题图：街上隔音的“治疗区”包厢，供压力过大的学生学习或者嘶吼。

For years, Lee Kyong Min’s life revolved around shuttling her two daughters from school to cram schools to home.
多年来，李京敏的生活重心一直放在接送两个女儿于学校、补习班和家之间往返。

It was a routine followed by nearly every other parent she knew, all sharing the same goal: making sure their children got into South Korea’s best universities. The decisive element was their choice of hagwons, or private cram schools where students take extracurricular classes in math, Korean and English to prepare for the country’s infamously competitive college admissions exam.
她认识的几乎所有家长都遵循着同样的流程，他们的目标都一样：确保孩子考入韩国最好的大学。决定性的因素在于他们选择补习班，也就是私立的课外辅导学校，学生们在那里学习数学、韩语和英语等课程，为竞争异常激烈的韩国大学入学考试做准备。

Ms. Lee, a former advertising professional, and her husband, who works in finance, had enrolled their children in the best they could find. Seven days a week, she waited for them late into the night at cafes packed with other parents doing the same. Sometimes, she saw little children with schedules so packed that they juggled homework and dinner in those cafes before hurrying off to their next class.
李女士曾是一名广告从业人员，她的丈夫在金融行业工作，他们尽其所能为孩子们报了最好的学校。一周七天，她都熬到深夜，在挤满了其他家长的咖啡馆里等着孩子们放学。有时，她会看到一些小朋友的日程安排得满满当当，他们要在咖啡馆里一边做作业一边吃晚饭，然后匆匆赶往下一节课的教室。

Extracurricular education, which expanded alongside the demand for university degrees as the country shifted to a white-collar economy in the 1990s, is now omnipresent in South Korea. It is also at the center of long-running debates about the consequences of unchecked academic competition. Many parents wonder what alternatives, if any, exist.
随着韩国在20世纪90年代向白领经济转型，大学学历的需求日益增长，课外教育也随之发展壮大，如今在韩国已无处不在。然而，课外教育也引发了关于无节制学术竞争后果的长期争论。许多家长都在思考，是否存在其他替代方案。

When Ms. Lee’s daughters questioned why they had to spend so much time studying outside school, she told them it was necessary because academic achievement equaled opportunity, which meant a happy life.
当李女士的女儿们质疑为什么她们要在课外花费这么多时间学习时，她告诉她们这是必要的，因为学业成就意味着机会，而机会意味着幸福的生活。

But her belief in this idea began to fracture when her eldest, then around 8, asked: “Mom, were you a bad student?”
但当她的大女儿（当时大约8岁）问她：“妈妈，你以前是个坏学生吗？”时，她对这个想法的信念开始动摇。

“I realized she saw me as unhappy,” said Ms. Lee, 46. “I felt like I’d been hit in the head.”
“我意识到她觉得我不开心，”46岁的李女士说。“我感觉就像被人打了一拳。”


插图：在首尔江南区，学生们在公交车站等候，车站广告牌上写着某著名补习班正在招聘教师。

Now she wondered: What vision of life and happiness was she presenting to her daughters? It is a question more parents in South Korea are confronting.
现在她开始思考：她究竟在向女儿们展现怎样的生活和幸福？这也是越来越多韩国父母正在面临的问题。

Eighty percent of South Korean school-aged students now receive some form of private extracurricular education, according to government data. While the schooling-age population has been shrinking for decades, this market grew to a record $20.3 billion in 2024.
根据政府数据，目前韩国80%的学龄儿童都接受某种形式的课外辅导。尽管学龄人口几十年来一直在减少，但这一市场在2024年却增长至创纪录的203亿美元。

Children are entering cram schools at younger ages. In some districts in Seoul, the capital, children as young as 4 take entrance exams for English-language preschools. Others enter medical school prep tracks in elementary school.
孩子们进入补习班的年龄越来越小。在首尔的一些地区，年仅4岁的孩子就要参加英语幼儿园的入学考试。还有一些孩子在小学阶段就进入医学院预科班。

Even in a country long inured to intense academic competition, these developments have provoked alarm. South Korea’s human rights commission has said that subjecting preschoolers to such high-stakes testing is a violation of their rights. Lawmakers, blaming hagwons for an adolescent mental health crisis, have vowed to intervene.
即使在韩国这样一个早已习惯激烈学术竞争的国家，这些事态发展也引发​​了担忧。韩国人权委员会表示，让学龄前儿童接受如此高风险的考试侵犯了他们的权利。议员们将青少年心理健康危机归咎于补习班，并誓言要进行干预。

