Surviving high school in Korea mm

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Surviving high school in South Korea, um, that's another story.

[00:00:06]I've spent elementary school, middle school, high school, and up to uni in Korea.

[00:00:14]But high school, I went to a pretty strict high school.

[00:00:18]Everybody was super smart, super competitive, and we have this term in Seoul.

[00:00:24]Basically, there are a few unis located inside of Seoul, the capital, and um, to get into these in Seoul universities, you have to have good grades.

[00:00:40]So, it's super competitive.

[00:00:41]And I've I told you guys like in previous videos that if you're a high schooler in Korea, you go through the post a post glow up once you get into uni.

[00:00:52]Maybe times have changed because a lot of years have passed since I've been to high school, but when I was in high school, the majority of these schools, makeup was not allowed. Like anything you do to try to look better, it was considered distracting, especially to your studies. So, none of it was allowed. Like only sunscreen, maybe. And there's these teachers that were specifically their role was to catch any type of student that like stood out or was trying to alter their appearance because it it just seemed like they weren't focusing on their studies, which is which is absurd, right? I have naturally curly hair.

[00:01:39]The curls they kind of died out, but in high school, it was worse. Like it was like And this teacher, let's call her Patty, okay? Patty, I think she really liked her job making students miserable. So, she would always stand in front of the of the entrance of our school and just catch um, students that look like they were, you know, they did something to their hair or they they put on like lipstick.

[00:02:08]One day she stopped me. She was like, "Oh, did you perm your hair? Did you get curls in your hair?" I was like, "No, my hair is naturally curly." And she's like, "I know you're lying."

[00:02:19]How do you know I'm lying?

[00:02:21]That what why? She made me show my baby photos to her to prove that I had curly hair. What does this have to do with studying? So, I thought that was absurd from that moment, but this teacher was crazy. In Korea, we have name tags, like identification cards.

[00:02:42]We call this haksaengjeung. Um, we use it for like school entrance or just like, you know, to identify ourselves.

[00:02:48]And when it was lunchtime, everybody was just having lunch in the cafeteria, she would go around walking around the cafeteria trying to find anybody who had a bit of pigment on their lips. You know She would go up to them and take their necklace from them. Her her her whole arm would be full of necklaces of the students that she thought had makeup on them.

[00:03:15]And what was what she would say was, "If you want your card back, you have to come find me."

[00:03:20]And once you, you know, go to her office, she would bash you out. She would go on having a full lecture of "Oh, you don't want to go to university.

[00:03:30]You're going to, you know, ruin your life.

[00:03:34]Why you as a student not focusing on your studies?

[00:03:39]Do you really think, you know, applying that lipstick is going to better your life?

[00:03:43]Let people live. Oh my god. She was crazy. She was crazy. The multiple times I've seen so many people crying when they left her office.

[00:03:54]In Korea, we wear school uniforms, right?

[00:03:57]Um, if you're a girl, usually the school uniform is like a skirt.

[00:04:04]And it's kind of uncomfortable, right?

[00:04:06]For PE, we have our PE clothes. They're pretty comfortable. So, we would often prefer wearing our PE clothes, but another stupid stupid school rule was you're not allowed to have your PE clothes on if it's not PE class.

[00:04:25]But it's not a big deal, right?

[00:04:29]One of my closest friends, she's still traumatized by this story, but she was wearing her PE clothes because they were comfortable, even though it wasn't PE class.

[00:04:41]But then, Patty was walking by and she saw her.

[00:04:46]But my friend, she was so scared of Patty because she had a reputation of like being psycho. So, the moment she saw Patty, my friend was Okay, kind of dumb for this, but the moment she saw Patty, my friend, she started running. Like running the opposite direction of her, upstairs.

[00:05:07]You would imagine Patty being like, "What?"

[00:05:11]And then kind of like letting it go, right? Cuz Patty was in her 40s, 40s, 50s, maybe. But you know what Patty does?

[00:05:18]She starts running after her.

[00:05:20]They start running around the whole school, and everybody's just like They were doing like a full Tom and Jerry. And my friend, sh- she was so scared, she hid in a classroom.

[00:05:33]And of course, because Patty's crazy, she found her. My friend starts bawling her eyes out.

[00:05:39]And Patty's like, "What are you doing? Why are you wearing your PE clothes?" She starts screaming at her.

[00:05:45]But it is it is it actually that serious, though?

[00:05:50]I think she forgot the purpose of that rule.

[00:05:53]My friend was super smart. She she went to the top universities in in Korea.

[00:05:58]But there are some weird weird people out there. Um, I really hope Korean high schools have changed. I haven't been a high schooler in such a long time. I don't know, but I really hope they've changed that rule.