Korean Queue
by James Na ~ March 26th, 2006. Filed under: Korean Culture. Anyone see the irony in this?
At least 35 people, most of them teenagers, were injured in a stampede when tens of thousands scrambled to enter the Lotte World amusement park in Seoul on Sunday, the first of six intended days of free admissions. The event was meant as a way of apologizing for a recent accident at the amusement park when a worker plunged to his death from a rollercoaster car [boldface mine].
In my view, one the the most visible signs of a given nation or culture’s level of civilization is the ability of its people to form an orderly queue spontaneously without any direction from someone in the authority — in other words, out of enlightened self-interest and an innate sense of fairness, rather than fear of punishment from above. Otherwise, a nation can have a high GDP per capita and still be backward.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
Amen to that. Just last October 11 people died in a stampede for a free concert in Sangju, although that had more to do with mismanagement. Still, as usual, there were calls for better crowd control that were quickly forgotten–this is a trend in Korea, the accidents, the hand-wringing, nothing done by the authorities and then repeat ad infinitum.
March 27th, 2006 at 5:46 am
Why should the authorities be responsible? How about…and I know this is a stretch…people that fuck up are actually resposibe for it?
I’m a Korean scientist…lots of social pressure made me…make it all up.
I’m a Korean lawmaker…..sojo made me…grop a reporter that I thought was the bar owner which would have made it ok.
I’m a dumb shit, I want free access, but the public security didn’t take into account the fact that I’m not responsible for my desire to push and shove regardless of other people…
Yea, its the fault of the institution.
March 27th, 2006 at 7:40 am
Watch video of what happened…it’s those damn 빠순이. If every you hear a story of people stampeding in the ROK, I guarantee those uniformed imps are the driving force.
March 27th, 2006 at 9:49 am
Koreans are not the only Asians who disregard queues. When the Disneyland at Honk Kong was sold out, it was reported that many Chinese tried to jump over the fence or beat up the security guards. Also, Japanese subway riders are famous for pushing and shoving, not to mention groping females.
One explanation for this is that Asian countries have high population densities, which creates intense competition for access to public facilities or when driving. The Westerners are more patient about waiting in lines, because their lines tend to be shorter.
March 27th, 2006 at 10:31 am
Well, the crowds of people who take the subway in Japan make pushing and shoving necessary if one wishes to get on and off. The groping is just the act of perverts who need serious, professional help.
But you can’t say that westerners are more patient because their lines tend to be shorter. Anyone who’s ever been to an amusement park or stood in line while overworked civil servants try to do the work of three people can tell you that lines are about the same in the east and the west. Perhaps the west’s lines being slightly longer at times.
What happened at Lotte world had nothing to do with population densities or long lines. It had more to do with a half-baked idea that wasn’t completely thought out and a prevalent Korean notion that the right amount of grumbling will get you anything, and if that doesn’t work, physical force is an acceptable alternative.
March 27th, 2006 at 10:46 am
High population density does contribute to people being more competitive and aggressive. Laboratory tests done on rats confirm this theory, and that’s where the phrase ‘a rat’s race’ came from. Living in crowded places over a long period of time influences people’s attitudes and habits.
March 27th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
You do realize people aren’t rats. Or at least, they shouldn’t be.
We have a thing called “reason,” which is supposed to be exercised occasionally — which is why I wrote of “enlightened self-interest and an innate sense of fairness.”
March 27th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
Human nature can be better or worse than rats.
March 27th, 2006 at 10:29 pm
Yes, human nature can be worse than a rat’s nature, but the difference is that humans can override their primal urges and learn how to control themselves and not put others at risk.
Many Koreans have yet to learn that and 35 injured along with 70+ lost children show just how dangerous a lack of reason can be.
March 27th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
One explanation for this is that Asian countries have high population densities, which creates intense competition for access to public facilities or when driving.
I don’t buy that at all. Scientific experiments or not.
Every time something like this happens, there’s always a Korean out there somewhere willing to make a heartfelt stab-in-the-dark futile attempt to “explain” it all away using pseudo-scientific theories to back up her assertions.
