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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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 Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2014 4:27 pm Post subject: |
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| aq8knyus wrote: |
How do you think the US industrialized and supplanted the then greatest economy in the world?
By 'stealing' their ideas, refining them and then improving upon them to leap frog their rivals.
Granted the sheer size of the US was just as important, but the point is that it is perfectly natural for rivals to 'steal' from the top dog and then use those ideas to first catch up and then get ahead. |
Well, ahem... they did 'steal' quite a number of German scientists at the end of WWII. Also, the US tends to attract some of the smartest people in the world to the most liberal (in academic terms) universities in the world. And the cash they offer is pretty darn good. |
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Chaparrastique
Joined: 01 Jan 2014
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2014 5:08 pm Post subject: |
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| aq8knyus wrote: |
In the face of rejection, Jung pulled a 500 won bill from his pocket.
“Korea is the country that built an iron-clad battleship in the 1500s. General Yi Sun-sin invented this ship and defeated the Japanese attacks against the odds.”
“Korea’s shipbuilding technology is over 300 years ahead of Britain’s.”
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Wow so angry nationalism, false pride and exaggeration was already the main feature of ajosshis 60 years ago? |
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Qonny
Joined: 28 Oct 2014
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2014 6:01 pm Post subject: |
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| aq8knyus wrote: |
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Do you know the story about how 50 cents made possible the world’s No.1 shipbuilding yard? In the early 1970s, the late founder of Hyundai, Jung Ju-young, visited the U.K. to gain investment for starting a Korean shipbuilding industry.
“The poor country of Korea is incapable of developing a shipbuilding industry.”
Due to such pessimistic views of Korea, Jung had a tough time attracting investment. He made one last try at A&P Appledore International, a British shipbuilding company. Its chairman, Longbottom, also rejected Jung’s proposal without a second thought.
In the face of rejection, Jung pulled a 500 won bill from his pocket.
“Korea is the country that built an iron-clad battleship in the 1500s. General Yi Sun-sin invented this ship and defeated the Japanese attacks against the odds.”
“Korea’s shipbuilding technology is over 300 years ahead of Britain’s.”
Impressed with Jung’s ambition, Longbottom decided to make investments. This eventually led Korea to become the global leader in the shipbuilding industry. At first, the international community scoffed at Korea’s attempts to build ships. |
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God. I've heard about 50 variations of that story since i've been here.
It always centres around the haughty British bankers, clucking their tongues, wringing their hands and scoffing at little Korea.
Then the our heroic Hyundai Chairman produces the note and chides them for their lack of historical naval knowledge.
The now, blushing embarrassed bankers, stumble over their words, readjust their ties shoot sideways glances at each other and finally the head of the bank stands up and shakes the Hyundai chairmans hand.
Everyone in the room claps and a briefcase containing a few hundred million dollars is handed over. The rest of course, is history.
Becuase massive international loans are always given to plucky little businessmen who uses filmic cliches to obtain money for their government backed chebols. |
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Chaparrastique
Joined: 01 Jan 2014
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2014 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Qonny wrote: |
“Korea’s shipbuilding technology is over 300 years ahead of Britain’s.”
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Everyone in the room claps and a briefcase containing a few hundred million dollars is handed over. The rest of course, is history. |
His claim is quite incorrect, of course. Koreans were never seafarers of any capacity.
Historical accounts have them as afraid to venture further than about 50m offshore, in boats that make a piece of floating debris look advanced.
It was precisely this lack of any marine fleet that led to them being attacked and invaded about 1000 times. |
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jcd
Joined: 13 Mar 2012
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2014 8:31 pm Post subject: |
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| kingplaya4 wrote: |
The main thing I criticize Korea about to people I know is how they seem to treat the elderly. The people that helped build the economic miracle should not be struggling to survive on 600,000 a month pensions and collecting cardboard. While the US is, in my opinion too oriented toward the elderly, Korea is too oriented towards the problems the youths have. Maybe I'm missing something, but I bet Koreans would laugh at this thread, and I think they'd be right to do so. |
Very interesting. I didn't see it that way. But I can understand. To me the elderly here are out and about drinking hiking and have the excitement of starting fights with youth who are terrified of the trouble they might get in from fighting with and older person. Their health care is taken care of here. In the states on the other hand they are seen as feeble and incompetent at jobs or driving etc, and are treated like children. Also in the US older people have less control and involvement over their family..
