A Visit to South Korea

I haven’t written for about two weeks because I have been in Korea. I believe that many Americans would be as surprised as I was to see how prosperous that country is.

The Christian high schools that I visited are huge and wonderfully equipped. But even more interesting was seeing high school students sitting in their cubicles studying until ll:00 in the evening, often with no teacher present. These same students often have special tutoring on Saturdays to help them get ahead. They do so primarily because those who have the highest scores on university entrance tests will attend the most prestigious universities.

A few Korean parents are troubled by the attention paid to high exam scores in their high schools. But this kind of schooling is so much a part of the Korean tradition that it is difficult to find a different way. For this reason some parents even arrange to have their children attend high schools in the United States. Still, the high regard people in Korea have concerning doing well in high school is enviable. It would be wonderful to find a happy medium between the intense pressure to do well in Korean high schools and the lackadaisical way some North American students go through high school.

Korean young people are significantly taller than their grandparents’ generation. Obesity is rarely seen and this is primarily because of the very healthy diet which consists mostly of vegetables, rice, and a small amount of fish or poultry served in imaginative ways.

Those of us from the west rarely think of Korea as an ancient country. But their oldest university is celebrating its 600th anniversary. The huge, carefully molded hills that are actually burial sites for kings date back at least to the fifth century.

Korean Christian churches range from charismatic to more mainline congregations. They are very active and send 83,000 missionaries to other countries.

Friends in America asked whether I wasn't afraid to visit South Korea right now. When I told that to my Korean friends they laughed and said, "We think you are very likely safer here than you are back in the United States." One senses that South Koreans live with the hope and expectation that there will come a time when the two Koreas once again are joined. But they also are aware that once this begins, it must begin slowly for the welfare of all.