8 ms·

Question for South Koreans here: Is this real or is this report just the usual exaggeration by western media? Asking because Reuter’s has a biased reporting fo

Question for South Koreans here: Is this real or is this report just the usual exaggeration by western media? Asking because Reuter’s has a biased reporting for anything related to India, and I’m wondering if they have a similar lens / filter for South Korea. (I’m from India in US)

pwaai 8y ago
Definitely as real as mukbang. 멍 때린다. Im zoning out. Translitterally, to be in a state of stupor.
adventured 8y ago
The demanding work life the article references is real. South Korea is #2 in the OECD in average annual hours worked, at 2,070 hours per worker for 2016 (the US was #14 at 1,789 hours by comparison, with the OECD average at 1,763). That's 41.4 hours per week across 50 weeks, basically the average South Korean is working overtime every week (by US standards).
kijin 8y ago
Obviously, not all South Koreans are locking themselves up. This is just an unusual hotel that helps people get away from everyday life and stop being tied to their smartphones for a while. You could remove all references to South Korea, and the business model still looks interesting. I suspect it could work just as well in Japan, or even in the West as a modern alternative to a monastery.
- h3throw 8y ago
  Yeah, I think the comparison to a monastery really helps with understanding here.
- Mikeb85 8y ago
  Why not just go to a monastery? It's just as structured, but with better food, scenery and the meditation/prayer/spirituality element helps when you return to civilisation.
  - kijin 8y ago
    Monasteries are a Western tradition. Some Buddhist temples and Christian organizations offer a similar program in South Korea, but most people who aren't religious don't feel comfortable attending an overtly religious program. Edit: Most Koreans would think of monasteries as a Western/Christian thing. Culturally, modern South Korea is much closer to the West than to India or even China.
    - magic_beans 8y ago
      > Monasteries are a Western tradition Where on Earth are you getting that idea? Are you forgetting about India?
      - thaumasiotes 8y ago
        If you're Korean, India is Western. They share "Buddhism", though generally not the same sect of Buddhism. They don't share a cultural tradition.
        virtualwhys 8y ago
        Japan and China (in the past) have had a long monastic tradition. I assume it's the same for Korea. Monasteries are most definitely not exclusive to the west.
        kijin 8y ago
        IMO South Korea has been Westernized much more than Japan or China. Even before South Korea came under U.S. influence, Buddhism in Korea has been weaker than in Japan for a long while because neo-Confucianism took over as the state ideology in the early 15th century. Neo-Confucianism emphasizes going out into the world and contributing to the public good, not withdrawing into a hermitage. Most of the great Buddhist monks that people remember are from before the switch. Buddhism was often actively suppressed, and tolerated at best, for the last 600 years.
    - 8y ago
mikekchar 8y ago
Reuters also has a history of bad reporting wrt Japan, at least as far as I'm concerned. They often translate things incorrectly and lead with conclusions based on that mistranslation. They are not the only ones on my "usually biased news" list, though. The Japan Times often picks up stories from the Yomiuri Shinbun, which are questionable in nature and translates them. These are then often picked up by the BBC. What I find interesting, though, is that I don't think it is necessarily editing bias. I think it's actually the opposite: poor editing. What I've found is that when I've found stories that are mistranslated, or which contain seemingly intentionally misleading information, it's actually the same reporters. It is really only a handful of reporters that seem to be responsible for all of the crap news stories. The problem is that the editors seem to let the stories through (possibly because they are money makers???). I'm not going to name names (of reporters) because my "analysis" is really adhoc and probably also biased. However, I encourage people to look at the by-lines and see if you find any patterns with types of stories and their authors. Don't assume that because it's reported by a reputable news service that the information is correct and unbiased.
- w1nt3rmu4e 8y ago
  I've seen some truly awful journalism from Reuters. Articles that were so agenda driven as to almost laughably gloss over facts in order to present the desired narrative. (Laughable if reputations and money weren't on the line.) I've called some of the offending journalists out on social media, which I encourage everyone to do.
  - triplesec 8y ago
    Can you suggest some better-informed sources for us? I'd be very interested in more nuanced available sources
    - AsyncAwait 8y ago
      I have several major news apps on my phone and what I've found is that they're all reporting the same story, with very similar biases, within minutes of each other. They all seem to drink from the same fountain. You'd basically need to know what biases which outlets have to what stories and apply a filter accordingly, which can be extremely time consuming.
