The new 'hoesik' wears running shoes
Shin Go-eun
The hardest part of a company dinner used to come before the meal. A junior employee would glance at the clock, wait to hear where the team was going and then calculate the journey home. The invitation might sound casual but saying no was not ok.
That was the reality of "hoesik" for many Korean workers — an obligatory meal together that could take ownership of an evening. Colleagues drank together in the name of building trust, while the person who went home early risked looking unfriendly or uncommitted. The meal had rules of its own: You paid attention to where you sat, when you raised your glass and whether your supervisor was ready to leave. Even conversation could feel like part of the job.
For some people, those dinners led to friendships that lasted long after they changed workplaces. Others remember watching the hours pass while thinking about the next morning’s commute. Both were true. The problem was how little room there was to choose.
Workers have gained more say over time. A team dinner no longer has quite the same claim on everyone’s evening and more people are willing to say they have other plans. This is a welcome change. Leaving the office should mean being able to decide what happens next.
Meanwhile, another kind of gathering has become familiar along the Han River. People assemble after work in running clothes, set their route using their phones and set off together. A running group can make exercise easier to keep up. It can also make a large city feel smaller. Unlike the company dinners of the past, joining one is usually a genuine choice.
I would be tempted to join for the company alone. Running beside someone gives you a reason to talk without having to fill every silence. If you fall behind, the other person may slow down. On a difficult week, putting on your shoes and meeting someone outside may be enough to make the evening better.
There is pleasure in improving, too. A runner who struggled through the first few kilometers might be delighted to finish a longer route months later. Friends should be able to celebrate that together. The trouble begins when the pleasure of running starts to depend on having progress to report.
Think of a group photograph taken after a run. One person wants it as a reminder of a good evening. Another may wonder how they look beside everyone else, or whether anyone noticed they took the shorter route. The photograph has not changed. What each person brings to it has.
Then there is the run as it appears online: the distance, the pace, the map and the photograph of everyone smiling afterward. For people who enjoy keeping records, these are part of the fun. But imagine arriving home after a gentle half hour outdoors and feeling faintly disappointed because you ran no farther than last week. Nobody has criticized you. Nothing went wrong. Somehow the evening still feels as though it should have produced a better result.
That small disappointment interests me more than the running itself. Korea has long offered ways to measure effort, from exam scores to promotions. Now our phones can give hobbies a score as well. We can choose whether to look at it, of course, but it takes some effort to ignore a number sitting on your wrist.
A group can add to the feeling. You may have joined because you wanted friends, then find yourself wondering whether you are keeping up. The people around you may be kind. They may have no interest in your pace at all. The worry can still be real, especially when everyone seems to have a race to prepare for or a new goal in mind.
This is where the memory of hoesik stays with me. The old pressure came from your employer and was hard to refuse. The newer one may come from expectations we have taken on ourselves. Those are different experiences, with different consequences. Yet both can reach into the hours when we are supposed to be free.
Of course, a runner can turn off an app, leave a group or decide to walk instead. That ability to choose matters. I also know how easy it is to carry the habits of the workday into the evening and set a goal, track the result, try to do better next time. After a while, even a pastime can begin to sound like a task assigned by a particularly demanding manager.
Running groups deserve their popularity. There should be room in them for someone who stops to catch a breath, joins only when they feel like it or never signs up for a race. There should also be room outside them for the person who takes a slow walk, reads at home or does very little after work. None of these evenings needs to be explained as an investment in health or productivity.
We have become better at recognizing that an employee should be able to decline a company dinner. It would be a pity to win back that evening only to feel obliged to make something impressive of it. Some days, time well spent leaves no record at all.
Shin Go-eun is an associate professor at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City.