Question for South Koreans here:
Is this real or is this report just the usual exaggeration by western media?
Asking because Reuter’s has a biased reporting for anything related to India, and I’m wondering if they have a similar lens / filter for South Korea. (I’m from India in US)
Reuters also has a history of bad reporting wrt Japan, at least as far as I'm concerned. They often translate things incorrectly and lead with conclusions based on that mistranslation. They are not the only ones on my "usually biased news" list, though. The Japan Times often picks up stories from the Yomiuri Shinbun, which are questionable in nature and translates them. These are then often picked up by the BBC.
What I find interesting, though, is that I don't think it is necessarily editing bias. I think it's actually the opposite: poor editing. What I've found is that when I've found stories that are mistranslated, or which contain seemingly intentionally misleading information, it's actually the same reporters. It is really only a handful of reporters that seem to be responsible for all of the crap news stories. The problem is that the editors seem to let the stories through (possibly because they are money makers???).
I'm not going to name names (of reporters) because my "analysis" is really adhoc and probably also biased. However, I encourage people to look at the by-lines and see if you find any patterns with types of stories and their authors. Don't assume that because it's reported by a reputable news service that the information is correct and unbiased.
I've seen some truly awful journalism from Reuters. Articles that were so agenda driven as to almost laughably gloss over facts in order to present the desired narrative. (Laughable if reputations and money weren't on the line.)
I've called some of the offending journalists out on social media, which I encourage everyone to do.
I have several major news apps on my phone and what I've found is that they're all reporting the same story, with very similar biases, within minutes of each other.
They all seem to drink from the same fountain.
You'd basically need to know what biases which outlets have to what stories and apply a filter accordingly, which can be extremely time consuming.
With the AP, it depends heavily on the thing they're covering. Often times they try to give every side and are indeed pretty good, but then I noticed that i.e. when it comes to Palestine, they often run headlines like "Palestinians dead in Gaza", which implies that some Palestinians just dropped dead, while in reality the headline should have been "Israel shoots Palestinians in Gaza" or similar.
They even did this when their own reporter, who was clearly marked PRESS was shot.
Here's the story as reported by the AP[1], notice the headline: "AP cameraman shot during Gaza protest", no mention of Israel and might even give the impression that Gazans shot him.
The vast majority of people only skim the headlines and AP knows this, so this is hardly an accident.
Serious question: How is it possible for AP reporter to know the nationality of the shooter? To be honest "AP cameraman shot during Gaza protest" is a more accurate and correct reporting by the reporter. Isn't it?
I have no bias in this conflict, I'm neither pro/anti palestenians/israelis, because I just cant wrap my head around it, and I refuse to believe what any major news media tries to feed people about this conflict.
If all of AP reports are this unbiased, then probably I'll have to start subscribing to them.
Of course most people haven't heard of it. It is basically a gimmicky take on a silent retreat and there is only 1. I'm sure there are all sorts of odd takes on silent retreats in the US too.
I have been living in Korea for many years. I have never heard about it. I asked my Korean colleagues about it. They have never heard about it and they think that it is weird.
The article isn't saying the "prison retreat" thing is common, it's a meta commentary on the stress of Korean corporate life.
I have seen a question on HN about Japanese "Black Companies" before, and I believe patio11 said that they were an actual thing. So I'm not surprised a similar culture of overwork exists in South Korea.
(My only direct experience of South Koreans is that they always kick my ass at online games).
Black Companies [0] are a thing, but the discourse of Black Companies mostly serves to protect the mainline of Japanese work culture from the degree of criticism it deserves.
[0] A company so abusive of workers that it literally disgusts Japanese salarymen. Common elements include withholding pay, withholding pay for large amounts of mandatory overtime, ordering overtime in quantities sufficient to cause death by exhaustion, physical violence against staff, harassment of staff by management in a fashion far surpassing social norms, etc.
Yes, that used to be a common misconception in Korea until recently. It is completely false but such rumors can get viral very quickly. There are also many such misonceptions in the West. For instance, in the West, many people still believe that different areas of the tongues are used for different tastes (sweet, bitter,...).
