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Many of the Korean cafes I visited advertised peacefulness and calm - and exuded that. It's a trend that jumped out to me the way things might be apparent to an outsider but not to natives. Like the way the wallpaper in your own home becomes invisible. I wondered why this was. Koreans seem for the most part outwardly calm and peaceful but this of course isn't the whole story. There is enormous pressure on people to excel, especially students. One Friday evening around 10pm I was surprised to see a group of Middle-school students in their uniforms milling around outside a local 7-11 as a few buses waited nearby idling. Was this a late field trip or student activity? They were in fact finishing an after-school cramming session, a regular feature of exam preparation for students, a practice that is coming under increasing scrutiny. It's controversial because of the enormous pressure it puts on students and the emphasis on test scores. Sadly Korea's suicide rate is the highest among OECD countries - those of the so-called developed world. This is attributed in part to stressed out students, but also to loneliness and the lack of places to turn to - for young and old - when faced with a crisis. Taken in this context the emphasis on the soothing effects of cafes make more sense. But given the scale of the problem one wishes that instead of oases, such places were emblems.