Replication of Korean Society

Introduction

Chief Kim is a drama about people struggling fighting against their own company from corruption. This drama depicts the dark side of working in a company in Korea, showing not just a threat to people outside of the company but as well as people who work there. In this drama, we see people with power in the company, instead of helping to build the company, using their power in a bad way that harms the people and company. Companies in Korea uses a hierarchy nature, showing the ones in the top to be respected and with power. The drama, Chief Kim, perfectly replicates the hierarchical nature of the business realm in the modern Korean society. This paper will be arguing of three important factors of what Korea companies workers face against : Honorification, Dominance, and Corruption.

Honorification Korean is seen to be the most complicated yet used language when it comes to honorification. In Korean culture, honorification has been deeply embedded for a long time (Yoon 2005, 190).As shown Korean honorification is been put in many different ways: ways to communicate to your family, communicate to your friends, and etc. “Correct use of honorifics is taught to children from an early age by their parents and by formal education at a later stage more extensively,which reflects Koreans' extreme caution” (Yoon 2005, 191). As seen, this is shown how important honorifics are used in Korea, so important to the point it should be used everyday or every time if possible. However in this paper, the honorification usage that will be used is the way of communicating with your coworkers and your higher ups/boss. Respecting the ones that have higher position than most is something that is seen common in Korean culture.

The social function of honorifics is used to be seen for “respect” (Brown 2011, 106). The ways of honorific in Korea is not just showing well respect towards one peers, but as well as using the right word to call them or to speak with them is also very important. In the Chief Kim, we are to see the chairman, Park Hyun Do, seen to be hated by a lot of people due to his way of working the company; however, no one is seen to be able to disrespect him due to fear and his position as chairman. Thus we see everyone still referring him as “Chairman” or “Chairman Do” as a sign to show respect for the man.

Without showing respect or the use of honorification towards someone that needs to be used is shown to be very disrespectful as this is what the Koreans have been taught since the start of using honorifics.Using honorifics requires considerable cautious as it is seen with high congruity through the ideas of Korean race, nation, culture and language (Brown 2011, 110). In a family or with friends, this can be seen as something you can joke around without any real consequences happening to a person. But in a company, with disrespecting can cause a person to lose their job or even worse situation happening to one. In the drama, due to his personality and type of person he is, it is seen through Gim Seungryong without respecting his peers but as well as trying to cause trouble in the company, many of the higher ups in the company are really unhappy of how he does these things and some are trying to get rid/ kill him due to him not respecting and causing things to be difficult because of him.

In working in a business, age doesn’t matter. Because age doesn’t matter which position you get, the ones that are being used with honorifics are the ones that hold a higher position in the company as stated. In Japan and many other countries, people are respected/ honorifics as in how long you have been in a company. However, in companies in Korea, people get respect through their position. People who have been working longer than others are still being treated the same as others. The only way to be respected in the company is to get oneself into a higher position in the company to satisfy one’s greed. Chief Kim features Seo Yul, who is seen to be younger than most people in the company, but with his achievement as being a past prosecutor, the chairman placed him into the company as the VP of Finance. With his attitude, he is seen most of the time aggressive and very bossy. But because of his position in the company, people are seen to be scared but respecting him with his title. People who are older than Seo Yul are seen to be unhappy with what he is ordering and it is a pretty humiliating thing to respect someone who is younger than you. But as his position in the company say, there is nothing for them to do and they are there just to respect him and address him as sir or something. Another example of the drama has shown is one of the old man in the drama that has been working and devoted his life for TQ group is seen. As said in early, age doesn’t matter, this old man is treated like nothing even though he has been working for the company for a long time and probably have been doing everything TQ group ask him to do.

Companies in Korea are shown to be serious about honorification, mainly because people are afraid of what a higher up would do if people don’t respect them. Might cause them their jobs or be humiliated for life. Korean honorification is seen so important that this whole thing about respecting people in the company in Korea can cause people to feel uncomfortable working in this kind of environment. Chief Kim perfectly depicts how honorification in companies are shown through the young director of TQ Group, Seo Yul . What the drama, Chief Kim, has shown is something many company faced and many workers are seen scared or uncomfortable because of this honorification system as seen both in real life and in the drama.

