Korean Job Discussion Forums

[rapier]

It can't be long now, really. I mean one of these days we're going to walk out the appatuh to see young girls scantilly dressed in hippy style braids and outrageous, somewhat scruffy clothes. Our middle schoolers will be talking about world peace; young Koreans will be refusing to marry their parents choice of partner, smoking dope and harder drugs, and openly dating foreigners en masse. The music scene will take a huge leap forward in this country, there'll be mass protests for equal rights by women, and there'll be funny hairstyles left right and center...and any delinquent with a medallion around his neck, tattoos and a guitar under his arm will become hot property with the ladies... there may even be an explosion in environmental awareness and green issues (realistically still 5/6 years off for that one).
Korea is surely in about the year 1959...on the edge...

[Homer]

Why would it?


Who needs another round of that circus?

[rapier]

[ryleeys]

I'd like to see a '60's style revolution without the drugs and a little lighter on the sex...

I don't see any reason to break Korean tradition on those. But I do think Korean culture needs to lighten up on this education stuff. Even if it means I get fired and deported, there's no reason why I should have students that are in school from 8am-11pm, 7 days a week.

[buddy bradley]

I'd like to see a '60's style revolution with better drugs and more hardcore sex.

[rapier]

Thanks to AIDS the sex part is unlikely to occur to the same intensity..but I do think the next decade will see some pretty dramatic socio-political changes.
Young Koreans have been travelling abroad more than ever over the past ten years..just look at how they let their hair down when you see them in Australia or America for example. They're returning with different values and ideals..
I've noticed it in the younger people. They're pretty p**sed at having to live up to their parents unreasonable, inflexible expectations. The women are increasingly p**sed at playing subservient roles. Just look at the night clubs of hondae. Young koreans are letting it all hang out at the weekends, to an almost unhealthy degree..its starting.

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

I don't know when, but it's vital that it happens, and will be soon. Of course it will be different in nature, different music, different drugs, different fasions, but the important thing is the social revolution. There are such strong forces against it, yet eventually it's inevitable. You can't keep the youth down forever ...

[Ya-ta Boy]

I think we are in the middle of it now.

When I got here one of my students said there was no kissing before marriage and darn little after. It was a few years after that that I saw an actual kiss on the street, albeit a small side street. Two weeks ago one of my students made a joke in class about using his tongue when he kissed.

The two guys in the shoe box apt next to mine slept with their girlfriends and were the scandal of the building.

I think the sexual revolution has hit Korea big time. And in those days divorce was around 10%.

Ha Ri-Soo is a public figure. So is that gay guy on TV--which must have come as a major shock to the people who said there were no gay Koreans.

Politically, the younger generation is fed up with the conservative politics of the past. We've all seen the results of the election. There is a possibility that the troops won't be sent to Iraq, and if they are, there is very likely to be an anti-war backlash if any get killed.

Last weekend I was talking to one of my more politically aware friends. He said what he and all his generation (he's 33) want from the Oops Party is to stop the tradition of giving jobs to friends and start rewarding merit. That would be pretty revolutionary.

[kangnamdragon]

The marijuana part won't happen. The society won't let it. Nor will the dress code in high schools allow hippie dress.

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

[kangnamdragon]

I agree, but I also think it may need some political event to set it off. America had JFK's assasination and Vietnam.

[cacheSurfer]

yes....korea is still caught in the 50s.
but things are rapidly changing....

TIME just did an article about the rising divorce rates in Asia.
Divorce Rate in 1990 was about 10%.
NOW it's almost 50%


do you really want to see them change

i enjoy being able to see the little kids run home after school. No fear of kidnappings! The 50s did have some good things ya know.

[mithridates]

I don't see it happening yet for two reasons...one is North Korea + men having to go to military service for two years. If that problem is solved (border opened) then both conscription will vanish and drugs will likely be smuggled in a lot more over the land border. The way things are right now Korea is still an island.
The other reason is Asian competitiveness. Japan has settled down now after being the top economically in the region for a long time. It doesn't look like they want to be #1 again either as they're quite happy in the role they have now. China is now the economic powerhouse here and Korea still hasn't had the taste of pure economic success and I think they long for it.

Also, there is nothing really big to rebel against besides conservative parents. The government is mostly inept (I think) but they haven't made the mistake of sending people overseas to die so there's a lack of fury here.

[Paji eh Wong]

[rapier]

I don't think Korea needs an identical set of circumstances as Britain or America to trigger it, just similar conditions. Korea has already made the full transition from Agrarian to Urban population, the industrial and technological revolution is almost complete, and the korean affair with religion and traditional values has passed its peak I believe.
Just look at the thousands on thousands of young people who protested against impeachment not a month ago. They were resentful at the old guard tampering with their politics..just look at the record number of women coming into political power...

What sparked this thread was the memory of a 26yr old attractive Korean gal I knew last year. She had fallen in love with her boyfriend and wanted to marry, but her father dissaproved of his family, so she dutifully fell into line with his patriarchal edicts and left him, although utterly heartbroken. Then she began dating a man her father introduced her to, but was bored. She wanted her own career, but fell into line with her fathers orders to help with the family business, despite the fact that he didn't pay her for months; when I last saw her she was in almost open rebellion.
I just thought, if she was in the west, she'd have no qualms telling him where to go, and starting her own independent life with or without the blessing of her rigidly structured family...
Another few years, and everything will be in place for young women and men like her to do exactly that.