Ask a Korean

That explanation sounds great until you find out that Gladwell is more than willing to misrepresent events to fit into whatever point he's trying to make. The most egregious example I know of being the Korean Air Line Flight 801 crash. https://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airpl…

Below blog posting is old but one of the best info available in English on the Korean Healthcare system. http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/01/healthcare-system-in-korea.html Some may consider the fact that Korean national health insurance only covers around 55 percent of the total healthcare cost to be problematic. This may be true if one takes the idea of guaranteed socialized medicine seriously. But for fiscal conservatives with some measure of compassion for the plight of the uninsured, this could be an attractive balance. While corruption is definitely still a problem with Korean government, the NHIC is surprisingly efficient and well-run. It does a great job squeezing out maximum value out of the tax it receives.

This blogger, 8 years ago, wrote an excellent blog post detailing his method for improving his English: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/01/koreans-english-acquisition-and… Warning: it’s not an easy solution, just an effective one. The main idea is “memorize more” and “practice more”. Judging by his blog posts, it seems to work.

"fan death" is certainly a possible phenomenon. it works similar to a convection oven. The US EPA even warns against fan death, though not calling it that. http://askakorean.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/fan-death-is-real.html and http://www.epa.gov/hiri/about/pdf/EHEguide_final.pdf pg43 and appendix B this comment totally misses the point of the article. but I was sufficiently amused to learn about "real" fan death that I thought it was worth sharing.

Move to China. Also, read this for some good language learning advice: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/01/koreans-english-acquisition-and…

Yeah, I know this is just an Internet forum so who cares what's said right? But ... But Ask the Korean made an excellent point about culturalism: "The term "culturalism" is my coinage ... is the unwarranted impulse to explain people's behavior with a "cultural difference", whether real or imagined. Because the culturalist impulse always attempts to explain more with culture than warranted, the "cultural difference" used in a cultural explanation is more often imagined than real. To paraphrase Abraham Maslow, to a man with a culturalist impulse, every problem looks like a cultural problem." http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airpla… FYI most Indians in the US like the more egalitarian, US way of lower "power distance" better.

> "Oppa (nun?) Gangnam style" Between "Oppa" and "Gangnam" is the Korean topic particle[0], "는" ("neun"). Your translation is basically correct. "Oppa" is the word traditionally used by women to refer to their elder brothers, but younger Korean women have started using it to refer to their boyfriends/love interests as well[1], although it can also be used between non-blood relatives in a totally platonic manner (which can lead to plenty of ambiguity about romantic intentions, which a lot of people of course thrive on). 0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_particles 1: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2009/06/ask-korean-wiki-oppa-oppa-oppa.…

I found this to be an interesting perspective on language learning as an adult: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/01/koreans-english-acquisition-and…

Learning music might not may a child smarter, but it may teach the child "metaskills" like character which cannot be learned directly. Here's an (snipped) quote from something I read a while ago: [1] "When a student learns piano, all Americans can see is that the student is now equipped with the skill to play the piano. Under this view, unless the student can put that skill into use in the future somehow, the time spent on acquiring that skill is wasted. This is a deeply mistaken attitude, and the ever-smart tiger cub Sophia Rubenfeld-Chua has the perfect answer showing the flaw of that attitude: ''I’m never going to be a professional pianist, but the piano has given me confidence that totally shapes my life. I feel that if I work hard enough, I can do anything. I know I can focus on a given task for hours at a time. And on horrible days when I’m lost and a mess, I can say to myself, "I’m good at something that I really, really love." I want my kids to have that confidence – confidence rooted in something concrete, not just "aww everyone’s a winner!!!" confidence, because in your heart you never believe that.'' The point of learning the piano is NOT about acquiring the skill of playing the piano so that the student can earn a living as a pianist. It is about building the character of the person. Here is the thing about character -- you can't build it by explicitly setting out to build it. Character is not a skill like tying your shoelaces. If it must be put in terms of…