eartheaterrr 8y ago
This seems to be a cheaper, ascetic equivalent, of the classic meditation retreat, which is already popular in both the East and West. Marketing it as a prison puts a quirky twist on it. This makes for an interesting article, which also fits Western stereotypes.
- briandear 8y ago
  Except the bureau chief of Reuters is a Korean, and not a person prone to sending stereotypes over the wire.
  - newyankee 8y ago
    you will be surprised. I know many self-hating Indians who would happily denigrate the country and reinforce stereotypes, especially journalists.
- badpun 8y ago
  The defining feature of a prison is that you can't leave until your time is up. I doubt that they have implemented it.
bane 8y ago
Like most news, there's quite a bit of truth, with a bit of "hook" to draw the reader in. South Korean study culture, especially to get into University, bass a bar exam or get a public service job is really quite unreal. There are blocks of "prison" like apartments with surrounding quiet zones in many areas. They exist simply so people can escape home life and study 24/7 (mostly rote memorization exercises) in order to pass some gatekeeping exam [1]. I have a niece who didn't score well enough in the college entrance exam to get into a tier-1 school and so is spending a year in one of these in order to retake the test and get into a better school. It's not a prison exactly, you can come and go as you please, but people generally don't rent these as their sole residential living arrangements. The goal is to have a distraction free environment to get as much wakeful study in as possible. The last time I visited the country, she was so deep into her studies she was unable to break free and come say hi and was very regretful about it over the phone. Work life is also pretty crazy, and often unproductively so. Many companies simply just waste employee time making them sit around or do busy work in order to appear that they're actively engaged in business activities. There's also enforced after hour drinking and dinner activities and often work on weekends. It's not as bad as Japan, but there's definitely strong commonalities. It's considered very desirable to get a job with a foreign company because their treatment of staff is more along global norms. There was a cut this past year in the maximum full-time hours, but it's still way above 40/week and is probably poorly enforced. I can almost guarantee it will have no measurable impact in work output even though companies are acting like its economic armageddon. Some of my relatives work like this and it's pretty much a universal desire among them and my friends there to start their own small company so the hours will be better and maybe even the pay. It doesn't even matter if the company is something they have any particular expertise in...just something to enable them to have some better measure of control. Here's an anecdote, one of my Korean relatives has wanted to come visit us in the U.S. for 3 years, he only gets 5 days of vacation per year. At the beginning of the year he asks for permission from his boss if he can take those 5 days and come over. For 2 years he was denied and as a result just took his vacation days as three day weekends (with at least a one month notice beforehand). His boss acted like he was trying to destroy the company both years. This year he was given permission to come visit, but his wife was not and so he's coming alone. He works a very normal white collar job. 1 - https://kotaku.com/these-korean-rooms-are-compared-to-prison-cells-for-goo-1439844132 https://kotaku.com/these-korean-rooms-are-compared-to-prison... Source: not Korean, but married into one for 18 years
duchenne 8y ago
I have been living in Korea for many years. I have never heard about it. I asked my Korean colleagues about it. They have never heard about it and they think that it is weird.
- wnevets 8y ago
  Do people actually think they'll die if they sleep with the fan on? Thats pretty weird to me.
  - dialogbox 8y ago
    Yes, we did until 5 to 10 years ago. Not anymore. Some incorrect information from TV made people believe like that from maybe 70s. edit: What really happened was, some very old people died because of hypothermia by fan when the fan was just introduced in South Korean market. At that time, no one knew about hypothermia so people believed it was suffocation. That became the urban myth.
  - duchenne 8y ago
    Yes, that used to be a common misconception in Korea until recently. It is completely false but such rumors can get viral very quickly. There are also many such misonceptions in the West. For instance, in the West, many people still believe that different areas of the tongues are used for different tastes (sweet, bitter,...). You can find more such things in this famous wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconception...
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Nursie 8y ago
      Some interesting ones. Fortune cookies originating in Japan, and being seen by the Chinese as an American affectation - they're very rarely seen here in the UK so I can well believe it.
