Summary:
Episode 13 begins in front of the Seoul Central District Court where Yun-Je is talking to Jun-Hee over the phone about how he is not going to attend his alumni event as other alumnus are going to ask for favours to him. Then he meets a lawyer whom asks to eat lunch with him, but he refuses and mentions that he doesn’t eat with lawyers.
Then Yun-Je talks about how his brother did not provide any stocks to him despite his success in his first start up “I Like School” and his second start up that allows people to make Mini Homepi, which is something like CyWorld or Nate. Then he talks about how his brother decided to become a professor and donate all stock options he had. Then he talks about how other friends ended up other than Si-Won who he did not talk to for a long time.
After not talking to Si-Won for over 6 years, he coincidently meets her at a coffee shop. After the sudden meet up, Yun-Je learns that Yu-Jung’s father has passed away and all the friends meet up at the funeral. At the funeral Yu-Jung tells her friends her regret that she could not come back home for over a year due to her adjustment period in Seoul and how she disliked receiving constant phone calls from her parents, hence not knowing her father was sick.
Then an entertaining scene arises where Yun-Je attempts to smoke on the streets when Si-Won stops him. When Si-Won’s parents pick the two up, Dong-Il finds a cigarette pack that Si-Won took away from Yun-Je in Si-Won’s pocket. Dong-il becomes furious and starts yelling and attacking the two. However, when they mention that the cigarette pack belongs to Yun-Je and not Si-Won, Dong-il seems to be less furious for a moment until he believes again that the pack belonged to Si-Won again.
The next scene is at Sung-Jae’s work place, a civil service centre. There a grandma comes asking for help but Sung-Jae refuses. The same grandma comes again and Sung-Jae gladly agrees to help. He then takes a long journey to the grandma’s home in which he comes to realize that the grandma’s house is really far away and how she lives by herself with no one else near her. He begins to feel sorry for her and asks her where her children are, and the grandma replies that they live away from the countryside barely making a living and she thinks its her fault that her children couldn’t receive the benefits and education other children has received. She also mentions that her daughter doesn’t visit her often but blames herself rather than her daughter. She also says not all parents are the same.
Finally Hak-Chan suddenly comes back from the United States to attend the last day of the funeral. Also while Jun-Hee talks with Si-Won in the hospital staircase, Yun-Je overhears their conversation and is the first time he realizes that Jun-Hee is gay.
Some questions to consider while watching the episode and reading the summary are:
1) What do you guys think about a judge not eating with a lawyer despite them being associated with the same university? This is common in South Korea in the legal sector and is considered a problem as some cases may not be treated fairly. Do you think Yun-Je went too far or do you guys think it is ethically right this way.
2) Yun-je’s brother shows passion for entrepreneurship and startups. With the recent phenomenon of startups gaining more interest do you think the early 2000s was the beginning of Korean startup culture?
3) In South Korea, when a person’s relative passes away, people who may not have been that close to that person still attends the funeral and shows their respect to the passed. Does that also happen in other countries or is it more of an event where only family and close friends attend?
4) The scene where Si-Won was caught having a cigarette pack in her pocket can show that it was okay for males to smoke whereas it is more heavily disrespected if females do? Do you agree with this and do you think the society is changing where both genders are equally criticized for smoking?
5) Recently, old age people living by themselves without nearby relatives is a large problem in South Korea. The financial constraints and increasing disabilities is societally problematic. What do you guys think of this situation and what are some possible ways to solve it?
6) Lastly, the grandma claims all parents are not the same because some parents can provide more for some children while some can’t? Do you guys agree with this statement, especially in South Korea where there is an increasing number of influence on parents network in finding their first jobs, internships and etc.?
