Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Len8]

Was an article in the paper by Cho Se hyon about the "Cult of Personality" a while back, and he starts it out by saying that it's part of everyones Korean confucian upbringing to submit blindly to authority be it king, president or head of the family. This also means that people here don't express their opinions, and that they can become emotional because they act on their feelings before they have really understood them or looked at them rationally.

Korean culture according to certain social scientists is said to be a high power distance culture. That means that there are many hierarchical relationships that are not only fixed, but because of conditioning down through time are now expected and desied. The distance between old and young (as is the reason for the correct form in Korean when adressing people of different ages. Other languages have this too, but I don't think any are as quite as pronounced as they are in Korean), superior and subordinate, teacher and student and so on (distance betwen foreign teacher and student of course is kinda reduced and you kinda have to work at it to get it back to where it should be).

Korean peoples tendency to size people up according to their age, education and social standing is second nature. Egalitarianism is an alien concept to them.

They say that one of the reasons Ro Moo_Hyun has rubbed a lot of the old conservatives the wrong way because of his background. Many have found it hard to accept taking a mandate from a man considered beneath their class and rank even if he is president. He didn't have a formal university degree and had a common background, and his win was considered by most government officials as a fluke. Of course he played up his poor beginnings too, and did squander a lot of the chances that he did have.

The hierarchy thing carries over into Korean politics as well. Some political leaders are able to exploit the emotionalism of Korean people, and inspire a cult like following. Korean political parties are of course personality parties parties. They do have belefs or policies, but some of them exist because of the iron will of just one man or a very small number of tough men

[On the other hand]

[Medic]

Koreans accept and do things, because everyone else is doing the same thing. They send there kids to as many hogwons as possible because everybody else does. To not do so would be losing face in the community. They wil buy a certain brand of clothing because it's the brand that everyone is using. Conformity conformity conformity is the name of the game here in Korea.

Some have said it's conditioning over a long period of time, but people can't be conditioned to do something that they wouldn't naturally do anyway. they do the wackiest things because that's what they have been genetically programed top do. Many Koreans who have been raised abroad on returning to Korea, slowly adjust without any difficulties to the korean way of doing things. They keep the culture they grew up with, but little things that they never thought of suddenly become significant and one of these is the need to conform and be like everybody else.

Original post talked about how po;iticians can exploit Korean people because they have strong personalites, and because people do not question authority. They don't necessarily do things out of conviction, but the cult personality is also fostered by the psychological makeup of the people. Seems as though the korean mind cries out for authority figures.

[little mixed girl]

i hear the same type of thing about men.
that men NEED heirarchical (sp) relationships and seek them out, this is also why there's so many men in the military and police force.
that with men, interactions take place in this sort of range also.

just a thought...

[Medic]

The original article by Cho Se Hyun was written after the cheer leaders from North Korea were seen crying over their dear leaders image in the rain. They were distraught that their wonderful benevolent leaders picture was being pounded by the elements.

Mr Cho said that personality cults weren't necessarily imposed on people, but that the psychological make up of certain people fosters such cults.

In his words "Of course a, a cult of personality can be carefully planned and carried out by Workers Party and government authorities as the North Korean leaders have done. But in order for any personality cult to be initiated and cultivated thoroughly, there must be a people who are receptive to it, to start with. And I believe that we, Koreans, both in the North, and south, are highly vulnerable to such psychological manipulation."

[taobenli]

little mixed girl-

I've been reading some articles about Korean society which say that Korean is a fundamentally masculine culture ("hegemonic masculinity," according to one social scientist) and men's work is valued over women's, mandatory military service is valued, etc. Maybe that's why you see similarities between men's need for hierarchy and Korean society's need for hierarchy.

But, I'm just reading about Korea at this point and haven't lived there, so take what I say with a grain of salt...

taobenli

[Len8]

They also say that Korea is masculine, because of the peoples incessant drive to get ahead materially and knowledgewise (over the top desire to become competent in English)

Korea is also masculine in the sense that is driven to become an exporter and a leading industrial nation

It's also said to be femmine because the people do nurture the underdog. It's what was behind Noh Mu Hyuns election. The younger set were tired of the old guard so they banded to-gether via the internet and put him in power

[coolsage]

The OP has just about hit the nail on the head. Korea's, thrust, so to speak, from agrarian society to a serious economic power in only three generations is indeed a remarkable feat; that's beyond dispute. And no doubt, there have been, and will continue to be, winners and losers as the population endeavors to adapt to a new reality. But the subtext, as it were, behind this relatively newfound prosperity, is that the same guys are still in charge. A half-dozen chaebol essentially drive the Korean economy, and they are, for the most part, still family enterprises. The hierarchy persists; the vertical society is maintained. The unfortunate outcome of this arrangement is that the approximately 10% at the top of the food chain get to do the thinking for the other 90%. We've all seen it, no doubt; the social retardation that results from the combination of gender separation at school to relentless extra-curricular lessons all day, halfway through the night, and into weekends. No chance to 'play', no opportunity to develop the imagination that comes built in to every new kid. And that arrangement also suggests that those 90% are well-suited to become the drones in some sort of post-Orwellian nation. If that particular nightmare ever happens, it will happen first in Korea. This land needs, desperately, a Summer of Love.

[captain kirk]

Roger that! And 'aint it 'ironic' that the haggie bound foreign teacherer is a lot of the time at odds with that chance of theirs to go free of reins. At the same time the imagination and free thinking built into a foreigner by circumstance/upbringing makes for a better thinkshop.

[Medic]

I remember that one of the first things Hiddink did as a coach was to remove the hierarchy thing from the players behaviour. He saw that the senior players would eat first and sit before the newer members of the team could do anything. Newer members had to stand and wait around. He threw that out, and put all the players on an equal standing. he recieved some criticism from doing this, and I remember him saying that he didn't want to change the culture, but that he felt certain things weren't right for the team and needed to be changed.

Several players acknowledged that they were a lot happier,after he had done this