emo_princess_forever
...
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.
emo_princess_forever
The negatives: Confucianism is alive and well. While this system of social organization has some positives in that it creates an ostensibly polite society that values decorum, order, and respect, it also fosters age discrimination and an overtly male-dominated social hierarchy. All of this is encoded into the language. Age, title, and to some degree even place of birth still matter. Changes are afoot, however, as people are now more than ever openly talking about this very element of their society whereas it would not have been a topic of much open discussion only just a few years ago.
emo_princess_forever
There's also insane pressure to look good, so cosmetic surgery is nearly as common as rice here. I'm reasonably sure that Korea is considered the plastic surgery capital of the world now. (If it isn’t, it’s certainly in the top 5.) Even teenagers have their eyes widened or their noses re-done, and these days young men have these procedures nearly as much as young women due to the high profile during the past 20+ years of so many K-pop groups such as H.O.T., Shinhwa, G.O.D., Big Bang, SEVENTEEN, Shinee, BTS, Black Pink, New Jeans, … the male groups in particular being referred to as “pretty flower boys” (꽃미남). Recipients of this surgery are assured that this will increase their chances of success.
emo_princess_forever
Environmentally-speaking, there are sometimes serious issues with air quality, especially in the spring of every year when fine dust from the Gobi Desert is picked up, passed through the filthy air of the eastern Chinese cities, carried across the Yellow Sea, and deposited here. Pretty nasty stuff; it covers cars and houses with what looks almost like a layer of pollen. Some of it actually makes its way to the U.S. west coast via the jet stream. Also, whenever there are fires on the mountains, the particulate matter counts (PM10 and PM2.5) go off the charts, and my phone app reads "very unhealthy." Normally, it's in the 50-60 range ("good"), but this past spring it went up to well over 250 on a few occasions. Not good! Right now, it’s October, and the quality is very good to excellent.