– Edward Kyoo-Hoon Kim
As for your first question, South Korea has implemented a tough anti-graft law (aka Kim Yeong-Ran law) in 2016 which prohibits accepting gifts worth 50,000 won or more, or meals of 30,000 won or more. In previous years, people would send expensive gifts, but because it was difficult to prove whether it was a gift of favor or token of hospitality, the government was unable to do much about it. In Yun-je’s case, refusing a meal with a sunbae would definitely be considered rude. In a very hierarchal society which values networking just as much, Yun-je will most likely have disadvantages throughout his career such as getting promotions if he fails to conform to the hierarchal society. It’s not only about how skilled you are at your job, but most importantly who is supporting you from behind and pulling you from the front. We always have to keep in mind that this does not pertain only to Korea. Networking is just as important in other countries and in places like Korea where networking is crucial, it can be a form of peer pressuring which just asks for trouble.
France-Presse, A. 2016. “Tough anti-corruption law takes effect in South Korea.” Inquirer, September 28. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/819878/tough-anti-corruption-law-takes-effect-in-south-korea.
yes, but at the same time, he will gain a reputation for being uncorruptable and fair. IF he can keep this behavior up, it will -eventually- become an advantage.
To answer your third question, yes, women in Korea face social prejudice about smoking. Women smokers are often chided by strangers (usually older men) and often find the need to hid themselves to avoid stares. In the article “Living as a female smoker in Korea,” it outlines some experiences of Korean women smokers. These are a few of their stories:
-Young-hee, a 26 year old office worker in Seoul, is quoted saying “After I lit the cigarette, a random middle-aged man came up to me and started shouting as if I had done something very bad. He said, ‘I will slap your face if you don’t throw your cigarette away right now.’ He called me ‘dirty little woman.’ ” Interestingly, the man shouting at her was also holding a cigarette. She also gives an example of how her friend was dumped by her boyfriend after he found out she was a smoker.
-Kim Yoon-jyung, a 26 year old piano instructor, said that she tries to remove any evidence she smokes to her boyfriend by brushing her teeth, wearing perfumes, and using disposable chopsticks to keep her hands clean. She talks about how she doesn’t understand the contradictory double-standard of smoking for women.
-Lee Sang-hee, a 33 year old owner of a coffee shop in Seoul talked about how women prefer to smoke in groups because they can concentrate on the conversation rather than enduring the stares that they often get. When she smokes alone, she tries to smoke in hidden spots. She too, got shouted at by a old man who criticized her for being a female who smoked.
According to Turnbull (2014), the stigma against women smoking leads to under-reporting by them. The official figures show that around 2-5% of female women smoke but he argues that it is actually around 20%. The government also has been accused of downplaying the figures to highlight its success in reducing the high male smoking rate.
From these accounts we can see that stigma around smoking for women in Korea exists. From personal experience, I attend a Korean church and people turn heads when they hear a male 청년 smokes. However, when rumor goes around in church that a girl 청년 smokes, it becomes big news. Unfortunately, this happened to a girl who attended my church and she stopped coming to church after a while probably due to the negative 시선 she got from people at church. So yes, I strongly believe that in Korean culture, smoking females are heavily criticized and disrespected.
Jun, Ji-hye. “Living as a female smoker in Korea.” Koreatimes. January 15, 2013. Accessed November 03, 2017. http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/culture/2013/01/399_128881.html.
Turnbull, James. “Quick Hit: Living as a female smoker in Korea.” The Grand Narrative. September 03, 2014. Accessed November 03, 2017. https://thegrandnarrative.com/2013/01/24/korea-female-smokers/.
Great job.
p.s. everyone should be discriminated against for a filthy habit like smoking.
Hi Edward, thank you for the summary and for the questions. I found your fifth question very interesting. I remember having a long talk about this problem with a person who had recently come from Korea. The conclusion that he made was ultimately that there needs to be put into place a very strong pension plan for senior citizens. I tend to agree. There really needs to be state intervention because such social issues are too large for charitable organizations such as churches to deal with on their own.
One Korean news article that I found lists a statistic which I feel highlights how broken the system is: contributors would have to earn at least 4.34 million won monthly (~5000 dollars) and would have to contribute for 30 years to reach the minimum amount needed for senior life. This would be impossible for the average worker who earns 2.18 million won monthly (~2200 dollars) (1).
