Top all-time · #1914
Ask a Korean!
Personal blog · askakorean.blogspot.comculturepoliticshistory
Ask a Korean! is a personal blog at askakorean.blogspot.com about culture, politics and history. Since 2010, 41 different Hacker News readers have linked it 56 times, most often “Culturalism, Gladwell, and Airplane Crashes”. The last post was in 2021, but the archive is still widely read.
Answering Questions Since 2006.
Most-linked posts?
- Culturalism, Gladwell, and Airplane Crashes7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2013-07-12
- /2009/01/fan-death-is-real.html4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2010-06-27
- The Best Method to Master a Foreign Language, Guaranteed4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2010-05-26
- Can individualism cause injustice?2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-05-27
- The Ultimate Choi Soon-Sil-gate Explainer (Part 2) (2016)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-03-10
- AskAKorean - Dog it's what for dinner2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-08-05
- The Irrational Downfall of Park Geun-Hye2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-10-31
- Explaining South Korea's Presidential Scandal by a Korean2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-10-30
- South Korean President Park Geun-hye's corruption scandal2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-10-29
- /2013/07/my-thoughts-on-gladwells-response.html?showComment=13740624101802 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-07-20
What Hacker News says?
Haven't experienced a Korean workforce first hand, but as a Korean I can probably provide some insight into the culture. In general, the culture is very hierarchical (respecting elders) thus seniority and age play a big factor in leadership. I would assume that this makes it very easy for mediocre (but good enough to survive) management to stay in positions far too long. Asian culture, but Koreans especially, can be…
Comment linking /2010/01/koreans-english-acquisition-and-best.html
on “Samsung Acquires Joyent”Submitted South Korean President Park Geun-hye's corruption scandal as a story · 130 points
HN discussionhttp://askakorean.blogspot.com/2008/09/why-do-koreans-compla... http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2012/12/quick-thought-about-p... Yes, the US are in fact occupying South Korea, and South Korea does not like it.
Comment linking /2012/12/quick-thought-about-psys-past-anti.html
on “Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit”Submitted The Best Method to Master a Foreign Language, Guaranteed as a story · 130 points
HN discussion> I would not hold up South Korea as being exemplary in anything particular but they're trying hard to make it work. I think that, their history of dictatorships set aside, South Korea's economic success should be lauded. I can't think of a single other country that has grown so quickly in such a short period of time, despite the odds being against them. They have little in the way of natural resources, and are a sm…
Comment linking /2011/02/is-koreas-economy-overhyped.html
on “Thank HN: Our friend is Safe and Sound”Submitted Malcolm Gladwell's Reponse to the Culturalism Post as a story · 65 points
HN discussionThe South Korean presidential scandal is one of the odder bits of contemporary political history. Imagine an alternate-history US President Hillary Clinton being impeached over PizzaGate and it starts to get close. Besides the actual corruption mentioned in the article, there are credible reports swirling of a "8 Goddesses" cabal and various occult practices. http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-irrational-dow…
Comment linking /2016/10/the-irrational-downfall-of-park-geun-hye.html
on “South Korean President Impeached”Submitted We Did Nothing Wrong, and They Destroyed Our Stores as a story · 17 points
HN discussionThis is huge. Early analysis is that this is a net positive for Korean democracy since the entire process, from protests to ouster was relatively peaceful and the people involved in the ouster tried to follow the rule of law as much as possible. It's exercised for the first time a part of the legal system that's never been explored in the country. At each stage of the very complex process, the government figured out…
Comment linking /2016/12/the-ultimate-choi-soon-sil-gate.html
on “South Korean President Impeached”Submitted The Korean Scandal, Brexit and Trump as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSpoken Korean used to have some tones until the 1500s, then lost them. In written Hangul (the original 1400s version) the tones were indicated with a dot diacritic to the left of the character. It's not known if Hangul influenced the dropping of tones from the spoken language or not, but around the 1500s and into the 1600s tones started being omitted in written Hangul (probably to make it faster to write, like dropp…
Comment linking /2014/01/tonal-vestige-in-korean-language.html
on “Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard (1992)”Submitted Explaining South Korea's Presidential Scandal by a Korean as a story · 4 points
HN discussionMove to China. Also, read this for some good language learning advice: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/01/koreans-english-acqui...
Comment linking /2010/01/koreans-english-acquisition-and-best.html
on “Mark Zuckerberg Answers Q&A in Mandarin at Chinese University”Submitted Culturalism, Gladwell, and Airplane Crashes as a story · 3 points
HN discussionDefinitely a cultural thing, definitely not perverse incentives at all. See: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-...
Comment linking /2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplane.html
on “Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit”Submitted How to End a Forever War as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThat explanation sounds great until you find out that Gladwell is more than willing to misrepresent events to fit into whatever point he's trying to make. The most egregious example I know of being the Korean Air Line Flight 801 crash. https://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell...
Comment linking /2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplane.html
on “AI tools are making the world look weird”Submitted Culturalism, Gladwell, and Airplane Crashes as a story · 3 points
HN discussionwhile I agree with what you are saying, Gladwell's example may not be very good http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-...
Comment linking /2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplane.html
on “U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent”Submitted The Inter-Korean Summit (Ask a Korean) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionYeah, I know this is just an Internet forum so who cares what's said right? But ... But Ask the Korean made an excellent point about culturalism: "The term "culturalism" is my coinage ... is the unwarranted impulse to explain people's behavior with a "cultural difference", whether real or imagined. Because the culturalist impulse always attempts to explain more with culture than warranted, the "cultural difference"…
Comment linking /2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplane.html
on “Vinod Khosla Wants Californians To Keep Out of Martins Beach”Submitted 10 Year Reflections: Korea in the World as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThat was a Malcolm Gladwell theory that has been debunked, particularly here: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-... In general I tend to question much of Gladwell's ideas these days seeing how many of them have been demonstrated to be wrong.
Comment linking /2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplane.html
on “B773 at Paris on Apr 5th, airplane did not respond to commands”Submitted The Irrational Downfall of Park Geun-Hye as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIf anyone is interested in getting to know about healthcare system in a neighboring Asian nation, South Korea, here's an article you may enjoy. http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/01/healthcare-system-in-... It seems to be an efficiently run program.
Comment linking /2010/01/healthcare-system-in-korea.html
on “How Taiwan transformed its health care system”Submitted The Irrational Downfall of Park Geun-Hye as a story · 2 points
HN discussionBelow blog posting is old but one of the best info available in English on the Korean Healthcare system. http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/01/healthcare-system-in-... Some may consider the fact that Korean national health insurance only covers around 55 percent of the total healthcare cost to be problematic. This may be true if one takes the idea of guaranteed socialized medicine seriously. But for fiscal conserva…
Comment linking /2010/01/healthcare-system-in-korea.html
on “For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality”Submitted The Irrational Downfall of Park Geun-Hye as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThis blogger, 8 years ago, wrote an excellent blog post detailing his method for improving his English: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/01/koreans-english-acqui... Warning: it’s not an easy solution, just an effective one. The main idea is “memorize more” and “practice more”. Judging by his blog posts, it seems to work.
Comment linking /2010/01/koreans-english-acquisition-and-best.html?m=1
on “Ask HN: How did you become fluent in English?”Submitted Ask a Korean: Culturalism, Gladwell, and Airplane Crashes as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