j39 8y ago
Wut? I am Indian in India, and don't know what you are talking about. I prefer Reuters India any day of the week compared to the never ending "infotainment" from the local mainstream press.
- calvinbhai 8y ago
  as I said in an earlier comment: "Biased != incorrect. If your biases and Reuters’ biases match, then you won’t notice anything biased or wrong in Content published by them. I think it’s up to you to figure out and identify which of the (many) biases are obvious in Reuter’s content of Asian and south East Asian countries (not just India)." If you are aware of your own cognitive biases, only then can one start noticing what kind of reporting is biased and what is not. FWIW, I believe biased reporting helps receive more clicks, and I'm not necessarily against it. My question was purely out of interest to know if people from/in Korea agree with the picture painted by Reuters or not. Looking at the popularity of the question, my guess is probably not. Reason for my question, in addition to my belief that they are biased (not incorrect), is that a similar behavior in the US would mean (my guess, I'm not a doc) a diagnosis of depression.
HenryBemis 8y ago
While I was reading this, I thought "hey they are trying out Minimalism"!!! [1]. [1]: https://www.theminimalists.com/ https://www.theminimalists.com/ I believe many people in this forum fall under the: got plenty of money, spending plenty of money, started medidating to improve life and work performance, found value in decluttering. I don't know how wide-spread this phenomenon is in Korea, or the integrity of the journalist/article, but even if 200 people do it in a year, it looks like they are trying to simplify their life. Edit: thinking about this a bit better, this is more like Ascetisism [2] (fromt the Greek Ασκητισμός), than Minimalism, but it is to the same direction. [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asceticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asceticism
_jgdh 8y ago
I’m from India in India. Could you give some examples of incorrect reporting by Reuters?
- User9991 8y ago
  >Could you give some examples of incorrect reporting by Reuters? Of course not. Instead, they'll throw around baseless accusations - because it's hip to scream "fake news- without a shred of evidence or hint of irony.
  - calvinbhai 8y ago
    Alas, your expectation was and is wrong ;)
- calvinbhai 8y ago
  Biased != incorrect. If your biases and Reuters’ biases match, then you won’t notice anything biased or wrong in Content published by them. I think it’s up to you to figure out and identify which of the (many) biases are obvious in Reuter’s content of Asian and south East Asian countries (not just India)
wodenokoto 8y ago
Just ask Google, there are others who have reported on this before Reuter. * sep, 2018 https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/prison-providing-koreans-peace-solitude-cell-180910135056915.html https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/prison-providing-... * feb, 2018 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/south-korea-overwork-culture-jail-retreat-prison-inside-me-1.4527832 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/south-korea-overwork-culture-j... * 2014 https://www.wsj.com/video/want-a-break-from-stress-send-yourself-to-prison/92E62CA6-994D-4F58-B195-CB6B0A244AC4.html https://www.wsj.com/video/want-a-break-from-stress-send-your... Of course most people haven't heard of it. It is basically a gimmicky take on a silent retreat and there is only 1. I'm sure there are all sorts of odd takes on silent retreats in the US too.
- miss_classified 8y ago
  Just because Google results show you a thing, doesn't make that thing accurate, but merely prevalent and reduplicated in an index.
  - wodenokoto 8y ago
    These are not reduplications of an index. These are links to independent sources reporting on the same thing over several years.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kbumsik 8y ago
Buddhism-based meditation tours are quite popular in Korea. Many Korean temples offers "Temple stay" [1] program which is pretty much the same as the jail: locking themselves up in the temple to escape from the city life for a cople of days. The jail in the article seems to be a slightly exaggerated form of templestay. The motivation behind it is pretty accurate tho. Of course not everyone want this, and it is Buddhism - half of Koreans are christian. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Stay https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Stay
- cafard 8y ago
  In America, there are Catholic retreats, some at retreat centers, some at monasteries or convents, some elsewhere; I assume that other Christian denominations have retreats, but don't know and have never enquired. For that matter, the writer Patrick Leigh Fermor, who was not Catholic, wrote about going to stay for a short period at the Benedictine abbey of St. Wandrille, mostly to get away from distractions. You can find the account in https://www.nyrb.com/products/a-time-to-keep-silence https://www.nyrb.com/products/a-time-to-keep-silence.

