Breaking out of the Hierarchy

I recently met a Korean who neither drinks, nor asked me my age.

You may wonder why this is significant, and you may wonder if those are related. Well, you're in luck because I have the answers to both of those queries!

Korean society is based entirely on hierarchy. And that hierarchy is based exclusively on age. "Juniors" HAVE to do what their "Seniors" ask or demand. A senior is anyone who was born any year before you. And yes, this extends from families, to friends, to classmates, to coworkers. If your senior tells you that you are going to go and drink with him, then you go. And you drink as much as he buys you.

Independence and innovation are not valued nearly as highly as respect and interaction with seniors.

I've heard many of my friends and classmates complain that they are limited by the past - the oldest people in the company make the decisions. Or they are limited by the future - their senior invited them to go out and drink tonight, so they have to finish everything today so that if they are forced to drink too much, they have to time to recover in the morning.

Because the social hierarchy is built around age, it is typical to be asked your age during the first encounter. From that question it is set in stone who will be buying and who will be following, who will be bowing and who will be leading.

So what does alcohol have to do with it? Well, to say that Korea has a "drinking culture" is an understatement. Many Koreans don't like drinking, most do it anyway. Because their senior - for one reason or another - decided that drinking would be the sport for the night. Every night. This is not limited to college students, nor is it divided along religious lines. Everyone drinks. Especially when their senior buys it for them.

Except my new friend.

He is a software developer at Kakao Talk, Korea's own extremely popular social network. Their company policy includes: never asking 1) academic background - often used to discriminate and divide, or 2) age - always used to determine hierarchy. And how does he pull off not drinking? Well, without the age delineation, no one can tell anyone else what to do.

So for all my Korean friends who feel that they have no hope of ever escaping the cycle of hierarchy and are afraid that they will be locked in stagnant companies for the rest of their alcohol-ridden lives...I want them to know that a modern society based on ability is possible - even for "the capital of Confucianism". Keep fighting, my fine friends!