Korean Reflections: Confucius And The Cash Register

My time in Korea is coming to an end, so this is the first in a series of articles reflecting on life on the peninsula:

The till opens to reveal a huge wad of ten thousand won notes (about a fiver each). Altogether, the checkout operator must have several hundred pounds in her till. I could reach out and grab them, simple as can be. Even after a year here, this to me is amazing. I did a similar job for many years back home in Belfast. If my boss there had caught me with several dozen notes in my till, I'd have been reprimanded or worse. Such a haul would have been a bonanza for one of our frequent armed "customers".

But this isn't Ireland, it's Korea, where crime is virtually non-existent. It probably never occured to the woman in question that she might be endangering her own safety by keeping so much cash in her till. And this is the wonderful thing about living in a country where theft and violent crime are so rare - it allows us, the ordinary citizens to live more freely.

I've just started leaving my key at home when I go out. If I bring my key out with me, I may lose it, and then what? I'd be fucked. Balanced against the small chance of me misplacing my key is the microscopically small chance of being burgled if I don't lock my door. So I've finally overcome my western paranoia, born from living for so long in a society where people take what isn't theirs.

Why then is Korea such a safe country? There are a variety of reasons, not least that Korea, unlike some other Asian countries, is a wealthy place. Few indeed are those who live in such abject desperate poverty that they may have to steal just to eat.

But perhaps the main reason that crime here is so rare relates, not so much to Korea's economic success, but rather to its value system. I've heard it said that South Korea is the world's most Confucian country, though I've no idea how you could come up with such a statistic. Did some pollster wander round Seoul asking people "On a scale of one to ten, how Confucian are you?"

Regardless of whether or not Korea is top of the Confucian league table, it has undoubtedly been deeply influenced by the ancient Chinese scholar. For those of you unfamiliar with his teachings (and I'm no expert myself) Confucius was a big fan of order and deference. So the king must be gentle with his subjects and, in return his subjects must be obedient to him. Ditto the husband and the wife, the parent and the child.

Some of you back home aren't loving this, right? A bit constricting, especially for those unfortunate enough to have been born female. Well, fair enough, I wouldn't actually like to live my life by the restraints of a man who has been dead for several millenia. But this is the great thing about being a foreigner in Korea, one gets all the advantages of living in an orderly and civilised society without having to endure the discipline and subjugation which is the cost of this peaceful life.

Soon though, I will be back to the decadent west, with its violence, its rudeness, its thuggery, its vandalism, its grafitti, its casual disregard for others.

Can't wait

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