[calvinbhai]

Question for South Koreans here: Is this real or is this report just the usual exaggeration by western media?

Asking because Reuter’s has a biased reporting for anything related to India, and I’m wondering if they have a similar lens / filter for South Korea. (I’m from India in US)

[mikekchar]

Reuters also has a history of bad reporting wrt Japan, at least as far as I'm concerned. They often translate things incorrectly and lead with conclusions based on that mistranslation. They are not the only ones on my "usually biased news" list, though. The Japan Times often picks up stories from the Yomiuri Shinbun, which are questionable in nature and translates them. These are then often picked up by the BBC.

What I find interesting, though, is that I don't think it is necessarily editing bias. I think it's actually the opposite: poor editing. What I've found is that when I've found stories that are mistranslated, or which contain seemingly intentionally misleading information, it's actually the same reporters. It is really only a handful of reporters that seem to be responsible for all of the crap news stories. The problem is that the editors seem to let the stories through (possibly because they are money makers???).

I'm not going to name names (of reporters) because my "analysis" is really adhoc and probably also biased. However, I encourage people to look at the by-lines and see if you find any patterns with types of stories and their authors. Don't assume that because it's reported by a reputable news service that the information is correct and unbiased.

[w1nt3rmu4e]

I've seen some truly awful journalism from Reuters. Articles that were so agenda driven as to almost laughably gloss over facts in order to present the desired narrative. (Laughable if reputations and money weren't on the line.)

I've called some of the offending journalists out on social media, which I encourage everyone to do.

[ako]

This is what happens if we all want to consume news for free, cost of gathering news also has to go to zero...

[triplesec]

Can you suggest some better-informed sources for us? I'd be very interested in more nuanced available sources

[AsyncAwait]

I have several major news apps on my phone and what I've found is that they're all reporting the same story, with very similar biases, within minutes of each other.

They all seem to drink from the same fountain.

You'd basically need to know what biases which outlets have to what stories and apply a filter accordingly, which can be extremely time consuming.

[xfitm3]

What about the AP? They seem to be rooted in factual reporting.

[AsyncAwait]

With the AP, it depends heavily on the thing they're covering. Often times they try to give every side and are indeed pretty good, but then I noticed that i.e. when it comes to Palestine, they often run headlines like "Palestinians dead in Gaza", which implies that some Palestinians just dropped dead, while in reality the headline should have been "Israel shoots Palestinians in Gaza" or similar.

They even did this when their own reporter, who was clearly marked PRESS was shot.

Here's the story as reported by the AP[1], notice the headline: "AP cameraman shot during Gaza protest", no mention of Israel and might even give the impression that Gazans shot him.

The vast majority of people only skim the headlines and AP knows this, so this is hardly an accident.

1 - https://www.apnews.com/65bd5c31690342b886ab5b8f72b37e53

[wodenokoto]

Just ask Google, there are others who have reported on this before Reuter.

* sep, 2018 https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/prison-providing-... * feb, 2018 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/south-korea-overwork-culture-j... * 2014 https://www.wsj.com/video/want-a-break-from-stress-send-your...

Of course most people haven't heard of it. It is basically a gimmicky take on a silent retreat and there is only 1. I'm sure there are all sorts of odd takes on silent retreats in the US too.

[miss_classified]

Just because Google results show you a thing, doesn't make that thing accurate, but merely prevalent and reduplicated in an index.

[wodenokoto]

These are not reduplications of an index.

These are links to independent sources reporting on the same thing over several years.

[duchenne]

I have been living in Korea for many years. I have never heard about it. I asked my Korean colleagues about it. They have never heard about it and they think that it is weird.

[hnzix]

The article isn't saying the "prison retreat" thing is common, it's a meta commentary on the stress of Korean corporate life.

I have seen a question on HN about Japanese "Black Companies" before, and I believe patio11 said that they were an actual thing. So I'm not surprised a similar culture of overwork exists in South Korea.

