I would say he’s being quite honest, especially considering they have one of the highest suicide rates.
And lowest birth rates
Their ESports winrates all but make up for it though…
Of course everyone want to fuck an esport athlete. How silly of me.
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Although in hindsight, I’d rather have them absolutely destroy my sleep schedule than ending up getting in to less favorable university than I got in
Seriously? If you’re going to university you’ll be fine regardless of where it ranks, how can that possibly be worth destroying your teenage years? Is this just social attitudes in Korea or does it actually make any difference?
So the American equivalent is pretty much going to the ivy League then going to work at FAANG or a law firm or finance firm that only hires from the ivies.
That stuff all exists in the US and it’s certainly something many Americans aspire to as evidenced by the whole college admissions coaching industry.
What you’re seeing out of Korea is presented as though ALL families are basically telling their kids that they’ll be disowned if they fail to achieve these lofty heights.
The reality is that there are a ton of more accessible universities throughout the Korean peninsula that kids attend and they end up with reasonable jobs living reasonable lives, current situation of unaffordable housing and rampant debt notwithstanding.
I would agree that many if not most Korean students spend significantly more time studying than their American counterparts. I will not agree that it’s universally effective to do so.
Source: Lived in Korea for four years in the nineties and eventually married into it. Though I will admit some of my experiences may be outdated as I haven’t been keeping up with latest trends.
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Everything you’ve written on this thread is very depressing. What is even the point? Why does anyone even want to live in Korea? It sounds like an absolute nightmare tbh.
I’d expect to be mass immigration away from Korea.
It’s not trivial for most people to leave their home, culture, language, family, friends, etc and move to another country
I know… but my country has way more emigration and it doesn’t suck nearly as bad as Korea…
*And also, I know I would 100% feel differently if I was born in Korea, but I would resent the fuck out of my parents, culture and government if that was my life. People joke China is cyberpunk, but South Korea seems way more dystopic.
Just as an anecdote: there is a huge Korean population in Canada. I’d say there is currently a mass emigration, but I suppose only for those able to afford it and want leave at the same time.
Suicide is more their style.
That’s so alien to me. Well congrats on making it through that meat grinder of a system in one piece!
That sounds depressing.
Being a teenager is pretty overrated tbh
Yeah but so is having a piece of paper that’s slightly better than someone else’s. Don’t burn yourself out for either.
I’m so jealous of the street food there. Literally watched a video of someone making egg sandwiches or something and I think I died a little inside because there’s basically nothing like that in Canada unless you count hotdogs; which I fucking don’t.
You guys don’t have egg sandwiches in Canada? Or do you only mean in street food form? Cause if not, just go to a breakfast joint if you want an egg sandwich.
Yeah, I only mean street food.
A man chooses. A slave obeys.
BUT…
You can get wasted with $1 worth of soju.
$3 these days. Times are hard.
I still think living in North Korea would be worse.
Drinking piss is arguably better than eating shit, but still doesnt change the fact that youre drinking piss.
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Wtf do you think sewage treatment plants are, you dingus?
Lol yes you can
You spread the shit on the ground and eat what grows from it
Shit is a lot more valuable.
Life controled by handful of rich familles
Does S Korea also have the problem of a rigid and corrupt 2 party system?
There are two big parties and four smaller parties represented in the (current) National Assembly, but the Democratic Party has a majority by itself. The current President belongs to the other big party (People’s Power).
People’s Power? If that isn’t one of the most commie names I’ve ever heard for a political party.
Except that they’re conservative lol
I was like “wow so futuristic” when I first learned that the monopoly on Japanese government is through the Liberal Democratic Party. Lmao when I found out the rest of the story.
“Liberal Democratic Party”, rules for decades uninterrupted, representing the largest capitalist families and the USA and cracks down and any leftists sentiment, sometimes extremely violently. Cool! Cyberpunk!
Yeahhh… shit makes it really difficult to follow global national politics
. . . national politics
And in the case of the LDP, national𝑖𝑠𝑡 politics
It’s not that, it’s the megacorps
Not sure. What I do know is that Korean parliament occasionally gets into actual mob-on-mob brawls. So there’s that.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/03/asia/south-korea-lawmakers-indicted-intl-hnk/index.html
Yea but amazing cuisine and k-pop
Many people consider K-pop to be extremely shit.
And since music taste is subjective, every thought about K-pop is the correct one.
K-Pop is also as far as the industry itself is concerned, the #1 most cruel music related industry in the world to the people in it. Everything awful about the idol, music and modeling industry compounded by a hundredfold.
K-Pop as a genre unfortunately is rotten to it’s core. Other music industries are also known to be bad but they’re arguably the worst.
K and j pop are definitely among the worst. Tbh the girl pop industry in general. Look at what they did to my girl Britney.
My first exposure to it was in 1994. Crazy thing is that today’s k-pop is virtually indistinguishable from that of thirty years ago for me. The music, clothes, hair, and choreography are all exactly the same.
I’m sure some k-popophile will come put me in my place, but I stand by what I perceive.
Fun story from back then: One of the big groups back then was Turbo. While spending many hours at the US Embassy getting my wife a spousal visa, she recognized Mikey from Turbo. We go over and say hi and end up spending the whole day with him. He spoke perfect English and pretty much lived in Los Angeles. He told us that a significant portion of Turbo concerts had some other guy wearing a surgical mask pretending to be him because he was busy studying in the US.
K pop isn’t my cup of tea. But it’s not shit. Like I’m not a huge fan, but I can see how people would like it.
Don’t like K-Pop, but Korean hip hop is enjoyable.
That said, it’s kind of funny seeing Koreans acting all gangsta, when AFAIK gangs were never really a problem in that country. But to be fair, they’re not really a thing in America anymore, either (at least not compared to how things were before the mid-90s).
There’s good Korean punk, rock, and metal as well. Nuclear Idiots, Harry Big Button, Dead Chant, Method, Duoxini, BADLAMB.
Yeah the mandatory service and shitty neighbors suck. Other stuff mentioned are simply not true.
Source: I am Korean
No, the chaebol are absolutely a thing. That’s how South Korea rebuilt after the wars. That’s how we have Samsung and LG. Those families make up a majority of the country’s GDP, and lobby substantially.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/18/business/chaebol-south-korea.html
I’m Korean and I know what chaebols are 😂. They get many perks like not going to jail after committing crimes, but they don’t control all aspects of people’s lives here. That is overexaggeration and simply not true.
