What's Wrong With Korea?

Do you have a ‘hobby’ country you follow just out of pure curiosity? No personal ties, no deep connections, but you find yourself keeping up with it anyway just to see how it develops?

It’s fun. It also keeps you from thinking the entire world is the same as your country like this tweet.

For most of human history, this is how people worked. They worked hard simply to survive. Life was often about meeting immediate needs.The idea of upward mobility, ambition, or striving for more was not always realistic. Even for most countries today, that’s still the case.

This tweet makes sense in America’s culture of ambition. It’s unique in that it assumes opportunities are plentiful and ambition and hard work are always intertwined.

On Korea

I have a few ‘hobby’ countries, but Korea is one of my favorites.

That’s because Korea is the closest thing we have to a "country of the future." Travelers go there and make TikToks show us a place that feels like a sci-fi movie come to life. Convenience stores run by robots, lightning-fast internet everywhere, smart cities designed for efficiency. This is what all the ‘smart people’ say the future will look like.

@twosometravellers

⚠️ South Korea living in the future🚦 Leave your thoughts in the comments! 👇🏼 #southkorea #korea #korealife #koreanlife #southkorea🇰🇷 #sout... See more

@palindri

#lifeinkorea #korea

It’s richer than Japan now. The streets are clean, the crime is low, the economy is flush with cash, it’s internationally known for it’s K-Pop, it’s dramas, it’s film industries, it’s super modern and high tech cities.

But South Korea’s numbers don’t reveal the full picture. The sleek, futuristic success it projects hides something darker, something you won’t find in economic reports. To really understand, you have to look at the data behind the headlines, the stats that tell a different story.

By the late 2010s and early 2020s we started getting a small glimpse of this darker A wave of dramas and films tore apart that polished image, exposing the fractures beneath.

• Squid Game

• Parasite 

• Hellbound

This is a country that began topping the charts, not in wealth or growth metrics, but in some of the worst social statistics imaginable.

It has the highest suicide rates in the world

It is the most workaholic society in the world

Men and women hate each other that manifested in a movement called the 4B movement.

It has the lowest birthrate in the world by far. The country is literally heading to extinction in a few generations.

75% of younger South Koreans want to leave country

It has the highest elder poverty rate in the developed world

There is way more.

• South Korea has the highest per capita rate of plastic surgeries in the world.

• South Korea has some of the fastest internet speeds and highest rates of digital connectivity in the world along with internet and gaming addiction

• South Korea has an intense educational system, with one of the highest rates of private tutoring and cram schools (called hagwons).

• Students often study for 12-16 hours a day to prepare for the highly competitive university entrance exams.

Does this look like a healthy society to you? If this is the country of the future, what does this say about the future?

South Korea is Not The Country of the Future

The good news is, I don’t think South Korea represents the future for anyone but itself. South Korea’s struggles, its relentless drive, high-pressure society, and obsession with status aren’t just products of technology or capitalism, they’re rooted deeply in the unique aspects of Korean culture and history. That’s why you won’t learn about Korea by studying the system. You need to study the people. The culture.

Studying the system only gives you a small portion of the truth.

When you go beyond the tech and dig into who the Korean people are, you see how distinct their values, traditions, and cultural pressures make them so unique.

There is evidence for my thesis in the existence of North Korea. A completely separate system with the same people that ended up becoming a communist dystopia much different than any other communist regime.

North Korea Communist Dystopia

The 2000s and 2010s was a period of time Americans were fascinated by North Korea. The tension were elevated. Kim Jong un was discussing bombing America. What followed is a wave of documentaries on North Korea on this strange country

• Kimjongilia (2009)

• The Vice Guide to North Korea (2011)

• The Red Chapel (2009)

• Under the Sun (2015)

• The Defector: Escape from North Korea (2012)

• My Brothers and Sisters in the North (2016)

North Korean communism doesn’t look like the USSR or East German communism at all. It is a hereditary communist monarchy, which goes against the original purpose of communism. It’s a system of complete isolation with no access to the outside world and the Juche ideology resembles a religion.

North Korea's model blends Communism with monarchical, nationalist, and militaristic elements, creating a rigid, highly stratified society that serves both to protect the regime and maintain its grip on power.

it’s basically communism reimagined through a distinctly Korean lens, one that prioritizes extreme nationalism and loyalty to the ruling family. The isolation, devotion to the leader, and hyper-controlled society show that North Korea’s model is as unique to Korean culture as South Korea’s high-tech capitalism.

In the end, both North and South Korea show that systems, whether capitalist or communist, are ultimately molded by the people and culture they operate within. Rather than representing universal templates, these two Koreas stand as reminders that societal structures cannot simply be copied.

The future is still up for grabs.

Study People, Not Just Systems