The Korean “Work Ethic”

"I saw classrooms in which a third of the students slept while the teacher continued lecturing, seemingly unfazed. Gift stores sell special pillows that slip over your forearm to make desktop napping more comfortable. This way, goes the backward logic, you can sleep in class — and stay up late studying." (From this article in TIME Magazine, September 2011.)

As someone who has spent a lot of time working in the “shadow education system” of Korea – the private, after-hours ‘cram schools’ or hagwons (학원) – I am no stranger to the notion of Korean children staying out studying until quite late. When I was in middle school, my bed time was 9:30pm. At the hagwon where I taught in both 2006-2007 and 2010-2011, my last middle school class of the day finished at 10pm. I had accustomed myself to the notion that Korean children have a vastly different childhood from mine and that of most American kids. Yet somehow I always pictured Korean mom and dad relaxing at home, having dinner, watching TV, and enjoying having some alone time while the kiddies were off at the hagwon. Granted, I grew up with a father who knocked off work at 5pm and was home by 5:15pm pretty much every day. I should have realized that the lives of Korean adults would be just as drastically different from their American counterparts as the lives of Korean children.

Take a look at the pictures below. They're of a miniature husband pillow. It has a slot in it into which one can insert one’s arm. This makes it far more comfortable to sleep on if you’re somewhere not particularly conducive to getting comfy: desk, bus, train, airplane. I personally think this is a fantastic invention. It’s the kind of pillow referred to in the TIME article that I quoted above. 

I bought this pillow when I was planning to go on an overnight bus trip. I didn’t buy it at a kids’ store, or at a shop near a school, or at one of the big Wal-Mart type shopping centers that offer everything under the sun. I bought it at an office supply store in Yeouido – one located directly across the street from my former office building. Every single one of the people in my department had a similar pillow, and made regular use of it.

Sleeping on the job? Well, yes. And no. Not exactly. Take a gander at this very informative article on the work culture in South Korea.  It’s entitled “the world’s hardest working countries” – although I’d say “longest working” instead of hardest. There’s a difference… Unfortunately, the Koreans have yet to realize this.

Our work hours at my former company in Yeouido were from 9am-6pm. We were encouraged to work overtime – although overtime work was always *unpaid.* However, if you stayed until 8pm, you’d get reimbursed ₩7000 (roughly $7) for dinner (keep in mind, this is in Yeouido, where $7 might get you a bowl of bibimbap), and if you stayed until 11pm, you’d get reimbursed for the cost of a taxi ride home. So for an extra 5 hours of work, and – depending on how long a taxi ride you’ve got – you’d probably be reimbursed $10-$15. Hardly an incentive… yet I had coworkers brag about receiving upwards of ₩2,000,000 ($1700) in reimbursements. Granted, that’s over a fairly long time, but still, that's a lot of bibimbap.

Now, I have nothing at all against working overtime when there’s work that needs to be done. You’ve got a Wednesday morning deadline for your project and it’s not finished by 6pm on Tuesday? You stay late. You’ve got an emergency situation that needs to be handled right then? You stay late. But if there are no pressing deadlines, no emergency situations, nothing that absolutely must be done right then? I say go on home…. but that is most definitely NOT the Korean way.

I never stayed past 6:15pm. This is because I never had any pressing emergencies or un-met deadlines to contend with. And because I’d been working for 8 hours straight and needed to give my brain a rest.

And that’s where we come to the big difference between me and my Korean co-workers in terms of work ethic. From 9am-6pm (except for my lunch hour), I worked. True, I may have sent several personal emails to friends over the course of the day, but I can multitask like a fiend. I would work steadily for 8 hours a day, taking only the occasional bathroom break. Meanwhile, my coworkers (including supervisors) would take lengthy smoke breaks, take 15-30 minute naps, spend time on YouTube of Naver or Facebook… and then stay at the office until 8pm or 11pm.

Now I don’t want you to think that my coworkers were lazy – they weren’t at all. In fact, they were all very hard workers.   They just dragged out everything they did, and napped, and watched sports on YouTube or whatever so that they could put in extra hours and show what good, hardworking employees they are. I was lucky – and I suspect that this has a lot to do with the fact that I’m not Korean – that I was never pressured to stay late. Meanwhile, there seemed to be a lot of pressure on my coworkers to stay late every single day, especially the younger/newer employees, who needed to “prove” to the company that they were hardworking.

