Koreans are Stressed Learner Drivers

For the last 5 years I’ve made South Korea my home primarily to bank some coin. Commuting on my non-gas guzzling 125cc motorcycle has helped me save, but it hasn’t been without some discomfort and risk. The discomfort is no worries. Sometimes riding a motorcycle in stinging, saturating rain, or the freezing cold of winter, I can handle. It’s the risk of injury or death while riding a motorcycle in Korea that concerns me. I’m not particularly worried about crashing myself, as I’ve done that plenty of times in my youth while dirt biking. What I’m worried about is being involved in an accident with a Hyundai, Kia or Daewoo. If you have ever been to Korea you would know that, in general, Koreans are poor and therefore dangerous drivers.

Traffic in Seoul, South Korea's capital.

How dangerous is driving in Korea?

Statistics from the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) show that Korea is one of the most dangerous developed nations to drive in. Compared to my home country, Australia, an average citizen is roughly twice as likely to die on the roads in Korea, and there are 3 times as many deaths per million vehicles. Korean emergency medical care, road infrastructure, and traffic law enforcement, seem almost as good as Australia’s, so these factors won’t explain much of Korea's much higher fatality rates. There is more traffic congestion in Korea, which may explain something. But I doubt these or other factors can be anything more than minor relative to the one glaringly obvious difference: there is a much higher frequency of bad, dumb, and reckless driving here in Korea. This is a factor that certainly can kill.


Bad and dumb driving

Koreans frequently exhibit their many bad driving habits, which significantly raises the driving danger levels over here. I estimate that Koreans use turn signals less than half as much as Aussies (and other Westerners). This reduced signaling means a lot of surprise lane changing, surprise merging, surprise turning, and unsurprisingly, more accidents. Koreans frequently break or stop without any apparent reason other than confusion. A scooter-riding American friend of mine was caught out like this, sustaining serious injuries. She ended up crashing through the rear window of a van that surprise stopped in the middle of the road. Additionally, Koreans apparently don’t understand the concept of blind spots, and therefore never check them when changing lanes. If a vehicle does happen to be in their blind spot, the surprised motorist (which has regularly been me on my moto) has to take evasive action, get on the horn, or otherwise collide. Bad habits such as riding motorcycles without helmets, not buckling up, and talking on the phone while driving, are almost the norm over here. Some people even watch TV while driving (check out this BBC news article). Finally, due to Koreans not properly securing loads on their vehicles, I have regularly had to swerve my moto around mid-road objects. The most serious (and comical) of these instances involved a giant kim-chi cabbage that I narrowly avoided at speed.

Dumb Korean driving isn’t just dangerous, it can also be hilarious. For example, watching drivers, relying solely on their mirrors, reverse into things (other than people) can be funny. Last week I saw a Korean woman driving with no seat belt, talking on the phone, with her baby on her lap! To avoid direct sunlight from darkening their skin, I’ve seen Korean women drive one handed whilst holding fans and other objects over their faces. On several occasions I have witnessed people riskily reversing down highway exit ramps after taking a wrong turn. Koreans don’t seem to realize that parking your car on a busy road while you run into a shop or the bank can be dangerous. I couldn’t believe it when I saw a dude stop his car on Jeju Island’s biggest and busiest highway, put on his hazard lights, and get out to snap some photos of the sunset!

A TV in a Korean taxi

Reckless driving

Unfortunately Korea is full of reckless drivers, and while they can be entertaining to watch, their behavior really is no joke. On a typical day heading to work I’ll see drivers speeding, tailgating like mad, swerving in and out of lanes like lunatics, and using turning lanes to overtake in. Reckless drivers exist all over the world, but there are more of them here.

Risky overtaking must claim many a life on Korea’s opposing lane roads. Both my partner and I have narrowly avoided potentially fatal head-ons whilst living here, and our stories are by no means unique. In my case I rounded a bend to encounter an oncoming vehicle in my lane that was attempting to overtake 3 other vehicles at once. Upon seeing me the driver didn’t abandon his maneuver and return to his lane, but instead continued to accelerate and engage me in a lethal game of chicken. I lost and left the road at 60kmph, fortunately not losing control, while he, just a meter or two away, flew past me. In my partner’s case, she was getting a ride home with her workmate, and while rounding a bend they happened upon an overtaking driver about to smash them head on. My partners workmate had no time to react, and very luckily didn’t, as the overtaking driver swerved off the road, very narrowly avoiding a deadly collision, but still crashing.

