This document discusses patterns of happiness in Korean society. It argues that happiness is often defined by social conventions like achieving a good job, money, marriage, and family. Students face immense pressure to get high scores to attend top universities, leading to high suicide rates. Marriage is important for social acceptance, but discriminates against those who don't conform, like multicultural families and homosexuals. Overall, individual choice and happiness are restricted by social expectations that perpetuate through generations.

1. Name: Murilo dos Santos- ID: 50131038
Topic: Happiness and happy object
Everybody wants to be “happy”
For this paper I choose the topic related to “happiness and happy object”, since
that it is related not only to the other topics, but also with my group project. So I will try
to approachnot only the homophobia problem but also bring other of the numerous
social phenomena related to the idea of happiness. I will start identifying some patterns
of happiness in the contemporary society and, after that, try to explore how these
patterns are present on Korea and also how it influences and create some of the social
problems and situations analyzed during this course.
According to the dictionary happiness can be defined as state of well-being and
contentment or as a pleasurable or satisfying experience. So, when someone start to
think about happiness one of the most immediate conclusions is that it can assume an
amalgam of different significances, since that the things (both in objective and
subjective sense) that can bring or create the state of well-being varies from person to
person, according to each individual wills and desires. One does simply feel happiness
when see a specific person when that person come back home or playing a video-game,
while other one cannot feel satisfied until get a new place on his job or until become
rich, for example. However, even though the individual characteristics of the human
being creates an infinite number of possible situations or status that can be related to the
idea of happiness, it is possible to say that in the contemporary society we face the
existence of certain patterns of things, events and situations that can be considered as
fountains of happiness.
Probably the first and most immediate of those things is the money, since that
we live on a capitalist society and money is the symbol of and also the tool to get
property above things. On that system the money is necessary to survive, since that the
production of goods and services is extremely specialized and the members of the
society depends of the exchange to get the necessary things to live, since food to the
housing. In that sense,the money is the key asset, because it is the universal
merchandise that can be exchanged for any other. In other words, the money is the
passage to get anything you want and, consequently, it is seen for most of the people as
a powerful and indispensable mean to achieve happiness.

2. Other factor that is commonly seen as synonymous of happiness is to achieve
certain social position, in other words, a privileged or prominent position.In this case, it
means to obtain a position higher than the averagein the social system, in a way that the
money still a have a key role, since that almost all the prominent positions on today’s
society are related, somehow, with the possession of money:entrepreneurs, politicians,
doctors and engineers are examples of jobs or social functions related to a superior
position and, at the same time, with access to high amount of money and power. So it is
reasonable to say that the money and social differentiation are both seen as desirable
things, since that those things are related to the power to have what you want and also to
have a position above the others and been recognized and, somehow, deified by the ones
who also want to achieve that status but have not been able to do it.
And is possible to say that in the Korean society that notion is pretty much
accepted, you just need to ask a young Korean what’s his dream. It is secure to affirm
that the most common answer will be related to get a good job or to attend to a well
seeing course in a high-ranked university. However, achieve this condition in the
Korean society, as in many other countries, is pretty difficult: it involves a complicated
selection process whose the preparations need begin already on the childhood and
thatinvolves strong efforts from both kids (students) and parents; as long hours of study
in and out-class and a considerable amount of money. To go to the best universities the
Korean students need to pass through I extremely hard selection process, where just the
ones with higher scores can achieve seats on the most desirable courses on the top
universities.
On this scenario, as we could see and discuss during this course, the English
education assumed a vital position as a criterion of differentiation, guiding a great parcel
of the Korean families to strongly invest on the English training of their children.
Efforts like send part of the family abroad are becoming more common in Korea’s
reality and are creating considerable social problems, as the high suicide rate between
students and even among the parents (specially the so called Kirogi fathers).
Furthermore, Korea has the highest suicide rate among the OECD countriesand Korean
government statistics shows that suicide is the leading cause of death among 10- to 19-
year-olds in the country(TimeMagazine 2013).
Other interesting thing about happiness is that in somehow the people can
become unhappy when they don’t fell accepted in a specific social group. On this case
some people need to follow the “social rules” to be accepted or to keep their condition

