The children that I teach are in school from 07h30 in the morning until nearly 16h15 in the afternoon, Mondays - Friday with a 90-minute break for lunch.  They are lucky -- other children around here have only 30 minutes for lunch.  Officially, it is forbidden to give Grade 1 and Grade 2 children homework, but that is officially, and yet they are loaded with homework every day.  After school, many of the little ones take additional classes outside at the equivalent of a "hogwan" (cram school).  Saturdays are also taken up with outside classes and maybe, maybe they MIGHT rest on Sunday afternoons.  Indeed it is gruelling.  The system, however, is relentless and unbending and the parents, or at least 80% of the parents, are determined that the children will go to a good middle school and then a good university and so it becomes keeping-up-with-the-Jones's or else.  How the little ones manage to maintain their mental and physical equilibrium is beyond me but somehow they do.  On the other hand, adolescent suicides here, which is a forbidden topic, are quite high and one can only wonder why.

Play and distractions, in this culture refers to the fact that the student is branded as "naughty". The student will often refer to him/herself in that way when not talking about studies. 

"I was being a naughty boy and playing computer games until my mother told me to work harder."

The idea that a university student will call himself a "naughty boy" is a topic for another thread.

Too loaded? Naw. They would probably say that they didn't have enough money!