the good ole' korean work ethic....
I realize now that its been a while since i made my last post; i was spoiling my faithful readers the past while with multiple posts, and since then i've dropped off. but two people sent me remarks in e-mails in the past week reminding me of my "duty", in other words, to let you know how this part of the world is doing, and so here we go.
when generally referring to the work ethic in asia, most people allude to the fact that they generally put the north american work ethic to shame. what most people don't realize is that north american's actually do work incredibly hard (we put the French, and most of europe to shame with our work habits...) regardless, i digress. however, when comparing societies, most people think that koreans and asians work seventy hour work weeks, and they log massive ammounts of hours behind their desks. well, i'm here to somewhat dispell that myth. asians generally do work hard, thier is no doubting that fact. but allow this picture below to explain a few things.
for those of you who don't have good enough eyes to interpret the picture, allow me to describe it to you. in this picture, you will see a prime example of a korean "working" hard... what you can't see all that well is that he's sleeping in his car, on a five lane inner-city highway, and he's just decided to pull over and take a siesta. now, this is not uncommon at all. koreans by nature work some of the strangest hours that you will ever hear of. for example, in my neighbourhood, there are no more than four optometrist offices located on different street corners. two of these glasses stores are open until 11pm on sunday night. yup, 11pm sunday night. i can't imagine that he gets a lot of business much past five o'clock, but he's open till 11pm with two staff members. and this is not uncommon - its not only related to optometrist shops.... the other fact is that most korean stores do not open until roughly 10, 11am in the morning, or whenever they get around to it. it seems lacksidasical (sp?), and to most north american's, it doesn't make any sense whatsover. why stay open so late? theres no logic to it- when you look for logic, you'll find nothing but more confusing answers.....you just look at it, pause for a second, and then chalk it up to what we call "korean style" - basically, take something logical, confuse it, and then presto, you have "korean style". now sure, that's my interpretation. i'm sure that there's a completely logical explanation for their reasons for doing things they way they do them, and i'm positive that it has something to do with history (we've always done things this way, so why change....we're one of the most powerful countries in asia now, and we're isolated from the world....(unless you count North Korea....), so if you don't like korean style, then leave).
and to their credit, they deserve their due. they can only ship thier products to whomever wants them - trucking is out of the question when you have to go through north korea...and so is by train....(read my last blog if that one doesn't make sense) so they have to work twice as hard to market thier products. but when you've been here for a bit, you have to wonder, because korean style seems so strange to the north american style; we've been so successful with capitalism, that it makes other styles seem so complicated. but why reinvent the wheel, right?
well, thats about all for me. for those of you who have been looking for a good article on what its like to work for a hogwan (my school's semi-official title), my parents sent me a great link to a cbc article that's posted online. it basically gives you a good idea on what a lot of people my age have been doing. here is the link: peruse if you so desire.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_cerralbo/20050530.html
take care all, and i will talk to you sometime soon i'm sure
me
when generally referring to the work ethic in asia, most people allude to the fact that they generally put the north american work ethic to shame. what most people don't realize is that north american's actually do work incredibly hard (we put the French, and most of europe to shame with our work habits...) regardless, i digress. however, when comparing societies, most people think that koreans and asians work seventy hour work weeks, and they log massive ammounts of hours behind their desks. well, i'm here to somewhat dispell that myth. asians generally do work hard, thier is no doubting that fact. but allow this picture below to explain a few things.
for those of you who don't have good enough eyes to interpret the picture, allow me to describe it to you. in this picture, you will see a prime example of a korean "working" hard... what you can't see all that well is that he's sleeping in his car, on a five lane inner-city highway, and he's just decided to pull over and take a siesta. now, this is not uncommon at all. koreans by nature work some of the strangest hours that you will ever hear of. for example, in my neighbourhood, there are no more than four optometrist offices located on different street corners. two of these glasses stores are open until 11pm on sunday night. yup, 11pm sunday night. i can't imagine that he gets a lot of business much past five o'clock, but he's open till 11pm with two staff members. and this is not uncommon - its not only related to optometrist shops.... the other fact is that most korean stores do not open until roughly 10, 11am in the morning, or whenever they get around to it. it seems lacksidasical (sp?), and to most north american's, it doesn't make any sense whatsover. why stay open so late? theres no logic to it- when you look for logic, you'll find nothing but more confusing answers.....you just look at it, pause for a second, and then chalk it up to what we call "korean style" - basically, take something logical, confuse it, and then presto, you have "korean style". now sure, that's my interpretation. i'm sure that there's a completely logical explanation for their reasons for doing things they way they do them, and i'm positive that it has something to do with history (we've always done things this way, so why change....we're one of the most powerful countries in asia now, and we're isolated from the world....(unless you count North Korea....), so if you don't like korean style, then leave).
and to their credit, they deserve their due. they can only ship thier products to whomever wants them - trucking is out of the question when you have to go through north korea...and so is by train....(read my last blog if that one doesn't make sense) so they have to work twice as hard to market thier products. but when you've been here for a bit, you have to wonder, because korean style seems so strange to the north american style; we've been so successful with capitalism, that it makes other styles seem so complicated. but why reinvent the wheel, right?
well, thats about all for me. for those of you who have been looking for a good article on what its like to work for a hogwan (my school's semi-official title), my parents sent me a great link to a cbc article that's posted online. it basically gives you a good idea on what a lot of people my age have been doing. here is the link: peruse if you so desire.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_cerralbo/20050530.html
take care all, and i will talk to you sometime soon i'm sure
me