You can find more such things in this famous wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconception...
> many people still believe that different areas of the tongues are used for different tastes (sweet, bitter,...)
We actually had that being stated as a fact in one of our elementary school books. Kind of concerning when even the writers of such books do not perform some basic research on the topics that they are trying to cover.
The prevalence of male infant circumcision in South Korea (over 80%) for dubious health benefits is another one of those lingering misconceptions. Even the US, a former bulwark of this custom, is more progressive in the gradual decline of it.
'Dubious at best' may be a better phrasing, but it seems to be a touchy subject in some countries (partly because of religion). Still, South Korea is an odd statistical outlier here.
Some interesting ones. Fortune cookies originating in Japan, and being seen by the Chinese as an American affectation - they're very rarely seen here in the UK so I can well believe it.
Are they rare in the UK? Common enough in my city for the last couple of decades. I think I first saw them on Friends (USA tv show), or a similar show.
At our regular Chinese takeaway the kids only get them if they come in with us; other places just include a handful.
Rare enough in my experience, perhaps I shouldn't generalise!
But I've never had them from a takeaway, and only once or twice in a restaurant. My experience is almost entirely from London and the South-East though.
Yes, we did until 5 to 10 years ago. Not anymore. Some incorrect information from TV made people believe like that from maybe 70s.
edit:
What really happened was, some very old people died because of hypothermia by fan when the fan was just introduced in South Korean market. At that time, no one knew about hypothermia so people believed it was suffocation. That became the urban myth.
>Do people actually think they'll die if they sleep with the fan on? Thats pretty weird to me.
There are people that legitimately believe Earth is flat.
For something less crazy, people were wearing surgical masks in photos of the California fires the past few weeks. They are wholly ineffective, a proper respirator with the appropriate filter is needed to make any impact on the air quality.
More oft than not people will readily accept something as fact without questioning it at all. There are countless YouTube videos that prey upon this, like the 'DIY drone phone case' and the videos with people alleging 'make diamonds with peanut butter and coal'.
Buddhism-based meditation tours are quite popular in Korea. Many Korean temples offers "Temple stay" [1] program which is pretty much the same as the jail: locking themselves up in the temple to escape from the city life for a cople of days. The jail in the article seems to be a slightly exaggerated form of templestay. The motivation behind it is pretty accurate tho.
Of course not everyone want this, and it is Buddhism - half of Koreans are christian.
In America, there are Catholic retreats, some at retreat centers, some at monasteries or convents, some elsewhere; I assume that other Christian denominations have retreats, but don't know and have never enquired.
For that matter, the writer Patrick Leigh Fermor, who was not Catholic, wrote about going to stay for a short period at the Benedictine abbey of St. Wandrille, mostly to get away from distractions. You can find the account in https://www.nyrb.com/products/a-time-to-keep-silence.
Obviously, not all South Koreans are locking themselves up.
This is just an unusual hotel that helps people get away from everyday life and stop being tied to their smartphones for a while. You could remove all references to South Korea, and the business model still looks interesting. I suspect it could work just as well in Japan, or even in the West as a modern alternative to a monastery.
Why not just go to a monastery? It's just as structured, but with better food, scenery and the meditation/prayer/spirituality element helps when you return to civilisation.
I've done this here in the U.S. before. I'm not Catholic but Saint Meinrad Archabbey is 2-3 hours south of me here in Indiana. I was getting really burnt out from lots of OT and had been talking to someone I know that used to be a Catholic monk, he did some searching and reached out to St. Meinrad and arranged for me to stay there for a few days.
It was great. The monks basically left me alone, I had a small private room with no television or radio, there were common areas where people would quietly talk, I just sat around enjoying calm and quiet. Eventually one of the monks got brave enough to come over and ask me what was up haha which was also great because I had a very interesting conversation with him about life in general and then he suggested I talk to the Friar that was the director of the guest part of the archabbey which I did and had an interesting few hour conversation about ancient Greek, Latin, early Catholic church popes, art. It was great.
