Mothers pray for children with CSAT due 100 days

Buddhists at Jogye Temple in Seoul, Tuesday, pray for good luck for their children and grandchildren who will take the College Scholastic Ability Test, with 100 days to go until the government-administrated exam, scheduled for Nov. 15. / Yonhap

By Kim Jae-heun

Forty-four-year-old Lee Kyung-sook remembers waking up at 2 a.m. every day, last year, to pray for her son to do well on the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) at the Zen Center in Gangnam, Seoul. Lee has never been a devout Buddhist.

“The 100-day prayer begins at 3:30 a.m. and goes on until 5:00 a.m. Between 200 to 300 parents come early to pray for luck for their children on the test,” Lee said during an interview with The Korea Times.

“It's a tough job waking up very early in the morning to participate in the prayer, especially if you are a working mother who has to go work after the prayer. But it gives you relief. You actually feel better and after all you become faithful that your child will do well on the test,” Lee said.

This year's prayer began yesterday at D-100 for the CSAT scheduled for November 15. The hour-and-a-half event is led by a monk, who reads a prayer officially written for the test and refers to every student by name while praying.

Joining the prayer is not free _ it costs 100,000 won ($88.80), although individuals can pay more in an alms box at the end of each ceremony.

Some parents go further to hang a holy lamp at a temple six months prior to the exam. The Buddhist lamp is only hung on Buddha's Birthday, May 22, and it can cost up to 3 million won ($2,665) depending on the size. Parents write messages on the lamp, hoping for the best for their children.

“It is interesting how so many parents gather early in the morning to pray for their children every day. We have similar thing in Thailand and the entrance exam is as important as it is in Korea but I have never seen anything like this,” said Rob Gorman, 29, who lives in Bangkok.

French citizen Lelia Saligari, 24, who has been living in Seoul for three years now, finds the scene surprising too.

“This is actually really surprising and impressive for French people like me to see all these parents praying for their children,” Saligari said. “In France, almost all the universities are public and more than 80 percent of the students pass the exam. So it's not a big deal for both students and parents and we do not get much pressure from it.”

On the day, parents will gather again at the temple to pray for the entire time the students take the exam, which goes on for nearly seven hours.

Last year, over 530,000 students across the country took the CSAT and among them, 20 percent were re-takers.

Traffic is controlled for a day for the students' convenience and police stand by to bring latecomers to the test venues.

“This is a life-time exam for Korean students. Which college they get into, decides which job they will have and how much money they will make to support a family in the future. One mistake on the test can change their future and there is nothing that parents can do except to pray hard for their children,” Lee said.