How South Korea Became a Credit Card Nation

[JamesAt15]

Just saw this article on BusinessWeek.

How South Korea Became a Credit Card Nation

Kind of surprising how quickly a culture can change to a consumerist debt-driven society. Also raises some concerns about Asian Financial Crisis II. (Or is it too complainypants to mention that?)

[nikki]

I live in South Korea, and I'm almost always conscious of my comparatively frumpy clothes I always wear at work compared to my coworkers'. In fact, there are some teachers who seem to have a new outfit every day. Hmm...

I once went to a somewhat fancy "big clothes" store to buy some capri pants for summer (US size 12/14 represent!), and I was asked if I wanted to spread my payments out over xx months (can't remember). I was a little shocked at this proposition. It made me think of putting clothes on layaway at K-mart or Walmart--the difference being that I got to walk away with my clothes then and there.

Of course, I paid my entire bill in one go.

But I think this story is really indicative of the consumer culture here.

[Michael792]

Nikki, If you live in the Seoul area, the Dongdaemun clothes market is really competitive and you can find cheap, nice clothes there.

[nikki]

Nikki, If you live in the Seoul area, the Dongdaemun clothes market is really competitive and you can find cheap, nice clothes there.

Thanks, but that's actually super far from me! Maybe I'll visit Seoul some day, though. :-)

[Michael792]

No prob no prob

[johnny847]

Wow. That's pretty crazy. I knew of consumerism in Korea, but I didn't realize that consumer debt was that high.

I was born in Korea. My parents are of the generation that saved tons of money. They're pretty frugal. But I remember my mom telling me that when she visited in 2002 or so, society was really different. All about keeping up with the Joneses.

It'll be interesting to see when I visit in April.