WoW, you hit the nail on the head as far as Koreans go.
I lived there for two years, and one thing that struck me was how driven the whole freakin' country is, driven to be better than Japan.
Korean kids go to school twelve hours a day from age twelve on. When they're in high school it gets worse, to the point at which some are at school 18 to 20 hours a day, just to prepare for College Entrance exams.
Most Koreans go hog-wild in college though. Holy crap, I knew so many Korean college students who did nothing but drink and sing karaoke. They usually settle down after a few years, and once they graduate, they go work for Hyundai or Samsung and basically say goodbye to any kind of life. They work twelve or sixteen hour shifts, and once a year get real pissed off and start throwing Molotov cocktails at the riot police. It's a national pastime. We Americans usually stayed inside on those days. But in the back of every Korean worker's mind is the drive to grow the Korean economy to surpass Japan. I can't tell you how many people tell me that. The only thing that really shuts down the nation is a Korea v. Japan soccer match.
Great place though, and the food just rocks.