I guess you are saying that they vote more so people pander to them in the US, and in the US younger people have no jobs and tons of debt and an uncertain future. But I think Korean younger people have trouble with jobs too.
I don't think the cardboard collectors are doing it because they are not taken care of . I think their system is more socialist than the US and things like food shelter and health are taken care of. I think they want extra money and something to do. I don't know the system exactly but you could be right. |
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Cave Dweller
Joined: 17 Aug 2014
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2014 9:25 pm Post subject: |
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Korea has the highest or 2nd highest rate of elderly people living in poverty in the OECD. As I said, the bastard child of the OECD.
A lot of older people who were forced out of their companies open up mom n pop supermarkets and laundromats, etc. It is in lieu of a real pension system. It floods so many markets and doesn't provide much employment at all as usually they keep all jobs within the family.
| jcd wrote: |
| kingplaya4 wrote: |
The main thing I criticize Korea about to people I know is how they seem to treat the elderly. The people that helped build the economic miracle should not be struggling to survive on 600,000 a month pensions and collecting cardboard. While the US is, in my opinion too oriented toward the elderly, Korea is too oriented towards the problems the youths have. Maybe I'm missing something, but I bet Koreans would laugh at this thread, and I think they'd be right to do so. |
Very interesting. I didn't see it that way. But I can understand. To me the elderly here are out and about drinking hiking and have the excitement of starting fights with youth who are terrified of the trouble they might get in from fighting with and older person. Their health care is taken care of here. In the states on the other hand they are seen as feeble and incompetent at jobs or driving etc, and are treated like children. Also in the US older people have less control and involvement over their family..
I guess you are saying that they vote more so people pander to them in the US, and in the US younger people have no jobs and tons of debt and an uncertain future. But I think Korean younger people have trouble with jobs too.
I don't think the cardboard collectors are doing it because they are not taken care of . I think their system is more socialist than the US and things like food shelter and health are taken care of. I think they want extra money and something to do. I don't know the system exactly but you could be right. |
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kingplaya4
Joined: 14 May 2006
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2014 9:37 pm Post subject: |
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I don't know how "plugged in" you are to things here, but with the few elderly people I know here, their grandchildren treat them like crap. I'm no expert in Korean, but I do know when someone's being talked down to and it happens a lot. I think it's a combination of the youth generally not respecting the old, but here there's an additional layer of them being from two totally different worlds. The elderly were almost all farmers and probably know a lot about farming while the kids are technologically oriented and know nothing of farming. It's just a continual cultural clash.
Now if you're calling people in their 50's old, the ones with the really expensive hiking gear and are still working a plum job or just retired, they're a bit of a different story. It really depends what kind of family they came from, but if they were sent to college they may be better off than their children will be.
The US elderly have social security, and again if we're talking about the real elderly 70s plus, many have pensions as well, and don't forget medicare. College was inexpensive and they didn't need it if they were satisfied with a middle class life. Yes a lot had to go into the service, but few had the Audie Murphy experience, most had short terms and were far from the action. The cost of living has got to be killer for korean elderly, maybe okay for an old man still maintaining a farm in gangwon, but its got to be awful for those living in Seoul. |
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jcd
Joined: 13 Mar 2012
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2014 10:43 pm Post subject: |
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I am not plugged in here but have met a fair number of Koreans. I guess I just believed them from what they have told me and hearing their interactions with their parents over the phone., also examples of intense seriousness and concern for them. My Korean coworker borrowed money from a US teacher to help his grandma. I guess the fact that he had to help pay for her is what you are talking about. . My impression which could be wrong; I don't claim to be certain about much of anything here, was that they worship their parents and grandparents. This was based on Koreans I have known and also television and documentaries of men and women caring for their parents at a huge burden to themselves. It could have been instructive propaganda to help a problem. And my acquaintances could have been trying to impress me.