As a motorist proceeding through a green light, or a pedestrian crossing on a green walk signal, it’s dangerous not to continually look left and right in Korea as red-light-running is rampart. I’ve had plenty of near misses, but the reason red-light-running drivers shit me so bad is because I’ve seen them kill (probably). Here’s the short version of it: On a red light at a busy intersection I was waiting at the front of traffic, along with 2 Korean motorcyclists. When the light went green the 3 of us started to go. One of the other motorcyclists and I looked left and casually stopped due to the speeding bus that was running the red light. The other Korean motorcyclist failed to look left and, right in front of me, he was smashed by the front corner of the bus. He bounced to the side of the bus where his head, partially protected by a half hat helmet, then went under the edge of the rear wheel. Despite blood flowing freely from his nose and mouth, and his damaged skull indicating massive head trauma, he was still breathing when the ambulance took him away just 10 minutes later. Very sadly, I would be extremely surprised if he survived for much longer.

Criticizing the reckless driving of Koreans by honking the horn, or using hand signals, can be dangerous. I've given up doing this after being attacked on 3 separate occasions. These 3 drivers all revenged my criticism by threatening me with death, dangerously swerving at me and forcing me to ride into the gutter or off the road to avoid a collision. On only one of these occasions, after being furiously tailgated and attempted to pass, did I hand signal with my middle finger.

Another accident in Korea (nobody is in the car)

Why can’t they drive?

Many factors may be responsible for the bad, dumb, and reckless driving of Koreans, but I believe only 2 are of major significance. Imagine that a country without cars or roads was magically given them overnight. How well do you think the citizens of that country would drive? That’s right, terribly. Well, this is in essence what has happened in Korea, and it explains much of Korea’s bad and dumb, but not reckless, driving. Australia (like many other nations) has been wealthy, and therefore driving, for quite some time now. During this time Australia’s driving culture has grown, evolved, progressed, and come to infect almost all Australians. Contained within this culture are ideas on how to be a good and safe driver, as well as traffic laws and regulations. After every time an Aussie became aware of their bad or dumb driving, after every reprimanding honk of the horn or thank you gesture, after every piece of driving advice or criticism taken, after every accident or tragedy, and after every successful road-safety education initiative, Australia’s driving culture minutely evolved, and on average, Aussie driving minutely improved. Over our long driving history these countless minute cultural refinements have had an accumulative effect to produce what is today Australia’s culture of good and safe driving. Korea has not been wealthy enough to allow the majority of its citizens to drive for as long as Australia has. Whilst Korea now has nice cars and roads, because of the relatively recent appearance of widespread driving (still several decades ago), a culture of good and safe driving has not yet evolved (at least not to the level of Australia’s). This theory predicts that the Japanese, who have been wealthier longer than Koreans, are better drivers, and that it’s mayhem on the roads in China. This cultural lag means that collectively Koreans are, relative to Aussies or the Japanese, still learning to drive.

Koreans are more tolerant of reckless driving than Westerners. In my experience Westerners are more likely to be angered by or criticize (with the horn or other signals) a reckless driver's behavior. As passengers we will tell a driver to take it easy. This cultural difference certainly enables reckless driving in Korea. But I believe an important additional factor is at work, and that is stress. Stress can produce lower states of rationality. Combined with a sense of urgency this can lead to risk taking while driving. The pressure is on in Korea, and people are stressed. Koreans work hard, study hard, and put great expectations on each other, and on their children. Many stressed out Koreans are the same people that, while driving, are speeding, swerving through lanes, tailgating, riskily overtaking, and running red lights. They are worked up and in a hurry to get wherever they are going, whether they’re late or not. It’s no coincidence that Korea now has the highest suicide rate of all 30 OECD nations (Korea’s suicide rate is more than 3 times that of Australia’s). The same stresses that drive people to kill themselves also drive people to drive like madmen, and the situation is bad in Korea.

Becoming better drivers

Given time and more driving, cultural evolution will naturally run a progressive course in Korea, infecting all its citizens, and the status quo of bad and dumb driving will improve. Better driver training and road-safety education initiatives will help speed this process up. And yet, implementing road-safety education initiatives to alter Korea's culture of reckless driving and tolerance of it can only achieve partial success, as a second major source of the problem, stress, won’t be addressed. For Korea to more effectively reduce its high frequency of reckless driving, people are going to have to chill out. How to practically achieve stress reduction on a nation wide scale, I don’t know. Maybe try not working so hard. In the future, unless Koreans become even more stressed, then Korean driving is bound to improve. For now though, Koreans are, in a way, stressed learner drivers.

Jeju- Island of Animal Abuse

For the last few years I've been lucky enough to call South Korea's Jeju Island my home. The beautiful Jeju is a popular destination for tourists, who are drawn by the island's natural beauty, golf courses, and phallic stone grandfather statues. For promotional purposes, Jeju has been labeled as the "Hawaii of Asia". While Jeju and Hawaii are both islands, Jeju is not isolated, volcanically active, or tropical like its mid-Pacific 'twin'. The many non-native palm trees planted around Jeju give the impression of a Hawaiian tropical paradise, but they do seem to suffer when it snows. A few years ago the Korean government officially declared Jeju the "Island of World Peace". Subsequently, the government has decided to construct a large naval base on Jeju for a fleet of two Aegis destroyer-led squadrons. It seems to me that people are having trouble finding an attractive, apt label for Jeju, so I have decided to come up with one myself. Here it is: Jeju; Island of Animal Abuse.

