keep up with the Joneses
Who taught: Jake
One of the big issues in Korea is education. Most parents are having a hard time and work hard to meet the cost that they spend on their children’s education. Even many of new married couples postpone to have a baby mostly because of the huge cost of education which will be incurred by having a child. Based on the CIA world factbook, South Korea ranked in 219th out of 223 countries in children per women rate (1.21). Are you curious about United States’ rank? It is 126th (2.05). Surprise, isn’t it?
Why there is that much cost? It is because of private education system. Almost all of the children go to at least two private institutes after their regular school hours to learn so many stuff, such as music instruments, languages, Taekwondo, etc. This situation is getting worse as they become teenagers. Parents need to hire private tutors for their children, mostly for mathematics, English, science, etc. Well, maybe you could say I would not do the same thing for my children? It is hard because if your children do not do the same thing with what other children do, they cannot make friends. Well, I think there is another reason. Parents do not want to fall behind what others do for their children. They would like to give their children at least the same opportunities that other children get.
There is an expression for this case in English. “Keep up with the Joneses!” Here…. the Joneses is an abstract word for representing the neighbors. For example, if your neighbors or friends bought a new luxurious German sedan like bimmer(BMW), then you feel like you should buy Mercedes. Well, if you actually bought a Mercedes for that reason, you are really keeping up with the Joneses. There is another similar expression that you can use. “Peer pressure!” I guess most parents feel peer pressure and, to keep up with the Joneses, spend a lot of money for their children’s education. Speaking of comparison of you and your neighbors, there is also very good one you can use. This expression is really common and you would hear this many times in America. I actually heard this expression today over lunch from my friends. “Grass is greener!” The full one is “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence!” I guess you can get what it means by reading it. Yup, it means “for some reason, everything your neighbor has looks a lot better than what you have.” I know! We all do not want to admit it but it always sounds true. Even you have the same thing your friends have, you always feel like the ones your friends have better than yours. What a life! But, if we can learn how to be satisfied with what we have, we will be a lot more happier than now. Let’s pray, shall we? What? You do not want to pray. Hmm.. I really suggest you to go to church this Sunday.
Your story remind me of the actor’s line from the movie that I watched few days ago, ‘yesterday, you were better off than you are today, but you never know before you are today. people are never happy with what they have’
Soooo, I really appreciate little things that I have now, at least today, all day!
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There’s also “jonesing”, but it’s unrelated to this.
Funny, jonesing… “craving”
I have never heard it from anyone. Well, I guess I need to live longer to hear it. But I think it is somewhat related with the Joneses in the “keep up with the joneses” expression because when you keep up with the Joneses, you are actually “continuously craving for something” to keep up. What do you think?
Phil and I actually do live next door to the Joneses.
So, does that mean they live really well and you guys are hard to keep up with them or do they try to keep up with you guys?
Hi Terry,
Another interesting post, thanks.
Terry 대한민국에서 오셨습니까? That’s awesome! I lived in Geochang, Gyeongnam, for three years from 2008-2011. I loved my time in Korea, teaching English at a high school. I was acutely aware of the pressures my students were under. Some of them would finish school at 5pm, quickly eat a bowl of ramyeon noodles and then go off to hagwon until late at night. This meant of course that they couldn’t stay awake in my class the next day. I often felt that the high pressure for excellent education in Korea was counter-productive, often about quantity rather than quality. Still, the speed that (South) Korea is developing shows that something must be going right.
다음에 한국말로 comment할래요 ^^
Interesting post. Keep up the great work.
Jon Sumner
U.K.
Hi Jon,
Wow, what a small world! I am from South Korea. I believe Geochang is a small town. I have never been to though. The way students are studying in Korea is not really good at all. Most of them continue to put a lot of hours in studying just because they need to or feel the pressure from their peers, parents or society. Hope they get to have a chance to find a balance and enjoy studying rather than suffering from it soon! The force that makes South Korea develop is, I believe, the work ethic that Korean people have in their bloods. They just never stop working.
One of the things I like being in the U.S. is that I have a pretty good balance between work and life.
I wish I could have a chance to talk to you in Korean. 🙂
Good to see you again, Jon!
Terry from Pittsburgh U.S.