For the Carlos of Korea

           Inside our society, there are a lot of people born with talents, and people with distinctive talent becomes popular in our world after getting a proper education with a lot of chances provided for them. Now if we look at them closely, most of them have similarities; they are elites. As mentioned above, mostly, they get a proper education in an expensive private school, and they were raised by loving parents with a certain amount of wealth so that they can provide an adequate environment for their children to fully develop their talents. Then, there comes up a question: how about the kids below them, with poor families, bad neighborhoods, or even the ones who live by themselves, taking care of their younger siblings without parents? Were they born without any talents? The podcast episode “Carlos Doesn’t Remember” give us an answer to this question with an example of United States. Then, how about Korea?

           Korea, today, is not that different from U.S. In an example of United States, they had Eric, and they had schools at least trying to help the poor smart kids. In Korea, there are isn’t any Eric, and the only hope for the poor smart kids is the admission system for the poor. Schools just wait for the poor students to fulfill their requirements by their own ability, and apply to their school. It seems simple: they can study hard and get good grades in high school, and then do well on Sooneung. But the reality is, that it is not that simple for them to just ‘study hard’.

           After a further research, I could find a documentary that illustrated the life of three boys whose mother ran away long ago, and whose father has passed away recently. 

(image: http://blog.naver.com/kyhs2ley/100093223978)

 In order to maintain their lives, they had to do various part-time jobs which they took away their whole afternoon most of the times. After work, the eldest boy worked on his drawing since his dream was to become an animator. However, he couldn't pass any contest exhibit since he wasn't able to get professional education. He also wasn't able to enroll art high school since there were too little spaces for the scholarship.

           Some people say that they could get subsidies from the government, and apply to the different admission system prepared for the poor. This is where the filthy part of Korea is revealed. People with money hide their income and pretend to be poor, and they change their address to the rural area so that their children could apply to the admission system with lower standards than normal students.

(facebook: 고려대학교 대나무숲)

The subsidy is the hardest thing that they can earn. Since the government’s requirements are so strict, most of the people give up on getting subsidies. Then we can notice that nothing is left for the poor students. Korean students already know this reality, and most of them just give up on their dreams in front of the barrier that our society has created. They live on, not even knowing their potential and talents.

           This is the reality of Korea. Students with money get education, scholarships, good grades, and as a result, good chances. The systems made to help poor students with dreams only kill hope. The solution does not exist, and students with unlimited potential make their own limits by themselves in order to fit the reality. Their talents, slowly start to vanish, and a few years later, they disappear. This is a natural thing for Korean society, and this is what limits our country from developing.