Fifth Cultural Post

[James Kim]

A few weeks ago, my language partner told me a story about the recent earthquake in Korea. This was one of the worst earthquakes in Korea's history and it's even more significant because of the timing of the disaster. The earthquake happened on 11/14 but the day after, 11/15, was supposed to be the national "holiday" for Korea's college entrance exams. Unlike the US, Korean students can only take this test once and everyone in the nation takes the exam at the same time. As a result of the earthquake, the test date was postponed with less than one day notice. This caused outrage among the Korean students because they most likely planned a post-exam relief-party or was looking forward to the test date for months or even years. If this happened in America, students would definitely be happier because of the extra time to study. However, the case was different for the students of Korea.