pwaai 8y ago

Definitely as real as mukbang. 멍 때린다. Im zoning out. Translitterally, to be in a state of stupor.

adventured 8y ago

The demanding work life the article references is real. South Korea is #2 in the OECD in average annual hours worked, at 2,070 hours per worker for 2016 (the US was #14 at 1,789 hours by comparison, with the OECD average at 1,763). That's 41.4 hours per week across 50 weeks, basically the average South Korean is working overtime every week (by US standards).

kijin 8y ago

Obviously, not all South Koreans are locking themselves up. This is just an unusual hotel that helps people get away from everyday life and stop being tied to their smartphones for a while. You could remove all references to South Korea, and the business model still looks interesting. I suspect it could work just as well in Japan, or even in the West as a modern alternative to a monastery.

h3throw 8y ago
Yeah, I think the comparison to a monastery really helps with understanding here.
Mikeb85 8y ago
Why not just go to a monastery? It's just as structured, but with better food, scenery and the meditation/prayer/spirituality element helps when you return to civilisation.
- kijin 8y ago
  Monasteries are a Western tradition. Some Buddhist temples and Christian organizations offer a similar program in South Korea, but most people who aren't religious don't feel comfortable attending an overtly religious program. Edit: Most Koreans would think of monasteries as a Western/Christian thing. Culturally, modern South Korea is much closer to the West than to India or even China.
  - magic_beans 8y ago
    > Monasteries are a Western tradition Where on Earth are you getting that idea? Are you forgetting about India?
    - thaumasiotes 8y ago
      If you're Korean, India is Western. They share "Buddhism", though generally not the same sect of Buddhism. They don't share a cultural tradition.
      - virtualwhys 8y ago
        Japan and China (in the past) have had a long monastic tradition. I assume it's the same for Korea. Monasteries are most definitely not exclusive to the west.
        kijin 8y ago
        IMO South Korea has been Westernized much more than Japan or China. Even before South Korea came under U.S. influence, Buddhism in Korea has been weaker than in Japan for a long while because neo-Confucianism took over as the state ideology in the early 15th century. Neo-Confucianism emphasizes going out into the world and contributing to the public good, not withdrawing into a hermitage. Most of the great Buddhist monks that people remember are from before the switch. Buddhism was often actively suppressed, and tolerated at best, for the last 600 years.
  - 8y ago

mikekchar 8y ago

Reuters also has a history of bad reporting wrt Japan, at least as far as I'm concerned. They often translate things incorrectly and lead with conclusions based on that mistranslation. They are not the only ones on my "usually biased news" list, though. The Japan Times often picks up stories from the Yomiuri Shinbun, which are questionable in nature and translates them. These are then often picked up by the BBC. What I find interesting, though, is that I don't think it is necessarily editing bias. I think it's actually the opposite: poor editing. What I've found is that when I've found stories that are mistranslated, or which contain seemingly intentionally misleading information, it's actually the same reporters. It is really only a handful of reporters that seem to be responsible for all of the crap news stories. The problem is that the editors seem to let the stories through (possibly because they are money makers???). I'm not going to name names (of reporters) because my "analysis" is really adhoc and probably also biased. However, I encourage people to look at the by-lines and see if you find any patterns with types of stories and their authors. Don't assume that because it's reported by a reputable news service that the information is correct and unbiased.

w1nt3rmu4e 8y ago
I've seen some truly awful journalism from Reuters. Articles that were so agenda driven as to almost laughably gloss over facts in order to present the desired narrative. (Laughable if reputations and money weren't on the line.) I've called some of the offending journalists out on social media, which I encourage everyone to do.
- triplesec 8y ago
  Can you suggest some better-informed sources for us? I'd be very interested in more nuanced available sources
  - AsyncAwait 8y ago
    I have several major news apps on my phone and what I've found is that they're all reporting the same story, with very similar biases, within minutes of each other. They all seem to drink from the same fountain. You'd basically need to know what biases which outlets have to what stories and apply a filter accordingly, which can be extremely time consuming.

