Arrest development: South Korea’s Yoon held

0:27The Economist It's getting less invasive and cheaper and far more popular among the young. Oh, and the range of bodily areas that can be lifted or plumped or designed. It's surprising. And if you've been to Japan, you might have seen children as young as six riding the subway on their own. Our correspondent finds out how the world's most disciplined primary schools turn out such responsible young beings.

1:02But first...

1:12Being president of South Korea is a treacherous job. Past holders of the office have been impeached, even assassinated. But a sitting president had never been arrested. That changed just a few hours ago when armed officers scaled fences to reach the president and took Yoon Suk-yul into custody. But Yoon's detention will not be the end of South Korea's political strife. This wasn't the first time that investigators tried to arrest Yoon Suk-yul, the impeached president. Noah Snyder is our East Asia bureau chief. They had attempted to do so once before on January 3rd, but they were blocked by the forces of the Presidential Security Service, which had remained loyal to the president himself.

1:59This time around, police were much better prepared. They came with some 3 ,000 officers, according to local media reports. They had ladders and wire cutters to get through barbed wire that had been put up to reinforce the presidential residence, where President Yoon ultimately relented.

2:23And even though he relented to the arrest, President Yoon remained pretty defiant. He released a video statement saying that he considered the warrant illegal, but he cooperated in order to avoid, quote, unpleasant bloodshed. So Noah, these are extraordinary scenes, but just remind us why Yoon is under arrest. So this all begins in early December when President Yoon tried to impose martial law on the basis that the opposition party, as he put it, was filled with anti-state forces and had turned into a monster that was threatening the country's democracy. Now, most South Koreans decided that it was President Yoon himself who posed a threat to South Korea's democracy.

3:10And lawmakers from the opposition parties gathered in the National Assembly to overturn his martial law declaration. After that, he's been barricaded inside the presidential residence. He was impeached soon after. In parallel, investigators have opened up a criminal case against him. So that set up this standoff between these different arms of the state. President Yoon had refused to appear for questioning, and ultimately investigators sought a warrant for his arrest. So what happens to him now that he has been arrested? Well, this is far from the end of the drama. This is really just an intermediate cliffhanger, if you will.

3:50The next episode, there are essentially 48 hours for investigators to question him. After that, they can seek an additional warrant to hold him for another 20 days. and criminal proceedings could start soon after that. A criminal trial would be unprecedented as this arrest is unprecedented. And the charges that he faces carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment or even the death penalty, which is highly unlikely, but technically possible. Yoon has pledged to fight these charges, claiming that the office that is investigating him doesn't have a mandate to do so, that the court that issued the arrest warrant doesn't have jurisdiction over such a case.

4:32And in the meantime, he's also facing this parallel impeachment process, a trial at the constitutional court, which is itself unfolding as we speak. So what's happening with that impeachment process? So that also kicked off this week on January 14th, on Tuesday, the first formal hearing was held, but it ended after just a few minutes because Yoon didn't show up to the hearing. He was, perhaps rightly so, afraid of being arrested. The next hearing is set to take place on Thursday, January 16th. And regardless of President Yoon's attendance, the proceedings will commence. There are a total of 180 days to complete the trial, 180 days from the initial impeachment vote, which was back in mid-December.

5:22So essentially five months left. And it may move even more quickly than that, given the obvious gravity of the case. At least six of the eight judges who are hearing the case at the constitutional court must vote to uphold it for the impeachment to stand. And if that happens, if Yoon is ultimately removed from office, South Korea's constitution mandates that new presidential elections must be held within 60 days. So there are these two processes unfolding in parallel, both of which are in their own right, incredibly dramatic. So what effect is all this drama and political turmoil having on South Korea as a whole?

6:02It's having a huge impact, as you might expect. The strains are spreading through the country. We're seeing it in the economic data with a dip in consumer sentiment, with an uptick in unemployment, and now some fears that it might even affect things like foreign direct investment. People basically feel less certain, less confident about where South Korea is heading. And at the same time, this is fueling the country's political polarization. Yoon has dug in his heels and somewhat unexpectedly, his supporters are really rallying around him. So we've seen in the course of the last month, in fact, the support ratings for the ruling party, President Yoon's party, which had cratered in the aftermath of the martial law declaration, is picking up.

6:48And now they're within 2 % of the main opposition party, the Democratic Party. The same goes for views on President Yoon's impeachment. There are still a majority of South Koreans who believe he should be impeached, but their ranks are thinning. The number of South Koreans who believe he should be impeached has fallen from about 75 % last month to about 65 % this month. So that support probably won't save President Yoon. But I think it does indicate that the political strife, the turmoil that we've been discussing is likely to outlive him by quite a long margin. Noah, thank you so much for talking to me.

7:29Thank you for having me.

