The Soaring Suicide In South Korea, Ctd

South Korean prime minister resigns over ferry disaster: http://t.co/4ZFL9epSxf #c4news pic.twitter.com/CuEUbKQnwS

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) April 27, 2014

A reader is put off by this post:

I’m staggered that you used the South Korean ferry tragedy as an excuse to run an unhinged rant by an entitled Westerner about the alleged lack of professionalism in “Korean business culture at large”. The Asiana crash was possibly human error – so were plenty of crashes in the West. Korean firms cut corners? General Motors is currently in the news for ignoring a critical problem for years while people were dying. Didn’t your reader wonder for a moment how such an unprofessional bunch of losers, in a country smaller than many American states, managed to build companies like Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Kia, Lotte, that are household names the world over?

The supposed “entitled Westerner” clarified where he’s coming from:

I am Korean-American-British. My family immigrated before I was born from Korea to the US. I spent most of my 20s in the UK where I got naturalized, and then moved to Seoul a year ago. Over the past year I’ve been cataloging a variety of facets of Korean culture that are in need of reform, the biggest areas being sex, business, and education. One thing I’ll give to Koreans is they are very good at introspection when they are put under the spotlight. The chapter on Korean Air in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers caused a big stir, but now one of the biggest hagwons (after-school academy) uses it as a source text.

By the way, I should clarify that the comparison to 9/11 is not something I’ve heard on the Korean press; it’s a purely personal observation based on:

the level of media saturation
anguish due to the man-made nature of incident
innocence of victims (high school kids going on vacation!)
high numbers of missing, presumed dead but not confirmed
logistical difficulty of the rescue effort
numbers relative to population (about 300 out of 50 million)

Also, I was half a mile from Ground Zero on 9/11, so it jumps more readily to my mind.

Another reader:

I wanted to give you a slightly different take on what is happening in S. Korea at the moment.

I’ve been teaching English here for the past three years, and I’ve had my share of ups and downs with the people and the culture. Sure, they work too hard, and it’s from start to finish. The kids have homework on every single vacation, which kind of misses the point of vacation, and by the time they hit middle school most of them go to school and academies from 8 in the morning to 8 or 9 at night.

Once they become adults, as your other reader said, face-time is what counts. It’s quite normal to work 6 days a week here for 10 hours a day, no matter your position. Most people are lucky to get one full week of vacation, and good luck with sick days.

Still, one must marvel at what they’ve accomplished here in such a short time. Since the opening up of the economy in the ’60s and ’70s, Korea has served as a model for what is possible. The technological capacity on display here would put most of America to shame. Honestly, you can’t blame them for how hard they work either. My bosses saw their world destroyed during the Korean War. To go from being a citizen of a war-torn, underdeveloped nation to a citizen of modern-day Korea, well one could understand why Koreans value a good work ethic.

That said, they are reeling as a country right now. It’s ironic when you think about it. This is a country that has been at war for roughly 60 years. They have an unpredictable, nuclear-obsessed neighbor to the north that likes to remind them of their situation from time to time. I was here when N. Korea bombed the western island of Yeonpyeong in 2010. It was both tragic and important, but this is so much bigger. Let’s put it this way: think about the firestorm of media coverage that happens every time N. Korea does something provocative compared to the coverage of the sinking of the ferry, and reverse it. That’s what the coverage is like here.

After living here for a few years, I feel as though I can understand why it’s that way too. Children are everything here (I know they are everywhere, but hear me out). When you look at the amount of money parents spend on their children in S. Korea as a percentage of their overall income, it’s staggering. So much is put into providing children with every possible advantage. It’s super competitive and failure isn’t viewed as an option. In turn, the children (specifically first-born sons) are expected to return the favor once parents are ejected from the work force. Children are very sheltered to the dangers of the outside world. It’s extremely safe here (even with N. Korea lurking), and when that illusion of safety gets shattered by an event such as this, it can be very difficult to deal with the feelings afterwards.

Event after event has been and is being cancelled (festivals, races, trips). I was talking to some middle-schoolers today as a matter of fact, and they said all of their school trips for the rest of the year (the school year just started in March) are cancelled. Not only is everything currently being cancelled, but there is the issue of suicide. It isn’t surprising at all to me that the assistant principal killed himself, and don’t be surprised if any of the surviving crew members, especially the captain, do so as well. For Koreans, this is taking responsibility (in fact, this is what the principal said in his note).

As an outsider with a Western point of view, it’s very sad to watch everything unfold. The idea that suicide is a way out is so difficult to grasp. How is killing yourself taking responsibility for the deaths of so many students? Be there for the families and the rest of your students. Help people get through this tragedy. Don’t take the easy way out and leave the survivors to deal on their own. Now is when you should be coming together. Stop canceling events. Do them in memory of those lost. Dedicate everything you do to those people who lost their lives. You are still here, so embrace it.

Another:

Sorry I’m late to this conversation, but I live in South Korea, so I get your posts late. I was a journalist here, and now I’m a lawyer here. I speak Korean fluently. I went to college here. I like to think I know Korea pretty well, and the stuff your readers have submitted strikes me as totally wrong.

Yes, there is a problem with Korean culture that is absolutely behind the rash of accidents and poor responses that plagues Korea, and it’s not Confucianism or bad business practices. It’s a complete lack of safety. This is something so deeply ingrained in Korea that it permeates the culture. I doubt Koreans themselves are aware of how incredibly reckless they are compared to people elsewhere.

People in Korea do not look where they are going when walking. If they bump into someone, they keep walking without saying a word. When they drive, it is a mad rush to get in front of everyone, to the point that newcomers are advised to run red lights just to avoid being rammed. Builders cut corners; investors leap before looking; the South’s generals go golfing when the North threatens apocalypse Everything here is done “bbali bbali,” meaning “fast fast,” which they are very proud of. It is easy to see how that runs the gamut from not looking where you’re going to cutting corners in order to get that ferry to port, ASAP.

For that reason, I chuckled when I saw your reader describe Korea as “safe.” The fact that there is very little visible violent crime does not make Korea “safe.” It is, in fact, very dangerous if you drive, live in or near tall buildings, fly airplanes, take ferries, invest your money, or come within artillery range of the DMZ.

As I was pondering this coming back from the morning workout, I almost creamed a man with my car. I was driving down a narrow curving ramp into my building’s parking lot. He was walking up the middle of it, because … hey, it’s a short-cut.