Stepford-ville

I really love one of my adult students, Misoo. She is 45 years old and married to a German man. She's originally from Korea, but has lived and traveled all over the world. She speaks her mind, which is very rare for a Korean, and constantly asks me questions about my experiences in the U.S. and in Korea.
When she's in class, we almost never open the book we're supposed to be studying from. She and I usually just end up chatting. Tonight we had a very long discussion about the culture of Korean education. The class also has two other students, both female high school students. The girls are usually mute during class, even though they speak near-perfect English, but for the last couple weeks they've been offering more and more opinions about things.
Korean students are frequently in school for more than 12 hours a day. They must wear uniforms and they must choose from only two variations of only two hairstyles. They can either have long, non-layered, shoulder-length hair with bangs; long, non-layered, shoulder-length hair without bangs; bobbed, non-layered hair with bangs; or bobbed, non-layered hair without bangs. Make-up is not allowed. No variations of the school uniform colors are allowed. Everyone looks exactly the same. The girls said it was because the school administrators think a homogenous look helps students focus on studies more.
Misoo said there are certain looks throughout the different ages, as well. Once a woman graduates from school and hits her 20s, there is a certain hairstyle. Once she hits her 30s, another hairstyle is chosen that all the other women in their 30s also have and this continues throughout the increasing decades.
The conversation that started it all was Misoo discussing the tendency for Koreans to never have ideas of their own. She explained that when a popular person in a school setting decides they don't like someone, then the popular person will tell everyone else not to like that person until the entire school hates this one person because the popular person told them to. Eventually it leads to the suicide of the one hated person. The high school girls in my class agreed this is very common. Misoo went on to inform me that this idea carries over to adult life, as well. There are phenomenally high rates of suicide and alcoholism in Korea.
Koreans, Misoo explained, are very dependent people very early on in their lives so they become very easily swayed and malleable. Disagreeing with the pack is just not done. One is not allowed to have a differing opinion and if they do they keep their mouth shut. Korean people are deathly afraid of being lonely, so rather than risking being lonely, they will go along with whatever everybody else is saying or doing.
Appearances and everyone else's opinions are very important in the Korean culture. Misoo explained that she was actually very jealous of the Western culture, because we just don't care about anybody else, as she put it. Korean culture is very concerned about "the way things have always been done" and about tradition. Personalities and true selves are quashed very early on. Misoo said that she feels bitter for the way Korean culture has made the people and she must watch herself when she's in public because one must act in the Korean way at all times. She explained that she was upset because she feels that her lack of creativity was a result of the society she was raised in.
She's traveled extensively and lived abroad and now knows the world is a vast place full of opportunity and vitality. She fears for the girls growing up in Korea.