I have not watched this and decided on Everything and Nothing.

I wrote on my wall, you cannot pay me to relive my youth and teen years again. Don’t miss it at all.

Korean dramas do seem to exaggerate it, but I’m guessing that for the rare student, the bullying is actually as bad as shown in dramas. Google “school bullying in South Korea” and you’ll see what I mean.

I wanted to comment though on what you said about moving a lot. Same. I changed around 8 schools in 15 years of schooling. On average, less than two years at one school. I don’t/didn’t have any long time friends but I was never bullied. I do have a vague memory of giving up a swing in the playground once to an older bully when I was six years old, but that’s it. 🙂 Though I was always on the move, it was a fun childhood. Thanks for the memory. 🙂

What scares me is the degree to which Korean parents are involved in what happens at school. It’s like the teachers don’t have authority at all, and they have to bow to the rich and powerful parents. Their kids think they can act the same way with their classmates.

I think you’ll like ep.5-6. Definitely more cute.

Hmm, I don’t know about Korean schools but i grew up in Indian schools, and let’s say this is what almost happens… some things I have not seen, but I guess they were just flew under my radar, because I couldn’t care less. I grew up in an era, where teachers could beat up kids, and yes, I was beaten up a lot in school till middle grade, it stopped by the time in High school, being star student was the sole reason. The amount of violence in my school and in my university was on the lowest level, but given that our school boasted of having being the school famous for wild kids and also famous for the smartest kids, half of the class was rich and their parents did pay a lot of money to school, even opened up their own schools later on. To run for school president was to fight in a war zone, I have even heard kids beating each other up with bats and sticks and iron chains to stop the other one from coming to school.
Students turning up completely stoned drunk to classes was also what I have seen. They bunking all the classes and just there to pick up on girls, and then going and creating a big scene outside girls school in the city…. what else, oh yes, a few on my friends died as well … and till the middle grade every guy in the class was there to make every girls life miserably and also there were girls (some even teachers kid) who had their system of loans and making up gangs and the teachers did nothing because it was originally a boys school and the new girls were just bitches who complained about their precious asshole boys or their kids! My best friend was the most nice person I knew in school. We came to school everyday. So, somehow I don’t connect to this lead girl, I in my existence of life, have never met a decent male high school kid, I made sure I ended up in the best university in my country. And even there the amount of shit I saw, was painful. Guess what I agree with the mom, the world sucks for women, fight it out girl, your own standards need to be high to survive … because the job world is the next shit place to be…

Japan has lots of dramas and manga plots that focused on school bullying and I can vouch for its authenticity. When my parents divorced, my mom and I lived with my grandmom in Japan. I was 10 when I was forced to live and adapt a life in a foreign town – I didn’t know how to speak, write, read Japanese. I can understand at minimum. And as a biracial kid, I was the centre of attention at school in a not so good way – I looked too different than the “norm” – tanned skin tone, curly hair. I only got the eyes from my mom, but resembled my dad a lot.

Japanese kids can be really mean – those drama/manga plot about how some of your stuff go missing or have scribbles on your desk – they were so true. That was traumatic. Having a foreign last name was the worse; I understood why my mom fought in the court to get my last name changed, but didn’t win the case as my dad fought hard too me to keep mine. I didn’t understand why my grandmom/mom didn’t register me at an international school – I heard in the later years that biracial kids should have gone there rather than public Japanese schools.

I suffered bullying for almost a year then when my dad came to Japan to see me, I latched onto him begging him to take me back to Canada with him.

I don’t remember a lot from that time and I don’t consider going to Japan as a painful memory anymore, but yep it did happen to me, and it’s most likely because I was the “odd” one out. I’m not sure how is it different now in this day and age though Japan is a lot more welcoming to foreigners over the years. Not sure how this applies to schools though. I watched a YT video a few years back about school bullying in Japan and I totally relate to this biracial girl went to elementary in Japan https://youtu.be/Bq-Lr7NeQYM