But the system that created them, as Ms. Lee would discover, is not so easy to change.
但李女士后来发现，造成这些现象的制度并不容易改变。

‘Level Tests’
“水平测试”

For Ms. Lee, entering her children into the grind of hagwon education came with conflicted feelings. She and her husband both attended mid-tier universities, a fact that, in their well-credentialed world, was a source of both defiant pride and smoldering insecurity. Part of her wanted their daughters to have an enriching humanities education, and not be beholden to the college race. Another wanted them to be among its winners.
对李女士来说，让孩子们接受私立补习班的教育让她内心充满矛盾。她和丈夫都毕业于中等水平的大学，在他们这个以学历为重的社会里，这既让她感到自豪，又让她隐隐不安。一方面，她希望女儿们能接受丰富的人文教育，不必被大学竞争所束缚；另一方面，她又希望她们能成为这场竞争的赢家。

So in 2013, she enrolled her girls, then around 4 and 5 years old, in an English-language preschool. She declined to give specifics about her children, like their names, for privacy reasons.
因此，在2013年，她把当时大约4岁和5岁的两个女儿送进了一所英语幼儿园。出于隐私考虑，她拒绝透露孩子的具体信息，比如她们的名字。

But she said they attended numerous hagwons in Daechi, a wealthy neighborhood in the Gangnam district of Seoul regarded as the pacesetter of educational achievement in the country. Daechi is home to 1,200 hagwons spread across an area roughly the size of Central Park.
但她说，她们在首尔江南区富裕的社区大峙洞上过很多补习班。大峙洞被认为是韩国教育成就的标杆，拥有1200家补习班，分布在面积与中央公园大致相当的区域内。

Surrounding them are the other trappings of its hyper-optimized path to academic success: “study cafes” that confiscate students’ phones to promote focus and traditional medicine clinics that advertise brain-boosting treatments. There are even soundproofed enclosures on the street, called “Therapy Zone” boxes, where stressed-out students can study — or scream.
在这一带，还配套着通往学术成功的各种“超优化”设施：没收学生手机以促进专注的“学习咖啡馆”，以及宣传健脑疗法的传统诊所。街上甚至还有隔音的“治疗区”包厢（心理疏导区），供压力过大的学生学习——或者嘶吼。


插图：一名学生在首尔的一家自习咖啡馆听课。


插图：在首尔的一所补习学校大楼外，贴满了“明星导师”的广告。

Ms. Lee grew up in Daechi and was no stranger to its reputation. Even so, she was struck by the endless loop of testing that awaited her daughters.
李女士在大峙洞长大，对那里的名声并不陌生。即便如此，她还是被女儿们即将面临的无休止的考试所震惊。

The most important were the “level tests,” or entrance exams held by hagwons for children as young as 4 years old. Some, like those taken by third graders to enter Daechi’s most prestigious math hagwon, are so competitive that parents often send their children to another hagwon to study for it.
其中最重要的是“水平测试”，也就是补习班为年仅4岁的孩子举办的入学考试。有些考试，比如三年级学生进入大峙洞最负盛名的数学补习班的考试，竞争非常激烈，以至于家长们常常把孩子送到其他补习班去备考。

“The saying goes, if you want to send your child to medical school, you need to have them do six passes of the entire math curriculum to the high school level,” Ms. Lee said. Her eldest took the test but did not make the cut.
李女士说：“俗话说，如果你想送孩子上医学院，就得让他把高中数学课程全部学六遍。”她的大女儿参加了考试，但没考上。

40 Hours After School
放学后40小时

Recently, the authorities have urged hagwons to refrain from such competitive admissions for young children.
最近，有关部门敦促补习班不要对幼儿进行这种竞争性招生。

But little has changed. Anxiety persists around the college admissions exam, the Suneung, a do-or-die test whose scope and difficulty has far exceeded standard school curriculums.
但情况几乎没有改变。人们对“韩国大学修学能力考试”（Suneung，韩国高考）的焦虑依然存在，这是背水一战的考试，其范围和难度远远超过了普通学校的课程。

