Sequel please! Update, follow-up, something pleaaaassee

      I did not know that many Koreans living in Japan associated themselves more with the North rather than the southern part of Korea. After seeing the film and reading Ryang’s articles, I definitely had a lot of questions.

-What are the differences and similarities of school culture between South Korea’s grade 1 to grade 12 and Hokkaido Korean School grade 1 to grade 12?

-How are schools being run? What social movement best applies to a thriving school community? (this is where the idea of communism vs capitalism)

-What kind of environment does a student require to thrive academically and socially?

-What do we fear the most about children going to school? What makes parents, teachers or students alike anxious about youngsters attending an educational institution?

-To share or to teach?

     As you may have observed, many of my questions have to do with the school aspect of this film and not so much about gender, traditions and/or culture and of course, immigration. But keep in mind that whatever the answers to these questions are, we have to apply to them the aforementioned social identity aspects, which makes it so damn complicated if you really think about it. Which makes education such a great and interesting subject to learn about, as an education student myself, there is never a dull moment because there are so many things to think about and always something requiring improvement. However you look at it, you can never be a master at something, but you can always be a student. 

     In terms of school community, this film shows us how beautiful Hokkaido Korean School is, I felt that despite all the hardships students and teachers are going through, the fact that they can pull it off in such a positive way in the end shows real passion, beauty and dedication. Now I can’t speak about the quality of the education as I am not Korean and don’t speak the language fluently though I did notice pretty much everyone speaking Korean in a way I had never heard before. Other than the language education, I have no clue what the students learned in terms of math, science or arts as the content of the film showing these aspect of a school was quite limited. SO, I will assume that the quality of the student’s education was at the very least, decent. The documentary reminded me of my elementary school and high school experience, when I was growing up with the same people and friends around me. I think many of us can relate to the feelings of the students towards the end as they were giving their speech, leaving behind something we had grown fond of.

So yeah...

-Who is the director?

-Why is there so little information about this film in general?

-Is this film banned in some places?

-Does the school still exist today?

I felt like I could watch sequels upon sequels of this school’s history since the feeling I had when it was over was kind of like...