The Bloom Effect, Part 2: Tiger Mom Retcon, The Bloom Effect, “Middle 2 Syndrome”, and Resistance in Context

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series The Bloom Effect

This post is part of a series. I suggest you start at the beginning, to get the most out of it. Part 3: Hyperschooling and the Tiger Mom Retcon Last time, I talked about the idea of “Tiger Parenting” and how it’s primarily been discussed in the context of American education and upbringing. I talked about the importance of considering education and upbringing within a social context–how parenting is contextualized by society and education, how education is contextualized by parenting and society, and so on. The implications are enormous, of course: a mainstream Korean-styled upbringing in Korea is different from …

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The Bloom Effect, Part 1: Context, Context, and More Context

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series The Bloom Effect

This post is the promised follow-up to my earlier post titled “Two Disconcerting Trends: Korean Kids, School Systems, And Parental Appraisal.” I have split the follow-up into two parts, as 10,000 words seems too long for a single blog post. This is a sprawling essay discussing: The idea of the Tiger Mom, and some thoughts on Amy Chua’s book The importance of social context in determining the outcome of a given parenting style Hyperschooling and why it is a rasdically new thing in South Korea, and why nobody seems willing to admit it to their kids or themselves “The Bloom Effect” observed …

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Korean Fiction, For Free… (In a Limited Range of Editions)

While I think Charles Montgomery at Korean Literature in Translation overstates things a little bit by calling it a “triumph,” it’s worth noting that LTI Korea has released a set of twenty early modern Korean texts for free. (That is, early 20th century texts: “early modern” begins much later in Korean lit than English lit, where it’s used to talk about Shakespeare.) The reason I think it’s an overstatement to call this a triumph has nothing to do with the translations–of which I’ve only read a little so far, though what I’ve seen looks good–but with the media in which …

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A Little Context Regarding Korean 먹방 (“Broadcast Eating”)

So, the global news has been abuzz with the latest story about South Korea, which is that some Koreans are making vast piles of money by eating massive dinners on live broadcast online. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCkUMIDcylM No, I’ve never tuned in. (I hate watching people eat with their mouths open, and that’s pretty common in Korea. So, uh, no thanks.) But yes, it’s real: where, in the west, strangers would only send that cam-girl above money if she took off her clothes online, Koreans send her money just to watch her eat.  There’s a context, though, that these the news stories seem constantly …

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On Trust

I just made my first real, serious edit to Wikipedia. I’d been reading about Yu Gwan-sun the other day, so I couldn’t help but notice something interesting mentioned in he book I’m reading now, Donald Clark’s history of foreigners in Korea from 1900-1950. In passing, Jeanette Walter is mentioned, and if that doesn’t mean much to you, that’s not surprise. But if you do know who Yu Gwan-sun is, then you will realize the significance of the woman’s testimony: Walter was one of the missionaries working at Ewha University who (reportedly) pressured the Japanese into giving back Yu’s body, and …

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