“Students today are all essentially juggling two separate workloads: their school grades and preparation for the Suneung,” said Gu Bon-chang, a former hagwon teacher and now policy director for World Without Worries about Shadow Education, a nonprofit.
“如今的学生实际上都在同时兼顾两项不同的任务：学校的成绩和备考高考，”曾任补习班教师、现任非营利组织“无影子教育忧虑世界”政策主管的具本昌说道。


插图：母亲们带着孩子走在首尔大峙地区的一家药店前。

One teacher at a leading English hagwon franchise estimated that his elementary school-aged students spent at least 40 hours a week just on extracurricular classes. He asked not to be named for fear of retaliation from his employer.
一家知名英语补习班连锁机构的一位老师估计，他的小学生每周至少要花40个小时上课外辅导班。他因担心遭到雇主报复而要求匿名。

He was struck by one essay he had recently graded. A 6-year-old, he said, wrote of her fear that her whole family would be unhappy if she did not excel academically.
他最近批改的一篇作文让他印象深刻。他说，作文中一个六岁的小女孩写道，她担心如果自己学习成绩不好，全家人都会不开心。

Parents are also increasingly grappling with the consequences of the system.
家长们也越来越感受到该制度带来的后果。

Park Euna, a mother of three, said she got a wake-up call a few years ago, when a classmate of her eldest daughter, who was then in elementary school, died by suicide.
朴恩娜是一位三个孩子的母亲，她说几年前，她大女儿（当时还在上小学）的一位同学自杀身亡，这件事让她幡然醒悟。

Ms. Park recalled the classmate as a savvy and charismatic child who loved to dance, but lacked a head for academics. She had been trying to get in to the elite math hagwon in Daechi but had fallen short.
朴女士回忆说，这位同学是个聪明伶俐、富有魅力的孩子，喜欢跳舞，但学习成绩却不太好。她曾努力考入大峙洞的精英数学补习班，但最终未能成功。


插图：朴恩娜端着一杯水给正在房间里学习英语的大女儿。


插图：朴恩娜6岁的女儿正在房间里跟私人教师学习英语。

The episode prompted her to reconsider her children’s priorities.
这件事促使她重新思考孩子们的优先事项。

“If they end up deciding they don’t want to go to college, I am fine with that,” she said.
“如果他们最终决定不去上大学，我也不会反对，”她说。

Bad at Math
数学不好

Peter Na, a psychiatrist at Yale University, cautioned against drawing a straight line from pressurized academic environments to suicide, which can have complex causes.
耶鲁大学精神病学家彼得-纳警告说，不要将压力巨大的学术环境与自杀直接联系起来，因为自杀可能有复杂的成因。

Even so, he is troubled by the rise of depression symptoms in South Korean children under 10, as is evident in government data.
即便如此，韩国政府数据显示，10岁以下儿童抑郁症状的增加仍然令他感到担忧。

“Depression under 10 years old is not something that’s common,” he said.
他说：“10岁以下儿童患抑郁症并不常见。”

“I don’t think it’s isolated from what’s going on in the private sector,” he said, referring to hagwons.
“我认为这与私营部门发生的事情并非孤立存在，”他指的是私人补习机构体系。

As Ms. Lee’s daughters neared the end of middle school, her own concerns were growing because her eldest, whose gifts were in words but not numbers, was struggling.
随着李女士的女儿们即将结束中学学业，她自己的担忧也与日俱增，因为她的大女儿在语言方面很有天赋，但在数字方面却很吃力。

“In the South Korean education system, if you aren’t good at math, you are seen as an idiot,” Ms. Lee said.
李女士说：“在韩国的教育体系中，如果你数学不好，就会被视为笨蛋。”

“The focus is always on what you’re bad at,” she added.
她补充说：“人们总是关注你的缺点。”

Fearful for her girls’ self-esteem, she and her husband pulled them from their multiple hagwons in 2024.
担心女儿们的自尊心受损，她和丈夫于2024年让她们退出了多家私立补习班。

Ms. Lee herself also made a career change. Now a qualified psychologist, she works as a therapist near Daechi.
李女士本人也改变了职业道路。现在，她是一名合格的心理学家，在大峙洞附近担任心理治疗师。

Many of her clients are mothers from the same competitive hagwon pipeline, with children reporting symptoms like self-harm.
她的许多客户都是来自同一竞争激烈的私立补习班的母亲，她们的孩子出现了自残等症状。


