Three reasons why Korea has bottom of happiness level | Reading & Writing Blog, Fall 2011

There are no people who don’t want to obtain happiness. but there are many ways to obtain it and the criteria for happiness also various. Especially Korea has beautiful nature and well public and high GDP level. These are very good condition for their nation, Korean, but Korea’s happiness level is bottom in the world. It is somewhat contradictory. There are three reasons why Korean shows this weir situation.

First Korean’s ‘Comparison culture’ striped of their happiness. According to research, Korean has strong ‘Groupism’. Where is me, where is my position in this group is more important than who am I. So when they felt happy instantly asked themselves how I am happier than others. And then, if they are less happy than other they depressed. In my experience, when I was middle school student, I got good grade so my mother praised to me but after a few minutes, my friend got a higher grade than me, mother didn’t smile at all.

Second Korean doesn’t let them happy. Even though they have own their house or car, they said I’ll be happier when I get bigger house, nicer car. Even though they become manager, they said I’ll be happier when I become president. Of course, there is no limit to people’s greed. But Korean can’t enjoy their present happiness, they want more and more so they are always felt lack of something. Sometimes I want to talk to them as ‘enough is enough’

Third Korean seems they forget their ultimate purpose of life, Happiness. People’s aim of all their activities is happiness. But often, they confused means with end. Most of the Korean high school students want to go to top 3 universities in Korea to get a good job that earn much money. And it is for success and it is for happiness. however they studied as go to university is only their goal. So some students who failed university entrance exam suicide. There are many ways to happiness but they forget this is just means, and depressed about just they failed.

Happiness depends on people’s mind. It is very relative value so it is not good idea estimate happiness and attitude about it. But I think, Korean didn’t enjoy happiness which they called it is happiness. Even they missed what they really want and overlooking. Korean should take time to stop and think about what they really want and enjoy just few minutes.

One thought on “Three reasons why Korea has bottom of happiness level”

There’s an interesting book about how Japan went through (and still is going through) something similar. It’s called Shutting out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation by Michael Zielenziger. (I’m reading it now, actually.) It raises the question of what happens to a society when (a) materialism and conformity dominate, and (b) that society’s inflexibility causes problems when it has to deal with a changing social and global-economic climate. (Zielenziger actually compares Korea in 2002 to Japan around the same time, but when I read his description of how much better Korea is, I was shocked: he obviously visited Korea only as a tourist, and didn’t realize how similar the situation in each country is in terms of these problems.) If Zielenziger is right about how Japan got that way, then I think Korea’s in a very similar situation… and it’s likely to get much worse before it gets better.

The good news is that Korea is not an island. I don’t mean geographically — I mean that, in the world, many other societies have gone through something like this. In fact, the term Zielenziger uses — “Lost Generation” — was originally created to describe Americans who reached adulthood and worked between World War I and World War II… especially during the economic boom of the 1920s, and the following economic troubles of the 1930s. Korea went through a similar boom in the 90s, followed by a bust in 1997 (and a much bigger scary economic climate, globally, more recently). Maybe by looking at the experience of the American/European lost generation, and other such periods in other societies, Korea can find some examples of good and bad ways to deal with this set of problems?

Your structure is pretty good here, but you must remember to have a STRONG THESIS in your introductory paragraph, and to restate your thesis in the final paragraph of your essay. I’m only giving you feedback on one essay, since you completed fewer than the assigned ten. If you wrote an essay like this on the exam, after the number of times I’ve talked to the class about the necessity of a strong thesis, then I would be forced to give you an F.

Finally, you need to try a little harder to develop the connection between the TOPIC SENTENCE of your body paragraphs, and the final sentence… the final sentence should connect back to the theme of the topic sentence, as if we’ve come full circle in your paragraph. Does that make sense?

admin on 12 December, 2011 at 2:57 am said:

There’s an interesting book about how Japan went through (and still is going through) something similar. It’s called Shutting out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation by Michael Zielenziger. (I’m reading it now, actually.) It raises the question of what happens to a society when (a) materialism and conformity dominate, and (b) that society’s inflexibility causes problems when it has to deal with a changing social and global-economic climate. (Zielenziger actually compares Korea in 2002 to Japan around the same time, but when I read his description of how much better Korea is, I was shocked: he obviously visited Korea only as a tourist, and didn’t realize how similar the situation in each country is in terms of these problems.) If Zielenziger is right about how Japan got that way, then I think Korea’s in a very similar situation… and it’s likely to get much worse before it gets better.

The good news is that Korea is not an island. I don’t mean geographically — I mean that, in the world, many other societies have gone through something like this. In fact, the term Zielenziger uses — “Lost Generation” — was originally created to describe Americans who reached adulthood and worked between World War I and World War II… especially during the economic boom of the 1920s, and the following economic troubles of the 1930s. Korea went through a similar boom in the 90s, followed by a bust in 1997 (and a much bigger scary economic climate, globally, more recently). Maybe by looking at the experience of the American/European lost generation, and other such periods in other societies, Korea can find some examples of good and bad ways to deal with this set of problems?

Your structure is pretty good here, but you must remember to have a STRONG THESIS in your introductory paragraph, and to restate your thesis in the final paragraph of your essay. I’m only giving you feedback on one essay, since you completed fewer than the assigned ten. If you wrote an essay like this on the exam, after the number of times I’ve talked to the class about the necessity of a strong thesis, then I would be forced to give you an F.

Finally, you need to try a little harder to develop the connection between the TOPIC SENTENCE of your body paragraphs, and the final sentence… the final sentence should connect back to the theme of the topic sentence, as if we’ve come full circle in your paragraph. Does that make sense?