3. as a member of this group and, consequently, to be happy. In the Korean case it is
possible to say that, besides the example of the socio-economic condition (directly
related to the career and material issues), are some “strictly social” patterns to be
followed, some conditions to be satisfied by a person who wants to be accepted. Those
“strictly social” patterns are not directly involved with the material condition and, even
though a good material condition could make it easier to attend to this pattern, it is not
necessarily a condition to achieve it. In other words, there are some conditions beyond
the financial and material ambiances that also might be fulfilled by a person who wants
to be happy.
On that sense, one who does look to the Korean society can identify without
great difficult that one of the most important conditions are related to the family
structure: the typical Korean family are formed, in one hand, by the parents, who need
to be and still married and, at the same time, have strong decision power over the other
family members. In the other hand, we have the children, who need to follow the orders
of the parents and act according to the patterns established by the society and accepted
by the leaders of the family (parents). In that structure the parents will pressure the kids
to achieve the successful positions in the society or at least to keep the current social
position of the family - since this is seen as a synonymous of happiness or at least as a
necessary condition to achieve it - what not only drives the families to pay so much
attention to the educational issues but also to the need of drive theirchildren to be able
to reproduce this same family pattern in the future. In general the sons use to depend on
the parents support until late of the 20’s years old, what increase the hierarchy’s
importance on the families’ structure and, consequently, makes that the parents’ wishes
to suppress the individual wills and desires of the young people.
On this ambiance is interesting to look at the marriage issues on the Korean
society, since that the marriage can be considered a tool to reproduce the socially
acceptable family’s pattern and, consequently, bring happiness to the members of the
involved families. On this sense, the marriage also becomes a focus of concern of the
families, who will try to drive their sons to found an acceptable partner, which means a
person with more or less the same social condition and, consequently, whose family
also share the same wills and goals for the couple’s future. In Korea is quite common to
find married couples who are formed by the influence of the involved families;
furthermore, the family have a key role to the future of a relationship: if the partner is
not accepted by the family the relationship don’t have good chances to continue. It

4. happens because, as it was said before, the Koreans use to financially depend on their
parents until near to 30 years, what increases the hierarchical power among the family
members and, consequently, makes extremely difficult to the young people to act
against their parents will.
Another interesting aspect is that the marriage by itself has a pattern, where two
people of opposite sex will find someone compatible, in terms of the Pierre Bourdieu’s
“Habitus” (1990), or, as appointed by Johnson, “habitus compatibility”, which means
feels comfortable in certain social ambiance. In other words, the successful marriage is
related to find apartner which more or less the same social status, which by its turn
means that this partner will be able to share with you the same “social habitus”.So not
only the marriage is sold as a critical condition to be successful on the search for a
happy life, but also creates a phenomena where the people who are unable or simply
don’t feel the desire to attend tothe marriage’s pattern are seen as unhappy and, ate the
same time, can be discriminated by the common society.
As a consequence of this phenomena, the women in Korea are pressured to get
married before the age of 35, since that according to the Korean way of life, after that
stage the chances to get a good marriage are considerable low; besides, is more difficult
to have kids.And is pretty acceptable to say that this pressure also hits the Korean men,
since that they need to achieve some financial condition to become acceptable to the
bride’s family and, in the negative case, are related the phenomena of the cross-border
marriage and multicultural families in Korea’s society. It creates a scenario where
discrimination can be appointed as a keyword: both wife and kids of those multicultural
families are discriminated for not been a “pure-blood” Korean and, at the same time, is
possible to say that this discrimination starts when the father are discriminated by the
Korean bride candidates’ families.
The discrimination is also present in another issue related to the ambiance of the
personal relationships: the homosexuality. One of the implicit requisites of the standard
Korean (and also western) marriage is that the couple is formed by person of opposite
genders, since that is a necessary condition to the reproduction and also is a condition
required by most of the religions and other social doctrines and institutions. As a
consequence, according to the Korean patterns, a homosexual person will not be able to
achieve happiness, since that this person cannot attend to one of the most important
aspects to be accepted by the Korean society: the reproduction of the family’s pattern.
So not only the Korean families pressure the younger members to study and get

5. married, but also do not accept the possibility of a different pattern of relationship, in a
way that the homosexuality still a taboo among great part of the Koreans. Even in the
university space is pretty difficult to identify homosexuals or to debate about
homosexuality, which indicates how delicate this question is in the Korea’s habitus.
So it is possible to conclude that in Korea the people’s life are strongly
influenced by social conventions around the happiness, in a way that the Korean kids
already born with a restrict number of choices, all of them related to direct those kids to
achieve the necessary conditions to attend to the social patterns of happiness. And once
that a Korean kid becomes an adult; he will fight to keep his family in according to the
social conventions, and finally, will pressure his sons in the same way that he was
pressured by his parents. It creates andnurturesa vicious circle where the people don’t
have any choice but be “happy”, which meansnot exactly feel well or satisfied, but
achieve the social happiness standard.
Bibliography
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Love, H. (2007) Compulsory Happiness And Queer Existence.New Formations.
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“Multicultural Families” in Contemporary Korea. Korea Journal
Park, S.J. Abelmann, N. Jin Park (2004) Class and Cosmopolitan Striving: Mothers’
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Institute for Ethnographic Research
Yoo, A. (2013) South Korea Rattled by Suicide of Bullied Teen. Time Magazine
[Online] Available at: http://world.time.com/2013/03/17/[Accessed on June 15th
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