Dominance

The one that asserts their dominance over in the company is one to be feared the most. Through a company, dominance can be seen the most fearful thing that prevents someone to be relax in the company. People are willingly to listen to those who have power due to most can easily change someone’s role in a company. While talking about dominance, the most influence person with the most dominance in the company is the chairman. Most companies’ chairman in Korea that have using money as a thing are called chaebol. Chaebol as described are ones that have no sympathy of using money and only use it for their own cause without caring much for their workers or for the society ( Chang 1988, 141-142). In Chief Kim, Park Hyun Do is seen using his money to benefit what helps him the most. He is seen to use his dominance to increase the corruption that is happening in the company. His job regulation towards the other vice president or directors there is by making them obedience or cover up whatever he needs to cover up for. He never really gets the blame at first due to everything being done by the workers there instead of him, all he ever did was to command them around.

People that are superior in position have power over the entry level employees. Through in the companies, there are some higher position people who got their position through connection or getting favored. These people are seen to be more dominant in using their position due to them not really wanting to do all the work by themselves and they are already given privilege in using their power. Through Chief Kim, even though Seo Yul is an ex prosecutor who quit his job to join TQ Group, that doesn’t change the fact that he got in through connection and him using his dominance. In companies, we can see people being in shame through people in higher position shaming on them to make them feel wrong and weak, “‘If one is lost to shame, s/he has no conscience, too’. Shame and conscience are the two sides of the same coin; shame prevents a person from living only by instinct’”( Heo and Park 2017, 2). Through shame people feel negatively inside, causing a company to go downwards through all these shaming. In the drama, there are many of the managers and directors shaming on other workers in TQ Group, trying to make them feel worthless and powerless. Not knowing this causes people to go through anxiety, the old man that devoted his life for TQ Group, he almost attempted suicide due to him feeling sad and worthless. Things like this that actually happen will only downsize the company as shown in most Korean companies, many higher up people are just shaming people due to them not needing to work a lot and just shaming on people to make them feel worthless.

Dominance doesn’t just show up between just coworkers, but as well as the relationship between men and women. In the business world, there are sometimes some men using their dominance with a high up position trying to do figure out something with women, “rightly stress men’s power over women and, in particular, men’s control over women’s sexuality, it is also important to note that a particular group of men controls over a particular group of women.” (Lie 2005, 310-311). In many company, especially when they went out to drink, the older men who are normally the higher ups will act up being pretty drunk just to try to sexual harrass the women there. Normally women are completely unable to reject due to feeling bad to reject a “drunken” higher up, if they do, the higher ups will just use their dominance/ position towards them making them being completely obedience. In the drama, even though these scenes were never really presented; however, we do see scenes like men being shown to be more powerful than women. One example from Chief Kim was when Seo Yul and Jo Minyoung, the event director, are seen discussing, but we see Seo Yul making decisions and him shouting with anger towards her. Even though both Seo Yul and Jo Minyoung are in equal when it comes into power in the company, we see Seo Yul having more dominance over her, as to see the difference in power between men and women.

As bringing it back, the most common reason why that employees are willing to follow the orders of people with higher standings is because they are afraid of the consequences of not following orders. By not following orders, things like them losing their jobs would be very likely; however losing their jobs is not worse than the other consequences. The other consequences might be giving impossible task to finish, and making one guilty,changing jobs in the company to ones that are low pay rate, etc. Seo Yul asserts his dominance through giving impossible task to Gim Seungryong so that Gim Seungryong wouldn’t be able to finish the task or even keep working in it. Seo Yul was trying to make Gim Seungryong tasks so that he hopes for him to quit his job through pressure. Dominance in companies are seen to be worse than before due to people asserting their power and trying to force people, anyone using their dominance are seen as threat to one’s life.

