[yongjik]

> Whenever I come across Korean engineers, they're always very knowledgeable and hard working.

Emphasis on "hard working". Like, "come six days a week at 7 am, go home at 11 pm" hard working. There's a large variation, but such a condition can still be found in many places.

> Korean manhwa is arguably more innovative than the Japanese counterpart.

And Korean comic artists probably make 1/10 of what Japanese ones make.

Of course if you just consume the products and culture of Korea, it seems great. (And cheap!) Not so great when you are the one working in these conditions.

* Yes, these brutal conditions played a role in rapid industrialization, so one might argue that they were a "necessary" sacrifice to escape poverty, but those days are gone and now such a condition actively harms the country. South Korea's firtility rate is 1.24 as of 2015, because many people don't have time to love, get married, and raise kids. (I'm serious.) At this rate, soon the country will be filled with 70+ year olds, and then the economy won't sustain itself: the whole country will collapse like a deck of cards.