No Country for Old People | Korea Exposé

South Korea’s Angry Young Men | Korea Exposé

… the situation of South Korea in which everyone is conditioned to see him- or herself as a “have” at all cost, even going to the length of stepping on anyone perceived to have less power just to demonstrate one’s own powerfulness …

Ilbe is another incarnation of the have-nots who pretend to have. Refusing to accept the truth of not being a somebody in a country where being a nobody is a fate worse than death, these young people lash out, unaware of their own moral degeneration into “hungry ghosts” - agwi - to borrow Park’s description: twisted creatures whose hunger is so intense they try to devour anything but can never fill that void inside. …

South Korea’s young people are dealing with a miserable reality. They undergo onerous education for a promise that their future will amount to something. But when they graduate, landing a covetable job is fiercely competitive. Costs of living are high, and renting a place of your own, much less homeownership, is near impossible for a single person without the help of well-to-do parents. Everyone says one should get married and have children, but the expense of establishing a family is daunting. Consumption is endlessly encouraged. Debts pile up. There appears to be no hope on the horizon.