Rather than chalk the tragedy up to a bunch of greedy goobers who would willingly trample, crush, and even kill a fellow human being to save the $30 admission fee, in a culture where such agressive behavior is rewarded [or at least not punished] and observable at every line in the country at all times of day or night, REGARDLESS of the number of other people in line, you spend too much breath and energy trying to explain it away instead, as if you could make it look more excusable by implying that Korea is some sort of cultural petri dish from which we should all learn important lessons of crowd control and socially acceptable means of “sechigi”.
No way.
Until you’ve been the only person in line at the subway window, with two or three other windows open, but with no one in line, and had some ajumma elbow you in the ribs and slap her money down as she butts in front of you rather than go to another window, you clearly don’t know Korea as well as you think you do.
This behavior is not about crowded rats. It’s about a sense of “might-makes-right” and a lack of self-control in a country where self-image and one’s place in society are defined by how much influence one can exert over others, whether in the car running red lights, thus making others wait on me, or by rushing the gates at Lotte World so that I can be the one to get in first, fastest, and most importantly, before YOU.
Life is a zero sum game to Koreans. Everything I get is something YOU can’t get. Every time I win, YOU lose.
That makes ME better than YOU.
In the words of Lennon and McCartney, who I strongly suspect had secretly visited Korea for a quick Lotte World vacation before writing this song, and which I secretly suspect has replaced “Aegukga” as Korea’s National Anthem:
All thru’ the day I, me, mine,
I, me, mine, I, me, mine.
All thru’ the night I, me, mine, I, me, mine, I, me, mine.
Now they’re frightened of leaving it,
Ev’ryone’s weaving it,
Coming on strong all the time,
All thru’ the day I, me, mine.
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Limo/3518/i_me_mine.htm
Why is it that every time something good happens in Korea it’s because Koreans are so smart and so clever and so special and show great dexterity by eating their miracle food kimchi with metal chopsticks, but when something bad happens it’s because lab rat experiments prove people are all the same crazy animals everywhere?
Gonna hafta try harder than that, Mi-Hwa.
March 28th, 2006 at 6:33 am
Ziggy: You are right that human behavior is more complex than that of rats. Also, it wasn’t my intention to excuse bad behaviors, but to understand the conditions that cause them. Many Koreans are very polite to the people they know, but they can be rude in public places. The level of public courtesy is not as well-developed in Korean culture, as it is in some cultures.
In addition to high population density, there are many other factors. Many Koreans like to brag about how quick they are in getting things done, and that desire to be quick can cause them to rush. Koreans do not have a long Judeo-Christian heritage that most Western countries have, which instilled srong morals in Westerners. A few generations ago, Korea used to be extremely poor, and the scarcity mentality can still drive Koreans to try to get things before other people do. There are other conditions as well.
March 28th, 2006 at 9:20 am
Koreans do not have a long Judeo-Christian heritage that most Western countries have, which instilled strong morals in Westerners.
The first half of that sentence may be true. But so what? Koreans had a long Confucian heritage which was meant to instil strong morals in Koreans - and look what we have here.
I think it is more about the lack of education on civility - there is a general ignorance of what form of public conduct is acceptable.
March 28th, 2006 at 11:34 am
Re the comment on Confucianism and queueing up:
I once had it theorized to me that the reason why Koreans would cut in front of me in “lines” was that the stranger (and as a red-headed anglo I was definitely that) I did not fit in that person’s relationship matrix (inhwa?). There’s hardly enough time for introductions (age, educational background, job, possibly mutual friends) needed to establish context for every person you meet in a dense metropolis, hence the next best thing is to ignore other people as much as possible rather than interacting with them incorrectly.
Or maybe they were just trying to make me feel better about bein elbowed out of the way by countless ajuma..
March 29th, 2006 at 12:16 am
I wrote about this a while back (on The Marmot’s Hole, I think).
Beneath the exterior of an advanced industrialized economy, Korea is a still a tribal, clannish society.
Your family matters. Your high school/university alumns matter. Your friends matter. The rest are merely competitors for your “primary group.”
