By Donald Kirk
Blame it on Korea's culture of "ppalli-ppalli" ― "quickly, quickly." That was the simplistic explanation that a Korean gave me for the crowd surge in the narrow Itaewon alley where so many were trapped, crushed and died last weekend. "They were madly pushing each other," she said. "It's in the genes."
Maybe, but the horror of Halloween follows other disasters going back years that had nothing to do with crowd control. Rather, they were all about the greed of the tycoons who ran the Sampoong Department Store, the collapse of which in 1995 killed more than 500 people, and the sinking of the Sewol in 2014 in which more than 300, mostly high school kids on a school outing, drowned. The owners also were obsessed with the ppalli-ppalli mentality ― and the desire to get rich quick.
It's possible to take the ppalli-ppalli theme to much greater extremes. The rapid rise of Korean business and industry from the ashes of war, the spread of K-pop as a worldwide phenomenon ― they're all driven by the desire to move quickly, quickly, to overtake competitors from the U.S., Europe and Japan that had previously dominated the global scene. Decades ago, names like Samsung, Hyundai, LG and SK were unknown outside Korea and no one would have dreamed of a group like BTS exceeding the Beatles in popularity.
"Ppalli-ppalli," though, has a downside ― and not just in the insensate crowd-pushing that drove more than 150 young people to their deaths one awful night in Itaewon. One need only look at the competition to get into top-ranked universities, the late-night study halls and tutoring of secondary school kids, the rivalry for lifetime positions in companies and institutions in a pecking order of power, wealth and prestige. Such fanaticism produces terrific results for individuals, organizations, the country ― and also unhappiness, depression, suicides.
The intensity has far deeper, more destructive implications when extended to the never-ending, insoluble confrontation between the two Koreas.
Just as the South is consumed by the need to succeed economically, so the North is fixated on its rise as a nuclear power with an array of missiles needed to send its warheads to targets near and far. It's as though the Kim dynasty under third-generation heir Kim Jong-un sees recognition of the North as the world's ninth nuclear power as tantamount to the South's ranking as 10th in GDP ahead of nations that had once seemed far more advanced.
Imagine how the North might be doing if only Kim were not consumed by weapons of mass destruction that he can never use without exposing his regime to annihilation by his enemies.
For Kim Jong-un, inheriting the nuclear program initiated by his grandfather, regime founder Kim Il-sung, expanded by his father, Kim Jong-il, who ordered the North's first two nuclear tests, and culminating in his own tests of nukes and missiles, speed is of the essence. He thinks he has to move ppalli-ppalli to defend his fiefdom against the Americans and South Koreans, who, of course, are countering with ever bigger shows of force of their own.
Lately, Kim Jong-un has been telling people to move much faster economically. Visiting small factories, he can't understand why they have to lag far behind Asian competitors, not just South Korea but Vietnam, Singapore, maybe all of them. While the masses of his people are hungry and poverty-stricken, and young men are forced to serve 10 years in the army, North Korea stands no chance of catching up with any of them, much less South Korea.
But now South Koreans are talking about going ppalli-ppalli on their own missiles and maybe nukes. The South already has an advanced missile program. There's no need for intercontinental ballistic missiles of the sort that Kim Jong-un is developing in the North in order to threaten Washington. For the South, intermediate and short-range missiles will do just fine for wiping out targets anywhere in North Korea.
Responsible voices are heard saying the South needs tactical nukes ― the kind that can take out a bridge or a building, a military base, maybe the North's nuclear complex at Yongbyon or the Punggye-ri nuclear test site. If Kim is boasting of tactical nukes, why shouldn't we, people ask? It's all in the psychology of "ppalli-ppalli," the impulse to move quickly in a drive that could push millions to their deaths like the scores who died in the crush that one mad night in Itaewon.
Donald Kirk (www.donaldkirk.com) writes from Seoul as well as Washington.
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Maybe, but the horror of Halloween follows other disasters going back years that had nothing to do with crowd control. Rather, they were all about the greed of the tycoons who ran the Sampoong Department Store, the collapse of which in 1995 killed more than 500 people, and the sinking of the Sewol in 2014 in which more than 300, mostly high school kids on a school outing, drowned. The owners also were obsessed with the ppalli-ppalli mentality ― and the desire to get rich quick.
It's possible to take the ppalli-ppalli theme to much greater extremes. The rapid rise of Korean business and industry from the ashes of war, the spread of K-pop as a worldwide phenomenon ― they're all driven by the desire to move quickly, quickly, to overtake competitors from the U.S., Europe and Japan that had previously dominated the global scene. Decades ago, names like Samsung, Hyundai, LG and SK were unknown outside Korea and no one would have dreamed of a group like BTS exceeding the Beatles in popularity.
"Ppalli-ppalli," though, has a downside ― and not just in the insensate crowd-pushing that drove more than 150 young people to their deaths one awful night in Itaewon. One need only look at the competition to get into top-ranked universities, the late-night study halls and tutoring of secondary school kids, the rivalry for lifetime positions in companies and institutions in a pecking order of power, wealth and prestige. Such fanaticism produces terrific results for individuals, organizations, the country ― and also unhappiness, depression, suicides.
The intensity has far deeper, more destructive implications when extended to the never-ending, insoluble confrontation between the two Koreas.
Just as the South is consumed by the need to succeed economically, so the North is fixated on its rise as a nuclear power with an array of missiles needed to send its warheads to targets near and far. It's as though the Kim dynasty under third-generation heir Kim Jong-un sees recognition of the North as the world's ninth nuclear power as tantamount to the South's ranking as 10th in GDP ahead of nations that had once seemed far more advanced.
Imagine how the North might be doing if only Kim were not consumed by weapons of mass destruction that he can never use without exposing his regime to annihilation by his enemies.
For Kim Jong-un, inheriting the nuclear program initiated by his grandfather, regime founder Kim Il-sung, expanded by his father, Kim Jong-il, who ordered the North's first two nuclear tests, and culminating in his own tests of nukes and missiles, speed is of the essence. He thinks he has to move ppalli-ppalli to defend his fiefdom against the Americans and South Koreans, who, of course, are countering with ever bigger shows of force of their own.
Lately, Kim Jong-un has been telling people to move much faster economically. Visiting small factories, he can't understand why they have to lag far behind Asian competitors, not just South Korea but Vietnam, Singapore, maybe all of them. While the masses of his people are hungry and poverty-stricken, and young men are forced to serve 10 years in the army, North Korea stands no chance of catching up with any of them, much less South Korea.
But now South Koreans are talking about going ppalli-ppalli on their own missiles and maybe nukes. The South already has an advanced missile program. There's no need for intercontinental ballistic missiles of the sort that Kim Jong-un is developing in the North in order to threaten Washington. For the South, intermediate and short-range missiles will do just fine for wiping out targets anywhere in North Korea.
Responsible voices are heard saying the South needs tactical nukes ― the kind that can take out a bridge or a building, a military base, maybe the North's nuclear complex at Yongbyon or the Punggye-ri nuclear test site. If Kim is boasting of tactical nukes, why shouldn't we, people ask? It's all in the psychology of "ppalli-ppalli," the impulse to move quickly in a drive that could push millions to their deaths like the scores who died in the crush that one mad night in Itaewon.
Donald Kirk (www.donaldkirk.com) writes from Seoul as well as Washington.
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