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Cho Hyun-min, 35, who is in charge of overseeing marketing at the national flag carrier as the second daughter of its Chairman Cho Yang-ho, rekindled public furor with her signature episode of "gapjil."
It may be difficult for foreigners to understand immediately what gapjil, a newly-coined Korean word, means, though it is likely to enter English dictionaries like the words kimchi, bibimbap and chaebol before long.
The negative word comes from the traditional Korean contract term "gap" (party A, who leads as contractor) and "eul" (party B, who is led as covenanter) and "jil" is a suffix that negatively refers to particular doing or act.
Wikipedia already explains that gapjil refers to the "arrogant and authoritarian attitude or action of people of South Korea who have positions of power over others."
Cho Hyun-min is adding fuel to the fire by allegedly physically abusing an executive of an advertising company and throwing a cup of liquid ( water or green plum juice according to differing accounts) onto his face during a business meeting. This comes as people still vividly remember her elder sister's notorious gapjil in 2014, dubbed "nut rage" by foreign news media.
To recall, Cho Hyun-ah, 44, the first daughter of Chairman Cho, 69, made the airline a target of ridicule and public outrage not only in Korea, but elsewhere in the world, by throwing a tantrum over how macadamia nuts had been served to her in first class, and ordering the Korean Air plane back to its gate while taxiing for takeoff at New York's Kennedy International Airport.
Her gapjil resulted in her criminal punishment _ a sentence of one year imprisonment for violating airline safety laws, which was reduced to a suspended term by an appeals court.
The haughty sisters are called in South Korea "geum sujeo" or golden spoon, a metaphor for children who were "born to the manor" and thus enjoy wealth without any effort or hardship; compared to "heuk sujeo" or clay spoon meaning kids born to a poor family.
The two sisters' way of thinking, of no one but themselves and their family members, must be a result of their poor domestic upbringing as indicated by testimony of former and present employees, including pilots of the airline, that their mother is second to none in treating subordinates and employees such as gardeners, housekeepers and chauffeurs very badly.
Many of them voiced unanimously that it was a case of "like mother, like daughter(s)."
Just four years ago, the sisters' father, Cho, chairman of Hanjin Group of the Korean Air, apologized to the people, bowing his head in a press conference, saying, "I sincerely apologize for my daughter's foolish actions that caused social criticism."
Now, her younger sister has followed suit. Cho Hyun-min learned nothing from her elder sister's "ordeal." Their mother's gapjil has become a fresh topic anew. Is this rudeness humiliating our common sense of the history of the Hanjin family?
Noteworthy regarding this family's gapjil are similar cases that have taken place one after another in other chaebol (Korean conglomerates) families such as the case of Hanwha, for instance, whose expected heirs, namely sons of the group's chairman, have caused public outrage for their arrogant behavior.
The recent #MeToo campaign also originated mainly from gapjil committed against women by those in superior positions such as professors against students, movie and drama producers against actresses, and senior staff against subordinates.
Gapjil is certainly a problem caused by the hierarchical and vertical structure of our society and work culture, allowing wealthy people and superiors to take a high hand against those of the "lower classes."
The controversial gapjil behavior of chaebol families is the natural consequence of the bosses' lopsided favoring of their own children, awarding them high positions irrespective of their management ability and personality. The Hanjin case should be a precious lesson to other chaebol leaders who tend to overestimate their offspring.
The Cho sisters should have learned from their grandfather, the late Cho Joong-hoon (1920-2002), who founded the Hanjin Group. He was a respected man of diligence and frugality. During his overseas business trips, he shared rooms and lodgings at employees' boarding houses instead of hotels.
During his domestic business trips, he met his company staff and workers, wearing jumpers, not suits. Even though he was a lifelong non-smoker, he always brought cigarette packs in his pocket for smoking employees. Such an action came from his value and respect of people, irrespective of rank.
The Cho sisters' parents, particularly Chairman Cho, are totally responsible for the siblings' misdeeds. Such a father who bowed his head to the people four years ago recently had his first daughter, who was at the center of the "nut rage" scandal, reinstated to management by naming her chief of the KAL Hotel Network after three years of "self-restraint and self-reflection."
And now the second daughter has caused trouble, facing a police investigation as a criminal suspect like her elder sister. The chairman has not yet made any remarks about her wrongdoing. What will he say this time? If he and his daughters took a lesson, even a little bit, from the deceased founder of the conglomerate, they would not have become the target of public outrage and overseas ridicule.
Cho family members should see the situation they face now so seriously and humbly and acknowledge that the world is changing. Listen to the public voice that Korean Air should be disqualified as a named national flag carrier.
Park Moo-jong is a standing adviser of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first daily English newspaper founded in 1951 from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter from 1974. He can be reached at moojong@ktimes.com or emjei29@gmail.com