I think people really need to experience stuff like this be it the way I did it, the way the article has it or just going to a 'quiet retreat' or some such.
Our lives are over-saturated with things screaming for our attention.
Monasteries are a Western tradition. Some Buddhist temples and Christian organizations offer a similar program in South Korea, but most people who aren't religious don't feel comfortable attending an overtly religious program.
Edit: Most Koreans would think of monasteries as a Western/Christian thing. Culturally, modern South Korea is much closer to the West than to India or even China.
There's definitely a strong historic Buddhist monastic tradition in Korea. The Christianity that has taken hold in Korea is the American/evangelical sort and they don't do monasticism, so it seems strange to me that it would be associated with the West.
Anyhow, when I made the comment, I was thinking of the last line of the parent post "even in the West as a modern alternative to a monastery". To me, an alternative to monasteries seems redundant when you can go to a monastery.
A majority (56%) of South Koreans have no religion. Among the remainder, there are more Christians (19% Protestant + 8% Catholic) than Buddhists (15%). Unlike in Japan, Buddhism hasn't been a dominant force in the Korean society for a long time -- not since neo-Confucianism replaced it as the state ideology in the early 15th century.
Some Buddhist ideas and habits remain in the culture, of course, but most people regard them as part of their national tradition, not Buddhist in particular. The younger generations think of Buddhism more as a subject of history books than as something that might be relevant to the 21st century.
So a Buddhist monastery is not exactly the first thing that the average person would think of when they want to get away from the stresses of life in Seoul. Some temples run "temple stay" programs for short-term visitors, and some people seem to like it, but that's about it. It's just another niche. Not every Asian country is deeply Buddhist!
Meanwhile, anything that is vaguely related to America or Europe is grouped as "Western" in Korean parlance ;)
IMO South Korea has been Westernized much more than Japan or China.
Even before South Korea came under U.S. influence, Buddhism in Korea has been weaker than in Japan for a long while because neo-Confucianism took over as the state ideology in the early 15th century. Neo-Confucianism emphasizes going out into the world and contributing to the public good, not withdrawing into a hermitage. Most of the great Buddhist monks that people remember are from before the switch. Buddhism was often actively suppressed, and tolerated at best, for the last 600 years.
That actually sounds pretty interesting to me. Like, could I take a month off and go study Christ at some catholic monastery even though I'm not a believer?
Probably. Although I'm more familiar with Orthodox Christian monasticism, but yeah, depending on the monastery they'll take in visitors and belief isn't required, though a certain level of respect and open-mindedness is. Monasticism also isn't so much about 'studying' as contemplation (it's actually quite similar in some ways to Buddhist meditation). Not every monastery is open to visitors (depending on their facilities and number of monks), but it's worth sending a few calls/emails.
Probably, yeah. Look up monasteries in your area, there's a good chance there will be one with guest accommodations, and I gather you'd have access to their books, able to attend services if you want, etc. Details vary I'm sure. I've never done it myself but thought about it.
I believe many people in this forum fall under the: got plenty of money, spending plenty of money, started medidating to improve life and work performance, found value in decluttering.
I don't know how wide-spread this phenomenon is in Korea, or the integrity of the journalist/article, but even if 200 people do it in a year, it looks like they are trying to simplify their life.
Edit: thinking about this a bit better, this is more like Ascetisism [2] (fromt the Greek Ασκητισμός), than Minimalism, but it is to the same direction.
Like most news, there's quite a bit of truth, with a bit of "hook" to draw the reader in. South Korean study culture, especially to get into University, bass a bar exam or get a public service job is really quite unreal.
There are blocks of "prison" like apartments with surrounding quiet zones in many areas. They exist simply so people can escape home life and study 24/7 (mostly rote memorization exercises) in order to pass some gatekeeping exam [1]. I have a niece who didn't score well enough in the college entrance exam to get into a tier-1 school and so is spending a year in one of these in order to retake the test and get into a better school. It's not a prison exactly, you can come and go as you please, but people generally don't rent these as their sole residential living arrangements. The goal is to have a distraction free environment to get as much wakeful study in as possible. The last time I visited the country, she was so deep into her studies she was unable to break free and come say hi and was very regretful about it over the phone.
