And he said, well, you know, my biggest problem is, Korean parents are too demanding and they are insisting, for example, that I import, and I've had to import, thousands of foreign English teachers because they all feel that first graders should be learning English already.

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While some may find them cramped, it is worth pointing out that legions of foreign English-teachers (and aspiring travel writers) have spent years living in spaces not much larger than these.

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It has a dedicated foreign-language school with international teachers and touts its English-language teaching skills, the foreign studies of many of its faculty members and its alliances with foreign schools.

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He told me his biggest challenge in education wasn't budget holes, it wasn't crumbling schools -- it was that the parents were too demanding. (Laughter.) He's had to import thousands of foreign teachers because parents insisted on English language training in elementary school.

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He said, I've had to import thousands of foreign teachers because they're all insisting that Korean children have to learn English in elementary school.

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They want their kids to learn English in first grade, and so I've had to ship in a whole bunch of foreign speaking teachers to meet the demand.

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