Mark Manson, an American bestselling author and famous YouTuber, has made headlines by posting a video that he “traveled to the world’s most depressing country” after visiting Korea. Manson, a best-selling author who has written famous self-development books such as “The Art of Turning Off Nervousness,” is a YouTube creator with 1.44 million subscribers.
Manson recently released a 24-minute video on his YouTube channel under the theme of “Traveling to the World’s Depressing Country.” During his visit to Korea, Manson met with Americans, psychologists, and psychiatrists living in Korea to look into depression in Korean society.
Seems very similar to Japan except South Korea has been gaining popularity in the West more recently.
AFAIK Japan is also pretty bad but not as much as Korea.
Where is Korea worse?
Korea and Japan are in the same general situation, but in Korea it’s taken to the extreme. So suicide rates, average working hours, etc etc.
Lowest birth rate in the whole world, too. 0.84 births per woman.
For the Koreans I met who moved to Japan, the work culture can be less bad, as can be working at certain companies despite where they graduated from. My sample size is small, though, and I am neither Japanese nor Korean.
These countries have similarities, but this seems more like simplistic stereotypes and generalizations.
South Korea’s suicide rate is almost double that of Japan’s. Japan has a lower suicide rate than the US, and similar to European countries like Sweden.
South Koreans work some of the longest hours of any rich country. They’re closer to India and Mexico than Europe. The Japanese work fewer hours than the US. Yes, Japanese people work too much, but I think Americans don’t realize that they work too much too.