Corruption

Corruption in companies are always seen the most especially those types of company who earn a lot of money throughout the year. Money and power are the main issue for a company to go through corruption due to the company trying to hide something, getting bribed, or many other bad things happening. One of the most common thing that we see a company’s corruption is through bribery. Bribery can be getting bribed for money or power or for both. The company’s chairman, or in this case the chaebol, can be seen greedy to use the money for themselves. Chaebols use the money to protect themselves from trouble, chaebol’s normally bribe people for their power over them to protect themselves from trouble such as the police or even the government. “Major conglomerates guilty of bribing the former presidents in exchange of government contracts or political favors.” (Jun 1996,1071). While it’s reasonable for people to bribe others, but for the people who are getting bribe for money are probably worse than the ones who are giving the money out, due to them knowing what they are doing is actually bad but they are accepting the fact that they are in this together and accepting the fact they are doing this by breaking the law. Giving an example, the ex president Park Geun Hye and her old family friend trying to deal with some fund business but due to this caused Park to be removed from office and jailed (Kim 2017, 839). In the drama, there are couple of scenes that Park Hyun Do is bribing a government officer for protection for him, with knowing that he would end up going to jail early if he didn’t do any kind of action. Through bribery, they don’t just immediately give the money in front of them presently. What they normally do is they always intend to hide in some box or gift wrap it to look like they are just giving them a gift or donation, “Such bribes were disguised as “donations” or “contributions” for various charitable causes and political campaigns.” (Jun 1996, 1080).

Another type of corruption of the company that companies try to do is to manipulate the public perception of what is really happening in the company and others. The company would always want to present themselves to people as the ideal company to work with; however, most company has dark sides of them being corrupted so what they do is they try to control the media system. “The government was regarded both as a controller of democratic reform and as a target of democratic reform by different parts of civil society.”( Rhee 2011, 307). While this article talks more about the relationship between government and media, there is not much of a difference for companies since most corrupt companies bribe the government so it stands equal. However, most of the time the company is trying to manipulate the media is when they wanted to hide something from the public. In Chief Kim, TQ Group tried to cover up the story of the previous chief by forge the story into making the chief seems like he wanted to suicide, but in truth it was more of him knowing the company’s secret so the company “threatened” him. The media is so powerful that even companies are afraid of revealing the truth to the outside world. By manipulating the media, as well as the support from the government to do so as they own the media system (Kwak 2012, 13), the company can hide the truth from the world. But because of hiding the truth, no one actually will know the dark side of the company as seen and will eventually be the next victims, thus showing how corrupting it is for companies to manipulate the media.

One last thing for companies about their corruption is they would do no matter what it takes to stop a thing (normally harmful to the company) from being exposed or happening. They are willing to go through deep methods to stop it, they don’t really care about human lives due to Chaebols are always willing to spend money to benefit themselves and to avoid hurting themselves while at it. In Chief Kim, the chairman wanted to get rid of the wife of the previous chief. All because of she was interfering with the company and conflicts between her and the company itself. The chairman tried all kinds of ways to stop her, for example, using security to drag her away and even worse way was to kill her off through a roadkill.

Korea is ranked top for their corruption, “South Korea (henceforth, Korea) is notorious among OECD countries for its wide-spread corruption, both political and financial.” (Oh 2017, 243). As stated, companies in Korea are easily to be able to be corrupted in any ways of not having the best system in Korea when it comes to corruptions. Corruption can not just ruin the company itself, but the country as well. If the government is corrupted and nonetheless say the whole system of Korea is corrupted, then what can stop it or improve Korea as a country?

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is shown that Chief Kim, perfectly replicates the hierarchical nature of the business realm in the modern Korean society. Chief Kim shows what many Korean companies are like if they got a chairman that is a chaebol. Korea itself might have started to improve their society, but deep down things are still being processed and making Korea look like they got no process at all. Systems in other countries are probably very similar, but as stated Korea is by far being notorious known for its corruption (Oh 2017, 243).

Chief Kim perfectly depicts the society lives between Koreans and the companies. By showing the cruelty of what people with power are like, what they are like by showing what they are capable of doing. Even though Chief Kim has a very successful and happy ending, ut in real life society this isn’t going to be true. People like Park Hyun Do and even Seo Yul exist, so through corruption and fear, a company is to be doomed with these kind of characters exist.

Koreans are needed to change everything that is listed above: Honorifications, Dominance, and Corruption. Companies are needed to stop relying on people themselves so the society can be better, if not, things like threats and bribery, are still going to ruin citizens life. For a company to go through corruptions, there is going to be more than just one simple solution to help them get back to where they were before.

Word Count: 3043

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