Korea and perfection

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Opinion

Deauwand Myers

Korea and perfection

Posted : 2023-07-25 16:35

Updated : 2023-07-25 16:50

By Deauwand Myers

There are a lot of things I like about Korean culture. Infrastructure, cuisine, dramas, K-pop music… the list is quite extensive. But we're going to have to talk about the elephant in the room.

There's a dark and destructive underbelly within the nation: the need to be perfect in all things, and it is a huge social problem that society and the government need to tackle.

The tentacles of this obsession with perfection reach into many areas of Korean society.

Let's look at one example that's not as obvious as the others I'll cover later. Recently, a young teacher killed herself alleged because of the bullying of students and their parents. Why was she being bullied by parents?

These parents know the competition is stiff for Korean students. Standardized test scores throughout the students' academic career ― secondary and tertiary ― can and usually do affect their career and financial futures. The stress from all this is called toxic stress, and you experience everything as a blood sport competition.

It stresses the parents, so they put that stress on teachers. Worse, the stress for students is sometimes fatal. Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, with students representing a high percentage of that.

Korean celebrities and just people who want better careers run in droves to cosmetic surgery clinics for leg sculpting, eyelid surgery, skin abrasion and on and on. One of the biggest places to get affordable, professional cosmetic surgery is in Korea. Cosmetic surgery is an industry unto itself.

There are some interesting correlations with the high suicide rates in Korea and Japan and their race to economic success. When Korea was poor, the suicide rates were lower and the birthrates were high. If you look at a chart comparing the time periods of poverty and then prosperity, the increase in suicide rates match, frighteningly so.

Why? Good medical care, abundant supply of food, excellent infrastructure, low crime, an increase in Korea's soft power… why on earth would the suicide rate be so high?

A recent article in The Economist titled "South Korea's suicide rate fell for years. Women are driving it up again" states "We found that between 2018 and 2020 suicide rates across 17 countries, not including South Korea, rose slightly from an average of 4.6 to 4.7 per 100,000 people. But in South Korea it rose from 13.2 to 16. It is not clear exactly why the uptick occurred."

Being a wealthy nation with this obsession with perfection in looks, grades and even university admissions is devastating people. South Korea is the fourth in the world for suicide; Japan isn't in the top 10.

Some ways Japan's government tackled suicide were with ad campaigns, suicide help call centers and engaging the stigma attached with admitting mental health issues. They have also made policies to decrease work hours and made it easier to report labor abuses.

There's even a word in Japan for being worked to death, "karoshi," something Korean workers know all too well. But Korean society itself has to realize that perfection is unrealistic and subjective. Work-life balance needs to be more in parity, and employers need to be enforced to follow labor laws already in effect.

In a BBC article on labor and Japan by Danielle Demetriou, "How the Japanese are putting an end to extreme work weeks," the article states that "Employees in the country whose brutal office culture has led to several deaths are beginning to rethink the tradition."

Interestingly, both Korea and Japan have a work culture where employees are too afraid to look rude or lazy by sticking with their salaried or waged time of work and take their paid vacations. The same BBC article continues, "The main reason is guilt ― a reflection of the pressures and expectations that weigh heavily on a workaholic society. The average worker still has dozens of untaken vacation days every year."

Perfection and compliance. All work and no play. Always in competition, it's no wonder too many Koreans are miserable. An odd trend has developed in Korea and China, though. Some of their younger populations are beginning to reject social stereotypes of marriage and a home and a job as the only way to conduct a meaningful and fulfilling life. I have to say that's a refreshing and maybe life-saving point of view.

The trauma of poverty in Korea has turned into a trauma of seeking out perfection without any regard to mental health. That really has to change.

Deauwand Myers (deauwand@hotmail.com) holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside of Seoul.