success. Eating anything sticky on or before ‘D Day’ is believed to enhance ones luck. Sticky things cling to the wall and do not fall and so by chewing on toffee (엿), or sticky rice cake (찰떡), it is hoped you grades will hold fast and not slip into the gutter. Conversely, eating anything slimy, such as seaweed soup (미역 국) might incur bad luck and see your chances for the university of your choice slipping away. At the same time, one must avoided uttering any word expressing failure, falling, dropping, sinking, sliding or slipping. The reason obvious; if it’s muttered, it might happen. Parents and relatives will travel to mountain temples to say prayers and leave slips of paper on which are written the names of loved candidates, or they will attend special services in churches where small Bibles can be purchased in which you stick a photo of your son or daughter, all in the hope of currying divine favour. I doubt many believe success or failure is determined by the consistency of ones food, use of language or even prayer but anything which can be used to bolster the spirit is a valid psychological weapon in the quest for exam success and highlights the desperate measure to which the importance of exam success drives individuals.
Parents praying for the exam success of their children. I did the same thing here with a friend's family in 2001.
messages of good luck at the start of the final 100 day countdown
'go-sam' students being greeted by their juniors on exam day
plenty of rousing support
supporters
On D-Day, parents will crowd around school gates, some will pray and other will hold their Buddhist bracelets in reverent anticipation. Candidates are often greeted by 1st and 2nd grade students as they arrive. Colourful banners wishing students good luck are waved and sometimes juniors will perform the full bow at the feet of those about to be tested. It is also common for juniors to rally the spirits of their stressed seniors by singing rousing songs before the exams commence. My last high school had almost 2000 students and it raised the hackles to hear 1200 boys singing in unison from all the classrooms under the 3rd floor, where the suneung candidates waited for their exams to commence.
Boys singing after the completion of exams
a mother prays at the school gates
The exam
And when the exams finish, all the text books and notebooks used by the students throughout the year are unceremoniously tossed from the go-sam windows, often on the 3rd floor. Of course, the pressure isn’t off as from 6pm onwards, newspapers can publish exam questions and the agonizing process of self assessment begins until the results are finally released. And of course, as with every exam in Korea, only those with perfect scores are allowed to feel any satisfaction and even this is down played.
legitimate vandalism
relieving stress
Finally!
Undoubtedly, Korea has one of the best educated populations globally and though we might want to qualify the nature of that ‘education,’ we cannot dispute their success in terms of literacy and the sciences. Objective subjects and languages are much easier to assess. When it comes to the arts and subjective thinking, Korea has problems but however flawed or misguided we might perceive the Korean education system, it has facets worthy of admiration and parts perhaps worthy of emulation. Coming from Scumland UK, where dumbing-down is fashionable, bone-idleness excused, and the fruits of study and erudition watered down into a melee where belly dancing becomes an academic pursuit which has parity with mathematics or physics, it is refreshing to work in a culture where education has too much significance rather than little at all.
results
To all 2010 go-sam (고삼) students about to face the suneung, ‘fighting’ (화팅!)
Related Articles
♦ For a selection of video clips giving a general idea of the various suneung activities
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Giving Summer the Finger
Goodbye to all that!
The summer holidays finished last week and one of my students notes in his diary.’This week school finished and we had to change our hair and faces.’ Gone are the ‘poodle perms‘ the vibrantly painted finger nails, ear-rings, temporary tattoos, and dyed hair. Unlike many western countries where teachers battle with hair styles and make up, in Korea it’s all removed before the term starts. Of course, Koreans will tell you the same battle ensues in their schools but they are skirmishes in comparison. I’ve taught one boy who was forced to run 10 times around the sandy ‘parade ground’ in only his boxers because his trousers legs were too narrow, and a beating because your hair is a centimeter too long isn’t uncommon. And the ‘budgerigar club’ that exists in every British secondary school (ages 12-16), little cliques of girls who sit for hours on end brushing each others hair, moronically starring in mirrors and slapping on cheap make-up like little Jezebels, all during lessons, is in its infancy.
Painted nails
A little re-touch needed
The irony, of course, is that school never really finished and the vacation that was, was never really a vacation. One of my students spent the entire summer at a cram but claimed he loved it. Packing your son or daughter off for the entire summer isn’t what I’d do if I was a parent. Another boy spent two weeks in a military boot camp, ‘thanks, mum!” Another three students, siblings, spent the entire summer in an English school in the Philippines but their English is no better than when they left. So, with summer drawing to a close it’s back to the study routine, constant tests, the after school classes and reading rooms and don’t forget piano lessons and taekwon-do! As for the poor the third year, high school students (고삼), they have the biggest exam (수능) of their lives looming. An exam which will not only determine their academic future but very possibly the background of their future partner as well as their occupation. DD (‘D’ Day), and that’s exactly how Koreans identify it, is 76 days away and every third year student will be counting. Their vacation was great! They didn’t have one!
© Nick Elwood 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
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