It has been exactly ten days since the second part of Dark Glory ended, but the wonderful secondary creation of fans has just begun.
In this drama, which can be described as crazy criticism per capita, the villain five-person group stared at their eyes and opened their mouths, becoming a sound "Xiba" picture, and every time they saw it, they felt that they were scolded by a picture.
But that's nothing, and even crazier is yet to come.
Stay up late drinking and working out in the early hours of the morning
The rest of the Korean people
As the biggest villain in the play, Yeon Never Mentally Consumed Time Management Master Jen has a strange routine: getting up at two o'clock every morning, jumping rope on an empty stomach to three o'clock, and driving more than two hours to Seoul to work.
What's even more outrageous is that in this state, Wuli Yeonjin still has time to go shopping, beauty, party, take care of children, deal with Wen Dong'en's revenge, and engage in bullying and extramarital affairs.
In this way, Yeonjin has no time to sleep at all this day, so little sleep, normal mental state is strange, no wonder it is like a powder keg that explodes at one point.
Looking at Yeonjin who worked so hard, the Korean people's immortal cultivation routine once again made people all over the world wonder. There may still be people who think that the TV series has exaggerated elements, but those who have watched Korean reality shows know that the script really comes from life. At 12 midnight, when most people in the country are already sleeping, the nightlife of Koreans has just begun.
In last year's popular Korean romance series "Change to Love", the amateur members who participated in the show drank until three or four o'clock in the morning almost every night, waiting for dawn before sleeping. Some members go for a walk after drinking in the early morning, or even get fit. As a result, I got up at seven or eight o'clock in the morning, washed my hair, showered and put on all my makeup and went to work.
The late-night drinking scene of the members in Han Zong's "Transfer to Love 2"
South Koreans certainly haven't evolved sleep, they've just been suffering from sleep deprivation for a long time.
Not only variety shows and TV dramas, but also multiple surveys have confirmed the problem of sleep deprivation among South Koreans. As early as 2016, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) pointed out in a report that the average sleep time of South Koreans was 7 hours and 41 minutes, 41 minutes less than the average of 8 hours and 22 minutes in member countries, ranking bottom among the 35 member countries that year.
Last October, Samsung also released a new study that looked at the sleep data of 10 million Samsung smartwatch users in 16 countries between 2018 and June 2021. It was found that the average sleep time of Koreans per day was only 6 hours and 41 minutes, which is also a proper countdown.
These data may also include some children and the elderly, and if only the average sleep duration of young people is surveyed, I am afraid it will only be shorter. According to the survey, South Koreans in the Seoul area sleep only 5 hours and 55 minutes per capita, and many young people sleep less than 5 hours.
The BBC interviewed a 29-year-old white-collar woman who works in public relations in Seoul who works from 7:00 am to about 10:00 pm every day. On particularly busy days, she even stays in the office until three in the morning, and her boss often calls her in the middle of the night to arrange work and ask her to deal with it immediately.
There are also many workers, even if they can leave work on time, they have to drink with leaders, colleagues, and customers after work, and there are more than one round, usually at least three rounds to end the night's drinking party.
Not only office workers, but also student parties cannot escape the problem of serious sleep deprivation. All-night self-study has long been not uncommon, in the domestic learning self-discipline bloggers are still in the morning and afternoon to show netizens how to study efficiently, South Korean learning bloggers have rolled up the "study 20 hours a day", "challenge two days to sleep only three hours" schedule.
The popular "Korean crazy test sister" on YouTube only sleeps three hours a day and does not make up for a nap, but she is energetic every day; There is also South Korea's "superhuman sister of medical students", who usually sleeps three or four hours a day, and only sleeps three hours in four days a week during the exam. It's shocking that they can actually maintain more than 20 hours of study a day without falling asleep.
I have to say that as soon as the sleep time is shortened, I feel that the lives of Koreans have been invisibly extended a lot, which is really enviable (Sarah Lee crazy) (screaming) (rolling) (by the way, two hip bridges).
Korean = ice American + nutrition
Always have a sudden death prevention package at home
So, how do Koreans maintain their energy during the day with such a short sleep time every day?
As many netizens joked, Koreans are the earliest practitioners of morning C and evening A (morning coffee and evening alcohol), half of their blood is soju, and the other half is ice American.
For many young people working in Seoul, one cup of coffee a day is just the basics, and three cups a day is the routine: one in the morning to refresh the mind, one cup at noon to chat with colleagues, and a third cup to maintain energy after working overtime in the evening.
"Dark Glory" male and female protagonists met at the coffee shop for the first time
In 2022, there will be 99,000 coffee shops in South Korea, with an average annual consumption of 1.6 kilograms of coffee per person, and an average of 298 cups of coffee per person can drink a year.
Even in Shanghai, known as the "coffee market", the per capita annual consumption is only about 20 cups. No wonder it is said that South Korea is a well-deserved "coffee republic".
However, staying up late for a long time, coupled with the intake of caffeine to refresh the mind, this palpitations and urging combination, not everyone can bear it. South Korea's health supplement market is also booming. Last year, the Korea Health Functional Food Association said that the size of the local health products market in South Korea has reached about 25.41 billion yuan, and it is expected to increase fivefold by 2030.