(My only direct experience of South Koreans is that they always kick my ass at online games).

[patio11]

Black Companies [0] are a thing, but the discourse of Black Companies mostly serves to protect the mainline of Japanese work culture from the degree of criticism it deserves.

[0] A company so abusive of workers that it literally disgusts Japanese salarymen. Common elements include withholding pay, withholding pay for large amounts of mandatory overtime, ordering overtime in quantities sufficient to cause death by exhaustion, physical violence against staff, harassment of staff by management in a fashion far surpassing social norms, etc.

[wnevets]

Do people actually think they'll die if they sleep with the fan on? Thats pretty weird to me.

[duchenne]

Yes, that used to be a common misconception in Korea until recently. It is completely false but such rumors can get viral very quickly. There are also many such misonceptions in the West. For instance, in the West, many people still believe that different areas of the tongues are used for different tastes (sweet, bitter,...). You can find more such things in this famous wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconception...

[AnaniasAnanas]

> many people still believe that different areas of the tongues are used for different tastes (sweet, bitter,...)

We actually had that being stated as a fact in one of our elementary school books. Kind of concerning when even the writers of such books do not perform some basic research on the topics that they are trying to cover.

[Freak_NL]

The prevalence of male infant circumcision in South Korea (over 80%) for dubious health benefits is another one of those lingering misconceptions. Even the US, a former bulwark of this custom, is more progressive in the gradual decline of it.

[nkozyra]

That one in particular is "dubious," as you claim, whereas these others have no factual support. I don't think it's an analog in the discussion.

[Freak_NL]

'Dubious at best' may be a better phrasing, but it seems to be a touchy subject in some countries (partly because of religion). Still, South Korea is an odd statistical outlier here.

[Nursie]

Some interesting ones. Fortune cookies originating in Japan, and being seen by the Chinese as an American affectation - they're very rarely seen here in the UK so I can well believe it.

[pbhjpbhj]

Are they rare in the UK? Common enough in my city for the last couple of decades. I think I first saw them on Friends (USA tv show), or a similar show.

At our regular Chinese takeaway the kids only get them if they come in with us; other places just include a handful.

To me the biscuit is really vile.

[Nursie]

Rare enough in my experience, perhaps I shouldn't generalise!

But I've never had them from a takeaway, and only once or twice in a restaurant. My experience is almost entirely from London and the South-East though.

[dialogbox]

Yes, we did until 5 to 10 years ago. Not anymore. Some incorrect information from TV made people believe like that from maybe 70s.

edit: What really happened was, some very old people died because of hypothermia by fan when the fan was just introduced in South Korean market. At that time, no one knew about hypothermia so people believed it was suffocation. That became the urban myth.

[labster]

Just remember: in low gravity, always sleep with a fan on or you can die of suffocation. Just in case that ever comes up, you know.

[gadders]

Really? Citation please.

[lmm]

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Astronau...

[wnevets]

>but warm air does not rise in space so astronauts in badly-ventilated sections end up surrounded by a bubble of their own exhaled carbon dioxide.

Whoa, I didn't think about that.

[gadders]

Cool, thanks for that!

[ryanmercer]

>Do people actually think they'll die if they sleep with the fan on? Thats pretty weird to me.

There are people that legitimately believe Earth is flat.

For something less crazy, people were wearing surgical masks in photos of the California fires the past few weeks. They are wholly ineffective, a proper respirator with the appropriate filter is needed to make any impact on the air quality.

More oft than not people will readily accept something as fact without questioning it at all. There are countless YouTube videos that prey upon this, like the 'DIY drone phone case' and the videos with people alleging 'make diamonds with peanut butter and coal'.

[monksy]

That's a German thing too.

[kbumsik]

Buddhism-based meditation tours are quite popular in Korea. Many Korean temples offers "Temple stay" [1] program which is pretty much the same as the jail: locking themselves up in the temple to escape from the city life for a cople of days. The jail in the article seems to be a slightly exaggerated form of templestay. The motivation behind it is pretty accurate tho.