This is huge. Early analysis is that this is a net positive for Korean democracy since the entire process, from protests to ouster was relatively peaceful and the people involved in the ouster tried to follow the rule of law as much as possible. It's exercised for the first time a part of the legal system that's never been explored in the country. At each stage of the very complex process, the government figured out what to do without too much fuss, even operating as a temporary parliamentary democracy. It wasn't too long ago that this could have gone very differently: seizure of power, military occupation, coups, violence and corruption. This is Korea's Nixon moment. edit There's some very serious discussion regarding criminal charges they may now be brought now that she's freed from Presidential immunity. edit2 For folks who want more background on what this is all about, "Ask a Korean" has done a magnificent job of writing the charges up. http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-ultimate-choi-soon-sil-gate… http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-ultimate-choi-soon-sil-gate…

Malcolm Gladwell has a long history of taking every opportunity available to use misleading interpretations of evidence to justify his fables [0 for a notable example]. I would take anything he puts an "always" behind with a very large (boulder-sized) grain of salt. [0] http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airpla…

That was a Malcolm Gladwell theory that has been debunked, particularly here: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airpla… In general I tend to question much of Gladwell's ideas these days seeing how many of them have been demonstrated to be wrong.

while I agree with what you are saying, Gladwell's example may not be very good http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airpla…

http://askakorean.blogspot.hk/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplan… has a little bit of a different take on this - mainly aimed at Malcom Gladwell's _Outliers_ discussion of these incidents. The article goes a bit broader and it's been a few years since I read it in depth, but you might be interested the counter-perspective.

The South Korean presidential scandal is one of the odder bits of contemporary political history. Imagine an alternate-history US President Hillary Clinton being impeached over PizzaGate and it starts to get close. Besides the actual corruption mentioned in the article, there are credible reports swirling of a "8 Goddesses" cabal and various occult practices. http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-irrational-downfall-of-park… http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/29/499864915/swirling-s… http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/767405.html https://medium.com/@thepenningtonlens/the-south-korean-puppet-presiden…

Something about Malcolm Gladwell really didn't sit right with me after learning about his tobacco industry connections (http://exiledonline.com/malcolm-gladwell-tobacco-industry-shill/). Reading this guy's response to Gladwell's cultural theory of plane crashes sealed the deal for me: http://askakorean.blogspot.hk/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplan…

Yes, that's Malcolm Gladwell's theory. The facts are, as ever, more complicated: http://askakorean.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-air…

Definitely a cultural thing, definitely not perverse incentives at all. See: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airpla…

Thank you! Yes, I believe this was the original article, but I've never bothered to read the book. Maybe I should! Edit: From the last comment found this article - which goes a bit against Malcolm Gladwell's findings - interesting read indeed - http://askakorean.blogspot.kr/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplan…

Canonical article explaining the phenomenon and people's misunderstanding of it: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2009/01/fan-death-is-real.html

Ask a Korean wrote a few articles on this, the most authoritative on the Internet. (Don't be put off by the URL) http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2009/01/fan-death-is-real.html

Not hypothermia, but "fan death", and it turns out to be true: http://askakorean.blogspot.com.ar/2009/01/fan-death-is-real.html

http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2008/09/why-do-koreans-complain-about-u… http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2012/12/quick-thought-about-psys-past-a… Yes, the US are in fact occupying South Korea, and South Korea does not like it.

Haven't experienced a Korean workforce first hand, but as a Korean I can probably provide some insight into the culture. In general, the culture is very hierarchical (respecting elders) thus seniority and age play a big factor in leadership. I would assume that this makes it very easy for mediocre (but good enough to survive) management to stay in positions far too long. Asian culture, but Koreans especially, can be masochistic1 and martyr2 like in their methods. In some ways this creates a tremendous amount of excellence, but it also creates soldiers who may not necessarily be incentivized to innovate, and those who innovate, out of cultural respect will tend to not dare "disrespect" seniority. Being a good soldier makes for career advancements. Management can also claim the failures of the company as their own personal failures, rather than the gray collective failure of a group(e.g. japanese ceo's claiming company failure as their own), thus employees kind of get absolved of blame. Work in Korea also tends to be a live at the office kind of affair. It's not uncommon for the white collar folk to go into work at 7a, and stay until 7-9p. Then go drinking with coworkers until midnight, and rinse and repeat. While this makes for very strong bonds amongst coworking peers and better teams, I would imagine that it also takes a toll on the mental capacity of the workforces. Mainly, I wouldn't be surprised if work in Korea tends to be death marches all the time based on…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat > Since 2009,[58] Yulin, Guangxi has held an annual festival of eating dog meat. This purportedly celebrates the summer solstice, however, in 2014, the municipal government published a statement that the festival is not a cultural tradition, rather, a commercial event held by restaurants and the public.[59] Various dog meat dishes (and more recently, cats) are eaten, washed down by lychees wine. The festival in 2011 spanned 10 days, during which 15,000 dogs were consumed.[60] Estimates of the number of dogs eaten during the festival range between 10[46][61] and 15 thousand.[62] Festival organisers say that only dogs bred specifically for consumption are used, however, there are claims that some of the dogs purchased for slaughter and consumption are strays or stolen pets, as evidenced by their wearing collars.[45] Some of the dogs eaten at the festival are burnt or boiled alive[63] and there are reports that the dogs are sometimes clubbed[46] or beaten to death in the belief that the increased adrenalin circulating in the dog's body adds to the flavour of the meat.[45] > Opponents of dog meat consumption in South Korea are critical of the eating of dog meat, as some dogs are beaten, burnt or hanged to make their meat more tender.[104] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat_consumption_in_South_Korea#Cont… > The controversy over dog meat consumption often centers on the slaughtering methods employed, which include…