But numbers don't lie looks like a problem |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2014 11:10 pm Post subject: |
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| kingplaya4 wrote: |
| I don't know how "plugged in" you are to things here, but with the few elderly people I know here, their grandchildren treat them like crap. I'm no expert in Korean, but I do know when someone's being talked down to and it happens a lot. |
If your thinking the fact that most grand-kids will speak to their grandparents in banmal is being talked down to you are wrong. It just a modern shift in cultural norms. However, if it's some random old person they don't know, then they are being talked down to. I rarely see that, even with teens, unless the old person is being a *beep*. |
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young_clinton
Joined: 09 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2014 11:49 pm Post subject: |
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| It's not a lack of culture that runs most countries down, it's the existence of cultures that are resistant to modernization and modern perspectives. Culture is the enemy of many things, education one of them. If Korea has a lack of culture then that may be the reason they modernized and advanced so quickly. Actually Korea does have a little bit of culture that prevents some of their social system from modernizing. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 3:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Chaparrastique wrote: |
| Qonny wrote: |
“Korea’s shipbuilding technology is over 300 years ahead of Britain’s.”
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Everyone in the room claps and a briefcase containing a few hundred million dollars is handed over. The rest of course, is history. |
His claim is quite incorrect, of course. Koreans were never seafarers of any capacity.
Historical accounts have them as afraid to venture further than about 50m offshore, in boats that make a piece of floating debris look advanced.
It was precisely this lack of any marine fleet that led to them being attacked and invaded about 1000 times. |
Surely you must be joking? |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 3:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Cave Dweller wrote: |
Korea has the highest or 2nd highest rate of elderly people living in poverty in the OECD. As I said, the bastard child of the OECD.
A lot of older people who were forced out of their companies open up mom n pop supermarkets and laundromats, etc. It is in lieu of a real pension system. It floods so many markets and doesn't provide much employment at all as usually they keep all jobs within the family.
| jcd wrote: |
| kingplaya4 wrote: |
The main thing I criticize Korea about to people I know is how they seem to treat the elderly. The people that helped build the economic miracle should not be struggling to survive on 600,000 a month pensions and collecting cardboard. While the US is, in my opinion too oriented toward the elderly, Korea is too oriented towards the problems the youths have. Maybe I'm missing something, but I bet Koreans would laugh at this thread, and I think they'd be right to do so. |
Very interesting. I didn't see it that way. But I can understand. To me the elderly here are out and about drinking hiking and have the excitement of starting fights with youth who are terrified of the trouble they might get in from fighting with and older person. Their health care is taken care of here. In the states on the other hand they are seen as feeble and incompetent at jobs or driving etc, and are treated like children. Also in the US older people have less control and involvement over their family..
I guess you are saying that they vote more so people pander to them in the US, and in the US younger people have no jobs and tons of debt and an uncertain future. But I think Korean younger people have trouble with jobs too.
I don't think the cardboard collectors are doing it because they are not taken care of . I think their system is more socialist than the US and things like food shelter and health are taken care of. I think they want extra money and something to do. I don't know the system exactly but you could be right. |
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Both of you are correct. Plenty of old people suffer from neglect and an incomplete social safety net and are driven to suicide. At the same time plenty of elderly enjoy a much more active lifestyle than in other countries and have comparably higher levels of activity and social interaction.
The need to be working and a self-reliant and contributing member of one's family and not some handout is strong. Some of those elderly picking up boxes are poor. Others could just sit around at the apartment at home, watching TV, but that would be worse than picking up cardboard boxes.
