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SK has serious culture problem. It has always been a culture of keeping up with the Jones, where perception of wealth matters a great deal. Last year, BMW sold

by pcurve 8y ago

SK has serious culture problem. It has always been a culture of keeping up with the Jones, where perception of wealth matters a great deal. Last year, BMW sold more 5 series in Korea than Japan, Germany, or China. Mercedes S-class' third largest market is Korea, after China and the U.S. Naver's Q&A site is full of people in their 20s and 30s making $30-$50k inquiring about purchasing German cars that exceed their annual salary in cost. What's more disturbing is, going into deep debt and mortgaging your future to finance this type of YOLO life style has become socially acceptable. It's quite astounding to see such rapid transformation cycle of a country, its rise and stall in just matter of a few decades.

mrtksn 8y ago
I see this as a pattern in any society getting wealthy because the blueprint seems to be about the same across the board. When you are financially successful, you buy a nice car and clothes to display that success. You travel to Europe and the world and post pictures from iconic places. At some point getting a nice car or travelling to places no longer impresses anyone because these days everyone can do it, so you seek other things like education, art, philanthropy, title etc. In ex-soviet countries, for example, it used to be that your college degree would not impress anyone because everyone can get one and end up in a low-paying job as a medical doctor or nuclear physicist but a pair of western brand shoes went long way for a while until they became widely available. I wouldn't judge people on their way of displaying success. Each culture has its own ways that come and go out of fashion as things are getting hard or easy to obtain.
- bane 8y ago
  This is really insightful. I've been dealing with South Korea for almost two decades, and the changes there are absolutely incredible. I don't just mean in terms of the visible, but in how people live their lives. For example, when I first started going there, "foreign" food was hard to find and expensive (I still remember the "steak and spaghetti" places), nobody really had meaningful hobbies, there weren't all that many chain stores and restaurants and most places were mom and pop, everybody smoked, and the idea of having animals as pets was still kind of new. Fast forward to today and you can find tacos and American BBQ, Pho and Curry -- hell churros are pretty popular. Tons of people have all kinds of hobbies, cafe culture is huge, there's large and mature domestic and foreign chains, but also a renewed "indie scene" for coffee shops and hang outs and the sort. Lots of the more questionable street stalls have moved in doors and come under better safety regulation, smoking is on the way out and the pet craze is virtually out of control. There definitely was a period (and to much of an extent still is) of over leveraged young people driving luxury cars, first domestic now foreign (several of my acquaintances had SsangYong Chairman cars, now they all have foreign cars), and people dipping into "hobbies" like photography buying $20,000 starter camera kits and other such clumsiness. But the society is maturing incredibly rapidly. I think what really showed off this level of maturity was the way they handled the recent Presidential protests, removal from office, criminal probe, and new election. It was incredibly civilized, democratic and an example to the world for how a stable, thoughtful and intelligent society should deal with big, difficult issues. I'm unsure if my own country, or most of the Western world would handle it as well.

by pcurve 8y ago

mrtksn 8y ago

I see this as a pattern in any society getting wealthy because the blueprint seems to be about the same across the board. When you are financially successful, you buy a nice car and clothes to display that success. You travel to Europe and the world and post pictures from iconic places. At some point getting a nice car or travelling to places no longer impresses anyone because these days everyone can do it, so you seek other things like education, art, philanthropy, title etc. In ex-soviet countries, for example, it used to be that your college degree would not impress anyone because everyone can get one and end up in a low-paying job as a medical doctor or nuclear physicist but a pair of western brand shoes went long way for a while until they became widely available. I wouldn't judge people on their way of displaying success. Each culture has its own ways that come and go out of fashion as things are getting hard or easy to obtain.

bane 8y ago
This is really insightful. I've been dealing with South Korea for almost two decades, and the changes there are absolutely incredible. I don't just mean in terms of the visible, but in how people live their lives. For example, when I first started going there, "foreign" food was hard to find and expensive (I still remember the "steak and spaghetti" places), nobody really had meaningful hobbies, there weren't all that many chain stores and restaurants and most places were mom and pop, everybody smoked, and the idea of having animals as pets was still kind of new. Fast forward to today and you can find tacos and American BBQ, Pho and Curry -- hell churros are pretty popular. Tons of people have all kinds of hobbies, cafe culture is huge, there's large and mature domestic and foreign chains, but also a renewed "indie scene" for coffee shops and hang outs and the sort. Lots of the more questionable street stalls have moved in doors and come under better safety regulation, smoking is on the way out and the pet craze is virtually out of control. There definitely was a period (and to much of an extent still is) of over leveraged young people driving luxury cars, first domestic now foreign (several of my acquaintances had SsangYong Chairman cars, now they all have foreign cars), and people dipping into "hobbies" like photography buying $20,000 starter camera kits and other such clumsiness. But the society is maturing incredibly rapidly. I think what really showed off this level of maturity was the way they handled the recent Presidential protests, removal from office, criminal probe, and new election. It was incredibly civilized, democratic and an example to the world for how a stable, thoughtful and intelligent society should deal with big, difficult issues. I'm unsure if my own country, or most of the Western world would handle it as well.