eartheaterrr 8y ago

This seems to be a cheaper, ascetic equivalent, of the classic meditation retreat, which is already popular in both the East and West. Marketing it as a prison puts a quirky twist on it. This makes for an interesting article, which also fits Western stereotypes.

briandear 8y ago
Except the bureau chief of Reuters is a Korean, and not a person prone to sending stereotypes over the wire.
- newyankee 8y ago
  you will be surprised. I know many self-hating Indians who would happily denigrate the country and reinforce stereotypes, especially journalists.
badpun 8y ago
The defining feature of a prison is that you can't leave until your time is up. I doubt that they have implemented it.

bane 8y ago

Like most news, there's quite a bit of truth, with a bit of "hook" to draw the reader in. South Korean study culture, especially to get into University, bass a bar exam or get a public service job is really quite unreal. There are blocks of "prison" like apartments with surrounding quiet zones in many areas. They exist simply so people can escape home life and study 24/7 (mostly rote memorization exercises) in order to pass some gatekeeping exam [1]. I have a niece who didn't score well enough in the college entrance exam to get into a tier-1 school and so is spending a year in one of these in order to retake the test and get into a better school. It's not a prison exactly, you can come and go as you please, but people generally don't rent these as their sole residential living arrangements. The goal is to have a distraction free environment to get as much wakeful study in as possible. The last time I visited the country, she was so deep into her studies she was unable to break free and come say hi and was very regretful about it over the phone. Work life is also pretty crazy, and often unproductively so. Many companies simply just waste employee time making them sit around or do busy work in order to appear that they're actively engaged in business activities. There's also enforced after hour drinking and dinner activities and often work on weekends. It's not as bad as Japan, but there's definitely strong commonalities. It's considered very desirable to get a job with a foreign company because their treatment of staff is more along global norms. There was a cut this past year in the maximum full-time hours, but it's still way above 40/week and is probably poorly enforced. I can almost guarantee it will have no measurable impact in work output even though companies are acting like its economic armageddon. Some of my relatives work like this and it's pretty much a universal desire among them and my friends there to start their own small company so the hours will be better and maybe even the pay. It doesn't even matter if the company is something they have any particular expertise in...just something to enable them to have some better measure of control. Here's an anecdote, one of my Korean relatives has wanted to come visit us in the U.S. for 3 years, he only gets 5 days of vacation per year. At the beginning of the year he asks for permission from his boss if he can take those 5 days and come over. For 2 years he was denied and as a result just took his vacation days as three day weekends (with at least a one month notice beforehand). His boss acted like he was trying to destroy the company both years. This year he was given permission to come visit, but his wife was not and so he's coming alone. He works a very normal white collar job. 1 - https://kotaku.com/these-korean-rooms-are-compared-to-prison-cells-for-goo-1439844132 https://kotaku.com/these-korean-rooms-are-compared-to-prison... Source: not Korean, but married into one for 18 years

duchenne 8y ago

I have been living in Korea for many years. I have never heard about it. I asked my Korean colleagues about it. They have never heard about it and they think that it is weird.

wnevets 8y ago
Do people actually think they'll die if they sleep with the fan on? Thats pretty weird to me.
- dialogbox 8y ago
  Yes, we did until 5 to 10 years ago. Not anymore. Some incorrect information from TV made people believe like that from maybe 70s. edit: What really happened was, some very old people died because of hypothermia by fan when the fan was just introduced in South Korean market. At that time, no one knew about hypothermia so people believed it was suffocation. That became the urban myth.
- duchenne 8y ago
  Yes, that used to be a common misconception in Korea until recently. It is completely false but such rumors can get viral very quickly. There are also many such misonceptions in the West. For instance, in the West, many people still believe that different areas of the tongues are used for different tastes (sweet, bitter,...). You can find more such things in this famous wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconception...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Nursie 8y ago
    Some interesting ones. Fortune cookies originating in Japan, and being seen by the Chinese as an American affectation - they're very rarely seen here in the UK so I can well believe it.