Here’s an appropriate quote from the article I mentioned above:

"It’s the culture," says Lee. "We always watch what the senior boss thinks of our behavior. So it’s very difficult to finish at a fixed time." Leaving at the official time of 6 p.m. could mean not getting a promotion or raise.

This whole concept just boggles my mind. I personally would much rather work for 8 hours – and do my job well for 8 hours – and then leave and get one with my life than drag out my assignments and stretch 8 hours worth of work into 13 to prove that I’m “hardworking.” I just don’t get it. Of course, I also didn’t get my promised mid-contract raise.

The de-facto work schedule seemed to take a huge physical toll on a lot of my coworkers, who often looked like they desperately needed a good night’s sleep. And don’t even get me started on how they keep up this absurd ever-present practice no matter how sick they get. Surely well-rested, relaxed, healthy employees would be more efficient than exhausted, stressed, and often sickly ones? But it’s not the Korean way.

Weird shit seen every day

Every day when I'm riding the number nine train from Dangsan to Yeouido, I get treated to what I consider a rather odd thing to be in regular rotation on city public transportation: The Korean cartoon 'Larva' - a combination of cute, disgusting, and gruesome. Very Korean. You don't have to know any Korean as they're silent. The ones below are just a few of the first ones that popped up on YouTube - there's plenty more where that came from if you're into it. I personally have mixed feelings.

Bukchon? Meh.

Today was pretty gorgeous out, so I figured that cold weather be damned, I was going to go out and take some photos. I decided to go to Bukchon Hanok Village, next to Gyeongbok Palace. To be honest, I didn't find it that interesting. The neighborhood reminded me of the more run-down parts of Banyawol (the area on the outskirts of Daegu where I used to live: see here, here, and here for pictures) - only instead of going to seed or being replaced by brand new high-rises, the traditional Korean homes (hanok) have been spruced up, and the area, while still mainly residential, has become somewhat of a tourist trap. The place is home to tons of guest houses located inside hanok, as well as a large variety of places where one can make and/or buy traditional Korean crafts. There were also a lot of art galleries and museums. I have to say that I give Seoul props for encouraging the sprucing up of the more traditional neighborhoods, instead of letting them crumble and decay until they're replaced by high-rises, but I really just wasn't all that into Bukchon. Not being into craft-making or art, not being in need of a guest house, and having seen plenty of hanok (lived in and not) before, there wasn't much about Bukchon that was all that appealing to me. I think that were I new to Korea I probably would've enjoyed it more. As it was, it was a lot of stuff I'd seen before combined with things I just didn't find all that interesting. Still, it was a nice day to be outside, and I got a few decent photos.

I heard barking and turned around - a relative of Mochi was atop this wall!

You could see Seoul Namsan Tower from certain spots.

National Folk Museum of Korea @ Gyeongbok Palace as seen from Bukchon
Daewoo Matiz police car!! (And you know I love me some Matiz...)
There's a new (and huge) art museum under construction at the nexus of Bukchon and Gyeongbok, called the UUL National Art Museum. It has an... interesting faux-graffiti advertising on the walls surrounding the construction site. More info here.

At the intersection between Bukchon and Gyeongbok Palace (which I blogged about here if you're wondering why it doesn't feature in this post).

K-Pop: Girls Generation Reviewed by Americans

K-Pop group Girls Generation appeared on Letterman on 1/31. Take a look at their performance:

Now, appearing on Letterman is a big freakin' deal for any musical act, so the fact that they scored this is pretty impressive. Of course, just because you've appeared on Letterman doesn't mean that your career is made and that you'll be taking the US by storm.

There have been several posts in the expat-in-Korea blogosphere about this over the past week:

From Roboseyo: Girls Generation on Letterman (소녀시대 on 레터맨)

From A Blog Abroad: It's an Asian Invasion!! Maybe.

I'm no Picasso has an answer to a Formspring question on this.

