It’s been 5 years since my last visit to Korea. And like many people who live abroad, because I only get to see Korea once in a while, I tend to notice the changes. Korea definitely is a place that has a lot of new things to notice. There is always something new and different. After Gangnam Style, BTS, Parasite, and of course Covid… This time things felt a lot more different. It made me thing about what I call the Speed of Korea.

Order - Chaos scale

  • If I were to draw a line with one side having perfect order and the other having complete chaos.

  • Korea used to be very close to the chaotic side.

  • orderless, all rules were breakable,

  • Accidents, building collapse, bridge collapse,

  • Corruption was everywhere, police, government,

  • Cheating, gangs, con, taking advantage of others,

  • shady Business practices

  • Fast, incomplete,

  • That was the Korea I grew up in. I’m sure all of this is still around. But now it is way closer to the order side. Just in a kind of chaotic “Korean” way.

Still in many parts of the world Chaos seems to be the norm

  • I get to enjoy the clean spacious, stable society and environment of Canada now.

  • I’ve only traveled to a few places in the world. So I admit most of my opinion is what I’ve learned through media. So I have a narrow perspective.

  • Well one place I’ve been to is Vietnam. And like Vietnam many South Asian countries looked like there wasn’t any traffic rules.

  • The other day I was watching a travel show about India. I feel like it’s closer to the chaos side than Korea ever was. Maybe other than some times during the war.

  • There has been many news of accidents, failures, and corruption, in China that reminds me of things that used to happen a lot in Korea.

So, How is it that through its chaos, Korea somehow managed to improve so quickly? What were the ingredients that allowed for course correction?

I can’t say for sure but here are some thoughts I had during my trip this time around.

  • Balance, or tug of war, of contrasting forces, maybe seen in the yin yang symbol in the Korean national flag…

  • Historical, culturally, rules, social hierarchy, structure, and historical tragedy that forced a hard reset?

  • Family oriented social structures, modern westernized individualism.

  • Hurry hurry culture, impatience is a virtue. turned out to be the drive for innovation, change. Many things like this that was what we though of as Korean’s weakness that turned around to be our strength.

I like order, there is a perfectionist side of me that like to organize things in a straight line.

I guess the moral of this story it that…

  • There is value in the messiness that people bring. When everyone is trying to take care of themselves some amazing things can emerge from the chaos.

  • Order means rules, regulations, centralized power,

    • (Insert a Quote about how people like to tell other people what to do. But I can’t find right now…)

  • Chaos means messy, mixing of decentralized humans, emergence of something unexpected beautiful and surprising that no one can plan.

  • Order is not restriction. Chaos needs some minimal structure to thrive.

As always, this thread of thinking needs more exploration…