Of course not everyone want this, and it is Buddhism - half of Koreans are christian.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Stay

[cafard]

In America, there are Catholic retreats, some at retreat centers, some at monasteries or convents, some elsewhere; I assume that other Christian denominations have retreats, but don't know and have never enquired.

For that matter, the writer Patrick Leigh Fermor, who was not Catholic, wrote about going to stay for a short period at the Benedictine abbey of St. Wandrille, mostly to get away from distractions. You can find the account in https://www.nyrb.com/products/a-time-to-keep-silence.

[eartheaterrr]

This seems to be a cheaper, ascetic equivalent, of the classic meditation retreat, which is already popular in both the East and West.

Marketing it as a prison puts a quirky twist on it. This makes for an interesting article, which also fits Western stereotypes.

[badpun]

The defining feature of a prison is that you can't leave until your time is up. I doubt that they have implemented it.

[briandear]

Except the bureau chief of Reuters is a Korean, and not a person prone to sending stereotypes over the wire.

[newyankee]

you will be surprised. I know many self-hating Indians who would happily denigrate the country and reinforce stereotypes, especially journalists.

[kijin]

Obviously, not all South Koreans are locking themselves up.

This is just an unusual hotel that helps people get away from everyday life and stop being tied to their smartphones for a while. You could remove all references to South Korea, and the business model still looks interesting. I suspect it could work just as well in Japan, or even in the West as a modern alternative to a monastery.

[h3throw]

Yeah, I think the comparison to a monastery really helps with understanding here.

[Mikeb85]

Why not just go to a monastery? It's just as structured, but with better food, scenery and the meditation/prayer/spirituality element helps when you return to civilisation.

[ryanmercer]

I've done this here in the U.S. before. I'm not Catholic but Saint Meinrad Archabbey is 2-3 hours south of me here in Indiana. I was getting really burnt out from lots of OT and had been talking to someone I know that used to be a Catholic monk, he did some searching and reached out to St. Meinrad and arranged for me to stay there for a few days.

It was great. The monks basically left me alone, I had a small private room with no television or radio, there were common areas where people would quietly talk, I just sat around enjoying calm and quiet. Eventually one of the monks got brave enough to come over and ask me what was up haha which was also great because I had a very interesting conversation with him about life in general and then he suggested I talk to the Friar that was the director of the guest part of the archabbey which I did and had an interesting few hour conversation about ancient Greek, Latin, early Catholic church popes, art. It was great.

I think people really need to experience stuff like this be it the way I did it, the way the article has it or just going to a 'quiet retreat' or some such.

Our lives are over-saturated with things screaming for our attention.

[kijin]

Monasteries are a Western tradition. Some Buddhist temples and Christian organizations offer a similar program in South Korea, but most people who aren't religious don't feel comfortable attending an overtly religious program.

Edit: Most Koreans would think of monasteries as a Western/Christian thing. Culturally, modern South Korea is much closer to the West than to India or even China.

[Mikeb85]

There's definitely a strong historic Buddhist monastic tradition in Korea. The Christianity that has taken hold in Korea is the American/evangelical sort and they don't do monasticism, so it seems strange to me that it would be associated with the West.

Anyhow, when I made the comment, I was thinking of the last line of the parent post "even in the West as a modern alternative to a monastery". To me, an alternative to monasteries seems redundant when you can go to a monastery.

[kijin]

I meant a secular alternative.

A majority (56%) of South Koreans have no religion. Among the remainder, there are more Christians (19% Protestant + 8% Catholic) than Buddhists (15%). Unlike in Japan, Buddhism hasn't been a dominant force in the Korean society for a long time -- not since neo-Confucianism replaced it as the state ideology in the early 15th century.

Some Buddhist ideas and habits remain in the culture, of course, but most people regard them as part of their national tradition, not Buddhist in particular. The younger generations think of Buddhism more as a subject of history books than as something that might be relevant to the 21st century.