I've seen it back home too- some elderly people, usually who lived through the Depression, who just can't stop working in some form. The need to workand be self-reliant was ingrained into them as being essential for survival. Personally, there was a lady a couple farms down who was farming well into her 90s! Not coincidentally, this constant physical activity is probably what led her to live into her 90s and still be mentally sharp. There's other stories like (can't find a link for it) this guy back in America who was working as a janitor/maintenance guy into his late 80s or something for minimum wage. The papers first reported it as "abuse and exploitation" but after talking to the guy, realized that the job was all he had and was what kept him going everyday- the chance to do something, be physically interactive, and to interact with people.
i think those intangible qualities are far more important a factor in determining elderly welfare than certain social policies or cultural "respect for elders" practices. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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| aq8knyus wrote: |
How do you think the US industrialized and supplanted the then greatest economy in the world?
By 'stealing' their ideas, refining them and then improving upon them to leap frog their rivals.
Granted the sheer size of the US was just as important, but the point is that it is perfectly natural for rivals to 'steal' from the top dog and then use those ideas to first catch up and then get ahead.
Also Korean stregnths may not be found in innovation, but what they lack there they can certainly make up in determination and sheer force of will.
Look at the Korean ship building industry, it went from nothing to global dominance.
| Quote: |
Do you know the story about how 50 cents made possible the world’s No.1 shipbuilding yard? In the early 1970s, the late founder of Hyundai, Jung Ju-young, visited the U.K. to gain investment for starting a Korean shipbuilding industry.
“The poor country of Korea is incapable of developing a shipbuilding industry.”
Due to such pessimistic views of Korea, Jung had a tough time attracting investment. He made one last try at A&P Appledore International, a British shipbuilding company. Its chairman, Longbottom, also rejected Jung’s proposal without a second thought.
In the face of rejection, Jung pulled a 500 won bill from his pocket.
“Korea is the country that built an iron-clad battleship in the 1500s. General Yi Sun-sin invented this ship and defeated the Japanese attacks against the odds.”
“Korea’s shipbuilding technology is over 300 years ahead of Britain’s.”
Impressed with Jung’s ambition, Longbottom decided to make investments. This eventually led Korea to become the global leader in the shipbuilding industry. At first, the international community scoffed at Korea’s attempts to build ships. |
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But Korea's ship building industry has since been supplanted as #1 by China's.
The problem with the model of copying something and making it cheaper is that pretty much any country with low labor costs can get in on the party.
BTW that story doesn't exactly have the ring of truth. It sounds like the stories that are made up for Korean English textbooks. Some have a kernel of truth and then are embellished; others are complete fiction.
Just sayin'.
As far as the U.S. supplanting the existing European powers, that said powers basically bankrupted themselves during WWs I and II was as big a factor as the "stealing" you mention.
And as for the "determination and will power" that built the Korean shipbuilding industr,y I'd say the government's financial support, cheap labor and the ability, thanks to the government support, to operate at a loss to gain market share were more important factors. |
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Chaparrastique
Joined: 01 Jan 2014
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| Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
Surely you must be joking? |
Not really, SR.
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The fact that a floating population of over 8000 Japanese fishermen make a living by fishing on the coast near Fusan shows that there is a redundant harvest to be reaped. The Korean fisherman is credited with utter want of enterprise, and MR Oiesen, in the customes report for Wonsan for 1891, acuses him of "remaining content with such fish as will run into crudely and easily constructed traps, set out along the shore, which only require attention for an hour or so each day". I must, however, say, that each village (on the coast) that I passed possessed from seven to twelve fishing junks, which were kept at sea.They are unseaworthy boats, and it is not surprising that they hug the shore".
Korea and her neighbours, 1897 |
It takes time to dig them up, but there are plenty more similar historic accounts.
Corea did not have adequate vessels or navy to defend herself or even carry out basic fishing activities for centuries. That is one reason she got invaded so easily.
In 1588 a smaller force of English ships destroyed the Spanish Armada- an invading force of 130 galleons - sinking half of them before they even made land.
So for someone from korea (how many times were you invaded?) to go to London and claim that
| Quote: |
| "Koreas shipbuilding technologuy is over 300 years ahead of Britains! |
-is stupid in the extreme. |
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GENO123
Joined: 28 Jan 2010
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| Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 7:14 pm Post subject: |
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| They probably meant to say that Korea's shipbuilding history goes back 300 more years than England's. I think the guy just misspoke or what he said was translated wrong. |
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