Kids in South Korea live different lives compared to kids in the United States. Koreans are often pressured to study hard by their parents, typically waking up around 5 a.m. in the morning to attend school and then going to after-school supplementary school until late into the evening. Most kids don't get to enjoy playing sports or to hang out with their friends after school because of this heavy schedule. The upside of being so busy is that Korean kids are generally very good at focusing! To understand more about the Korean lifestyle, I interviewed two of my friends who were born and raised in South Korea. The first of these was Gam, and he has lived in Korea all of his life. The city he is from is Busan, which is a coastal city and also one of Korea's largest cities. Another Korean friend named Jae-min is from a small town in the mountains. Given where each of them grew up, I figured they probably had a different experience growing up than a kid who grew up in Seoul.
Gam typically eats a full breakfast meal with rice, side dishes and a side of protein which could be eggs, fish or sliced hot dogs. For lunch, he would eat something from the school cafeteria which could be ramyeon, the Korean version of ramen, or rice and protein. For dinner, usually, a home-cooked rice meal made by mom is something that Gam would eat.