The Metropolitician has two posts on this topic: On the Embarrassing Debut of Girls' Generation on Letterman and Culture Codes and On the Value of Virtuosity

I should probably add before I write anything else that if it's not oldies or 80's pop, I don't dig it, so I'm hardly the one to judge the potential for success of ANY pop act.... still, my thoughts:

1. It reminds me a little of Who Let the Dogs Out? Something about the way the phrase we bring the boys out matches up a little too well with the phrase who let the dogs out, and after hearing this song, it was Who Let the Dogs Out that was stuck in my head.

2. My least favorite part was every time they did the 'Girls Generation make you feel the heat' refrain, which just sounded wooden and rather ridiculous to me.

3. One of those chicks totally looks like she went to Janet Jackson's plastic surgeon:

It's the Korean Janet Jackson!

Anyway, I decided to post the GG video on Facebook to see what the reactions were from typical Americans:

American Man #1, never been to Korea: Well, as a man who likes women it obviously has a certain appeal... but basically, Pussycat Dolls. Now, don't get me wrong... Asian version of Pussycat Dolls > original Pussycat Dolls, but if they do break into the US their appeal will likely be superficial and ephemeral. I just didn't see much other than the fact that they are visibly Asian, attractive by some standards, and doing music that sounds similar to a lot of stuff on mainstream pop radio.

American Woman #1, lives in Korea: The chick hunched over on the left at the beginning looks like she really needs a toilet. I have a feeling that a clip of Dave saying 감사합니다 is going to be all over TV.... forever.

She really looks constipated.
American Woman #2, never been to Korea: I agree with [American Man #1] it was the pussy cat dolls all over again. they reminded me of a group of cheerleaders... no offense to any cheerleaders out there but I was waiting for the moment they would make a pyramid. 
American Man #2, lives in Korea: IMHO Their Korean version of that song and their performances in general are much better than what they displayed on that show. 
American Woman #3, never been to Korea: i like it. the ladies are very pretty. i think it's about time asian people were more in the spotlight. i mean lisa ling and lucy liu are like the only asian people in popular culture that's not a whole lot. and really where is the asian sitcom. 
American Man #3, lives in Korea: Here are some reasons why I think K-Pop will not "make it" in the states: Their biggest selling points aren't really anything special. Sexy people, yawn. What pop star isn't sexy these days? The dances are snap locked to the track with no fluidity or emotion (for the opposite, watch Beyonce's "Single Ladies"). Their singing isn't really singing. Backing track my ass. If it is the same volume as the singer, its not "backing" anything. They can't really be interviewed in English, and will have a more difficult time connecting with an audience, hence why Letterman didn't interview them. They exude gimmick. And in a group with 10 or so members, none of them really distinguish themselves from each other. Its a parade of forgettable people with no personality. Granted, before you start telling me how different they are from each other and talented and all that crap, please bear in mind I'm not referring to them personally or individually. Their persona as a group is forgettable. On the other hand, I bet they could sell a hell of a lot of chicken in the USA. 

American Woman #4, used to live in Korea: It's as good as I've ever seen them, which means it's much better than the choked-up Wondergirls on So You Think You Can Dance a few years ago. However, I find the girls' gen to be really awkward in this song--it should be more in your face sexual and they're too cutesy cutesy to pull it off. In that way, they are inferior to the PCD. Just an opinion. I think 2ne1 with Will i am have a better shot at true notice in the US. 

Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments!

Hammin' it up for the holidays

If you've spent time in Korea before, this will be old news. If this was your first Korean holiday (or if you're reading as someone who has never spent any time in Korea), well, it may come as a surprise to you, but.... SPAM is a big holiday gift item here. Really big. Before the major holidays of Chuseok and Seolnal, you can find SPAM gift sets everywhere from your corner convenience store to the big department stores to COSTCO. I took this photo in Lotte Mart on Friday:

Get your $40 SPAM set here!
I've never been able to figure the SPAM thing out, myself. Anyway, about two weeks ago, my office gave everybody a choice of Seolnal gift (employers typically give Seolnal and Chuseok gifts to their employees). Our choices were a ham set, or something like 35kg of rice. Now, as I'd bought a small bag of rice back in September and have yet to make a dent in it, I chose the ham. I had expected that by 'ham' they meant 'SPAM' - but apparently there are some perks to working in posh Yeouido after all:
A nice variety of pretty good ham.
(And the beasties are pretty pleased by its arrival, too!)
And speaking of the beasties - this is day 4 of my 5 day holiday, and I've spent most of it lounging about with these two critters :-)