Here's at least one: I've read some rebuttals to the "ethnic theory of plane crashes" here: http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/foreign-airline-safety and here: http://askakorean.blogspot.no/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplan… Put it simply, Gladwell seems to form a theory, then find enough facts to support that theory. But that's not the way to do proper research. In this case, had he actually consulted with pilots, koreans, and finally korean pilots, he might have ended up with a different conclusion (let alone now have made so many trivial errors in the text). He could also have compared accident statistics and looked at how many accidents could be attributed to poor CRM in different countries. But again, he didn't do that. He mentions that CRM training is used nowadays in all airlines (to improve crew collaboration) but fails to mention that the accident that sparked the focus on CRM (the worst airline accident of all time) was caused by a Dutch captain, from a country with a low power-distance index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster)

> It sounds like Malcolm Gladwell's publisher never bothered to fact check the piece with an actual airline pilot before publishing. "Why did I fail to interview a Korean pilot? If you had bothered to ask me before your published your article, I could have answered that question for you. I researched that chapter over the course of many months. I spoke to numerous pilots, Korean and otherwise. I interviewed crash investigators and human factors experts I interviewed the pilots who ran the Korean Air training program. I read internal Korean Air memorandum, the audit by Delta Airlines, as well as every relevant NTSB document related to crashes involving cultural deference. The only thing I did not do was interview current Korean Air management. They repeatedly declined my requests for interviews. " From: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/07/my-thoughts-on-gladwells-respon…

Well, I'm glad "The Korean" didn't resort to a simple "Sorry, you've missed the point" response like he did towards other commenters. But I really like Gladwell's response. FYI: Here is Gladwell's response to "The Korean"'s response to Gladwell: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/07/my-thoughts-on-gladwells-respon… I actually find "The Korean's" posts on these matters to be pretty irritating. Culture is a collection of ideas, and like all ideas, they can be bad sometimes, and regardless they are all subject to criticism. While he claims to understand this, he seems hellbent on showing that such negative cultural outliers (if and when they exist), will have "negligible" effect (which he doesn't seem to realize is a totally arbitrary claim; how did he arrive at "negligible" vs, I don't know, any other quantifiable amount). The fact is, the effects can't be measured, but a case showing non-negligible effects can still be made.

So this article says that it's misunderstood, but real: http://askakorean.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/fan-death-is-real.html Quoting from that: This pamphlet from the EPA[0], at pages 49 and 51, clearly states the hazard of using portable electric fans during high heat. It specifically says “Portable electric fans can … increase the circulation of hot air, which increases thermal stress and health risks[,]” and “DON’T use a portable electric fan in a closed room without windows or doors open to the outside.” Problem is, that link now goes somewhere else, and not to a pamphlet at all. Tricky. However, this has been discussed at length here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8740683 It's also been submitted lots of times, although the last time was a month ago, so maybe we should see it again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11844310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9825096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8136969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5357829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3943075 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3890949 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3425519 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3310449 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1465409 [0] http://www.epa.gov/hiri/about/pdf/EHEguide_final.pdf