A Wild Mudang

A glintch in the popular culture

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What is hiking for a Korean person? This is an activity really appreciated and mainly practiced by the older generation. Each sunday, you can see a lot of elderly people on their way to the mountains surrounding Seoul for a hiking day. This moutain is the Gwanak-san (관악산) located  near the Seoul National University.

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Living the Korean Student life.

Being a French student who has only studied in his own country, I often wondered what it’s like to be a student in a different country. I then proceeded to enter a Korean National University called 전북대학교 (read Jeonbukdaehakkyo, Jeonbuk National university). This university located in the city of Jeonju (전주시) capital of the northern province of the Jeolla (전라북도) surprised me with its emulation and its enthusiasm toward the education. I think this is a result of the strong importance given to the education inside the Korean Culture, but there’s a real desire to make the student’s life easier.

Once a student is accepted into a university, his life becomes easier. First of all, he has passed the hardest examination a Korean student has during his life (aka the Suneung 수능, an examination determining in which university a student is allowed to go). A lot of Korean students I met during those days, always told me they’re now sure they’ll have their degree in a national university and are almost certain to find a job. Thus, students are now free to take some good time and they’re living far from their parent’s place in a dormitory (기숙사, read Kisuksa). During their freshmen year’s they are allowed to participate in multiple activities in clubs (동아리, r. Dongali), they also enjoy their first night out drinking alcohol (which is important inside the Korean culture, cf. another article to come).

Still, the student is still here to study and graduate from a national university. Here comes the big part played by the university. The student only has to worry about his courses and his exams. He has a life schedule determined by the university: He wakes up early, eats a healthy food, can practice a lot of different sports and sleep a decent amount of time. The student is the center of the university attention. Besides the strong assistance aspect, the student is here to enjoy life before jumping into the work/family/obligations spiral that is waiting for him later). Somehow, they are doing what they won’t be able to later. That’s even more accurate when it comes to the women who have a big social pressure here.

When it comes to the contents of the courses, I was surprised. I was expecting a strict and very serious teaching method with a big disappointment potential but it was a really open and easy going course. I’m going to give the example of the Korean contemporary history class I took. This class of 3 hours is composed of 2 hours of “classic” teaching when the professor is analyzing some historical events and showing some historical documents. The last hour, the most interesting one, is the debate class. A student is invited to develop a theme from the previous course and the class is invited to discuss it under the tutoring of the professor. As a foreign student, I was, despite my lack of Korean knowledge, invited to add an external point of view. This pattern is repeated in each class I took. The student is thus invited to think and develop his personal opinion about some subjects.

As a conclusion, I would say that I am pleased by my experience. I discovered a lifestyle similar to mine yet so far from it. As a Parisian student, I’m not used to receive help from the university, and to receive an open education. A student in Korea does not experience the same life as a French one; but in the end, I could hear this automatic sentence from a student “I’m bored in class”…

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Galleria continua 2.

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Galleria continua in Paris. Where dying industry meets the living art. Finally a place big enough in Paris to let the artists the space they need to perform their art.