Most humans seem to enjoy the exploitation and abuse of other animal species. Promoting Jeju as "The Island of Animal Abuse" will highlight the plethora of unethical tourist attractions the island has to offer, and its culture of animal cruelty. This may give Jeju an even bigger slice of the surprisingly lucrative animal-exploitation-and-abuse tourism market. Below is a brief rundown of the Islands' main animal-exploitation-and-abuse attractions, and some associated culture.

Animal exploitation-and-abuse enthusiasts are bound to be aroused by the shows at Pacific Land. Visitors can watch miserable (but permanently smiling) dolphins leaping out of what looks like a large indoor swimming pool (http://pacific.ivyro.net/show/). These dolphins were very probably captured at Taiji in Japan (as seen in The Cove), where their family members were slaughtered with spears. Pacific Land visitors can also see a sea lion performance, and monkeys play guitar and ride a bike.

Part of a sign outside Pacific Land advertising the dolphin show, seal show, and monkey show.

At Crocodile Town visitors can witness a woman place her head inside the mouth of a severely beaten crocodile. Crocodiles aren’t easily trained (as a young man I worked as a crocodile farmer), and lifelong negative reinforcement is required for a crocodile not to bite when a head is placed in its mouth. Basically, if a crocodile ever snaps at, or shows any aggression towards a person, you beat the shit out of it with a big stick. It will eventually learn.

A photo on the Crocodile Town brochure.

Other places where it’s possible to pay to witness animal cruelty include Elephant Park, with its sad elephants, and Hallim Park which boasts a small zoo (replete with a beagle display!). Unfortunately for connoisseurs of animal abuse Magic World has closed down, and with it the thrice daily kangaroo vs. Russian (human) boxing spectacular. When Magic World existed, I often used to wonder that if the helpless kangaroo was any smarter; would it have attempted suicide?

Some animal abuse attractions on Jeju are free! If animal abuse is your thing, then be careful not to miss the seal cages when walking down to the beach at Jungmun (the cages are easy to miss as they are tiny). In the most disgusting of these a very large male seal has been swimming in very tight anticlockwise circles for years. It shares, along with a second smaller seal, a pool not much longer than its body, which often reeks of shit. Separated by bars, people can get within a meter of this beautiful and suffering creature, and torment it with yells and waving arms (I’ve witnessed this).

The suffering anticlockwise seal. Jeju Island.

I personally try to avoid all of this animal-exploitation-and-abuse entertainment, but here in Korea it gets beamed right into my apartment. While channel surfing one evening I encountered every idiot’s fantasy; lions fighting tigers. The program I had stumbled upon featured an attraction at Everland (an amusement park in Seoul) in which lions and tigers share the same enclosure. I wouldn’t describe the program as a documentary, but rather as a highlights-film that showcased the ‘best’ fights between the two species. Apparently a few of these big cats have died in fights.

Cultural tourism is big business, and Jeju culture has a lot of animal suffering to offer. Strolling through Jeju City it’s not hard to find suffering animals like the 2 dogs below my old apartment window. These dogs were kept on a short chain for at least the entire 2 and half years I lived in that apartment (though probably for their entire lives). No play, no walks, nothing. I once enquired to the owner why he kept the dogs, and his wife who spoke a little English replied that “he loves dogs”. He loves making dogs suffer is more like it. Actually, these dogs are lucky compared to the dog my friend saw on an afternoon walk. 2 young police officers had hung it up in a tree and were enjoyably beating it.

Many of Jeju’s dogs live their entire lives on the chain. This cute dog, visible from my English classroom window, probably never gets let off the chain, just like the 2 dogs below my old apartment.

Motorcycling through rural Jeju I’ve several times encountered dog suffering on a larger scale. On dog farms man's-best-friends spend their lives in small clustered wire cages. These dogs are farmed for their meat, and after being hanged or electrocuted, eventually end up in one of the city's many bo-shin-tang restaurants. Bo-shin-tang is dog soup, which some locals believe can magically transfer the dog’s vitality and strength to the hungry human.

Bo-shin-tang's ingredients at a dog farm.

Where I come from, the sufferings of society’s sentient foods are kept away from the dinner plate, but it’s not always so here on Jeju. Sadistic cultural tourists will enjoy the freshness of a certain type of Korean octopus soup. Upon ordering this dish an uncooked pot of vegetables and live octopus is placed on a gas burner in the middle of the table. If the octopus tries to climb out of the heating pot, it can simply be pushed back in with utensils. You’ll have to ask someone else how it tastes.