Work life is also pretty crazy, and often unproductively so. Many companies simply just waste employee time making them sit around or do busy work in order to appear that they're actively engaged in business activities. There's also enforced after hour drinking and dinner activities and often work on weekends. It's not as bad as Japan, but there's definitely strong commonalities. It's considered very desirable to get a job with a foreign company because their treatment of staff is more along global norms. There was a cut this past year in the maximum full-time hours, but it's still way above 40/week and is probably poorly enforced. I can almost guarantee it will have no measurable impact in work output even though companies are acting like its economic armageddon.
Some of my relatives work like this and it's pretty much a universal desire among them and my friends there to start their own small company so the hours will be better and maybe even the pay. It doesn't even matter if the company is something they have any particular expertise in...just something to enable them to have some better measure of control.
Here's an anecdote, one of my Korean relatives has wanted to come visit us in the U.S. for 3 years, he only gets 5 days of vacation per year. At the beginning of the year he asks for permission from his boss if he can take those 5 days and come over. For 2 years he was denied and as a result just took his vacation days as three day weekends (with at least a one month notice beforehand). His boss acted like he was trying to destroy the company both years.
This year he was given permission to come visit, but his wife was not and so he's coming alone.
> Many companies simply just waste employee time making them sit around or do busy work in order to appear that they're actively engaged in business activities.
Incredibly true. When I worked there, I had to literally sit at my desk until 8pm despite being done with work by 6 simply because 8pm for my office was the “end of working hours.” Then off to a Soju-fueled dinner with coworkers whether you wanted to or not which would often degrade to a session of mandatory fun at the Karaoke. Rinse and repeat. I love Korea, but the work culture can be brutal. Hopefully that has changed a bit.
Saw the same thing in Japan during my two years there. In Japan this is known as "mizu shobai", literally the "water trade". Business deals in Japan are largely made over drinks and snacks after work. The bars are literally packed to the gills with "salarymen" until well into the night, only to repeat the next day. It's brutal.
What kind of company is this? I work in Korea and talking with other Koreans here there is a mandatory minimum by law. Asking for a day off is normal, but 5 days? That's extreme.
You are correct that the law states 15 days minimum with a cap somewhere like 25. But it's wildly violated and many South Koreans never get to exercise all of the days, or are artificially limited as to how large the blocks of time might be.
If your biases and Reuters’ biases match, then you won’t notice anything biased or wrong in Content published by them. I think it’s up to you to figure out and identify which of the (many) biases are obvious in Reuter’s content of Asian and south East Asian countries (not just India)
Wut? I am Indian in India, and don't know what you are talking about. I prefer Reuters India any day of the week compared to the never ending "infotainment" from the local mainstream press.
"Biased != incorrect.
If your biases and Reuters’ biases match, then you won’t notice anything biased or wrong in Content published by them. I think it’s up to you to figure out and identify which of the (many) biases are obvious in Reuter’s content of Asian and south East Asian countries (not just India)."
If you are aware of your own cognitive biases, only then can one start noticing what kind of reporting is biased and what is not.
FWIW, I believe biased reporting helps receive more clicks, and I'm not necessarily against it.
My question was purely out of interest to know if people from/in Korea agree with the picture painted by Reuters or not. Looking at the popularity of the question, my guess is probably not.
Reason for my question, in addition to my belief that they are biased (not incorrect), is that a similar behavior in the US would mean (my guess, I'm not a doc) a diagnosis of depression.
The demanding work life the article references is real. South Korea is #2 in the OECD in average annual hours worked, at 2,070 hours per worker for 2016 (the US was #14 at 1,789 hours by comparison, with the OECD average at 1,763). That's 41.4 hours per week across 50 weeks, basically the average South Korean is working overtime every week (by US standards).