It honesty makes me really sad because you hear about how seniors are essentially cast aside because their children are unable to help out because they have their own families and futures to prepare for or as it is often the case, simply just don’t care about them. Sadly, I think that the grandmother was one of the better and more fortune cases. Compare her with the Bacchus ladies (that Dr. Saeji also mentioned in ASIA 327), elderly Korean prostitutes who under the guise of selling energy drinks have to sell sex because of how little pension they receive and little savings they have (2). Lastly, Hwang Gyu-Jin goes into much more detail in his article which I’ve linked below listing the Korean welfare state if you’d like to read more (3). An important thing that he mentions is that Korea has one of the highest rates of temporary employment and the current welfare state favours those who have permanent jobs. If things aren’t done to address this need, we’ll only see this magnified only more in the future with the aging population.
Sources
(1) “National pension falling far short of basic needs for seniors.” The Korean Herald. http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20171020000179.
(2) “The Korean grandmothers who sell sex” BBC News. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27189951.
(3) Hwang, Gyu-Jin. “The Welfare State and Redistribution in Korea.” Social Policy and Society 15, no. 4 (2016): 571-587.
Fabulous response, great use of news and an academic source to answer the question.
As South Korea’s unemployment condition is becoming more persistent for the youth, they are becoming more attached and dependent on parents. Kids’ education is generally determined by the parents’ social and cultural capital, and the ability to afford extracurriculars, tutoring, top schools and universities, and other educational assistances to boost opportunities for kids’ social mobility in the future. With the lack of good, secure, and high paying jobs open for the youth, the high levels of education achieved by South Korean youths often go wasted. Conglomerates such as Hyundai and Samsung also contribute to a significant portion of the South Korean economy that entrepreneurship and small businesses owners suffer, surviving only under very precarious conditions. The fluctuating economy, along with rising housing prices in the city led to the phenomenon of “Kangaroo Families” where young adults that fail to find a stable job and continue live with their parents. In many occasions, young adults plan to start their own family, but remain to live in their parents’ house. We can see that unemployment rate along with high real estate costs act as barrier for young adults to be independent. In some cases, these adults may also delay university graduation, and marriage.
Keep in mind this is not particularly unique to South Korea, but we see a lot of neoliberal countries, including Canada, facing the same issue of “Kangaroo Families” and young adults delaying marriage, graduation, and other landmarks of adulthood because of the rising real estate prices and the intense employment competition.
Choi, Kyong-ae. “(Yonhap Feature) ‘New kangaroo tribe’: Adult kids coddled in parents’ pouches.” Yonhap News Agency. December 15, 2016. Accessed November 06, 2017. http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2016/12/14/0302000000AEN20161214008900315.html.
Frayer, Lauren. “South Korean Youth Struggle To Find Jobs After Years Of Studying For Tests.” NPR. May 28, 2017. Accessed November 06, 2017. http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/05/28/530153288/south-korean-youth-struggle-to-find-jobs-after-years-of-studying-for-tests.
Good job bringing in some news sources to support your point.
Thanks for the post Edward!
From all the questions you brought out, I felt that the second one is the most interesting out of all of them. As a person interested in growing markets, I personally do feel that the phenomena of the startup culture has sprung up since the 2000s all over the world; and South Korea was no exception.
Tae-woong’s drive for entrepreneurship was symbolic in in the sense that it marked the similar mindsets that Korean entrepreneurs had at the time. Nowadays, in the times of the Korean wave where many other countries are increasingly fascinated by Korean lifestyle and culture, it is not uncommon to be seeing Koreans business moving towards the startup culture due to its broad spectrum of business varieties. An article highlights that ever since the first batch of the business accelerator was founded in 2010 by Korea’s second largest web portal, Daum, the number of startups has roughly multiplied by an immense 15 times compared to what it was 16 years ago. Moreover, 63 of these startups have now risen to the largest market shareholders in their respective industries. Some of the top startups today are MEMEBOX, a technology company that provides customers with the latest trends from popular culture and COUPANG which is now one of the fastest growing e-commerce websites in the world.
“South Korea startup scene.” Innovation Is Everywhere. December 06, 2016. Accessed November 13, 2017. http://www.innovationiseverywhere.com/south-korea-startup-scene/.
I’m chuckling that you found that the most interesting question. Good answer, though.