Jeju is arguably more the “Island of Animal Abuse”, than it is the “Hawaii of Asia” or the “Island of World Peace”, but of course it’s not an attractive label. Despite the popularity of the above mentioned tourist attractions and the endemic poor treatment of Jeju’s animals, tourists and locals alike are unlikely to admit that they find animal abuse attractive. This paradox is easily explained as both Jeju locals and the majority of Jeju’s tourists are Korean, and many Koreans would not share my viewpoint that much of what I have written above actually does constitute animal abuse. South Korea has made some remarkable achievements since the devastating Korean War. It has rapidly rebuilt, embraced democracy, and provided a higher standard of living and greater freedoms to all its human members, but the sufferings of those sentient members without a voice, the animals, has gone largely unnoticed. The animal rights movement seems to have made hardly any impact on Korean culture. Hopefully this will change, and a weakening of Korean speciesism and growth of small groups like Korea Animal Rights Activists (www.animalrightskorea.org) will start to threaten Jeju’s animal-exploitation-and-abuse tourism and its culture of animal suffering.

I actually prefer Jeju’s official label. However, how can Jeju ever truly be the “Island of World Peace” without the animal members of its society being given a peaceful existence (not to mention the peaceful existence of women, gays, and non-Koreans)? I reckon Jeju should retain this label as it is attractive, and as a goal for Jeju society to continue striving towards.

Contact with Christianity

I’ve met a variety of peoples in my travels, but not until I moved to South Korea to teach English did I come into close contact with real church-going Christians. Amazing! Not only do these people believe in a big invisible alpha male in the sky, but they also regularly attend organized worship at a church!

Of course I’ve met Christians before. At least one of my mates back home believes in the Christian god, but he never goes to church. In my home city I couldn’t tell you where a church is. Christianity is the past where I’m from, the religion of my grandparents and ancestors. Despite this 'loss,' our godless society hasn’t suffered from damnation. Things are good. There are plenty of happy, moral people about. We just don’t do God.

South Korea is unlike my almost-churchless, western home. With an obscured view from the roof of my old workplace I could see no less than 12 church crosses amongst the city’s buildings. Back home, I heard jokes about bible bashers knocking on your door, but here it actually happens. Some of my Korean co-workers, seemingly trying to connect with me, have bragged about how they go to church every Sunday. "It’s so weird," I think to myself, “you're Asian and you're practicing my grandmother’s religion. We are nowhere near Jerusalem, Rome, or any western nation, and you're Christian?”

A Korean Jesus descending from Heaven.

Only slightly funnier than a white Jesus!

In fact, Korea is the Christian heart of Asia, with Christianity now being the nation's biggest religion. A lot of Koreans have abandoned their traditional belief in the supernatural Buddhism to believe in the supernatural Christianity, though almost 50% of Koreans, like me, have no religion. The sudden rise of Christianity here over the last few decades must have inspired a lot of confusion. In conversation, one of Korea's recent Christian converts, my friend Ms. Lee, told me that for marriage to be legitimate it must involve the Church and God. She had learnt this at bible study. When I said that she, therefore, must believe that her Buddhist parents are not legitimately married, she replied that they were, and refused to continue discussing the point. Maybe confusion is not the word; rather Christianity has inspired Koreans to non-think.

I've also come into contact with plenty of church-going Westerners here. This contact is possible as many of my fellow foreign English teachers are from Jesusland, otherwise known as the USA. The USA is the only nation with a rich, well-educated populace in which a majority still believes in a deity, and whose influence is largely responsible for Korea embracing the invisible Father. I doubt that young adults from Christian families are encouraged to travel as much as their non-religious counterparts, but I do wonder if Korea's Christian-ness attracts church-going believers. I mean, if you want to teach English abroad and surf, you don’t move to Mongolia. And if you want to teach English abroad and go to church every Sunday, you don’t move to China. Maybe I'm right. My girlfriend's American friend will only live in a Korean city with Catholic services in English.

So what are these church-goers like? For the most part they are nice, friendly people. Regular folk whom you can enjoy talking to, dining with, and playing sport with. People whom you can become mates with. They don’t push their beliefs upon you. It’s just that occasionally they do things that I consider a little weird, like talk about an invisible man in the sky, go to church, or talk to themselves before a meal, but it’s no problem. I have however met a few who have shocked me. The most devout of these was a graduate of Christian studies from a religious institution. At times she would vent her hatred towards other religions, mainly the 'Satan-worshipping' Islam, and other types of Christianity such as Catholicism. Her hatred did not stem from personal events in her life, but rather was learned from her bible studies.

Certainly, a few of the godly English teachers I've met here are just downright crazy. However, this may have nothing to do with their strong religious views, as there are just as many non-religious crazies here too. Close contact with this variety of people is something I have done without.