[W Forum] Unstoppable Progress

I was taken aback. After inserting a 100-yen coin into the coffee vending machine, my hand naturally reached toward the cup outlet, but I couldn’t grab the cup. The cup outlet was blocked by a plastic panel, and even when I tried to pull the panel by hand, it wouldn’t open. That plastic protective cover only opened a few seconds after the hot coffee was poured into the paper cup. Are all Japanese vending machines like this? For us, inserting a coin into a coffee vending machine and putting our hand in to get the cup is one continuous sequence.

One aspect of our "ppalli-ppalli" (hurry-hurry) culture that foreigners find fascinating is waiting with your hand inside the coffee vending machine. Other examples include leaving the theater immediately as the ending credits start after a movie finishes, and closing a website if it doesn’t load within three seconds. The ultimate expression of the hurry-hurry culture that they could never imagine is the restaurant owner who, after receiving the customer’s card and processing the payment, signs on behalf of the customer with a single stroke (一).

A friend who lived at the end of a hill alley where the road turned into stairs used to say that a car would roll down every night. Cars that failed to stop at night would miss the "No Road" sign and roll down the stairs. This was back when bollards were not yet installed at dead ends during childhood.

Why are we so hurry-hurry?

Looking back, during the period of the Miracle on the Han River, as students, we stood in line behind the person in front, and if we missed our turn, the teacher would scold us. The line could not be broken or interrupted. In the military, men’s hurry-hurry culture deepened even more before they were discharged into society. When entering the fiercely competitive workplace, under chaotic rules, one had to choose between yielding or cutting in line; yielding risked being labeled a fool.

In the early 1960s, a leader full of passion and a sense of mission for industrialization delivered a powerful message of "unceasing progress," which soon became our motto. Thanks to that, we may have quickly overcome poverty and hunger. But does our body’s memory still remain in a state of poverty and hunger?

Why do our bodies fail to stop even when encountering strollers or elderly people in elevators, quickly getting on and off? Is it because our bodies remember the past that valued economic efficiency above all, where hurrying and making way meant doing more work? Drivers who move ahead of pedestrians crossing the street seem to care more about the line of cars behind them than the single pedestrian. Do they tailgate closely, ignoring safe distances, because they believe they are entrusted with an important role in the nation’s economic revival? Whether inside apartment complexes or children protection zones, is the hurry-hurry driving due to an obsession with not disrupting the flow of the car line? The trauma of wrong education from times of hunger and poverty still haunts us.

Having achieved successful economic development through unceasing progress, now is the time to pause and reflect. Shouldn’t we stop the distorted growth of hurry-hurry culture that has turned into "As long as it’s not me! As long as I succeed!" and start looking around to see where our neighbors are, whether anyone is left behind out of sight, or if any members are isolated by different thoughts?

This new coronavirus infection (COVID-19) warns us: "You are a community of shared destiny!" And if we keep pushing forward without pause, we might fall off an unseen cliff. The brief footprint of humanity could end easily. It feels like the loud cry of a tiny microorganism teaching us coexistence.

Seo Jae-yeon, Executive Director, Mirae Asset Daewoo Galleria WM

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.