South Korean Elites

"Let me tell you about the rich. They are different from you and me. . . .

They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better 

than we are because we had to discover the compensations

and refuges of life for ourselves."

F. Scott Fitzgerald              

This quote came to mind last week when a titled -- and apparently entitled -- South Korean
airline executive threw a hissy fit as a jet taxied toward a runway at Kennedy Airport.

The incident might be funny if it didn't betray her sneering and condescending view of her countrymen.

The woman, an executive vice president of Korean Air, was in first class on a flight bound for Seoul.  As the plane taxied from the terminal to the runway, a flight steward served her a package of macadamia nuts.  Apparently the nuts should have been unpackaged and presented on a dish.  (I don't travel first class often, so I'don't know much about these procedures.)

This error in protocol -- about nut presentation -- enraged the woman, who summoned the head steward, called him names, hit him with a file of papers and then demanded that he kneel before her and apologize.  Then the woman called the pilot and demanded that he taxi the jet back to an airport gate, where the head steward was ordered off the flight.

Perhaps because the woman's father is the chairman of the conglomerate that owns Korea Air, the pilot did as he was told.

South Korea in Recent History

During the time of the Korean war, most South Koreans did not have even high school diplomas.  After that, the country devoted itself to better educating its citizens to further the goal of growing its national economy.

These days education is extremely competitive in South Korea.  It is not uncommon for students to study 12 hours daily, over many years, to prepare for college admission exams.  There are three top universities in the country, and only students with top scores are admitted to them.

In an Al Jazeera article last year, a student explained the situation.  "To get admitted there (to a top school) decides what you can do in life and who you can marry.  It determines your future."

This is not so true for really rich South Koreans' children.

Chaebol

Chaebol are South Korean business conglomerates, usually family held.  The country's government for many years encouraged these businesses and helped fund them in the interest of enlarging the country's economy.  

One of these chaebol, the Hanjin Group, has been chaired since 2003 by the father of the woman who made the scene on the Korean Air jet in New York.  One of the group's businesses, Hanjin Shipping, is run by the widow of the chairman's younger brother.  

The chairman's three children all attended college at the University of Southern California, a good school but one that presumably isn't as competitive about admissions for very rich South Korean children as the their country's colleges.  Two of the three chairman's children became executive vice presidents of Korean Air, another Hanjin property.  (I do not know what the third child does.)  They were the third generation of Hanjin owners to be given top jobs in the chaebol.

Fallout

After last week's scene on the Kennedy taxiway, South Korean newspapers went ballistic in condemning the woman's behavior.  Her dad fired her and confessed, "I failed to raise her properly." 

There were demonstrations, especially by the offending woman, of the sackcloth-and-ashes variety, but South Koreans still seem to resent that their own children must compete so intensely while the children of the entitled rich glide to high offices.  Hard to blame them.  

Keiretsu

Japan has a similar set of industrial conglomerates, called Keiretsu, groups of companies with interlocking directorates.  These replaced pre-World War II privately owned conglomerates that seemed to be more similar to South Korean chaebol.  Japanese keiretsu do not have top-down management of each business entity.  The businesses operate with a great deal of autonomy, and their leaders are drawn from the ranks of proven professional managers.  

Maybe South Korea should look into this keiretsu thing.