Of Why I Admire South Korea and Koreans
I just do, you know. Before coming to Australia, I’ve never seen or meet any Koreans before. But then when I arrived at Sydney, I was put in a class full of them 
Anyway, if could have been the fact that I thought Korean chicks are hot, or the fact that I liked how Korea was portrayed in the movies that I saw, I was soon a fan of it.
It’s amazing how far South Korea has come since 1957. Back then, the Korean Civil War broke out, with the US backing the South and the Soviets the North. Back then, South Korea was so weak that the North initiated an invasion of it. It was defeated thanks to the US’s backing, but it left the South with destroyed infrastructure with nothing much to start with. Think about it, South Korea was at the state where most poorer African countries are right now.
With the preservation of free-market capitalism, South Korea then embarked upon the tremendous ‘Asian Tigers’ economic reform program to modernise itself, along with Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. All were ultimately successful, in record times to boot, and resulted in those countries now having first world economies, but usually accompanied by third world politics. It only took these nations 30 years, or one generation to completely haul themselves up from being a third world to first, unprecedented in history and previously thought to be impossible by the economic experts.
South Korea decided to follow the Japanese path to prosperity. With significant assistance from its government, it started up business behemoths called ‘chaebols’ where a select few business people were given generous financial and political assistance by the government to develop their business in targeted fields. These chaebols were fashioned after the Japanese’s keiretsus.
Despite some corruption and the inevitable cronyism and nepotism that usually accompany these companies, many still flourished. The best known chaebols now are Hyundai, Kia, Samsung, and LG. I still remembered when I was younger, like in junior high, brands like Samsung and LG were just newcomers to the electronics and telecommunications fields. People will admit that those brands were ‘ok’, but somewhat on the second tier. American, European and Japanese products were considered to be superior to these.
However, in just about 6 years from then, LG is now considered a first tier mobile phone manufacturer. Samsung is now competing head on with Panasonic and Toshiba, and Kia and Hyundai are carving a large niche for itself in the lower-end car market globally. Amazing. I salute them for their achievements.
On the people itself, Koreans are quite unique. They are a very insular bunch, preferring to stick to their own kind, or at least that’s what I’ve noticed. They’re a pretty nationalistic bunch too. Plus, they’re generally considered to be the most unruly bunch of the East Asians Something like the Irish of the East, if you want. Another interesting thing that I’ve noticed about them is their very ‘Confucius’ mannerisms. Due to Ancient China’s sphere of influence in times past, both Korea and Japan have adopted a lot of Chinese culture. Koreans actually bow to older Koreans. Even in high school. Haha, I personally think that’s pretty cool. I like to think that the reason why the Chinese are not as ‘Confucius’ in their mannerism as the Koreans and Japanese is because communism/socialism has touched China, but not those two other nations. As a result, egalitarianism and equality was initially the flavour of the day for the common Chinese people. These ideas were not compatible with Confucius’s teachings of age hierarchy, obedience to one’s leaders, etc. Hence the reason why Chinese PRC girls seem so much more ‘independent’ compared to their more submissive Korean and Japanese counterparts. Oh yeah, which brings me to another thing about those Koreans. They’re a very male-orientated society.
Anyway, just a short rant on them. Props to my Korean brothers then! 
