“When someone questions the virtues of Western liberal democracy, back comes the riposte: ‘Why don’t you try North Korea then?’” “On average, [South] Koreans work 1,910 hours a year, one of the highest rates in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), where the average is 1,716 (1,490 in France, 1,349 in Germany). 60% of Korean employees do not take their full holiday allowance as it is, often because they fear for their jobs “ Being a union leader means at some point going to prison,’ said Yang Kyeung-soo, president of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), who received a one-year sentence for organising a strike during the pandemic. His union was set up in 1995, and all 12 of his predecessors have also been jailed. In Korea, the official retirement age is 60, but the state pension is only paid from 65 Over-65s make up half the country’s poor. At Seoul airport, US citizens have their own designated immigration channel. The country ‘hosts’ the US’s l