I'm a terribly eurocentric person, so even when I'm a freak of worldwide geography/history/society/politics, most of my reading and documentary watching is focused on Europe or on whatever threatens her. In the last years, my interest for the French present and future has made me also pay rather attention to Maghreb and la Francophonie in general. Saying this, my knowledge about South Korea (and East Asia in general) is pretty minimum, so my vision limits itself to something like this:
A modern country with a strong economy based on its technological giants (Samsung, LG...), with a highly qualified (and hardworking) population, educated in a too competitive and exhausting system. A country still at war (though in pause since the USA intervention/invasion, a peace treaty has never been signed) with its northern crazy brother, with a massive metropolis called Seoul, with pretty beatiful women, and with a distinctive culture that has managed to survive the meddling from her too big, and for most of the history unfriendly, neighbours, China and Japan.
I guess most people will share a similar vision. Technological giants, highly qualified population, no religious problems, apparently not known for suffering serious natural catastrophes... With all the problems that European societies are experiencing: the economy in southern Europe, the islamist invasion and radicalisation (along with its "tendency" to delinquency) in France, Belgium... the rise of far-right extremism... one could think of South Korea as a pretty good place to live. Well, I've been watching some documentaries lately and it does not seem to be so nice.
I already mentioned above that South Korea seemed to me as a rather competitive society, but I thought this was mainly during the educational phase. Watching this documentary it seems to be at all levels of society. There are more and more koreans (from students to highly priced professionals of any sector) going crazy to find whatever job abroad that allows them to flee the country and move into a "normal life". It comes to mind how nice it would be to kick out of France any Salafist piece of shit, or anyone with an important criminal record and replace him/her with a friendly atheist/Christian/Buddhist, law abiding South Korean folk. One could only dream of seeing any "quartier sensible" were Islamists and dealers reign supreme transformed into a "Petit Seoul". Furthermore, with all these guys working and paying taxes rather than living off our taxes and collapsing the social security system, maybe there would be money to finally bring the high speed train to Toulouse!!!
If thinking about alcohol problems, Russia and Finland came immediatelly to my mind. I also knew that Japanase tend to drink quite a lot when they quit the office, but I had no idea of how bad the problem is in South Korea. This documentary is just terrifying. After a stressful and hardly competitive working day good part of the population can not find better way to relax that to gather around massive amounts of alcohol, gatherings where competition continues, this time to see who manages to drink more and more.
I'm quite aware of the problems of an aging society. Asturies has one of the lowest birth rates in the world which combined with low immigration and high emigration has produced a very strong aging of society. Japan is well known as the fastest aging society in the world (very low fertility rate combined with a rather unfriendly immigration policy), but it seems South Korea is facing a huge problem with this also. I don't know about its immigration policy, but fertility rate is pretty low and furthermore young people are running away!
Much worse than being an aging society is the fact that a huge percentage of the elderly live in misery. This documentary is really shocking. South Korea did not have until 1988 a pension system, so many people were not in the system for time enough to be entitled to a normal pension and now have to survive on some minimum social benefits. In the past this was not a problem as children would take care of their parents, but in a growingly individualist society where family links just disappear, this is no longer the case and the situation has turned into a real drama.
So next time you feel depressed for how decadent and collapsing our European society seems to your eyes, think that other seemingly thriving societies are also in the shit
Pd: I'm a bit ashamed of having linked stuff produced by that Qatary channel. I profoundly hate that shit country that has been funding salafist scum all over the world and I can not wait for the day when their petrol and gaz economy will collapse, to see them back on their knees, back on what they are, a bunch of illiterate extremists living in a fucking desert... This said, I have to admit that for topics where Islam does not have any sort of realation, the channel has some rather good documentaries.
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