Hagwon Culture in South Korea: A Satire
In South Korea, it has become normalized for students as young as five years old to endure intense and long Hagwon classes due to the competitive and excessive culture of Hagwons, which is fueled by Korean parents’ desires to send their kids to top Korean and US schools. Attending Hagwon from morning to night has become a norm for the majority of middle and high school students, and even the majority of preschoolers spend at least an hour a day at Hagwon. The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated situations for students as many colleges have gone test-optional, leading to record applications to many top schools and more competitive college admissions. As a result, Korean parents are investing more money into Hagwons and sending their kids to as many classes as possible to get them ahead of their peers. Acknowledging how the pandemic and the trend in increasing applications have exacerbated the Hagwon culture, I created a parody of a student’s schedule and hyperbolized it to open the eyes of those who have conformed to the Hagwon culture and draw their attention to the absurdity of having such young students attend Hagwon and the excessive duration, intensity, and stress that students must endure. Before getting into my defense, it is crucial to establish my position as a speaker on this topic, and as a Korean student who’s lived in Korea, the United States, and Singapore and has experienced the Hagwon or tuition culture in each country, I see the need to address Korea’s, particularly demanding, excessive, and stressful Hagwon culture.
My satire product hyperbolizes many aspects of the Hagwon culture such as the intensity, duration, and frequency of the classes. I have also exaggerated how much classes are prioritized through the student forgoing special events and continuation of classes despite getting Covid-19. The first schedule I made represents the student’s schedule during the school semester.
At only 5 years old, the student goes to school from 8 am till 4:30 pm which is the typical time for high schools in Korea. I use reversal to switch the schedule of a high schooler or college student with that of a 5-year-old to highlight the absurdity of the Hagwon workload. After school, from 4:45 pm to 12:30 am, the 5-year-old student takes high school and college-level Hagwon classes with only a brief 15-minute dinner break. By having this 5-year-old take classes way beyond his level, I emphasize the overly rigorous nature of Hagwon culture. Even on his mother’s birthday, the student remains just as busy, with classes from morning to night leaving him no time for social life. I hyperbolized the prioritization of Hagwon to shed light on the fact that students pay the price of their social lives in order to conform to Hagwon culture.
The summer “break” schedule is similar to the one during the school semester, but a difference is that the student tests positive for Covid-19 on Friday. Instead of getting rest and canceling his classes, his classes just change from in-person to online. This hyperbolized lack of self-care is made to highlight that Hagwon culture in Korea leads to the prioritization of classes over the well-being of students, which is especially harmful during Korea’s rough pandemic situation.
An important but subtle exaggeration in both schedules is that the student attends his Hagwon classes past 10 pm which is in fact illegal in Seoul. In 2008, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education enacted an ordinance that stated that Hagwons could only be open from 5 am to 10 pm to allow students to get enough rest and sleep for school. Thus, my schedule highlights an often disregarded legal tension of Hagwon culture. By having the 5-year-old in my schedule go such lengths as to break the law to attend longer classes, I emphasize how Hagwon culture in Korea has come to put studying above all else, even if it means making elementary schoolers break the law.