stereotypical shock value korean food and noraebang post

I'm not a particularly big fan of seafood. Being from the American South, I prefer my seafood battered and deep-fried on the rare occasion that I eat any. However, as I've been popping in and out of South Korea since 2001, I've had plenty of occasions to eat a variety of seafood that is decidedly neither battered nor deep-fried. I now actually enjoy various fish products that I once would have found abhorrent, and I've even braved a variety of foods that even a year ago I would have refused to try. For many of my readers here in Korea this might be a typical reaction, and as such nothing in this post will come as much of a surprise. I'm posting this mainly for those of my readers who have never been to Korea, and never had such an experience.

We had another hwaeshik (회식) on Friday night. This time went much better than last time, as I insisted on taking the subway to our destination. This hwaeshik was a going away party for our intern, as it was her last day. (Sadly, this means I'm back to being the only chick in the department. Oi.) We went to 마차회집, a seafood restaurant in Mapo, which put a lot of effort into attractive displays of the various raw seafood products they served. I was also introduced to the Korean version of the Irish Car Bomb - a shot of soju in a glass of Hite. Oi. Anyhow, here are some photos and videos from the evening:

Toasting our former intern with Soju + Hite

Snail. I really do not like the texture.

Goldfish. Haha.

Sea Anemone. Again - not a fan of the texture; too crunchy.


I don't know enough about octopi nervous systems to understand how the legs continue wriggling after being disconnected from the body, but there they are. I even tried a piece, and it wasn't bad - although again, not a texture that I'm a particular fan of. And I was rather paranoid that it might suction itself onto the back of my throat. (I'd actually picked up a piece with my fingers, and it wrapped itself around my index finger and suctioned on, so I'd say that's a valid concern; I chomped it the instant it went into my mouth.)
True to hwaeshik form, we went to a noraebang (singing room) afterwards. You haven't lived until you've seen your coworkers boozily belt out The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

A visit to the National Museum of Korea

I'm not normally a fan of museums. I definitely don't like art museums; I'm rather a philistine, and simply cannot understand those folks who can spend hours upon hours in art museums. I love the Hermitage in St. Petersburg... for the architecture of the Winter Palace and the rooms with the Tsarist-era historical exhibits. Historical museums are more my thing, although I tend to prefer period locations (houses, castles, etc) filled with period items to sterile rooms filled with sterile objects, ripped from their original locations and placed safely behind glass. I also dig Cold War era propaganda.

My favorite museum in the world is the Тарых Мамлекеттик Музей - the State History Museum in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Not only is it filled with an insane collection of communist propaganda (including Ronald Reagan in a death's head mask, Dr. Strangelovin' it on on a nuke), but it has an entire floor of Soviet sculptures which one can play on and in and with, and which one can photograph (for a nominal fee, of course). Now that I have a much better camera than I had in 2008, I really must go back to Bishkek and spend some quality time in the museum.

Тарых Мамлекеттик Музей (State History Museum), Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 9/2008

But enough with the reminiscing. Yesterday two of my coworkers decided to take me to the National Museum of Korea, located next to the US Army garrison at Yongsan (near Itaewon). We met up at lunchtime, and had Mexican food at Toma Tillo. It wasn't Taquería Pancho Villa (my favorite Mexican restaurant back home), but it was still quite tasty - and VERY cheesy. Cheese is something I don't get nearly enough of over here.

After lunch I was interviewed by some folks from EBS, who were apparently looking for a foreigner who was willing to say that internet in Korea was crap. I totally disappointed them. Internet speed? Korea knocks it out of the park. Websites all in Korean? I just don't use them. Smartphone service? Yes, it's excellent. I do have some problems with many Korean websites (lack of sensible English translations, overuse of ActiveX, sites that only work on MSIE, etc), but I know better than to badmouth anything Korean in front of a camera!

