In Confucius tradition, there was conduct how Kunja to be. Kunja(君子, 군자) has to be careful practitioner for moral determinations, always to be wise man, and it is duty of being human being. The ontological conception of this conduct is sometimes to be stereotypes. The Euirye(의례, 儀禮), Confucius ritual or etiqueues in life, is appearance only, to be compliance to it is a moral norm, a notion of people doing anything avoid a loss of appearances. The reason why modern Korea or some Asian countries, when enterprise is defamed by social trouble, CEO open a session to apology to it, by deep bow to people. It is business and morality is important virtue, so strong enterprise has to have duty to do it, however, in other situations, it is chemyeon, which made Korean society as shameful background, to raise suicide rate higher than ever.
Chemyeon is essentially a product of Confucianism. Confucianism is good systematic conduct of how to live moral life, conforming to society’s expectation is extremely important. The life’s aspects are diverse and multi-dimensions, so one motivated conduct is applicative by various situations, the perception of others that one did not meet expectation was for deep shame. Confucius taught harmony, to be work around duty but it is ignored by dynamic nature of application. Married woman was supposed to be devoted as wife, man should be pivotal role in family, childrens should respect elderly, these are very often compliance of appearance only.
If person is not good mother, not good father or good children, it is considered as violation of public image, and pushed to comply it by public reputation, which is psychologists critique Group Fallacy which only some percentage of people in the Internet expressed their blame to the target, but regarded as if whole, and it makes many social impact on political landscape of Korean community.
The Korean people’s consumption of luxurious product are higher than ever, stats says Korean people consumes 5 percent of their income to buy luxurious product. The company of manipulating luxurious product set the price higher with premium costs, consumption rate is increasing yearly.
Moreover, people who were approved Seoul National University is successful life livers, who are taking envies from others, and people who were not approved by that university cancelled their admission to other university, and re-participate next year’s admission exam again and again. In US and Canada, university degrees are not exaggerated to the purpose of discrimination, the SNU students have intellectual capacity and academic achievement, but the core meaning is that everyone regards good university admission is vital in life, like chemyeon and appearance and really it is reasonable social sensation that envalue education and suicide high rate.
So, high school student should learn many things from young age, private academy tuition is almost 30% or 40% of parent’s income, attendances to math academy, english academy, piano academy, taekwondo academy, physics academy and so on, and from the influential Internet cultures, childrens have to have more stricter sense of ontological push in forming morality, the feeling of falling behind makes suicide decision easily.
Suicide is not only problem to students, but famous people too. In 2009, no less than 9 famous people taking their own lives. 40 percent of 260 actors she surveyed had contemplated suicide at some point in their lives. Many people envy SNU admission, but there is coincidental belief system “jalnancheok” which means “pretending like wiser person” this is associated with gossips in the Internet, many people feel shamed seriously and killed themselves to keep the fame. President Roh Moo-hyun’s death is most tragic, because he gained support of majority of public, suicided by defame phenomena and it fired up deeply rooted progressive vs. conservative conflict in Korean politics, it is because not only famous people, some belief systems in society is exaggerated chemyeon as appearance value, it makes social problem advanced to other areas.
The defamation, public-private gap, is also researched by many academic pros. They agree chemyeon culture is advanced to social trouble trigger. The public interest is vague and ambiguous in nature, but some other contributory condition and hidden hegemony, it is packaged as if moral norm, it makes chemyeon intertwined relationship in living social life.
So, President Park Geun-hye announced government-led out history textbook, but this is another nonsense because of political reason which would be variation later (appearance is that President Park was first lady at Park Chung-hee era, when first lady–mother of Park Geun-hye was died) and it also was controversial event in korean government history.
The public image also struck Cho Guk, who was entitled minister of law, also defamed and it is sensational in SNU students. Park and Cho are different political camps but defamed as Roh Moo-hyun experienced, and many entertainers suicided was important event in chemyeon culture caused to them, though unconditional trust to powerful people are not recommended for state of affairs–in Korea, there is gap between private and public images, it is rooted by misconduct of Confucius conduct, public reputation of people still suffers by. The social expectation is higher than other countries–which is rooted with Confucius tradition of chemyeon or compliance of appearance.
However, when enterprise CEO’s problem was known to people, chemyeon culture can be reformation of the misbehavior, so it is not confined to bad conduct, however, multi-dimensional nature of it, it is pointed out by many academic pros’s psychological approach, regarded as stereotypes. “Group Fallacy” as so-called “naembi geunsung” or “Hell-Joseon” are what related to the phenomena. The conceptions around this, psychologically introduced theories and critiques are referred widely to. This is why the Confucius compliance is important issue in Korean community, which was often debated in famous phrase “Confucius must die to prosper Korea” 30 years ago.
At this time, I introduced bad thing about modern Korean society. Let me move on good thing in next writing. The commonly, cold-blood nature of business, people created new trendy, marketing evolution developing narratives and charity can do make difference in helping poor conditioned people, even which international people feel the extension of 情 culture. The enterprises have contributed to society this way too although there is some unfair problem at certain aspect. The CEOs who led out cultures even better is known to public and learn from them. Moom Guk-hyun was example of the fame. (However, when he was debut and active in politics, renovation of political corruption was not resolved)
Most of Korean people also know chemyeon is not good culture, but it is chronicle negative effect on society. It is often appeared as prevalent social problem, so is important topic to understand modern Korea.