Bootcamp for Korean Teens
South Korean teenagers are put through their paces amid rain and mud at the Blue Dragon Marine Corps Training Camp near Seoul. Many parents think their children are coddled and need to be toughened up. (Ha Tae-hwang / For The Times)
Teenage cadets train in the rain at the Blue Dragon Marine Corps Training camp, run by a 52-year-old former South Korean military drill sergeant, Park Kyung-hoon. These days, kids dont know difficulty, says Park, a stocky man weighing nearly 225 pounds. Everything is convenient: hot water, refrigerators full of food. What they lack is a sense of caring for each other, starting with their own parents. (John M. Glionna / Los Angeles Times)
Teenage cadets go through drills in the rain at the Blue Dragon Marine Corps Training camp, one of numerous camps that have sprung up in South Korea in the last decade. The camps are not monitored by the government, but Park says his venture, opened in 1997 on a lonely stretch of beach and grass near Seoul, has been free of major accidents. (John M. Glionna / Los Angeles Times)
Teenagers catch some sleep at mess hall at the Blue Dragon camp. Some spend as little as three days here. But for nearly $1,000, theres also a 14-day regimen that attracts the hard-luck cases wallflowers and schoolyard bullies, kids addicted to the Internet and those who know no boundaries with parents or anyone else. (John M. Glionna / Los Angeles Times)