First, a little background: For Korean kids, school doesn’t end at 3 o’clock. After regular school, the vast majority flock to one or more of the countless neighborhood ‘hakwons’ (independent tutoring schools) to learn more stuff until late. English, math, science, piano, art, etc. — there are hakwons for everything under the sun, all promising to make kids perform better than their peers, all ready to suck up parents’ money.

I was informed that learning the Mario theme in piano lessons has recently become a big thing among kids, a nice diversion from the boring numbers they generally have to trudge through. This may be minor anecdotal evidence, but it’s still more proof that Nintendo and its DS are making a real impression upon Korean kids, a neat thing to witness firsthand in a place where the company virtually didn’t exist a year ago.