The Birth of Korean Cool Read Free Page A

would always say as they  were getting thwacked, “But I didn’t poop yesterday, teacher!” and then everyone would laugh.
    Supposedly the samples were sent to some national lab to be inspected for parasites; the lab would then send deworming pills to the affected students. I don’t think my school had any cases
of parasites during my time there; at that point, parasites were ceasing to become a serious problem. While far from ideal, South Korea’s health conditions by 1985 were far better than they
had been just a few years prior.
    It might seem somewhat tyrannical to make millions of schoolchildren defecate on command, but it’s obvious that disease eradication works only if everyone gets treatment—not just a
select few volunteers. Perhaps as a result of these methods, Korea has rid itself of parasites and nearly every other health problem that plagues underdeveloped nations. 1
    My middle school happened to be the testing ground for a number of educational experiments in those days, so it was a good vantage point from which to witness the rapid changes in Korea. We were
among the first schools to ban school uniforms, which were seen as an imprisoning holdover from the period of Japanese colonial rule, which lasted from 1910 to 1945. In practice, though, the
liberal dress code had so many restrictions that they might as well have reinstated the uniform. We weren’t allowed to wear clothes with any non-Korean lettering on them. We also
weren’t allowed to perm our hair (although in retrospect, they were just trying to save us from ourselves). If you had naturally wavy hair, you literally had to have a doctor’s note to
prove it.
    Even North Korea exercised less hair totalitarianism. According to some leaked North Korean barbershop posters, the late Kim Jong-il permitted perms as one of the eighteen accepted hairstyles
for women. (Based on photos of North Korean government officials, the perm seems to be almost mandatory for men.)
    My school was one of the early adopters of co-education post-elementary school. Most kids I knew in Seoul thought I was lucky to be in a co-ed school. I didn’t.
    For one thing, girls had to take home economics and boys took engineering. I loved home ec, but we did learn some pretty weird lessons. My eighth-grade home ec teacher told us, “If you
want to start out right with a marriage, always cook the food your husband likes, not the food you like. Your children will naturally develop the same tastes as your husband.”
    Gender was still an indicator of destiny. Starting from tenth grade, South Korean students had to study another foreign language in addition to English. Excellent idea. But at many high schools,
they would only let boys take German and girls take French. No boys allowed in French class and no girls allowed in German class. No exceptions.
    But Korea has made giant strides in leveling the playing field for women. Until as recently as 1991, South Korean women were not permitted to be the head of the household, meaning they could not
make legal decisions on behalf of the family. In the event of a divorce, a wife was not entitled to an equal division of property and children were automatically granted to the father’s
custody.
    Just two decades later, in December 2012, South Korea elected its first female president, Park Geun-hye.
    How does a national mind-set alter so drastically within the space of three decades? It’s not just that Korea became wealthy; oil-rich Arab nations are swimming in money, but they
haven’t advanced much socially. In some instances, they’ve regressed, thanks to the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism. China is becoming frighteningly influential on the global
finance scene, but its vastness, huge population, and warring ethnic factions make it difficult for the government to effect rapid, centralized nationwide changes. Part of Korea’s plan all
along was to achieve what many other newly rich nations couldn’t—to transform