Probiotics, red ginseng, vitamins, once became the "sudden death prevention national package" of Koreans, and the protagonist often appeared in Korean dramas to take out a strip of red ginseng and drink it all. According to statistics, nearly eighty percent of Koreans have purchased health care products, and more than 60% of young people take vitamins, red ginseng and other health products on time every day.
Source: "The King, Eternal Monarch"
Under the strong demand and purchasing power, not only traditional pharmaceutical companies and food companies, but even cosmetics companies have begun to invest in the research and development of health products, and began to produce collagen, hyaluronic acid and other beauty supplements.
Not only that, but the lack of sleep in South Koreans has also spawned a thriving sleep aid industry.
At a sleep clinic in Seoul's Gangnam district, Lee Ji-hyeon, a psychiatrist who specializes in sleep, said South Koreans need to fall asleep faster under infinitely compressed sleep times, so they rely more on sleeping pills.
She has long been accustomed to chronic insomnia patients who only sleep a few hours a night, and even often encounters patients who take up to 20 sleeping pills per night. The BBC estimates that 100,000 South Koreans are addicted to sleeping pills.
Image source@koreaboo
But sleeping pills also have quite a few side effects. Some people sleepwalk and overeat at night; There have even been car accidents in the heart of Seoul caused by sleepwalkers.
From sleep aids and supplements to bed linen and pillows for your bedroom, there are plenty of sleep aids in department stores in Seoul. Online, meditation software that helps sleep, offline, and temples to help young people practice meditation. In recent years, sleep cafes have also appeared on the streets of South Korea, equipped with capsule bedrooms, sleep lights and oxygen concentrators to attract office workers to relax.
Drinking alcohol and fitness in the early hours and coffee during the day to continue your life is worthy of being a country supported by skin care products, medical beauty and ice American style.
Why are Koreans so curly?
While there are many factors that contribute to sleep deprivation in South Koreans, one of the main reasons is the stress and exhaustion of work in a competitive society.
At a time when the world is shortening working hours in an effort to improve the mental health and productivity of its employees, the South Korean government clearly disagrees. Just earlier this month, many businesses complained that they couldn't get their business done. The South Korean government is also considering raising the upper limit on working hours from the current 52 hours per week to 69 hours per week.
And this number fell from 68 working hours per week in 2018 at the strong demand of the public. Current South Korean law limits working hours to 40 hours per week, plus up to 12 hours of paid overtime. But in reality, many migrant workers find that their actual work often far exceeds current regulations.
According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, South Koreans worked an average of 1,915 hours in 2021, much higher than the OECD average of 1,716 hours, behind Mexico, Costa Rica and Chile. South Korea also has the highest suicide rate, the highest consumption of spirits, and the highest number of people taking antidepressants in the developed world.
Behind this is the accelerating involution of Korean society.
As a student, Koreans were forced to start the Involution War. The Korean college entrance examination focuses not only on written test results, but also on interviews and all high school grades and awards. There is a popular slogan in Korean high schools, "Four when five falls", which means that high school students who sleep four hours a day will be admitted to their ideal school, and those who sleep five hours are likely to fall off the list.
In order to get admitted to SKY, the three best universities in South Korea: Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University, parents of wealthy families fight for money, information and intelligence, and students from ordinary backgrounds have to fight alone. The South Korean documentary "The Betrayal of Learning" also mentions a girl from a small town with excellent grades who drinks six or seven cans of coffee every day to maintain her energy.
Poster for the Korean drama "Sky City"
Job hunting is more involuted. South Korea's top 10 conglomerates generate about 82% of South Korea's GDP, but they provide less than 5% of South Korea's total jobs. Only high-precision professionals from prestigious universities have the opportunity to enter large companies for interviews.
Despite this, young people still flock to the consortium, and many students who do not have jobs after graduation are losers in large companies, willing to take the initiative to be unemployed for 1-2 years to prepare for admission to these consortiums.
On the other hand, the Korean entrance examination paper is also very serious. Every year, about 40 per cent of job seekers apply for the civil service. But this is regarded as the "safest but professional" civil servants are not easy to take the exam, South Korean public examination circles circulate: three years to prepare for the public examination is compulsory, five years is basic, seven years is elective, there is a greater chance of admission.
According to the results of a survey of 1,542 South Koreans conducted by South Korea's East Asia Daily, 43.9% of young people aged 20 to 39 believe that they are often in a state of "physical and mental exhaustion", accompanied by strong feelings of escape, fatigue and depression, collapse after work, and more sensitive and irritable.
The younger generation, which is becoming more and more involuted, is physically and mentally exhausted by disproportionate efforts and rewards. It is not surprising that the consequent collapse in the number of marriages and the continuous decline in fertility have become stubborn problems in Korean society.
Resources:
The world says: Koreans don't sleep, from chicken blood society to burnout society
BBC: Analysis of Korean social phenomena: Why so many people have trouble sleeping
CNN：This country wanted a 69-hour workweek. Millennials and Generation Z had other ideas
Written by: Citrus
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