South Korea’s obsession with education is well-known. The size of the private education market amounted to 18 trillion won (over 16 billion U.S. dollars) last year. The market is so big that for years, the government has been trying to regulate hagwons — private cram schools — but South Koreans are unrelenting. Some even enroll in hagwons to fulfill their military duty.
I am from South Korea, but I make it a point not to write or speak in Korean about this country. That my Korean language skills have ossified from disuse is only one reason; it is more that my brushes with South Korean media are rarely uplifting. A case in
In 2014, pop star Park Bom, of the group 2NE1 made headlines with her alleged drug usage back in October 2010. The singer had ordered 82 amphetamine pills labelled ‘gummy bears’ from the U.S. and dispatched them to her grandmother’s address in the port city of Incheon
