[Market Economy Guide] Individuals Need Restructuring Too

Kang Ho-dong, from Ssireum Champion to National MC, Enjoying a Second Heyday

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“Life Is Long and There Are Many Jobs” … We Must Have a Spirit of Challenge

Kang Ho-dong is someone who rose to the very top in Korea in two different fields in succession: athletics and broadcasting. By winning the titles of Cheonhajangsa and Entertainment Grand Prize, he achieved the kind of success that most people would find difficult even once—twice, and in completely different fields.

Kang Ho-dong and Kyungkyu Lee

Before entering the entertainment industry, Kang Ho-dong was active as a ssireum wrestler and won the Baekdujangsa title at the age of eighteen. The achievements he left on the sand ring—7 Baekdujangsa titles and 5 Cheonhajangsa titles—rival those of Lee Man-ki, a legend in ssireum.

After retiring from athletics, he drew even greater public attention because he was the first case of someone entering the entertainment industry through a connection with comedian Kyungkyu Lee. After beginning his entertainment career, he proved his true worth by winning the Entertainment Grand Prize of the three major terrestrial broadcasters a total of five times. In other words, he opened the second act of his life in dazzling fashion and once again enjoyed a golden age at the very top.

No matter how many twists and turns life may bring, it is rare for one person to change occupations so many times. But if we broaden the scope to include two or three generations, this becomes a story that applies to most people. This phenomenon is especially pronounced in advanced countries, and Korea, too, is now going through the same process of industrialization.

Educate Yourself

Kang Ho-dong is a case of someone who changed careers very successfully, going from a thriving ssireum athlete to a comedian. Going forward, there will be more cases like his. Just as companies undergo restructuring, the time is coming when individuals, too, will have to continually restructure their work and careers throughout their lives. Today Samsung is famous as a global electronics company, but it originally began as a sugar manufacturer. Hyundai also started out with construction as its foundation, but today automobiles are at the center of the group. And this is not unique to Korean companies. Nokia, which once dominated the world in mobile phones, was originally a paper company founded on the basis of Finland’s abundant timber resources.

There is no reason individuals cannot make such transformations as well. In other words, one can restructure one’s life. In the future, it will become increasingly difficult to settle comfortably into one lifelong workplace and one lifelong occupation. We are likely to see people completely changing careers from designer to fund manager, and then again to hotelier. As society changes rapidly, the cycle of occupational replacement is accelerating, while average life expectancy is increasing, so this will naturally happen.

Until now, there has been a strong perception that retraining for the unemployed is meant for people who have lost their jobs and found themselves in special circumstances. For those in stable occupations such as teachers, or for licensed professionals such as doctors and lawyers, it seemed like a distant concern. Budgets for unemployment training were also treated as little more than welfare spending for socially vulnerable groups.

One Occupation and a Lifetime

But things will be different from now on. Retraining for unemployment will become something every citizen receives at least once in life. That is because no one will be able to make a living for an entire lifetime with just one occupation. Even highly educated professionals will be no exception. The status of professional occupations is also changing in line with social change. For example, a university professor in a German language department clearly qualifies as a highly educated professional by traditional social standards, but as demand for German has declined, some universities have recently abolished German majors altogether. Perhaps such people will need either to shift their field to one that deals more broadly with European culture as a whole, or else to seek out an entirely different profession.

In the future, only those who do not rest on vested interests and instead possess the spirit of challenge to leap into unknown fields will survive. From that perspective, Kang Ho-dong is clearly someone with a future-oriented mindset. If he had followed the ordinary advice of those around him some 10 years ago, he might not have achieved the great fame he enjoys today. Even if your own situation is somewhat difficult, why not refuse to collapse in place and instead learn from Kang Ho-dong’s tireless spirit of challenge?

■ Please remember

Today Samsung is famous as a global electronics company, but it originally began as a sugar manufacturer. Hyundai also started with a construction company as its foundation, but today automobiles are at the center of the group. And this is not unique to Korean companies. Nokia, which once ruled the world through mobile phones, was originally a paper company founded on the basis of Finland’s abundant timber resources.

Sung-no Choi, President of the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: [시장경제 길라잡이] 개인도 구조조정이 필요하다

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2020-03-02

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=9&idx=22436