Making contact with a Classmate with the Best GPA (South Korea)

Title: Making contact with a Classmate with the Best GPA (South Korea)

General Information

Informant

SM is currently a junior in an international school in Seoul, South Korea. She describes herself as an “overachiever” when it comes to grades and said that she tends to get very nervous before important tests such as midterms and final exams. Prior to entering an international school in 10th grade, she studied at a Korean middle school and high school where she experienced a lot of cut-throat competition.

Contextual Data

Cultural Context: The informant’s experience of attending a Korean middle school and high school has led her to endorse this superstition. Unlike how students are assessed and graded based on their individual performance in the American education system, the Korean education system forces some schools to assess students based on how well they do compared to other students. Only the top one or two percent of students are allowed to get an A on their transcript. This creates extra competition as well as an intense and almost toxic environment in which students must study harder to do better than their classmates. Consequently, Korean students, especially those in middle and high school, tend to endorse unscientific superstitions that may help them to feel better when taking an important test. Some of these superstitions, such as the item below, involve contagious magic. The informant did emphasize that this is not something that most Korean students would typically do.

Social Context: This item was collected inevitably over a scheduled zoom call due to the 13-hour time difference between Hanover and Seoul, South Korea. The informant noted that she would usually do this ritual the day before she takes an important test and that she started doing it because one of her friends told her about it.

Item

Before taking a test, students may approach the classmate with the best GPA and request that they hold a pencil or pencil case in their hand. Doing this is said to make the students taking the test feel better. In some cases, students may even ask for a strand of hair from the classmate. They would then place the hair inside their mechanical pencils and use them to take the test.

Associated File

Transcript

“I know this sounds, like, super weird, but I try going to a classmate with the best GPA and ask for them to hold my pencil for a bit. Then I’d take it back and use that pencil to take the test – I don’t really use another pencil. Sometimes I ask them to just hold my pencil case. I don’t do this, trust me, but I also know that some students would ask for a strand of loose hair from the best person in the class and put it inside their mechanical pencils when they take the test.”

Informant’s Comments

“I know that the hair part is, like, super weird. And I’m trying not to do something like this in general. I don’t want to rely on stuff like this. But sometimes it just makes me feel a little better.”

Collector’s Comments

I can empathize with the informant’s concerns regarding how bizarre this superstition may look. I went to a Korean middle school, and the competition was definitely intense enough for a student to resort to measures such as this.

Collector’s Name: Jea Mo

Tags/Keywords

Dartmouth Folklore Archive