The Puberty Stakeout

Puberty, Harder Than Violent Criminals

The Child Who Walks Swallowing the Smell

We moved from the Seoul metropolitan area to the provinces. But only the region had changed; the boiling pot called studying still sat in the middle of the table. "Where on earth should we go?" Information about cram schools and schools passed back and forth across the table. In the "where" of that question, there was no thought of the child. Special-purpose high schools, prestigious universities, and then a professional career. Only the grade and the occupation the child was supposed to reach mattered. No one asked whether the path was one the child had chosen or one the parents had set.

There was a middle school student who suffered from depression. He was a tidy kid with a diligence that had never produced a single tardy and an environment that lacked nothing, but the honest words that came out of his mouth were so sorrowful they tightened my chest. "When I go from one cram school to another, if I smell meat and bread, I get so hungry." Even with the savory smell rising along the road to the cram school, the child's feet headed for the next cram school like a clock that never errs. "I often imagined skipping cram school and eating at a barbecue restaurant with my parents." In the child's hand was a parent's credit card that could be swiped at any time.