South Korea has prospered over the past 60 years from a third-world, developing nation to a full-on Asian Tiger for various reason. Some of the reasons for their success involve culture, work ethic, perseverance, dedication, education and commitment. While many view financial success and a prospering economy as winning, others may be more cautions of the unforeseen consequences. The consequences of South Korea’s success have been an extremely diminished work-life balance, extremely nationalism, screwy education system, and extreme competitiveness. The benefits of financial success have been great but at the cost of their sanity.
EDUCATION SYSTEM – It’s 5:00 a.m. on Monday you get up, eat some breakfast. After breakfast, you study for a little bit to help pack the information in. At 6:50 a.m., you make you way to school where you study the typical subjects, but at a very advanced level, for the course of the school day, which ends at 3:00 p.m. At 3:30 p.m. you go to your first academy, where you study either English, math, science, art, Korean, or music. Your first academy ends at 5:30 p.m., and then you proceed to your next academy. Your next academy starts at 6:30 p.m. and you typically study English until 10:00 p.m. South Korea had to put into legislature that academies must shut down after 10:00 p.m. because students were going until 11:00 and 12:00 o’clock at night. After academy is over at 10:00 p.m. the students go home, do homework, and study until 1:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. in the morning. And the students do this 6 days a week and a half day on Sunday for 356 days a year. Everyone in Korean society encourages this behavior and the students that do not participate in this lifestyle are demonized and hated upon. To say the least, South Korean students are over-stressed to the point of depression, despair and even suicide. Education in South Korea is definitely a doubt-edged sword. Maybe they should take a look at the Finnish education system.
WORK CULTURE – South Korean work culture is nicknamed “bali bali” culture, which means “quickly, quickly”. In Korean society, everything in the work place is based around instant gratification. The bosses want reports and answers immediately, sometimes without due diligence. This position puts employees under insane amounts of pressure to appease demanding bosses. This puts employees in an extremely depressed and stressed state. The work hours are long, arduous, and monotonous so there is little time for relieve and downtime. Koreans are expected to come 30 minutes early and leave 30 minutes after their “official” time. There are no true-blue requirements to have a decent break and to work through the pain is considered socially mandatory. I have been working in South Korea for 13 months now and I feel as if I am going mad every single work day, I can only imagine what my Korean counterparts are feelings. Bali bali culture took South Korea from having the GDP of the Congo to the 12th in the world, but bali bali will not make the Korean people happier, more peaceful, and less stressed.
NATIONALISM – South Korea has emerged from the ashes after splitting from its brethren to the north and conquers to the east to be one of the most power nations on Earth. This 180 degree turn from rags to riches has created a very powerful nationalistic mindset. The combination of xenophobia, nationalism and financial success creates a feverish bond between South Koreans but alienates their surrounding nations. Their have become indoctrinated and intoxicated by their own financial success so much that they have forgotten how important diplomacy is in this ever-more growing international community. Although the young and educated population are more progressive than their older counterparts, there is still a strong amount of nationalism in the South Korean nation.
South Korean beauty pageant contestants
EXTREME COMPETITIVENESS – The excessive competitiveness of South Korea has created financially successful country, but not very successful emotionally. The constant quest to get higher scores, be prettier, be skinnier, work harder, have more expensive clothes, have a nice car and gain status is unbelievable stressful and futile all at the time same. I often see many Koreans competing with each other with the same standard. There is little diversity and creativity in their approaches to standing out in society, becaues there is no divergent thinking. There are no new ways to compete with each other, so they seem to face each other off on the same playing field. The sad result of this type of thinking is creating a nation of depressed and repressed youths.
I rarely see a younger Korean relaxing and doing a hobby. I rarely see a Korean simply doing nothing. They must have push harder and have the bali bali mentality. They are always comparing universities and jobs because those are the biggest status symbols. The young are changing this culture a little bit but by no means at the rate their hearts require it. The pressure to “succeed” and “make it” is killing the souls of so many Koreans, young and old. This constant striving culture has been around since the 50′s and will continue to be around for the long future.
A few things South Korea got super wrong! is a post from: EARTH EXCURSION