After hagwon, a four-cut photo

of K-12 students take private lessons (2024)

80%

Source: Ministry of Education & Statistics Korea, 2024 private education survey

hours a week spent in hagwon

7.6h

Source: Same survey

1. 07:30🎒School uniform on, bus or subway to school
2. 12:30🍱School lunch: today's menu is the talk of the day
3. 16:30🏪Convenience store: triangle gimbap and cup noodles
4. 17:00📚Two or three hagwon in a row: English, math
5. 21:30🪑Study café, or finally home
6. 23:00📱Short videos, webtoons and the group chat

The convenience store is the teen restaurant

With 30 minutes between classes, the table outside the convenience store becomes the dinner table. Triangle gimbap, cup noodles and banana milk is the classic combo, and every new dessert is reviewed on social media within days. Microwaves and hot water are free, so lunch boxes get heated on the spot.

Weekends: four-cut photos and coin karaoke

Taking four photos in an unmanned booth, the "life four-cut", is the weekend ritual. Headbands and props are free and a strip costs around 4,000 won. Next comes coin karaoke: two friends, 500 won a song, an hour gone. You'll find both clustered in Hongdae, Seongsu and Myeongdong.

Fandom is daily life

Collecting and trading idol photocards isn't a hobby, it's daily life. On a member's birthday, a whole café gets decorated as a "birthday café"; order a drink and you get a cup sleeve and a photocard. Visitors are welcome. The line, though, is long.

인생네컷

Four-cut photo booth strip; "the photo of your life"

코노

Coin karaoke, paid per song

학원

Hagwon: a private after-school academy

생카

Birthday café: a fan-run café event for an idol's birthday

포카

Photocard: idol photo cards from albums, traded like currency

꿀조합

A "honey combo": convenience-store foods that go together

• Hongdae →
  Photo booths, coin karaoke and K-pop shops on one street
• Seongsu-dong Café Street →
  Where most birthday cafés and pop-ups happen
• Myeongdong →
  Idol merchandise and cosmetics shopping
• Lotte World Adventure →
  The theme park where teens rent school uniforms for the day

• Photo booths are unmanned and take cards. Props are free to use.
• Buy cup noodles, add hot water at the dispenser and eat at the table outside. Everyone does.
• Coin karaoke rooms fit one or two people, 500 won a song, with plenty of English and Japanese songs.