j39 8y ago

Wut? I am Indian in India, and don't know what you are talking about. I prefer Reuters India any day of the week compared to the never ending "infotainment" from the local mainstream press.

calvinbhai 8y ago
as I said in an earlier comment: "Biased != incorrect. If your biases and Reuters’ biases match, then you won’t notice anything biased or wrong in Content published by them. I think it’s up to you to figure out and identify which of the (many) biases are obvious in Reuter’s content of Asian and south East Asian countries (not just India)." If you are aware of your own cognitive biases, only then can one start noticing what kind of reporting is biased and what is not. FWIW, I believe biased reporting helps receive more clicks, and I'm not necessarily against it. My question was purely out of interest to know if people from/in Korea agree with the picture painted by Reuters or not. Looking at the popularity of the question, my guess is probably not. Reason for my question, in addition to my belief that they are biased (not incorrect), is that a similar behavior in the US would mean (my guess, I'm not a doc) a diagnosis of depression.

HenryBemis 8y ago

While I was reading this, I thought "hey they are trying out Minimalism"!!! [1]. [1]: https://www.theminimalists.com/ https://www.theminimalists.com/ I believe many people in this forum fall under the: got plenty of money, spending plenty of money, started medidating to improve life and work performance, found value in decluttering. I don't know how wide-spread this phenomenon is in Korea, or the integrity of the journalist/article, but even if 200 people do it in a year, it looks like they are trying to simplify their life. Edit: thinking about this a bit better, this is more like Ascetisism [2] (fromt the Greek Ασκητισμός), than Minimalism, but it is to the same direction. [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asceticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asceticism

_jgdh 8y ago

I’m from India in India. Could you give some examples of incorrect reporting by Reuters?

User9991 8y ago
>Could you give some examples of incorrect reporting by Reuters? Of course not. Instead, they'll throw around baseless accusations - because it's hip to scream "fake news- without a shred of evidence or hint of irony.
- calvinbhai 8y ago
  Alas, your expectation was and is wrong ;)
calvinbhai 8y ago
Biased != incorrect. If your biases and Reuters’ biases match, then you won’t notice anything biased or wrong in Content published by them. I think it’s up to you to figure out and identify which of the (many) biases are obvious in Reuter’s content of Asian and south East Asian countries (not just India)

wodenokoto 8y ago

Just ask Google, there are others who have reported on this before Reuter. * sep, 2018 https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/prison-providing-koreans-peace-solitude-cell-180910135056915.html https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/prison-providing-... * feb, 2018 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/south-korea-overwork-culture-jail-retreat-prison-inside-me-1.4527832 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/south-korea-overwork-culture-j... * 2014 https://www.wsj.com/video/want-a-break-from-stress-send-yourself-to-prison/92E62CA6-994D-4F58-B195-CB6B0A244AC4.html https://www.wsj.com/video/want-a-break-from-stress-send-your... Of course most people haven't heard of it. It is basically a gimmicky take on a silent retreat and there is only 1. I'm sure there are all sorts of odd takes on silent retreats in the US too.

miss_classified 8y ago
Just because Google results show you a thing, doesn't make that thing accurate, but merely prevalent and reduplicated in an index.
- wodenokoto 8y ago
  These are not reduplications of an index. These are links to independent sources reporting on the same thing over several years.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

kbumsik 8y ago

Buddhism-based meditation tours are quite popular in Korea. Many Korean temples offers "Temple stay" [1] program which is pretty much the same as the jail: locking themselves up in the temple to escape from the city life for a cople of days. The jail in the article seems to be a slightly exaggerated form of templestay. The motivation behind it is pretty accurate tho. Of course not everyone want this, and it is Buddhism - half of Koreans are christian. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Stay https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Stay

cafard 8y ago
In America, there are Catholic retreats, some at retreat centers, some at monasteries or convents, some elsewhere; I assume that other Christian denominations have retreats, but don't know and have never enquired. For that matter, the writer Patrick Leigh Fermor, who was not Catholic, wrote about going to stay for a short period at the Benedictine abbey of St. Wandrille, mostly to get away from distractions. You can find the account in https://www.nyrb.com/products/a-time-to-keep-silence https://www.nyrb.com/products/a-time-to-keep-silence.