And you wonder why you see THEM everywhere

And I thought my years as a student were glimpses of hell. I swallowed the aches and anxieties that academic and parental expectations made me go through thinking I'm extraordinary while I suffered the worst lot. My father's one of a kind rage, on my-less-than-desired performance in Advanced Algebra and Chemistry, made me consider if my accumulated Christmas savings would be able to sustain me when I run away to Cebu. Right now, I even try to bash my parents for pressuring or what they would re-term as "encouraging" my brother to maintain his top 3 spot in his whole batch of 14 sections (although my brother is perfectly fine on the ego trip).

Being in school is not a walk in the park. Within school, we get first tastes of stress, failures and pressures. But that's how we learn and be better at life, right? But I think we're one of the few countries in Asia, or in the world, to have more lenient educational system and culture. Throw in the fact that our predominant religion, Roman Catholic/Christian, is one of the most lenient religions in the world. But we never really relied or encouraged society to develop "pressure-cooked students." We tend to value growth in different aspects, which fails sometimes to strike a balance through progress. We may encourage great performance from students, but we do not try to overly compromise their happiness, leisure and health above anything else. We value education as much as we value interaction with other people, spiritual growth and street smarts. We may invest in tutors, but not in "military-like" educational institutions. Parents in other countries sacrifice to the bone and as much as pressure their kids to get accepted in a good college, a really VERY GOOD college, as their guaranteed ticket to financial success and a secure future. They are right to some extent, but we somehow take it in different intensity and light. Like my friend once said, "We Filipinos really do not see MONEY as our everything. We don't see it as an entire measure of success. That's just how we are brought up. But unfortunately we take it to extremes sometimes that's why we're poor at MONEY."

Now, probably I have an idea of one of the REASONS why we see so many Korean students flocking the Philippine lands. I see them almost everywhere, and no they didn't come here to tour, not most of them. The Koreans who flock here, aside from tourists and expats, are students. They may find education here very cheap, the scenery very exciting, but they have other special reasons as well.

Now I know WHY.