So a Buddhist monastery is not exactly the first thing that the average person would think of when they want to get away from the stresses of life in Seoul. Some temples run "temple stay" programs for short-term visitors, and some people seem to like it, but that's about it. It's just another niche. Not every Asian country is deeply Buddhist!

Meanwhile, anything that is vaguely related to America or Europe is grouped as "Western" in Korean parlance ;)

[malloryerik]

You could go to a Buddhist temple but then you have to wake up at 5am and do a routine.

[eeZah7Ux]

> Monasteries are a Western tradition

China and Japan had monastic traditions for more than 2000 years. Also Buddhist monasticism predates christian monasticism by centuries.

[magic_beans]

> Monasteries are a Western tradition

Where on Earth are you getting that idea? Are you forgetting about India?

[thaumasiotes]

If you're Korean, India is Western. They share "Buddhism", though generally not the same sect of Buddhism. They don't share a cultural tradition.

[virtualwhys]

Japan and China (in the past) have had a long monastic tradition. I assume it's the same for Korea.

Monasteries are most definitely not exclusive to the west.

[lsc]

That actually sounds pretty interesting to me. Like, could I take a month off and go study Christ at some catholic monastery even though I'm not a believer?

[Mikeb85]

Probably. Although I'm more familiar with Orthodox Christian monasticism, but yeah, depending on the monastery they'll take in visitors and belief isn't required, though a certain level of respect and open-mindedness is. Monasticism also isn't so much about 'studying' as contemplation (it's actually quite similar in some ways to Buddhist meditation). Not every monastery is open to visitors (depending on their facilities and number of monks), but it's worth sending a few calls/emails.

[acheron]

Probably, yeah. Look up monasteries in your area, there's a good chance there will be one with guest accommodations, and I gather you'd have access to their books, able to attend services if you want, etc. Details vary I'm sure. I've never done it myself but thought about it.

[HenryBemis]

While I was reading this, I thought "hey they are trying out Minimalism"!!! [1].

[1]: https://www.theminimalists.com/

I believe many people in this forum fall under the: got plenty of money, spending plenty of money, started medidating to improve life and work performance, found value in decluttering.

I don't know how wide-spread this phenomenon is in Korea, or the integrity of the journalist/article, but even if 200 people do it in a year, it looks like they are trying to simplify their life.

Edit: thinking about this a bit better, this is more like Ascetisism [2] (fromt the Greek Ασκητισμός), than Minimalism, but it is to the same direction.

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asceticism

[bane]

Like most news, there's quite a bit of truth, with a bit of "hook" to draw the reader in. South Korean study culture, especially to get into University, bass a bar exam or get a public service job is really quite unreal.

There are blocks of "prison" like apartments with surrounding quiet zones in many areas. They exist simply so people can escape home life and study 24/7 (mostly rote memorization exercises) in order to pass some gatekeeping exam [1]. I have a niece who didn't score well enough in the college entrance exam to get into a tier-1 school and so is spending a year in one of these in order to retake the test and get into a better school. It's not a prison exactly, you can come and go as you please, but people generally don't rent these as their sole residential living arrangements. The goal is to have a distraction free environment to get as much wakeful study in as possible. The last time I visited the country, she was so deep into her studies she was unable to break free and come say hi and was very regretful about it over the phone.

Work life is also pretty crazy, and often unproductively so. Many companies simply just waste employee time making them sit around or do busy work in order to appear that they're actively engaged in business activities. There's also enforced after hour drinking and dinner activities and often work on weekends. It's not as bad as Japan, but there's definitely strong commonalities. It's considered very desirable to get a job with a foreign company because their treatment of staff is more along global norms. There was a cut this past year in the maximum full-time hours, but it's still way above 40/week and is probably poorly enforced. I can almost guarantee it will have no measurable impact in work output even though companies are acting like its economic armageddon.

