‘Wellbeing’ Means Green in Korean: Health Trend Stomps Smoking
Like the U.S., South Korea has seen a massive popular shift of focus toward health and the environment. The word that sums up this generation’s mentality best: “wellbeing” (with an e).
What is wellbeing? Outside of norebang (Korean kareoke) and polar bear hats, it’s just about the biggest trend to hit South Korea. Since 2000, it’s helped Koreans to stop smoking, buy organic foods, and get back to nature.
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Yes, Korea is called the “land of morning calm,” but, no, that’s not mist you’re seeing: it’s smog and cigarette smoke. Koreans treasure their environmental heritage, so the heavy pollution of their country’s air must have made the last few decades of rapid industrialization bitter-sweet.
Well, here to breathe some fresh air back into the country is the wellbeing trend. Although smoking is still too common, there are already clear signs that the health trend is deterring smoking. As Euromonitor reports, the wellbeing trend was one of the major factors the led to a double-digit growth decline in 2005 cigarette sales.
Health Ministry official, Kim Choon-keun, added another positive statment: “[The] smoking rate among male adults dropped from 57.8 percent in 2004 to 44.1 percent in 2006.”
We’ll be covering Korea’s shopping trends in organic foods as well as the country’s move to get back to nature in later articles. For now, from South Korean time, here’s wishing you a happy yesterday.
References and Resources:
Tobacco in South Korea | Euromonitor International
South Korea Leads Regional Fight Against Smoking, But Uphill Battle Remains | VOA News
Photo Source:
wellbing | Flickr
[...] pippy4tao wrote something noteworthy recently.Here’s a little excerpt:What is wellbeing? Outside of noreband (Korean kareoke), it’s just about the biggest trend around in South Korea. Since 2000, it’s helped Koreans to stop smoking, buy organic foods, and get back to nature. (more…) [...]
Interesting post. I can’t wait until the moment smoking in the nightlife is prohibited here.
Well being and well-washing? During my year in S. Korea it was hard not to encounter well-being products. Health and beauty go hand-in-hand with green consumerism. However, I was not at all surprised to spot those magic words on products you could hardly consider healthy or green. Well-being insecticide? The Bugs were cute and happy even as they died! I don’t know what kinds of regulations they may or may not have in Korea, but I just assumed that “well-being” was like the word “natural” here in America - it could mean almost anything. Hopefully I’m wrong.
Thanks for your continued readership and your feedback.
Willem, I too hope that smoking declines everywhere. The bars here are like little cancer lounges, even with the recent decline in smoking.
Michelle brings up another interesting point. Although Koreans have unquestionably benefited from the wellbeing trend, as the recent decline in smoking shows, here we have what might be called “well-washing.”
Pesticides are called “plant medicine” in Korean, for example. There’s also been a lot of re-marketing to fit the wellbeing image, although this has only been economically successful for foods that actually are healthy.
I’ll talk more about this in an upcoming article.
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