Jane Han is the North America editor for The Korea Times. Based in Seattle, she has covered business, culture and social issues across the United States for over 15 years. She previously worked at The Boston Globe.
Chill out, Korea!
By Jane Han
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It’s a new year, a time of ambitious goals and higher expectations. People say we should set our sights high, the higher the better. But is being overly ambitious a shortcut to failure? This random thought came to me while driving through downtown Seoul the other day.
I passed through three districts, Yongsan-gu, Jung-gu and Seocho-gu, and, for some reason, each district’s PR billboards and signage particularly caught my attention that day.
``The world’s best city,’’ ``the No. 1 premium city,’’ ``a top global city,’’ and so on. You get the drift. Definitely a lot of world competition going on. But for people living in Korea, this kind of hyperbole really isn’t anything new.
So maybe it was something in the air that day, but all the showy lingo seemed unusually pointless, unnecessary and annoying. Why put up so many overstated slogans that don’t really carry a real message?
I could probably find a bunch of people who think the same way as I do. But that would just make this a lopsided bashing piece so I decided to really find the reason why people (whoever they are) come up with these puffed up catchphrases.
I got a chance to talk to a few branding experts who seemed to have a reasonable take on this.
First of all, comparing and competing is a deeply rooted ``Korean thing.’’
``It’s just part of the culture. We can’t just be good independently, but better in comparison to something else. That’s why there are so many words such as `best; and `No. 1’ in the local branding language,’’ says Lee Ki-ho, who heads Interactive Branding, a consulting firm specializing in marketing and branding.
True, many of us in Korea grew up being compared to the next door neighbor’s son and mom’s friend’s daughter whom we’d never even met. So in some way, it’s only natural that this sense of competition lives within people as they become adults and end up taking on a big role in society.
Second, Korea’s small size makes ambitious goals a necessity.
``This country came a long way to stand where it is today,’’ says Kim Woo-hyung, the president of Unitas CLASS, a corporate branding consulting firm. ``Having some kind of presence in the global scene is important for Korea, so corporate and government branding experts are consciously trying to play up the message that they are actively in the game.’’
Come to think of it, you can rarely find slogans like ``world’s best’’ in the U.S. I don’t know. Maybe I missed it, but at least I can’t seem to think of one right off the bat.
Experts say there’s a reason for this. That’s because if you become the best in the U.S., you naturally become the best in the world so there’s no real need to add the extra word.
Lastly, Koreans like to aim high. It’s as simple as that.
``We’re overachievers and resilient. That’s part of our culture and it shows in many different aspects of our society,’’ says Kim Hae-kyung, an image coach who works with experienced mid-career professionals. ``Why go for good when you can go for best? That’s probably what all those decision-makers had in mind before signing off on the final wording.’’
Sure, shoot for the stars, go big or go home and all the other you-can-do-it lines don’t hurt. What’s wrong with dreaming large? I guess the wording alone can’t decide whether something has been exaggerated or not.
We have to look a layer deeper and see what’s actually being done to make words a reality. A lot of times, some things get so used and overused that they end up carrying no meaning. Let’s just hope Korea’s go-to catchphrase language isn’t one of them.