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| Korea Times file |
By Lee Suh-yoon
Kim Jeong-myeong, a 23-year-old university student in Seoul, is not thrilled about the Lunar New Year family gathering next week.
"The elder relatives are starting to ask about my future career plans, which just adds to my existing job-related stress. And my parents are already telling me to get married at some point," Kim said.
"I'm hoping this year will be more bearable because I can use my upcoming military conscription as an excuse to evade such questions."
Young Koreans like Kim are increasingly shunning the extended family gatherings that have traditionally been the center of the Lunar New Year and Chuseok holidays. According to a joint survey by job portal sites Job Korea and Albamon, six in 10 Koreans said they wanted to skip the family gatherings and spend the Lunar New Year holiday alone.
The numbers are hardly surprising. From a young adult's perspective, the annual interactions with relatives are rarely pleasant. The generation gap between members is acute. Prying questions about one's career ― or search for one ― are impossible to avoid at these gatherings. Conversations often take a patronizing tone towards young jobseekers who are living through the 9.5 percent youth unemployment rate. Few ever get any helpful advice from elder relatives, the more insensitive of whom openly compare the successes or failures of different family members.
In fact, over a third of survey respondents say the stress they encounter from seeing relatives during the Lunar New Year holiday trumps what they have to cope with in academics, job searches or work.
According to a vote by the survey respondents, the questions young Koreans hate the most are "What are your plans for the future?" and "When are you getting a job?" Patronizing comments that start with "When I was your age…" or "We're just saying this for your own sake," were also voted as the worst comments relatives could make to younger family members.
But the long-held tradition is hard to avoid, with 57 percent of the 3,390 survey respondents saying they will still attend their family gatherings.
