Yes, I have
Yes, I have been following it. Every time such tragedies happen they serve as a window into the time, place and culture where they happen. In this case, we are looking at the post industrial, rapidly developed South Korean society of the early 21st century. What I see is a country that is struggling to find its place in the "rich countries club" but has some serious internal problems to solve.
For starters, corruption and greed seem to remain at the levels they always were back when the country was a military dictatorship run by a few wealthy families. The country and most of society may be vastly richer, but I sense a deep resentment of the new middle class (former lower class? ) towards its rulers, both political figures and business leaders. To me, South Korea is a nation that has been struggling to regain its ancient pride after the devastating first three quarters of the 20th century. First the Japanese occupation, then the war, the country's division and then the military dictatorship. South Korea seems to be suffering from an inferiority complex that drives it to insane levels of competitiveness. I imagine for most Koreans, Japan is the rival to beat and in many ways it seemed it was on the right path: Corporate giants like Samsung and Hyundai were making the big boys in Tokyo tremble with every annual financial statement release. Problem is, it seems that the business and political elite are already engaging the safety brakes on the train to development-utopia. Salaries should be higher now, but it is not happening because for certain people it would be "inconvenient" to make the South Korean workers make as much money as the Japanese, the Germans or the Americans. How could they compete then? On the other end of the spectrum, the upcoming youth is under enormous pressure from their elders to achieve great things in life. Studying in South Korea is as stressful as trying to land a job in Wall Street, and remember, we are talking about teenagers and young adults, not stock brokers!
All these different stress sources in Korean society have been simmering for years, if not decades. All they need was some event, some tragedy to expose the system's rotten core. This, in my humble opinion, is why this tragic event has finally arose the Korean middle class out of its rat race routine.