Some of my relatives work like this and it's pretty much a universal desire among them and my friends there to start their own small company so the hours will be better and maybe even the pay. It doesn't even matter if the company is something they have any particular expertise in...just something to enable them to have some better measure of control.

Here's an anecdote, one of my Korean relatives has wanted to come visit us in the U.S. for 3 years, he only gets 5 days of vacation per year. At the beginning of the year he asks for permission from his boss if he can take those 5 days and come over. For 2 years he was denied and as a result just took his vacation days as three day weekends (with at least a one month notice beforehand). His boss acted like he was trying to destroy the company both years.

This year he was given permission to come visit, but his wife was not and so he's coming alone.

He works a very normal white collar job.

1 - https://kotaku.com/these-korean-rooms-are-compared-to-prison...

Source: not Korean, but married into one for 18 years

[briandear]

> Many companies simply just waste employee time making them sit around or do busy work in order to appear that they're actively engaged in business activities.

Incredibly true. When I worked there, I had to literally sit at my desk until 8pm despite being done with work by 6 simply because 8pm for my office was the “end of working hours.” Then off to a Soju-fueled dinner with coworkers whether you wanted to or not which would often degrade to a session of mandatory fun at the Karaoke. Rinse and repeat. I love Korea, but the work culture can be brutal. Hopefully that has changed a bit.

[outbackcoder]

Saw the same thing in Japan during my two years there. In Japan this is known as "mizu shobai", literally the "water trade". Business deals in Japan are largely made over drinks and snacks after work. The bars are literally packed to the gills with "salarymen" until well into the night, only to repeat the next day. It's brutal.

[pbhjpbhj]

I'm surprised that sort of work environment can survive. But then freed slaves also have kept others as slaves, so ...

[imajoo]

>5 days vacation per year

What kind of company is this? I work in Korea and talking with other Koreans here there is a mandatory minimum by law. Asking for a day off is normal, but 5 days? That's extreme.

[bane]

You are correct that the law states 15 days minimum with a cap somewhere like 25. But it's wildly violated and many South Koreans never get to exercise all of the days, or are artificially limited as to how large the blocks of time might be.

He works for a supplier of industrial equipment.

[_jgdh]

I’m from India in India. Could you give some examples of incorrect reporting by Reuters?

[calvinbhai]

Biased != incorrect.

If your biases and Reuters’ biases match, then you won’t notice anything biased or wrong in Content published by them. I think it’s up to you to figure out and identify which of the (many) biases are obvious in Reuter’s content of Asian and south East Asian countries (not just India)

[pwaai]

Definitely as real as mukbang.

멍 때린다. Im zoning out. Translitterally, to be in a state of stupor.

[j39]

Wut? I am Indian in India, and don't know what you are talking about. I prefer Reuters India any day of the week compared to the never ending "infotainment" from the local mainstream press.

[calvinbhai]

as I said in an earlier comment:

"Biased != incorrect. If your biases and Reuters’ biases match, then you won’t notice anything biased or wrong in Content published by them. I think it’s up to you to figure out and identify which of the (many) biases are obvious in Reuter’s content of Asian and south East Asian countries (not just India)."

If you are aware of your own cognitive biases, only then can one start noticing what kind of reporting is biased and what is not.

FWIW, I believe biased reporting helps receive more clicks, and I'm not necessarily against it.

My question was purely out of interest to know if people from/in Korea agree with the picture painted by Reuters or not. Looking at the popularity of the question, my guess is probably not.

Reason for my question, in addition to my belief that they are biased (not incorrect), is that a similar behavior in the US would mean (my guess, I'm not a doc) a diagnosis of depression.

[adventured]

The demanding work life the article references is real. South Korea is #2 in the OECD in average annual hours worked, at 2,070 hours per worker for 2016 (the US was #14 at 1,789 hours by comparison, with the OECD average at 1,763). That's 41.4 hours per week across 50 weeks, basically the average South Korean is working overtime every week (by US standards).