The Suffocating Room, and the Breeze That Child Offers

From the late 2000s to the early 2010s, there was a strange kind of space created by Korea’s feverish obsession with education: single-person study room desks enclosed on all sides by wooden partitions, often called “study room cubicles,” and the academy streets of Daechi-dong and Mok-dong, where the lights stayed on until dawn.

The urban legend mostly began with accounts from high school seniors preparing for the CSAT, or exam-takers studying for civil service tests.

Past 2 a.m., when you are alone in a silent study room, relying only on the light of your desk lamp as you read, there comes a moment when your throat feels strangely blocked and your chest grows tight. Just as you turn your head, thinking it is only fatigue, something slowly slides over from beyond the partition of the seat next to you.

It is a small mini handheld fan.

The fan is switched on, rattling as it blows cold air toward you.

As you sit in that sealed study room and feel the breeze, your mind strangely begins to blur, and sleepiness pours over you. Just before your eyes close, through your dazed vision, you find yourself staring at “someone’s crown” quietly pee