Moving to South Korea

In early February 2011 I left the country I grew up in and headed to my home country- Korea. Everything was new to me in Korea as I didn’t have many memories but I was looking forward to starting a new life there.

 

There are lots of differences between England and Korea starting with how we look. I guess the biggest difference is culture and education. If I introduce briefly about Korea; basically Korea’s capital, Seoul, is a really small city packed with approximately ten million people and as it’s so packed nearly all of us live in apartments. There are lots of schools around the apartment and unlike the schools in England; we have to sit on wooden chairs and wooden tables which are really small. Also in Korea, we have four important tests in a year and when the results come out they give us a rank and that decides our next few months. For example, if I was given 1^st then I would be loved more by the teachers and friends than someone who came 50^th, like the Olympics. I personally don’t like this education system as it’s teaching us that we have to race with each other to get good grades but I suppose it’s the only way to get approved by the others.

Moving on to culture, we have a special day called chu-seouk in September,which is a bit like memorial day plus thanksgiving day. It’s a day to remember our ancestors and remind ourselves that we are living a perfect life. All of the families get together to have fun while teenagers and kids get money from grandparents.  It’s a great day to have fun and eat a lot of foods!!

Korea has a wonderful culture and hard-working students except the strength to unify. The tension between the North and the South is really huge as everyone knows but having Kim Jong-Il found dead a few days ago, the tension either broke or built another tension. It was a shock to the whole and most of the South Koreans were thrilled and suspicious by the news, nobody knows what will happen but people are certain that this will bring a big turning point to both countries. I really do hope we unify really soon and show our exquisite culture to the world.  

Hayan - Left Camp Hill in Year 8