Gangnam

The world isn’t ending today, although just in case it does later in the evening, we in the newsroom will likely greet the end while dancing Gangnam Style.

Learning the Korean song-and-dance phenomenon and speculating on how the world might end have brought fun to Christmas season 2012.

The global renown of Gangnam creator Psy is just the latest achievement for South Korea, a country that has been described in the western media as misunderstood and underrated.

The other night the Koreans achieved another breakthrough in their democratic system, electing their first female president. This is a society where the average guy thinks cooking is beneath him and should be relegated to women. In the 2012 Gender Gap Report prepared by the World Economic Forum, South Korea ranked 108th out of 135 countries. (The Philippines ranked eighth.)

Park Geun-hye won by a wider than expected although still narrow margin of about a million votes against her opponent Moon Jae-in. Moon was once thrown in jail for opposing the new president’s father, the cold war-era strongman Gen. Park Chung-hee.

Koreans have said their election is not just about charting their course for the future but also coming to terms with their authoritarian past. Among those who picked Park were Koreans who missed the days under her father, who ruled the country with an iron fist for 18 years. Although a despot, Park put his country on the road to industrialization, export-driven growth and prosperity.

Park’s daughter is unlikely to reverse the transformation of South Korea from an impoverished country torn by civil war and ruled by a succession of autocrats into one of the most prosperous democracies.

That transformation happened within just half a century. As recently as the early 1970s, South Korean Ambassador Lee Hyuk remembers his rural community still without electricity, like the rest of the Korean countryside. There were so many poor people and so little food Lee’s grandmother shared what little rice they had with neighbors who lined up outside their home.

It was a violent time for South Korea: Park seized power and was assassinated in 1979, five years after his wife was killed in a slay attempt directed at him.

His successors continued his authoritarian rule but also his focus on economic growth, with emphasis on working one’s way out of poverty.

That work ethic is still there, driving the Korean growth engine, but now in a democratic setting. The country is showing that democracy works.

Where was the Philippines when Park seized power in 1961, and where are the two countries now?

South Korea has been described as one of Asia’s great success stories. In our case, the best we can say is that we’re trying.

Ambassador Lee emphasizes that the circumstances in his country are unique. Still, there are lessons for Filipinos to learn from South Korea’s impressive transformation.

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Park Chung-hee identified Korean industries with the best potential for growth and supported their development. The focus on production of goods for sale to both the domestic and global markets generated jobs and steadily raised standards of living. The upward economic mobility created a large, educated middle class that over the years demanded more from their government, particularly civil liberties.

South Koreans later famously sent two of their former authoritarian presidents to prison for corruption, then pardoned and freed them. The humiliation of the two former leaders surely helped curb corruption, although the problem has not been eradicated.

These days South Koreans are grumbling about a widening gap income gap, but the country still enjoys a relatively equitable distribution of wealth and inclusive growth.

The only individual with a gated compound in that country, I was told, is the president. Although the country is technically still on war footing with the North, only persons in authority such as police are allowed to carry guns.

I asked the ambassador how they managed to transform into a merit-based society, when connections also used to play a big role in getting ahead in Korean life.

He said as Koreans became more prosperous and educated, they started frowning on the patronage system and ostracized its beneficiaries perceived to be unworthy of positions in government and other aspects of national life.

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Prosperity has its downside. Lee Hyuk says Koreans are so competitive and driven to excel that they are rarely happy with what they have already achieved.

This is indicated in global studies on positive attitudes and happiness, where the Philippines always ranks high. In the latest by Gallup Inc., our country ranked eighth behind mostly Latin American countries while South Korea ranked way below.

The upside of a competitive spirit, however, is economic prosperity and the development of globally successful companies such as shipbuilder Hanjin, car manufacturer Hyundai, and electronics giant Samsung, maker of the world’s most popular cell phone – not the iPhone but the Galaxy S III.

Koreans are even exporting their culture. K-Pop and Korean telenovelas are hugely popular here.

And then there’s Psy and Gangnam. South Koreans may rank low in terms of happiness. But the pop star is having fun the Korean way, and infecting the world with it.