Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ghostrider]

"Whenever a tragedy strikes Korea, many Western observers can’t resist the urge to attribute it to Korean culture. This tendency owes much to Malcolm Gladwell’s 2008 book Outliers, in which Gladwell attempted to pin a fatal 1997 Korean Air crash in Guam on Korea’s Confucian-inspired practice of showing deference to one’s seniors. Since Outliers, Confucianism is the prime suspect in just about every Korean disaster short of an earthquake, so when the Sewol ferry sank in waters off Jindo on April 16th, taking with it over 300 young Korean souls, I braced for the wave of western cultural critique.....

"What these critics never bother to understand or to point out is that Confucianism is not a one-way street that merely demands unconditional deference to one’s seniors; it is a system of reciprocal duties that just as clearly describes the obligations of parent to child, teacher to pupil, ruler to subject, and by extension, of captain to crew and passengers. In a well-oiled Confucian system then, obedience is never blind; it is always underwritten by a social contract that obliges leaders to be virtuous and to carry out their duty with the best interests of their subordinates in view at all times."
http://sweetpicklesandcorn.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/the-wests-confucian-confusion-how-more-confucianism-might-have-saved-the-sewol/

So, in theory, leaders in a Confucian society are supposed to act responsibly. I find that information interesting but not necessarily helpful.

Korean Air once had a crash rate 17 times higher than United Airlines. Did Gladwell unfairly blame Korean culture for this high crash rate? Gladwell writes that the solution to Korean Air's high crash rate was to require everyone to speak English:

"In 2000, Korean Air finally acted, bringing in an outsider from Delta Air Lines, David Greenberg, to run their flight operations.... The new language of Korean Air was English, and if you wanted to remain a pilot at the company, you had to be fluent in that language.... Greenberg wanted to give his pilots an alternate identity. Their problem was that they were trapped in roles dictated by the heavy weight of their country’s cultural legacy. They needed an opportunity to step outside those roles when they sat in the cockpit, and language was the key to that transformation. In English, they would be free of the sharply defined gradients of Korean hierarchy: formal deference, informal deference, blunt, familiar, intimate, and plain. Instead, the pilots could participate in a culture and language with a very different legacy."

[ttompatz]

The tragedy was less about Confucianism and more about negligence, confusion and cowardice.

The students did what students all around the planet do ... they (for the most part) listened and did what they were told. It is not a Confucian thing. It is a student thing.

The Captain and crew were negligent in their duty after the incident occurred (contrary to international maritime convention and law) and cowardly abandoned ship to save their own skins rather than do their jobs and save the passengers.

With the exception of the crew who actually should have been manning the 2 lifeboats that got launched, the rest of the survivors should be prosecuted for manslaughter or negligent homicide and spend the rest of their natural lives behind bars.

.

[le-paul]

I agree that it has little to do with Confucianism.

Confucianism is a misplaced, buzz-word that people use when they come to Korea, in the same way that adjoshi and adjuma are often implied as derogatory.

Most people have a natural tendency to follow and feel secure in being lead. It is the same phenomenon as when a hairdresser moves your head to one side, or a doctor tells you to open your mouth or lift up your shirt - you obey willingly.

[Who's Your Daddy?]

The problem is lack of enforcement of laws/rules.

[atwood]

[RangerMcGreggor]

[maitaidads]

The problem is that Koreans have a bizarre self-centered mindset. They think only of themselves (abandon ship), play the victim card whenever possible, and try to advance through blood money and lawsuits.
This pyramid scheme is bound to collapse on these fools.
I live in Atlanta, and these Klowns are deported left and right for prostituting and being general nuisances.
After all their nonsense, we still have to deal with Koreans slowly racing in a crappy car and crashing into the woods or lightposts since they can't drive. Very embarrassing. My friend makes a fortune towing Koreans wrecked cars to their parents' homes. He says they're way more indebted to their parents than any other race, and they get whipped in front of his face way more often.
One very famous Korean DJ took off his clothes and let his parents whip his body and tiny p3nis with a poison ivy branch after he crashed their Bonneville in a race since he didn't understand space. He raced so slow that traffic resumed and nobody knew he was racing.
Since he was Korean, WAS, he let the car drive itself and was hit by a Japanese Nitrogen 2EE Tanker Truck. Thankfully, the Japanese driver had followed orders. DJ KRP33n is forgotten but my wife's academy has an opening if anyone has read this far, has an opinion, and wants to make some serious multi-continent cash

[atwood]

[Kepler]

Both the Sewol crew and the Korean Air crew were unwilling to confront their captains about mistakes that were being made. I have a hard time believing Confucianism had nothing at all to do with this tragedy.

[Fox]

[Mr. BlackCat]

I think Korean Confucianism is very different from actual Confucianism. Just like any other philosophy or religion, over the years it's been stripped down and tweaked to meet the needs of those in authority. So the parts of Confucianism that stress power and influence of certain groups has been exaggerated while the responsibility and graciousness aspects have been left behind. What Korea has now is a very perverted form of Confucianism where old men demand authority, power and deference while also accepting no responsibility of those that are under them.

Hence, we get guys like the captain who I'm sure demanded that his underlings and passengers call him by certain titles, give him gifts, not look him in the eye and accept every shot of soju thrust upon them. But when push come to shove, he abandoned them all without a second thought and then blamed the 3rd mate for the accident.

I'm not sure we can blame Confucianism for the accident itself or how the students reacted. But I do think Confucianism had a big role in how the crew, especially the captain, reacted. It also probably played a big role in why safety standards weren't followed and no drills were practiced before hand.

I sort of compare it to American right-wing Christianity. Those with power have forgotten all about the love, charity, humility and responsibility to the meek while they use their so called religion to bully, discriminate and assert dominance over others. Like I said, it's the same thing with every philosophy and religion the world over. So to blame Confucianism for the accident is a bit of a misrepresentation. Human selfishness was at fault, and in Korea they happen to use Confucianism as their defence for this selfishness.

[atwood]

[Fox]

[Yaya]

Korea's version of Confucianism (or as I see it, Confusion-ism) leaves little room for dissent. I've seen it at schools, workplaces and society and almost nobody will object or speak against seniors, older people or superiors, no matter how inept the latter are. As far as I'm concerned, that IS reason to blame the doctrine.

[RangerMcGreggor]