잘 지내

Baseball, tofu and kimchi.

South Korea.

Not to be confused in any way with North Korea, South Korea is officially known as the Republic of Korea.

No, it's not a third world country.  It's anything but.

In fact it is a very technologically advanced country with about 50 million people, very densely populated - more than 10 times the global average.

Seoul is the largest city and the capital with nearly 10 million people - about a million and a half more than New York City!

South Korea is a democracy with three branches and a constitution similar to ours, but unlike the U.S., more than 99% of its inhabitants are of Korean origin.

Nearly half the population are non-religious with the rest being about equal Buddhist or Christian.  Korean society is strongly influenced by Confucianism with its core as humanism.

Humanism is the body of philosophies and ethical perspectives that emphasize the value of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally place more importance on rational thought than on strict faith.

Not sure where South Korea is?  Near the top right of this map - in purple - by Japan.  Or in other words, 5,000 miles from Belgium and 7,000 miles from Texas/Louisiana.

Children in South Korea learn to speak English from their 3rd year of elementary school through high school and there are about 22,000 English teachers in the country.

And back to "technologically advanced" . . . South Korea is the world's first country to bring high-speed fibre-optic broadband internet access to every primary and secondary school nation-wide. Using this infrastructure, the country has developed the first Digital Textbooks in the world, which will be distributed for free to every primary and secondary school nation-wide by 2013.

Education in South Korea is considered crucial for success and it seems their dedication to this end is evident in their OECD - PISA rankings.  More on OECD-PISA later.

The latest PISA report available has Shanghai, China ranked 1st in math, reading and science!  But South Korea isn't far behind.  Here's how Belgium, the U.S., and South Korea stacked up globally:

Math ranking
1 Shanghai, China 
2 Singapore
3 Hong Kong
4 South Korea
5 Taiwan
6 Finland
7 Liechtenstein
8 Switzerland
9 Japan
10 Canada
11 Netherlands
12 Macao
13 New Zealand
14 Belgium
15 Australia
16 Germany
17 Estonia
18 Iceland
19 Denmark
20 Slovenia
21 Norway
22 France
23 Slovakia
24 Austria
25 Poland
26 Sweden
27 Czech Republic
28 United Kingdom
29 Hungary
30 Luxembourg
30 Ireland
30 Portugal 
30 U.S.
31 Italy
. . . total 63 countries

Reading ranking
1 Shanghai, China
2 South Korea
3 Finland
4 Hong Kong
5 Canada
6 New Zealand
7 Japan
8 Australia
9 Netherlands
10 Belgium
11 Norway
12 Estonia
13 Switzerland
14 Poland
15 Iceland
16 U.S.
17 Leichtenstein
. . . total 63 countries 

Science ranking
1 Shanghai - 1st
2 Finland
3 Hong Kong
4 Singapore
5 Japan
6 South Korea
7 New Zealand
8 Canada
9 Estonia
10 Australia
11 Macao
12 Netherlands
13 Germany
14 Liechtenstein
15 Taiwan
16 Switzerland
17 United Kingdom
18 Ireland
19 Poland
19 Belgium
20 Hungary
21 U.S.
22 Slovenia
. . . total 63 countries 

So, why all the interest in South Korea?  Because today, we drove to Amsterdam and put Ross on a plane bound for Seoul.  

Because for the next year, in a city southwest of Seoul called Dangjin-si, he's going to be one of those English teachers!

잘 지내 means "good luck" in Korean.

잘 지내 Ross!  우리는 당신을 사랑

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If you'd like to know more about South Korea, here's a great series of videos produced in 2011 by the History Channel.    Just click on the link below, then click "Play All" near the top left.

South Korea: A Nation to Watch

And if you'd like to know more about OECD and PISA, here's a link to a good video explaining just how it all works.

PISA - Measuring Student Success Around the World