Because high school is supposed to suck

"The most time and cost efficient way of gaining a white person’s trust and friendship is to talk to them about their time in high school," says our resident authority on Stuff White People Like. "Virtually every white person you meet was a nerd in a high school—it it is how they were able to get into a good arts program and law school. As such, their memories of high school are painful, but not tragic since they were able to eventually find success in the real world. Exploiting this information is your one way to ticket into the heart of a white person."

But white folks have nothing on South Koreans. The cram culture of South Korean high schools, Choe Sang-Hun reports in the New York Times this morning, makes suicide the second highest cause of death among teens in that country. The South Korean college entrance exams are brutal, and because going to particular schools tracks a person for life, students face immense pressure to do well.

But if you don't get into the college of your choice, there's always SUPER CRAM SCHOOL! Which is like high school would be like if you were in prison, in the military, or a Republican:

Jongro [the school profiled in the piece] opened last year. Its four-story main building houses classrooms and dormitories, with eight beds per room. The school day begins at 6:30 a.m., when whistles pierce the quiet and teachers stride the hallways, shouting, “Wake up!”

After exercise and breakfast, the students are in their classrooms by 7:30, 30 per class. Each room includes a few music stands, for students who stand to keep from dozing.

A final roll call comes at 12:30 a.m., after which students may go to bed, unless they opt to cram more, until 2:00 a.m.

The routine relaxes on Saturday and Sunday, when students have an extra hour to sleep and two hours of free time. Every three weeks the students may leave the campus for two nights.

The curriculum has no room for romance. Notices enumerate the forbidden behavior: any conversation between boys and girls that is unrelated to study; exchanging romantic notes; hugging, hooking arms or other physical contact. Punishment includes cleaning a classroom or restroom or even expulsion.

Wimps. That's not what it was like in the good old days:

Kim Sung-woo, 32, who teaches at Jongro, remembered the even more spartan regimen of the cram school that he attended. In his day, he said, students desperate for a break slipped off campus at night by climbing walls topped with barbed wire. Corporal punishment was common.

Now that's an education.