Vacation Revolution in Korea

By Dan Springer

Last week, the front page of this very paper caught my eye. The headline was a bold statement about contemporary society here: ``Social Conflict Costly for Korea." The story followed that social conflict, which I suppose could be anything from people arguing to out-and-out murder, was costing the nation's GDP a whopping $250 billion a year.

Now, that is a huge number and might be over-inflated, as the article admitted. However, it's clear that for such a small country that cares so deeply about their economic prowess, this number is unacceptable.

What could be the cause of all this fighting and violence here in what was once the ``Land of Morning Calm?"

Well, I'm no sociologist and I will admit that there are obviously a myriad of factors that go into this dynamic problem that are cultural, economic, regional, and so on. That being what it is, I'm going to try here to propose an admittedly partial and simple but nonetheless effective solution to this complex social problem.

When I first came here over four years ago, the fact that a vast majority of working Koreans had breaks and vacations at the same time as everyone else in the entire country was something that struck me as peculiar and almost laughable, but is now clearly a phenomenon that chokes the life out of Korean working people, students, and families; sucking the life, fun, and time from Korean vacations like a vampire.

For most Korean workers, there are three, maybe four times per year where there is a genuine vacation opportunity (well, if you consider five-to six-days off a vacation, which I'll admit I don't in any way). Those times are Lunar New Year, the so-called summer vacation, and Chu-seok (Thanksgiving/Harvest Celebration). Some lucky workers and all students get a winter vacation over the Christmas and Solar New Year period.

This has made for a situation where almost every single person in the country gets breaks at the exact same time every year, and it's total havoc. Anyone who's experienced these periods here in Korea, whether native or foreign, knows far too well what I'm talking about.

Twenty-hour rides in a packed-to-the-gills bus or car to travel a few hours' distance, jammed trains and planes booked months and months in advance, endless delays, frayed nerves, and basically a vacation that is less a vacation than an unending claustrophobic and scheduling nightmare.

By the time many Koreans get to their destinations on these ``vacations," they are completely exhausted and not much changes by the time they get back to work the following weekday once it's all over, and I can count myself on numerous occasions in that unlucky group as well.

With even the big holidays this year falling squarely on weekends and making these breaks even shorter, 2009 is shaping up to be ``The Year of Conflict." I'll bet you anything that Korea's social conflict rating this year will be worse than it was the previous year.

Now, I realize that the stress and traffic problems with Seolnal (New Year's Day) and Chuseok are unavoidable. It's a family holiday, and everyone has obligations to their loved ones on such holidays, myself included, so we can't avoid all piling into the car and then piling on top of everyone else trying to get to mom's home cooking.

However, the time has come for Korean employers to discard this ludicrous and completely unsustainable ``summer vacation" in late July and start letting their employees choose when to take their vacations. Now, let it be said that not all Korean companies have such a policy, and that the times are changing rapidly.

Most companies that employ such a policy are understandably nervous about such a change, because they're obviously personally saving tons of money from having all their employees take off for what is a terribly short (by international, even U.S. standards) vacation at the same pre-ordained time every year rather than giving them an actual two weeks of their choice.

However, it's time to give Korean employees this fundamental choice and let the stress actually roll off the shoulders of this overworked population. If they want to take a full two weeks off to go to Europe, they should be able to, but that brings up another absurd factor in common Korean corporate policies.

That is, a large amount of Korean companies are unwilling to let their employees take a vacation that's longer than a week, even if they have the vacation time available. Why is this? What's the reasoning behind it? The fact of the matter is that there is absolutely none, it's just become a custom that's taken for granted rather than critically analyzed.

I believe if the Korean government stepped in and came to a simple agreement with business owners about facilitating such fundamental changes in these all-too-common policies of private companies, Korea's working people, economy, environment, and social conflict rating would all be the better for it.

Daniel J. Springer is a program manager at Wall Street Institute Korea's Gwanghwamun Branch. He can be reached at booyateacher@wsikorea.com

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