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 term

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.