Those of you considering the appeal, consider that there are retreats you can go on which structure your time and give you rules to follow. You don't have to make it look like prison.
While I find the idea of a prison a bit silly, the 10 day courses come with a heavy load of tradition, more or less mandatory 1hour talk everyday, and at least 2-" h of mandatory (in the hall together) meditation practice.
I am grateful for what I felt on those 10 days. But in a sense, I got more than I asked for. So those 10 days are a little bit sneaky in a sense. There is a lot going on those retreats, a lot of energy work. But once you're out of the retreat you're on your own.
While the 10 days have their benefits, I think there is a place for a distraction free environment that lets people think about their life without putting them on the "awakening" bus.
As an aside, I get the idea of the prison. The idea is to be submissive, to lose control. It's a very common theme in sexual fantasies as well, for a reason...
But, at the very least if they're going for the prison theme it should be cheaper than 90 USD a day. :/
If you can get yourself to Thailand and dont have an aversion to Buddhism there are Buddhist temples where you can go stay. Frequently you make a donation at the end of your stay with the amount being at your discretion.
Also look into Christian monasteries near you. I'm not Christian but spent a silent weekend at a Cistercian monastery and it was amazing. They suggest a donation but there's no charge. Only have to schedule a month or two in advance.
I suspect that people are looking for something more structured. For that matter, just go on a backpack someplace that doesn't have cellphone service (or just leave your cellphone in the car).
I'm not sure what your point is, but I certainly wouldn't compare airbnb to "random street trash". The quality does vary, but if you're careful you can get amazing places.
The Vipassana silent courses put on by dhamma.org are entirely free, run by volunteers. The popular locations are fully booked months in advance, but if you have a very flexible schedule you can get on the waitlist and be accepted right before the course, that is how I did my first one.
I've done two 10-day courses from them. After my first one I described it to people as like being in prison, never having gone to prison, but with less freedom than prison. But I still went back for a second time :)
Goenka’s 10-day vipassana retreats are not only free, but (at least when I took it) they would not even accept donations from those who hadn’t yet experienced the course: https://www.dhamma.org/
If I ever developed a chronic illness in old age and would be on the verge of bankruptcy because of it, I would seriously consider committing a white collar crime and get free treatment in prison over suffering through the financial strain it would otherwise cause me.
Actually a similar phenomenon is happening throughout the elderly population in Japan: some commit crimes in purpose because nobody is caring for them anymore, so prison seems like a less lonely place than home...
There was an article recently on HN where a British citizen was shipped home for surgery instead of getting it done in Singapore by their travel insurance company.
Actually sometimes I really fantasize about a 3-6 month stint in prison - am I the only one. Surely it can't be that bad If Martha Stewart can do it. Imagine no commuting or on call support or social engagements or children's homework or chores. bliss.
Sure. If you don't mind very bad food. If you don't mind always being a little too cold. If you don't mind never having a moment to yourself. If you don't mind not being able to use the bathroom in private. If you don't mind never showering alone. If you don't never being alone. If you don't mind not seeing much sun.
I remember a large survey across the French prisons, about 10 years ago. The number one wish of prisoners was to be granted more showers during summer.
Context: overcrowded prisons (prisons for light sentences have 142% rate, so 2 or 3 people in 9 m² are common), old buildings, very little time out of cells, 3 showers per week in the law but often 1/week in reality.
I don't have much either, but basing it on behind the scenes TV shows based on jails. (I guess different to prisons - more comings and goings). Obviously TV will show you every fight, and maybe they don't happen often, but I bet there is a lot of posturing leading up to those fights. I remember what high school was like, probably not much different.
Martha went to a pretty nice minimum security Federal prison camp. "Club Fed" is a typical nickname for those.
Most US prisoners aren't in anything nice like that. Most state run prisons are dangerous shitholes. Maximum security Federal facilities are clean and safe, but rough in that you're by yourself in a tiny room 23 hours a day.
Or at an Ashram somewhere. There's probably lot better alternatives to prison, just to get "away from it all." Plus, in places like these, you can do some good via service to others.
