No Children in Sight

This is a first: 2 blogs in one week! crazy.
okay, so I've been thinking about this little situation we've got goin on over here in Korea - Tongyeong specifically..
There is something wrong with the children here. They don't act like kids. There is a lack of creativity and craziness in them that just doesn't make any sense for a 12 year old. It probably doesn't help that they go to school for 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, and then do homework all night. But that's not even the worst of it. I just finished winter break here in Korea. It was wonderful! I only got about half of the time off, but 3 weeks was complete bliss and certainly nothing to scoff at. Unfortunately, when I got back to school this week and asked the kids how their break was, most kids replied with, "bad. very bad". How can this be?! 6 weeks to run and play and be silly, and they say it was bad?
Well this might be why: During vacations, students go to their academies (one for every subject), taking extra classes all day long. And then of course have homework all night. This is on top of the homework assigned by their public school teachers for vacation. They literally have no break from studying. From the time they are 6 until the time they finish high school, they will be studying continuously without one break - they do these classes during the summer vacation too. It's absurd. How do they not crack and go crazy?! No wonder there is little excitement in my students during our classes. It's because they're just off to more classes after I'm done with them.
On top of the normal subjects they study, they also generally study 2 instruments, art, and sometimes Chinese or Japanese on top of English. Beyond that, I have students (13 years old) studying computer programming. Every night of the week she tells me she spends 2 hours working on her programming homework. SHE IS THIRTEEN. Not to mention that maybe she doesn't want to be a computer programmer! What if, able to follow her own interests, she discovers she loves painting? Kids here will never know that. Their futures are set out for them way before they know how to speak up for themselves.
Even if their parents weren't pushing them in one specific direction, society as a whole manages to lock them into place. They have to qualify for specific high schools - they take a test and apply to get in. They are only allowed to apply to one school, they make it, they're in. They don't make it, they go to the local high school which, no joke, is a straight route to the reeks and wrecks, ie: manual labor.
And if all that wasn't enough, the worst offense in the thievery of childhood occurs right here in Tongyeong city: Everyone lives in sky rise apartment complexes, and thus, no child has now or ever had a backyard. The essential tool to the growth of a sturdy kid. Not one of my students (except those that have lived abroad) realize the enormity of this sad state. The backyard is where curiosity is explored, creativity is fostered, thick skin and toughness grown. No wonder these kids don't act like kids. No wonder they don't have a creative bone in their body! They've never played capture the flag or homerun derby. They haven't experienced hide-and-go-seek, making mud pies, or building tree forts (their fun is playing computer games). I am now convinced that these are the things that eventually create the artist, the lawyer, the writer. It must be, since Korea produces all computer engineers and doctors, and virtually none of the previous.
It honestly makes me hurt when I think about it too much.
So I try not to.
My only hope is that I (and YOU) remember these thoughts later on in life when there are crazy kids running through the house covered in mud claiming to be an alien from outer space. That's just plain creative. I hope I appreciate that time being a kid is equally, if not more, important than time being an adult.
If you haven't yet, read Player Piano. It's Korea to a T.