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hello there.
It's changed A LOT in the Republic of Korea socially, politically, and economically since I first arrived here in 1990, let me tell you! At that time, the President was Roh Tae-woo, another one of those former military generals, and there were lots of violent protests against that administration with young university students sometimes self-immolating and hurling themselves off of high buildings. Some of this crazy stuff was fomented by North Korean spies. Lots of anti-American sentiment was in the air here at that time, too, so I had to tread softly. Once they got a civilian president in 1993, though, all of that changed for the better, albeit with lots of ups and downs in between.
For anyone considering living here, I’ll start with the negatives and end on a more hopeful, positive note.
Koreans tend to be very stressed out and unhappy. Several contributing factors include an ongoing sluggish economy, the increasing difficulty in finding satisfying work after university, Korean politics that inspire near universal disgust, inflation, and the skyrocketing cost of housing. As a result, this country routinely ranks among the highest in the OECD for its alarming rate of suicides. (It is one of the highest in the world though efforts from the previous regime have mitigated this to a degree). Most of these are elderly people who, somewhat ironically, are living a lot longer now due to vastly improved living conditions but who are also doing so without the traditional support system of extended family that used to be in place before the nuclear family became the norm. Now many of them are poor and don't want to be a burden to their families, so they take their own lives as society sets high standards and study is a lot of pressure for them to take in.