/a cousin of mine who has a fancy PhD from Stanford left his $$$ job in AI research back in the mid-00s to go and live in a couple of ashrams and monasteries in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Still lives there, haven't spoken to him in a decade.
You're romanticizing it. Even if you get great cellmates and the guards don't hate you there's intense boredom. You're much better off going on a camping trip or retreat to southeast Asia.
Being in a position where you can't do anything about your responsibilities is a big part of the fantasy. If you can do something but are just choosing not to; that doesn't provide emotional relief. You still get the anxiety, guilt, etc.
If you hole up in a Motel 6, then every minute you're there; you're choosing to not go to work, get a job, socialise, look after your kids, etc.
Not necessarily, one could skip paying for insurance, registration, inspections, license renewal, etc. for a few years and pay it all off with a month or so in jail.
I liked my 10 days, however, there were times I felt a bit like a prisoner. The same schedule each day. Nobody else around you exists. No eye contact. That being said I'd like to do it again.
Yeah, I've definitely thought of this sort of thing before and imagined exactly what's described in the article. I never told anyone because I assumed I was an extreme outlier in that regard.
Something related regarding flight. I LOVE my yearly 14 hour flight because it means I have 14 hours of absolutely no obligations, be it work or simply answering a text.
I'm from the US, but spent 2 years teaching English in South Korea. I interacted with very few adult Koreans who weren't teachers, so I can't speak to the 'overworked, stressed Korean businessman' stereotype. However, schooling for kids there is a lot different from schooling here. If you think your American kid is overworked and is given too much homework, it doesn't hold a candle to what Korean kids are put through.
From the age of 7 or 8, they are doing full days at school and at least 1 after school hagwon (private academy). That ramps up as they get older. By 10 or 11, they are doing full 9am-9pm days. Middle and high school kids are more like 9am-9pm in class and I've had kids tell me that they go home and study until 2 or 3am, regularly. I routinely had kids breakdown and cry.
After a while I realized that in a small way I was helping contribute to the continuation of this lifestyle and I soured on the whole teaching English in Korea thing and moved back to the States. I loved Korea on the whole and would go back in a heartbeat, but not as a teacher.
It's odd but I guess natural for people to need "an excuse" to have a pause. There is nothing keeping these people from doing this by themselves: stay home and do nothing (don't tend to household chores, or anything else, just to what you decided in advance to do, like reading or writing) if home is too busy, head down to the library and again, do what you planned to do, or a hotel and same. But it seems the problem is often times one will break a promise with oneself (to not be interrupted, distracted). So it's easier to rely on proscribed behavior (of this mock prison, for example).
> There is nothing keeping these people from doing this by themselves: stay home and do nothing (don't tend to household chores, or anything else, just to what you decided in advance to do, like reading or writing) if home is too busy, head down to the library and again, do what you planned to do, or a hotel and same.
Except, y'know, rent, property tax, the price of food...keeping the heat on, being able to afford gas, maintaining social relationships...it's almost like there's a lot of factors in this.
Well, it’s not as if going to this mock prison magically absolves them of their day-to-day responsibilities, except they get to pay for this “priviledge” and get back to their normal lives when they check out.
Doesn't sound that different from people staying in a monastery for a while. Used to be pretty common. But monastic life is not so popular anymore so there are fewer of those around.
Monastery is different because it requires work too, just like normal life.
Living in Asia, I am really thinking that jail in a good country like Sweden is way superior to living outside of prison. You could read books, study languages, pause and think about something. More chances for meeting friends, and so on.
I'm not sure it would have the same effect. My parents have a vacation home near where I live. Sometimes I go there for the weekend and I still use the internet, but it's so much more relaxing because I'm physically separated from my home and normal life where I have a lot of responsibilities. To declutter your mind you have to remove yourself from all of your physical clutter, and I don't think you can do that at home. But, getting a room at a local motel would probably work. Maybe even leave your phone at home.