7:49There was a time when plastic surgery was really only a thing for the rich and famous. Some Hollywood actress or global pop star would disappear for a bit and come back with a more sculpted this or a more heaving that. Times change. Just have a look on Instagram or TikTok. Finally, here we are. I'm getting lip filler. I traveled to Korea and I got bone shaving. And some of the pokes were not that bad. Like, it was really very manageable. It's not just that it's now more widespread. It's more in the wide open. And the before and after pictures abound. We have finished doing some liposuction of the lower face.

8:32This is going to make your skin smooth, tight, glowy. So this is five years. You guys look beautiful. We went a little bit on the bigger side for her, but it matches her body. The industry is being lifted faster than what I understand to be called a Brazilian butt. The clients are from a much wider demographic, and they can have more things than ever changed from top to tail. Plastic surgery is getting much more common in rich countries like the US. Analoges is our Brazil correspondent. But also, it's been growing a huge amount among young people in middle-income countries, places like China and Brazil.

9:13And that is fueling a global boom in cosmetic procedures. So let's put some numbers to it, how big the boom. So the medical aesthetics business is an industry that's worth around$82 billion, but it's expected to almost double in size over the next five years. And in 2019, the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons said that there were 25 million cosmetic procedures, including things like lip filler injections. But in 2023, that number was 35 million. And this is definitely an undercount because that association only looks at accredited plastic surgeons. A fifth of people in Brazil and China say they plan to get anti-wrinkle injections in the next five years.

9:58And plastic surgeons told me things like getting injected, lasered or operated on is going to be similar to getting an annual checkup in the not so distant future. Why the boom now? A lot of people we spoke to said that the pandemic played a big role. So people were endlessly looking at themselves on Zoom. They didn't like what they see. Oh no, fair enough. I do actually look like hell on Zoom. Cosmetic surgery is becoming less invasive because the technology is getting better. It's also getting cheaper. Non-invasive procedures like Botox injections or lip filler used to be done by plastic surgeons or dermatologists usually at their clinics.

10:34Now, venture capitalists and private equity groups are investing in spas and beauty chains where armies of nurses provide injections to much higher numbers of customers. And I think social media has really, really helped because more and more people are now public facing. I think I might quibble with the word helped there, but go on. Well, there's all these social media influencers whose job basically depends on how they look. We talked to one Taiwanese influencer, Chang Chia-seung, who told us that she wanted to look like the version of herself that exists in the apps.

11:17But even if you're not an influencer, social media has made us all a lot more image conscious. And a lot of people will use filters to upload photos. There's even a Chinese marketplace for plastic surgery called So Young, which lets users upload photos of themselves. And then it tells you what surgeries you can get to make your face more symmetrical. And it suggests surgeons in your area. So basically, there are way more young people getting plastic surgery today than 10 years ago. And in South Korea, a Gallup poll from 2020 found that a quarter of Korean women in their 20s had had plastic surgery.

11:53That's the record holder for plastic surgeries per person. You mentioned a couple of things like lip fillers and so on, but what's the full spectrum here? What are people getting done? So in South Korea, the most popular surgery by far is double eyelid surgery, which creates an eyelid crease above the eye and basically makes your eyes look bigger and more almond shaped. But in the rest of the world, you've got all sorts of things going on. So there's been a boom in the Brazilian butt lift where you basically suck out fat from one part of the body and you inject it in the butt to make it perkier.

12:27You have a lot of lip injections going on, nose jobs. We talked to a lot of plastic surgeons that told us that there's a global aesthetic that's spreading because of social media. So fuller eyebrows, fuller lips and upward arching eyes. When it comes to more recent trends, some things surprised us. So, for example, we interviewed Lisa Kasseleth, who's a very famous plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, and she specializes in breasts. And she told us that a decade ago, the curvy Kim Kardashian look was very in. You just look at American trends from being super slender to being more full-figured to being small-waisted and super curvy, which was like very five years ago.

13:09And now that trends in... But now in the era of Ozempic, which is a diabetes and weight loss drug, thin and natural is in. And she's been doing way more breast reduction. They're doing little boobs again. People are like all anti-boobs for like the last year or so, I would say. And they're like, oh, I want to wear something. Another big hub for plastic surgery is Gangnam, a posh neighborhood in South Korea's capital. A plastic surgeon we interviewed called Jin Hongryul told us people across Asia want to look like K-pop idols. The K-pops like idol stars, singers, they know them by SNS, Facebooks, Instagrams.

13:47So they are trying to resemble them. And that look involves a V-shaped face, which can lead people to shave down the jawbone to make it sharper. Giant anime style eyes, tiny noses, and very few curves. But there's also people getting way wilder things. So someone talked to us about getting a designer vagina and what was described to us as a designer asshole. I can't stop myself asking what that even means, Anna. Jason, I don't know. Some things just need to remain a mystery. Seems wise to move on then. Look, all of this must come with an increased risk, though, if so many more people are doing these sometimes very, very invasive procedures.

