The boozy, narcissistic culture shock of working in South Korea
Frank Ahrens was director of global p.r. for Hyundai, based out of their Seoul, South Korea, headquarters. One day, his employee Eduardo gave him shocking news.
“Sir, I got a hair transplant!”
Eduardo, in his mid-20s, had “a full head of hair worn long enough to touch his collar and cover his ears and his forehead. If you looked at Eduardo’s head, there was no place you could think of to put more hair,” Ahrens writes.
As Eduardo proudly showed him the stitches from the transplant, which cost almost $3,000, an incredulous Ahrens asked why he did it.
Eduardo explained that he’d seen hair come out in the shower and thought he noticed his hairline begin to recede just slightly. He added that everyone he’d spoken to — from his team members at work to his parents, who paid for the procedure — agreed this was the right thing to do.
Welcome to South Korea.
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Korea’s culture of personal improvement would make a Kardashian blush, as plastic surgery is far more pervasive than in the US. This obsession with appearance is known there as “lookism.”
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The motives for this go beyond narcissism, speaking instead to the intense competitiveness of Korean culture, where résumés include headshots, Ahrens writes.
“Job applicants know that in Korea, as everywhere in the world, the better-looking of two equally qualified job seekers will likely get the position,” he writes.
“So instead of being hypocritical, as Koreans would say Americans are by pretending looks don’t matter, Koreans understand the system and try to succeed within it . . . to not choose plastic surgery, if it will improve your employment and life prospects, would be considered . . . ill-advised.”
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As obsessed as Koreans are with appearance, they are equally driven, somewhat ironically, by alcohol (which rarely improves anyone’s looks once the booze wears off). After a hard day at the office, corporate Koreans are expected to socialize with their co-workers, drinking like frat boys with something to prove.
Ahrens, normally a two- or three-beer drinker at best, writes that he had “been warned and had read about the Korean drinking culture,” which is so omnipresent he was asked about his drinking in his first job interview with the company.
“I was asked, ‘Do you drink alcohol? Your team will want to show respect to you by giving you drinks.’ ” He mentioned that while he can “enjoy a good beer,” he was sure “there were other ways my team could demonstrate their respect.”
He was wrong.
Koreans, it turns out, drink “more alcohol than anyone on Earth.” One study found that the typical Korean “downed an average of 11 shots of alcohol per week.”
That’s more than double the average Russian, who comes in at No. 2 with a measly five.
I've seen plenty of studies that show South Korea as being a top consumer of alcohol but never any that put them at # 1. Have they been catching up or is everyone else laying off the sauce?
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