I agree with you and I have done this, but I mentioned it because I don't think most people have. That said, I think the clutter in your home is deeper than the actual physical clutter. Even if you clear all of the physical clutter, you still have what I call "associative" clutter. Every experience (good and bad) that you've had in your home adds to this mental clutter. I still think it's important to get out of your home and go to a simple place frequently, nature would probably be a good option too.
People can also swap houses with a friend for a day or two. Any time my girlfriend needs to concentrate, she comes over to my house where she's afraid to touch my electronics and synthesizers ;)
I am a bit confused by this, "South Koreans worked 2,024 hours in 2017." That does seem demanding but I am not sure how the US wouldn't be ranked higher where the minimum for full time employment is 2,080 hours a year. Can anyone clarify?
2080 is the standard HR number because 52 [weeks] * 40 [hours in a week] = 2080 [hours per year]. And 40 = 5 [days of week] * 8 [hours per day] for your standard 9 to 5 job.
There's no vacation/holidays/sick leave included because those hours that you actually don't work are still paid. In other words the vacation and holiday policy is just a discount you get from your employer on the total 2080 hours per year they would have otherwise requested from you.
You're responding to someone saying "this is too much work" by saying you work holidays too (and that this is apparently normal). You've succeeded in making it seem like you work too much as well, but not in making it seem like not too much.
Can I know how you got that number? Presuming you work 37.5 hours per week which should be the minimum fulltime labor amount at 5 days times 7.5 hours per week.
2080 divided by 37.5 is about 55 weeks, while there is only 52 weeks in a year. If you count it as 40 hrs per week then it is 52 weeks but people usually don't count the extra half hour which is usually a break but that could be your number.
My sources based on govt handbooks, note parent poster to whom I'm replying to said minimum amount of hrs per week, which is why I put down the minimum amount:
My sources based on govt handbooks, note parent poster who I'm replying to said minimum amount of hrs per week, which is why I put down the minimum amount, I'm not looking for maximum or average but minimum because OP said minimum:
I don't know exactly where they are pulling those numbers from; but last time I checked, reports of average working hours around the world were averaged over everyone, even part-time/temporary/seasonal workers. So the average for full-time workers is much higher, and the average for part-time workers is lower. The overall average is useless for anything other than loose comparisons between countries.
As a South Korean, my impression is that full-time workers in desirable positions tend to put in around 2,500 hours per year. We recently introduced a new law that puts a hard limit (for any given pair of employer and employee) of 52 hours per week, averaged over a 3-month period. There's been a lot of pushback from businesses that either require or encourage working even more hours.
Sure, there's an easy clarification. Neither the average nor the median employed American is working 40 hours per week. The average employed American is working around 35 hours per week.
More commonly in Japan, individuals will "lock themselves up" in their own home, very similar to what house arrest would look like.
It's referred to as hikikomori[1], the practice of becoming a recluse to avoid the stresses of daily life (school, work, anything). It's surprisingly common and tends to put quite a strain on families, but as it's so common, it's relatively accepted as a disease (or more directly, mental illness) of sorts.
I was going to mention this article. You beat me to it.
I found this rather interesting that people get locked up to escape daily life. I can see it from both sides. There are times I wish I wasn't doing the same things day in and day out, but I value my freedom to much to lose it.
Even the slackers that permeate the software developer industry, those who spend more than half of their workday on reddit can't get all their work done in four hours.
Hi I am a korean, but this is the first time I see this.
It is not a universal culture, but something unusual.
I was surprised that Reuters reported what local people did not know.
After having finally gone aboard U-505 recently after 2 decades of wanting to, and having a half-brother that has his dolphins, I've been hardcore wanting to become fantastically wealthy and order a sub or just create a faux-sub as a house.
But note that this seems to be a cheaper, ascetic equivalent, of the classic meditation retreat, which is already popular in both the East and the West.
Marketing it as a prison puts a quirky twist on it. This makes for an interesting article, which also fits Western stereotypes.
Asking because Reuter’s has a biased reporting for anything related to India, and I’m wondering if they have a similar lens / filter for South Korea. (I’m from India in US)