The Korean tiger mum is called ‘Daechi mom’ and she’s been sent up brilliantly on YouTube

By Park Jin-hai

The “Daechi mom”, a figure obsessed with her child’s education, has become a cultural phenomenon in Korean media.

A seven-year-old preschooler effortlessly converses with native English speakers and aces maths tests that stump even Seoul National University undergraduates.

This extraordinary child is the product of a Daechi mom, described as a woman sporting a high-end down jacket and a coveted designer bag, who shuttles children between after-school academies in the posh Daechi-dong neighbourhood in Gangnam district in southern Seoul, known as the mecca of private academies called hagwon.

Comedian Lee Su-ji parodies this Daechi mom on her YouTube channel Hot Issue Ji. Lee has turned the character into an overnight sensation, igniting a cultural firestorm.