Students respect me?!

There's this phenomena that happens every few weeks here in Korea... EXAMS! These kids have more exams than a proctologist, and then we wonder why they are always depressed. What the hell? I was talking to my friend Gumi at work the other day, and in conversation, I realized that if I had gone to school here, I probably would have been just as lazy and unmotivated as most of my students. I mean, I usually get a little steamed with them, because I try to make my classes a little fun, and I try to make the classes as free and student-directed as possible. I've even told some of my classes that we won't follow the books anymore if they talk for the whole class, because that is better for their conversational skills anyway.
Growing up, I was a pretty self-motivated student. I didn't always do my homework, but I usually did enough to know what was going on, and I always studied for tests. I don't remember getting rewards for good grades, and I don't remember getting in any particular trouble for bad grades. But until calculus, I had consistently good grades (oh, and except for grade nine gym... oh God! I will never be a gymnast, stop testing me on cartwheels!) and no real troubles. I was a chronic procrastinator, but I came by it honestly, and I still am, a lot of the time. But I learned a lot. I did a lot of stuff outside of school, and I feel now like I am a pretty well-rounded person because I wasn't overly scared of failure and I wasn't pushed too hard.
But these kids... I keep hearing stories of being hit until they get welts by teachers because they got a question wrong, and then getting the same treatment from their parents when they get a bad score. Now, I'm not a parent, so I may be out of place to comment here, but maybe this isn't the best approach to discipline here.
I mean, have none of these people ever seen the circus elephants on "When Animals Attack"? Your kids are just like those elephants, except that their noses aren't so "tall".
And instead of attacking their handler (tugs awkwardly at collar) they just shut down, and stop caring. You'd be surprised how little you can learn and still do well on tests designed for rote-memorization. That's all these kids seem to do... just regurgitate. And when a teacher tries to make them talk about something that excites or scares them, it makes them only have two responses.
"I get excited about good test scores" and "I am scared of my report card". I'm not joking. Anyone who has worked here will know that pretty much any writing assignment will always end up with kids talking about being nervous for tests.
I remember being nervous for tests, and I remember my friends being nervous for tests, but when they were done, good or bad, everyone seemed to just move on... there's just way too much pressure here...

Wow, I totally rode a tangent off into the sunset there... I was meaning to talk about my students respecting me!

So yeah, apparently my students like and respect me. I mean, they don't show it in obvious ways (although... I think I did really clean up on teacher's day... thank you for the shopping bag full of candy bars!) like talking in class or doing their homework, but in the weeks before exams, I seem to be the only teacher who still has classes full of students, whereas everyone else seems to wind up with only one or two students, and the rest stay home to study for their school exams.

I guess the flip-side to that is that maybe I have classes of students who are so unmotivated they don't even think to skip... oh Gawd, here comes that sick feeling again...