Samsung, LG, and Hyundai – all companies we are familiar with in the West and have probably used at some point in our lives, to South Koreans they are known as “The Chaebol Families.” Families untouchable by the law who essentially run South Korea’s entire economy.
From 1910 until 1945, Korea was ruled over by the Japanese, a rule of intimidation and complete cultural erasure in which speaking Korean was forbidden and a third of historic buildings were torn to the ground. However, after the end of WWII with parts of Japan in ruins due to the atomic bombings, Korea was captured in the North by the USSR and in the south by the USA. This would go on to start the Korean War, a three year long ruthless battle between communism and capitalism which would ultimately split the country into the two halves we know today. Probably to your surprise, North Korea thrived after the war due to aid from the Soviet Union and was far richer than its southern counterpart who struggled economically due to having little agricultural land or natural resources. This would begin to change though in the mid 1960’s as the USA sent floods of cash into South Korea as a thanks for their help during the Vietnam war. This would allow South Korea to begin investing in infrastructure, trading ports and most importantly education.
South Korea is notorious for having one of the strictest education systems in the world with teenagers studying an average of twelve to sixteen hours a day between school and after school tutoring. This gave the nation an advantage, soon rivalling Japan and the USA in areas such as electronics manufacturing with our previously mentioned companies skyrocketing in profits and power. To put into perspective just how big these companies have become, Samsung is known to make up 20% of South Koreas GDP - in comparison Walmart makes up only 2.5% for the USA. Hyundai has an entire city compromised of over one million people all of which are employees for the car manufacturing powerhouse. Working for a Chaebol is one of the highest accolades an average South Korean can gain with it being the dream of many students who work hard to get into top universities in order to study for the highly competitive company specific entrance exams. Though this all sounds like an economic miracle for a once poor country, having companies with such insane power and influence does come with its downsides.
This is where I am going to introduce the tragic story of Hwang Yumi. Born in 1984, Yumi was the daughter of a poor taxi driver. Growing up her father didn’t make enough money to send Yumi to university however at the time, Samsung was asking high schools to recommend their best students to go and work at the company to which Yumi succeed and got the job. This was a huge achievement that her family initially viewed with pride, hoping she would make enough money to fund her future wedding and send her siblings to further education, however things would soon take a turn for the worst as Yumi fell ill. She was quickly diagnosed with leukaemia and had to undergo painful and expensive treatments that her parents struggled to afford. Despite fighting hard against the disease she sadly passed away in the back of her fathers taxi on the 6th of March 2007 aged only twenty-three. After some investigation, it was revealed that the cause of her leukaemia was being exposed to harmful chemicals without proper protection while developing semi-conductors at Samsung. The companies unsafe practices outraged Yumi’s father who soon began speaking out and demanding change and compensation. To his disbelief, Samsung offered him a small sum of hush money and stated that there was no point in him trying to fight against the country’s largest corporation. This angered Yumi’s father even more who began staging protests outside the Samsung building with banners and chants for justice for his daughter, this of course was ignored by the company’s senior staff who told him he was powerless and threatened to kick him off of company land. This fight for justice lasted for eleven years after Yumi’s death with her father hauntingly stating “I wish I could throw my daughters ashes in the senior staffs faces.” Finally in 2018, Samsung issued an official apology to all of their workers who had been harmed as a result of dangerous working practices and compensated their families with large amounts of money.
This wouldn’t be the only case in which a Chaebol family would abuse their power. Recently a ridiculous story came to light in which the daughter of the founder of Korean Air would order her plane to abort take off, kicking the chief flight attendant off as they had committed an unforgivable act – serving her nuts in a bag instead of a plate… yes you read that right. South Korea is known to have one of the world’s highest inheritance taxes at 50%, this was brought to light when the head of Samsung suddenly fell into a coma in 2014. He hasn’t been seen since and is likely dead however due to these inheritance laws the nation and government are essentially pretending he is still alive to prevent the loss of potentially thousands of jobs and harm to the South Korean economy.
This may all seem dystopian but huge corporations are becoming more prevalent and more powerful all across the world every day. Local businesses struggle to thrive due to the constant increase in the cost of living meanwhile the world’s biggest companies have enough money to sway the outcomes of major global conflicts. We truly do live in a real life game of monopoly, mess with the wrong corporation and you are sure to go bankrupt.
