Korean Job Discussion Forums

[captain kirk]

There's a new student at the haggie who's a 'godsend'. I guess I'm interested in art. Not in a snotty, snooty way, either. It could come off as elitist and discriminatory to laud someone's interest in art as a 'relief' from the average Korean mentality, not that I actively 'typify' it, generalizing, which is discriminatory. But I sense, day to day, the shape of things. And so many Korean children take piano, music, art and then drop it at 13. Because it's 'boring'. Because their mother wanted them to start at seven, or whatever, and five years was enough.
This new student, female, 17, has finished three years in an 'art high school'. I asked, 'what will you do with your art education?', and she said, 'be a designer'. I asked of what and she said, 'cars' . Gotta go with the reality I guess. Sure.
It's refreshing to meet a Korean mindset 'braked' and 'chilled' by the effects of appreciating and creating art. Like a stillness inside drawn from and used, an open mind which sees everything useful to 'make do' making art. A natural, relaxed sort of mind.
She has a pained, get me out of here, sort of look, conversely, in the group classes where nobody much talks and I ask questions grubbing for answers, them to practice. But one on one her viewpoint comes across and is so refreshing. More like a western youth is, whether they like art or not, because they've had less frenetic cramming built into their life, along with the desperate importance of practicality, productivity, and concrete use of time.
It chimes with my having blindly groped my way to finding that creating art of some kind, crafts, building things, chills me and makes me whole in the 'rat race'.
Art is a kind of 'universal language' and boomerang statement that everything, including nature, matters. Soothing. Makes sense.