14:33Yes, definitely. The boom has attracted a lot of charlatans. So we've all probably seen people with lip filler that looks totally disproportionate to their face. But beyond being disfiguring, filler can also get into arteries and cause skin necrosis or even blindness. Among rich countries, Britain stands out for having really lax regulation. And in September, a woman died in Britain after receiving a non-surgical butt lift, which is when lots of filler is pumped into the behind. She did this at a beautician's home. It wasn't even like a licensed premise. I hate to ask a question that's sort of way off trend here as you describe it, but I'm wondering why take the risk at all?

15:14Well, part of it is because of things we've already talked about. So procedures are getting cheaper and more accessible. People have more disposable income. So they're a bit like, why not? Social media has made us all more obsessed with our image. But the deeper point is that a lot of people think that looking good can help them in different aspects of their life. So dating or in their career. So Jin Hongryul, that plastic surgeon in Seoul, said that the busiest time of the year is after university entrance exams in November. Yeah, especially when the college entrance exam is over, then a lot of students come to my office with their parents to get an improvement on the nose, on the face.

15:56And resumes in South Korea often include heavily edited headshots, which suggests that people think they're more likely to get a job if they're good looking.

16:07so today I think a lot of people think well I can afford this and I'm constantly being bombarded by this on social media I might as well have a go Anna this has been both troubling and illuminating thanks for joining us thanks for having me Jason

16:41Japan, as everyone who's ever visited knows, it's one of the world's most orderly countries. It's really striking that people cue politely, they wait for the green lights across the road, and even sports stars like Otani Shohei, the baseball player, is known for picking up litter after matches. These days, Sarah Burke is our bureau chief for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, But before that, she was our Tokyo bureau chief. And the other thing that people always comment on is it's not unusual at all to see children as young as six walking the streets on their own or riding on the metro.

17:15So what explains all this orderly behavior? Some people think that really, it might be down to Japan's education system. So it's the holistic approach that makes Japanese primary education unique. It's dappu-chi to kutai, which is three concepts in one, academic prowess, physical health, and moral integrity. And you see this play out. So Japanese children show independence at a very young age. There's also a sense of responsibility for oneself. And primary education really emphasizes how to learn to live in a group and think of others. There are strengths and flaws to this approach.

17:56The strengths are really that there's this sense of consideration for others. everything works smoothly and this sense of self-discipline like children tidy up after themselves and other things. But the flaw can be excessive conformity, this sense of doing things because there are these rules often unspoken rather than really because you have internalized what you want to do or are doing what you want to do. My own children are in Japanese schooling, so they were both born in Japan and went to preschool there. And now in Mexico, they attend a Japanese school. Seitu Hiroshi, who's the head of the primary school in Tokyo that I visited, told me that he sees education really as the art of making people.

18:37It's not just about teaching people how to do maths or read or write, but it's about making them fit to enter society. So to be able to live both in a group and individually.

18:57preschool is really about free play, music, arts and crafts, exercise, nature, learning how to do things such as dress oneself, skipping, origami. All of that is foundation in Japan. It's not so much the academics. And a lot of this continues into primary school. But at that point, it's also about running what many teachers refer to me as a mini society. You have class meetings in which the children might decide how to run an event or other things. And they all have daily duties. So two children might be in charge for a week of cleaning the blackboard and another two in charge of serving lunch.

19:33Japanese schools provide lunch on site and the children don whites and they get out tables and they serve lunch to their peers. The other thing that's really notable is cleaning. So Japanese children clean their own classrooms. My children have cloths and they have to clean their desks and at the end of each term they do a thorough clean. At the primary school in Tokyo we saw children as young as five and six sweeping up at the end of the day. There's also moral classes. Morality is explicitly taught and in these classes in primary school children might be given examples or stories and then have to discuss them.

20:06And then there are other things that are distinctive. Teachers really praise effort over achievement. Everyone is expected to help each other out and help at home and there's a big emphasis on good manners.

20:19you do get this sense that towards the end of primary school and into secondary school there's more of an emphasis on education and less of this comprehensive approach and also this sense of it being too much about fitting into society rather than being individual and children really from this parents and critics say worry about standing out or about causing an inconvenience to others and start to try and act to fit into the group. Towards the end of primary school, many children, because of the competitiveness of getting into good schools and universities, start to go to cram school and the academics take over.

20:54And this, the head teacher at the school I visited in Tokyo, said violates the spirit of Chitokutai, this holistic, comprehensive approach to children. One mother I spoke to in Tokyo moved her son from Japanese public school to an international one for his secondary education, because at that point she felt that the balance shifted.

21:15What you see is Japan's education system getting more attention from other countries. So Egypt is the most notable example of this. It's adopted this Japanese model, and many schools in Egypt are now modelled on the Japanese way of doing things, and all public schools are trying to include some things, including the cleaning of the classrooms or the daily duties. One academic I talked to said that the biggest thing that Japan is struggling with now is how to keep the balance between society and individuality. And he said that really it's about trying to find this balance of creating children who can live in the community and Japanese society while also giving them more of a sense of freedom and allowing them to be more individual.

22:29Thank you. Thank you.