插图：在首尔，经常可以看到这样的景象：母亲们从夜间补习班接孩子后，背着孩子的书包。


插图：晚上10点，一所补习学校外的街道两旁停满了车，家长们正等着孩子们放学回家。

Their intent, she said, is “to make their parents see them, to show them ‘look, I’m suffering.’”
她说，他们的目的是“让父母看到他们，让他们看到‘看，我正在受苦’”。

But the mothers, she said, are no less unhappy.
但她表示，母亲们的痛苦程度丝毫不亚于孩子。

In South Korea, mothers are primarily responsible for their children’s education, said Ms. Lee, whose doctoral thesis explored the effects this had on their mental health. Many women find themselves corralled into this role after discovering their careers are effectively over after they have children.
李女士指出，在韩国，母亲主要负责子女的教育。她的博士论文探讨了这种做法对母亲心理健康的影响。许多女性在生育子女后，发现自己的职业生涯实际上已经结束，于是被迫承担起这一角色。

They are expected to be the taskmasters who crack the whip, often with fathers watching at arm’s length. Many of the spousal conflicts Ms. Lee sees emerge from this tension, she said, as fathers of underperforming students question why their money is not producing results while mothers spiral in a constant state of anxiety.
人们期望母亲扮演严厉的督导者角色，而父亲们往往在一旁袖手旁观。李女士说，她观察到的许多夫妻冲突都源于这种紧张关系，成绩不佳的孩子的父亲会质疑为什么他们的投入没有带来成效，而母亲们则陷入持续的焦虑之中。

A Rip Cord
退路

The roots of such ratcheting competition run much deeper than merely overambitious parents.
这种日益激烈的竞争根源远比父母野心过大要深得多。

South Korea has one of the highest rates — 76 percent — of college enrollment in the world. But the economic insecurities that spurred this mass pursuit in the first place still persist: a weak national pension system, a shortage of high-quality blue collar jobs, limited upward mobility and yawning income disparity.
韩国拥有全球最高的大学入学率之一，高达76%。但当初促使人们大规模追求高等教育的经济不安全感依然存在：国家养老金制度薄弱、高质量蓝领工作岗位短缺、向上流动性有限以及巨大的收入差距。

“There are no second chances in South Korea,” said Soo-yong Byun, a Penn State University professor who studies the hagwon industry. “Not just where you go to college, but also the first job you get after that — all of these have huge impacts on your mobility as an adult.”
“在韩国，没有第二次机会，”宾夕法尼亚州立大学研究补习班行业的教授卞秀勇说。“不仅是你上哪所大学，还有毕业后的第一份工作——所有这些都会对你成年后的发展轨迹产生巨大影响。”


插图：首尔的上班族们排队进入地铁站。

Arim So, a 39-year-old mother in Seoul, said she constantly teetered between anxiety and guilt toward her 11-year-old daughter, who recently asked her why her path always seemed to be decided for her.
首尔一位名叫苏阿琳的39岁母亲表示，她经常在焦虑和对11岁女儿的愧疚之间摇摆不定，女儿最近问她，为什么自己的人生道路似乎总是被别人决定的。

“But I always realize there is just no other alternative in South Korea,” Ms. So said.
“但我始终意识到，在韩国根本没有其他选择，”苏女士说。

Those who can afford it have a rip cord: leaving the country. This was the path Ms. Lee ultimately settled on, enrolling her daughters in a private boarding school in the United States in 2024.
那些经济条件允许的人还有一条退路：离开这个国家。李女士最终也选择了这条路，她在2024年将女儿们送入了美国的一所私立寄宿学校。

She was rueful, recognizing it was a privilege that few others have. “It feels like I no longer have the right to talk about the problems of this system,” she said.
她感到懊悔，意识到这是极少数人拥有的特权。“感觉我好像不再有资格谈论这个体制的问题了，”她说。

Now her daughters are thriving at their new school. Her eldest is no longer seen as a slouch in math.
现在她的女儿们在新学校表现出色。她的大女儿也不再被认为是数学很差的学生。

“Go to the U.S. after studying math in Daechi to the 8th grade level or so,” she said, with a bittersweet laugh. “People will call you a genius.”
“在大峙洞把数学学到大约八年级水平后就去美国吧，”她苦笑着说，“人们会称你为天才。”