Korean Conformity, or "Everybody's Doing It"

One of the most astounding things to witness as a westerner in Korea is the degree of conformity within Korean culture. It's a completely different way of looking at the world. In the west, we value individuality and creative thought, and people often devote themselves to finding their "true self" or work to discover what "I like" or what "I think". The fact that we capitalize the word "I" is reflective of what we value. In Korea, on the other hand, there isn't really room for "I", but only for "we". Everything is done by teams and groups, and so there is no need for individuality or uniqueness, because each person is a member of the group before they are an individual.

This manifests itself in a hundred ways, and one of those we witness on a daily basis. Each day on the way to work, we pass a large junior high school. The school is set back from the street, and the sand schoolyard and basketball courts are closest to the sidewalk. The students (segregated by gender, of course) stand in the schoolyard in their identical grey tracksuits. The boys have identical haircuts (short, nearly military-style), as do the girls (short, a couple of inches above the shoulder). The respective groups stand evenly spaced from each other, and follow in unison while the leader takes them through a series of calisthenic exercises. It's all a bit creepy, really, but also intriguing to see the extent to which sameness is valued. Sometimes, though, this can lead to some unexpected results.

This week the Korea Herald featured an article entitled "Schools urged to differentiate". Here's the opening paragraph: "An expert in higher education from the World Bank said most Korean universities are similar in terms of education programs and advised them to differentiate themselves by developing specializations." The article went on to say that most universities in Korea are the same, and offer the same programs. This is hurting higher education in the country, because the lack of diversity is leading to a lack of specialized programs and fields of research at different universities. Hmm... maybe same isn't always better.