"Being able to make a living does not automatically solve everything. What do we think about as we live? What stories do we tell? How much time do we have for ourselves? How many hours do we work? Examining every corner of these questions is the proper way to approach quality of life." (From "The Road We Have Walked, The Road Ahead")
Choi Young-han, 65, a visiting professor of business administration at Gachon University, has always been proud to be a South Korean. After teaching economics at Konkuk University and Incheon National University from 1992 and later serving as president of Woongji Accounting & Tax College, he has watched the country's transformation up close. Following Japanese colonial rule and the Korean War, he said, Koreans worked as one, sweating and bleeding to build a better life. Having overcome countless hardships including the International Monetary Fund currency crisis, the country crossed the threshold of advanced-economy status and is now moving further inside. The world has praised Korea, which rose as high as ninth place in the world economy (14th as of 2025), as the "Miracle on the Han River."
Reality, however, looked rather different. The students Choi met in his classrooms did not seem to be growing, and household finances were not getting more comfortable. Conversations with neighbors had stopped, and even talk shared with one's own children had dwindled. He could not readily nod along to indicators showing that quality of life had improved. Why are Koreans not living better? To find an answer, Choi examined "The Road We Have Walked, The Road Ahead" across five themes: politics, the economy, education, culture and society. Choi, who hopes the country will move toward being a genuinely advanced nation rather than one in name only, sat down for an interview.
Politically Backward Korea: The Answer Is Education
"Koreans are a very unhappy people when it comes to politics. What they hear and see day in and day out is dictatorship, impeachment, trials, sit-ins, verbal fights, bribery, abuse of power and improper solicitation. It is extremely hard to live a socially and economically stable life."
Choi said Korean politics "has failed to escape its backwardness," citing the harms of regionalism, problems with the indirect election system and the concentration of presidential power. He argued that for the country to be reborn properly, the standard of voters themselves must rise. Politics changes only when the people change, he said. During last year's 21st presidential election, the cost of election pamphlets delivered to every household came to 37 billion won. Yet most of those pamphlets were thrown out without even being opened. It is a passage that lays bare voters' political indifference.
"Basic education for democratic citizens is the most important thing," Choi said, stressing the importance of political education. "Why we vote, how we vote, what attitude to bring to an election — these must be taught steadily from a young age." He added: "Young people these days say nothing at all when they dislike something. On politics too, rather than indifference or cynicism, I would like to see them actively state their own views — 'this is wrong,' 'this is well done.'"
Balanced Regional Development First to Solve Social Problems
Choi, who says he takes a keen interest in social phenomena, describes four shadows hanging over Korean society: soaring property prices, unequal income distribution, a "hurry-hurry" culture, and every-man-for-himself survival. "I am cautious about speaking up on real estate," Choi said, but added that "much of the responsibility lies with the rulers who failed at balanced development between regions, and with the politicians whose misguided policies triggered the price surge."
He sees "proper balanced regional development as the key to solving most social problems." "If regions develop evenly and there is no longer any reason to live in Seoul, or insist on living in Gangnam, I am convinced that home prices will stabilize, even if it takes time," he said. "Not only real estate but social inequality and income gaps will all resolve naturally once balanced regional development is achieved."
To become an advanced society, Choi said, the priority is for all members of society to live happily. "A happy life becomes possible when you find work you love and immerse yourself in it," he said, preaching the importance of work. "What matters most is not what parents or teachers push on you, but figuring out what you yourself like. A society where people love whatever work they do, where people doing different jobs can find harmony with cheerful hearts — this is the ideal of an advanced society and the direction Korea must go."
Everyone Flocks to Medical and Chip Schools: The Absence of Philosophy
"The problem with Korean education stems from an 'absence of philosophy.' The exam-centered structure, rote learning, the expansion of private tutoring, the overemphasis on English and the weakening of teachers' authority are all branches grown from the same root. Education is the work of raising human beings. It must move toward thinking."
Choi dreams not of a country where top-performing students flock to medical school, but of one where they branch out along their own paths — engineering, the humanities, social sciences, the arts — and find harmony. Having taught for more than 30 years, he said, "I was truly happy watching students in the past find what they wanted and carve out their own paths." He expressed regret that "these days I don't see that enterprising spirit, and it leaves me uncomfortable and apologetic."
Choi believes the "medical school fever" and the "artificial intelligence and semiconductor fever" have intensified precisely because philosophy has been excluded from the classroom. Students, he said, are swept along by the social mood rather than finding work they genuinely love. According to Chongro Academy and industry figures, applicants to semiconductor contract-based departments at Yonsei, Korea, Hanyang, Sungkyunkwan and Sogang universities totaled 5,992 in the early-admission round for the 2027 academic year, up 19.4% from a year earlier. Analysts say an unprecedented AI and chip boom is driving students to crowd into these contract-based programs. "Whether it is medical school or semiconductors, piling into any one place is not good," Choi said. "Not getting into a semiconductor department does not mean you cannot join Samsung Electronics. You have to find the studies you love and the work you love on your own."
Asked how AI technology would affect education and the humanities, Choi said: "Students no longer ask professors questions, and since they do their assignments with AI, everything they produce covers much the same ground. From an educational standpoint, I have my doubts about whether AI is really progress." He went on: "Students ask AI to 'summarize the contents of a book' without reading a single one. The humanities will become more important in the AI era, but paradoxically I think an atmosphere of dismissing them will take hold."
At times like these, Choi stressed, "we must feel the importance of reading all the more keenly." "To move toward being a genuinely advanced nation, we must become a society where our own distinctive creativity shines. We must become people who read, reflect, look inward and find for ourselves what we should do." Reading and reflection, he said, will cultivate "individual diversity." "I hope a world arrives where the individual, not the collective, is respected."
Choi summed up public sentiment this way: "Survey results show that what Koreans think is 'politics is backward, the economy is middle-income, culture is advanced.'" According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's 2025 survey of Korean attitudes and values, 96.4% of respondents rated Korean popular culture as "excellent." Pride in being Korean, however, has weakened from the previous survey in 2022. Asked whether they were proud to be Korean, 76.1% said yes, down 13.7 percentage points from 2022.
Asked whether they considered Korea a good place to live, 76.5% answered positively, down 13.9 percentage points from 2022, when the figure was 90.4%. In the same survey, respondents named the social problems most in need of solving as the gap between rich and poor at 23.2%, jobs at 22.9%, real estate and housing at 13.2%, and low births and population aging at 10.8%.
"We have to acknowledge that we are a relatively comfortable, well-off country," Choi said. "The task that remains now is to move firmly into the ranks of advanced nations and hand down an advanced Korea to our descendants with pride." He added: "A prosperous country does not stay prosperous just by sitting still. We must read, write, learn and study, bringing together mathematics, science, philosophy, history, music, art and physical education to create our own culture, philosophy and climate of research."
Korea is a country that has overcome far greater pain than it faces now. For that reason, Choi had no doubt that the country can become far better still. Hoping for a society in which each individual shines, he reads, writes and speaks diligently every day. "The roads ahead of us," he said, "are boundless."