Thus there is little gentlemanliness or sense of fairplay toward those outside the primary group while affection, kindness and resources are devoted plentifully to those inside.
One sees this kind of behavior magnified a hundred fold among, say, the desert Bedouins, particularly in the old days.
The “in” group is fiercely protected. Outsiders encountered in the desert can be robbed of all belongings (including water) and then killed without much thought. Only the reputation of your clan’s vengeance kept you alive when you were unprotected against others in the desert.
It’s very much a kind of “social Darwinism,” that I personally abhor (which I might add also became the foundation of Nazi eugenics and the Holocaust).
Of course, one can take this kind of analogy too far, but there is some truth to the notion that the West inherited the Roman notion of Civitas greater than a tribe or clan, whereas a society like South Korea is still, at its core, mired in a tribalism, despite the hi-techy exterior.
Chalk it up to the fact that the West evolved a notion of citizenship from the Roman days, whereas Korea and other societies like it were made of subjects whose lords and kings kept them divided by encouraging tribalism.
March 29th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Mi-Hwa,
Monocausal explanations are usually defective, but your monocausal explanation is the most defective of them all.
Have you ever been to Singapore? The last time I checked, that little island state has a population density some dozen times greater than that of South Korea. Yet the only people exhibiting law-less behavior are spoiled progeny of Western executives. Further, your argument would have more weight if this type of behavior doesn’t occur at all in the less densely-populated areas of South Korea, but I’ve seen the same thing in si-gol as well.
I agree with Mr. Na that a “tribal” mentality is one of the main culprits for this lawlessness.
But perhaps a better and more comprehensive explanation, though not necessarily incompatible with Mr. Na’s, is that the culture of the rule of law is simply foreign to Korea or East Asia as a whole. Unlike the post-Hobbesian West, the basic ingredient that held traditional Confucian societies together is power, not contract or law. There is little in the way of self-legislating, “ordered freedom” in traditional Confucian thought, or more precisely in the Confucian-Legalist amalgam that dominated East Asian political discourse. Hence, traditionally, the lack of compulsion from above is interpreted as synonymous with absolute license, a situation where all is permissible.
This is admittedly a highly stylized version–perhaps even a caricature–of East Asian political thought and culture, but as Leo Strauss says, the caricature still says something of the topic. (And it is certainly a truer account of Confucianism and its interaction with East Asian society than those of Western apologists such as William Theodore de Bary.) To my knowledge, the best introduction to the lawless character of East Asian society is found in Hahm Chaihark’s “Law, Culture, and the Politics of Confucianism.”
Shim Jae Hoon, the most respected Korean pundit writing in English, has written about this as well, in a column titled “Korea As Incivil Society.”
Finally, both Nick Eberstadt and I have written about it in relation to the recent impeachment imbroglio involving Mr. Roh:
http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501040329-603259,00.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/FI04Dg01.html
March 29th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
You know, I was going to bring up Singapore at one point.
Singapore is an interesting case, however. Its leaders tout “Asian-ness” or Confucianism or whatever moniker that justifies its lack of full democracy… Yet its civic culture appears to me to be very much colonial British with all the good and bad that entails.
March 29th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
Mr. Na,
I agree with you on Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew’s creation is really an amalgam of English law and political institutions and Confucian political culture.
But the government still feels it need to impose draconian measures to ensure public law-abidingness (for a lack of better word). This to me indicates that the government thinks that its Chinese majority (or plurality?) has not sufficiently internalized Western norms of civility and law-abidingness to be truly free.
March 29th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
WJ, As always, your comments made me think. Welcome.
March 30th, 2006 at 10:37 am
Ah I see I forgot to mention that this sort of crush can happen in the most ‘civilised’ of nations - the UK:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/16511541?source=PA&ct=5
March 30th, 2006 at 11:13 am
Well, Civitas is in serious decline in the West, as exemplified by your linked story and continuing tales of English youth’s soccer hooliganism even outside the U.K. borders.
Having said that, I wasn’t suggesting that only Koreans were capable of this kind of rat-like behavior.
But it seems to happen more frequently in some countries than others.