We then took a taxi to the National Museum. It's located right next to Yongsan Garrison, on land that actually used to belong to the US base. (I remember seeing the building from the base when I was working there in '04; back then, it was still under construction.) It's quite an impressive building, with pleasant grounds on the Yongsan Family Park. For those who like museums filled with small things in glass cases, the place is incredibly impressive. While it obviously wasn't really my thing, it was still a quality museum (and surprisingly NOT crowded, unlike everywhere else in Seoul on a Saturday). My favorite exhibit was the collection of gigantic Buddhist statues. I was thoroughly disappointed by the sparse collection in the Central Asian exhibit. Anyway, photos:

After having seen all I wanted to see of the museum (my coworkers were still wandering about the exhibits), I decided to explore the Yongsan Family Park. It was pretty small, the bulk of it having been turned into the museum. I did, however, come across some bizarre statuary and some creepy playground equipment - including a thoroughly distressing six-legged (!) spider for children to play under.

I also stumbled upon a performance by the Kookmin University traditional Korean drum club. I didn't stay for all of it - as by that point my coworkers had wandered out of the museum and were ready to head out. I recorded this on my smartphone; the sound isn't very good, but I blame the phone, not the performers.

To see the entire set of photos from the museum and the park, CLICK HERE.

Deoksu Palace and the Seoul Drum Festival

Today was probably the last day of summer weather here in Seoul. The morning was gorgeous: sunny with blue skies, although unseasonably hot and humid. The weather had been predicted to change this afternoon (it did; it grew all cloudy), and rain is predicted for tomorrow. Starting Monday, it should be a good 15 degrees cooler (Fahrenheit of course) here.

I took advantage of this morning's good lighting, and headed for Deoksugung (Deoksu Palace, 덕수궁), one of the five Joseon Dynasty palaces in Seoul. (Gyeongbuk Palace, which I visited on Sunday, is another of the five - I figured I'd start my Seoul photography by hitting up all five.) Deoksu is a lot smaller than Gyeongbuk. While I wandered around Gyeongbuk for hours without seeing everything there was to see, I was able to explore the entire Deoksu complex (well, I didn't go to the art museum) in about 45 minutes. It is, however, a nice park, and it's conveniently located right next to City Hall. Entrance costs roughly $1.

I left the palace complex around noon... just as some rather loud and interesting sounding drumming started up across the plaza from the entrance. I went over to investigate, and discovered that the 2011 Seoul Drum Festival had just started. I really found myself wishing I'd shelled out the extra couple hundred dollars for a DSLR that also took video, as the photos I took don't really do it justice without the accompanying sounds. Ahh well.

The Palace of Shining Happiness

I interrupt your regularly scheduled American Interlude to bring you photos from my day here in South Korea. Today was the last day of the four day Chuseok weekend. While the weather this weekend was never as bad as predicted, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were pretty dreary. I went for a short walk around my new neighborhood on Monday, although as Monday was Chuseok proper, as it were, most things were closed, and pretty much no one was around. And it kept drizzling here and there. I gave up on the idea of exploration and returned home.

Today I woke up fairly early and got started editing my way through a ton of photos to go on two different websites. It's a rather lengthy project, and it's the kind of thing I can easily get sucked into and spend all day doing. Around 1:30, I looked out my window (alas, I only have the one...) and noticed that not only was it not raining, it wasn't even cloudy - sunny with blue skies! A few puffy whites floating here and there. Several hundred photos to edit? Meh. Time to go take a hundred or so more!

I haven't really done any of the historic/touristy stuff in Seoul since 2004 (other than my rainy trip to the Jongmyo Shrine back in July), so I decided to visit 경복궁 (gyeongbokgung, aka Gyeongbok Palace, or - according to Wikipedia, the Palace of Shining Happiness). Wikipedia does an excellent job of explaining the history of Gyeongbok Palace, so I'm going to skip over that and go straight to the photos. (Gyeongbok Palace is normally closed on Tuesdays; it was open today as part of the holiday celebration, and it was *packed.* Plus, anyone wearing a 한복 (hanbok, Korean traditional clothing) got in for free in honor of the holiday - there were quite a few people (mostly children) taking advantage of that deal. (Although it costs less than $3 to get in, and the park is huge, so it's an excellent value at full price!) But I was going straight to the photos and I got sidetracked... here you go!

The Changing of the Guard takes place on the hour,
every hour from 10am to 4pm.




The building in the center was apparently the king's throne room.

Stone kitty :-)


This building is actually part of the National Folk Museum of Korea - although it looks astonishingly Japanese to me.

Pavilion of Far-Reaching Fragrance. I kid you not.

You know I like my orange flowers.

Former royal banquet hall