Photoshopped Portrait

Hello my North American friends. Let me tell you about a few things I've noticed here in Korea.

Before I started at Bugil Academy, I was warned that my students would sleep in class. The attitude toward sleep for Korean students is that it is wasted time. These students spend ridiculous amounts of time working and would rather finish the day gaming instead of sleeping. To curb this behaviour, our school has enforced a policy where our students hand over their laptops after 1am. This has been a bit of a struggle, but no message has gotten through to them about the importance of sleep. So when they rise out of bed at 6 am, eat at the cafeteria, and show up at my class drowsy, I try to wake them up but maybe we need a bit of exercise before the start of my early classes.

Another interesting thing I've noticed is the love of photoshop. You cannot get a picture here without alterations, whether it is wanted or not. A colleague of mine went to get passport photos taken, but they wouldn't give him the unaltered photos. So when I got my photo taken for our campus ID cards, I was surprised to see the results. No wrinkles on my forehead, crows feet, or blemishes, but they missed a spot or two.

They missed a spot. 

Miss all of you.
JMS