Imma skolllarrr. Rihlli.

There is a lot of pressure here to be perfect.  To be the perfect daughter/son, student, worker, etc.. There are probably many virtues to be picked up from this, the least of all being a heightened sense of respect.  However, I will say that sometimes the place makes me crazy.  Yesterday, knowing that my Korean buddy is trying to improve his English, I brought my Scrabble Apple game so that we could practice spelling out words together and talk about their meanings.  My spelling is not perfect, but I would say that it's far above average..  Average being that strange slang that my peers seem to have developed, IE "heyyyyy gurlll, how u doin?"  My problem is that sometimes I type faster than I think and I've always been a bit of a laze about proof reading.  At any rate, my Korean Buddy says to me, "I looked at your facebook, you used a new phrase for me, "In lieu of.." and I looked it up.  You spelled it wrong, I wanted to point it out to you.  He was rather incredulous that there were things that I couldn't spell in my own native language. 

I'd like to point out that he is a very nice person.  It's a true cultural difference.  Here it's expected that if you make a mistake in any arena that it will be pointed out to you.  It's not rude, I believe that it's some sort of way in which to keep people humble and also a good way to establish yourself as the superior. 

How has this impacted Korea?  The Republic of Korea has the leading suicide rate in the OEDC, even surpassing Japan.  There is so much pressure put on these young people to live up to every expectation and demand of society.  They are put in rigorous study programs and given very little free time during their schooling years prior to university.  To always be thinner, smarter, better, and faster than their peers.  It's hard for me to understand that..

But sometimes there are things that I am grateful to not understand. 

I guess that I'm a hard creature for them to understand too.  They always get this horrified look when they hear that we leave the house when we are 18 in America. 

"Who takes care of your parents??"...

"I don't know.. They are pretty okay at looking after themselves..."

Note: 

Dear Mom.  I'm not going to move in with you to take care of you in your old age of 55.  Please continue caring for yourself.  Love, Cara