By Andrew Farrell

Left-handed screen golf is impossible because of the location of the sensor.

His mother motivates him to improve in every subject and score the highest grades with offers of lavish gifts. He doesn’t come from a wealthy family, and he rarely sees his father, even thought they sleep under the same roof. Mommy and Daddy work every day of the week in a petrol station in Gwangju, usually for horrendously long hours, so they afford to send their son, a genius, to a huge number of private academies and institutes specialising in English, Korean, math, science and music.

He was promised a trip to the USA if he did well in his middle school entrance exams. He did. Very well, in fact. But his parents had to downgrade the choice of gift and will instead buy for him a new iPhone. He doesn’t mind. His grades are exceptionally high, and he even uncovered statistics to show where he stands in all of Gwangju.

OK, he may not be a genius, but this fourteen boy must be pretty close. His English is on par with a native speaker and he devotes whatever free time he has in the week to working on scientific experiments in his house. He wants to work in nanotechnology when he grows up, but concedes that in order to reach his goal, he will need to sleep less, and study more, when he starts middle school next month. “I will sleep for six hours and then just five in high school,” he says with a wide grin and awkward chuckle that suggests he is fully aware the best days of his life are being washed away.

And, when I say “whatever free time”, I mean it. His Saturday hours are from 9am to 10pm of pure study. One academy after another. Sundays are like a vacation in comparison; 2pm until 10pm. He loves baseball, especially the local KIA Tigers baseball team, and he knows a lot about them. But he can never see them play.

Despite this, he arrives to my weekly class full of joy and happiness. He enjoys relaying the more entertaining moments of his week, which usually fall between classes. His eyes lit up last week when recalling the home made chocolate his Valentine gave him on February 14^th. He knows that once this small spring vacation is over, he might not see her again. I once told him my daily schedule, growing up in early-twenty first century Dublin. No academies – just class and sport, 7 days a week. He pulls an exaggerated expression of surprise, almost like he doesn’t quite believe me or he is trying desperately hard to summarise what I have just said.

So, given the sacrifices he is making, and the extraordinary devotion he has to his studies, does it not seem a little unfair that he is forced to keep from his extended family that he is left handed? He often reiterates the importance of not telling his grandmother, and does so with a look that suggests he is a veteran of having people question why his mechanical pencil is perched in “the wrong hand.”

I told a colleague about his situation, and she instantly challenged the truth in what he said. But then I remembered that this is a country that simply does not cater for left handed people, certainly in the world of golf and games played at the Wii Café. Amusingly, my colleague then went on to say that when she was growing up, her father told her not to write left handed.