"Let's drink till we die!"

I know many American workers indulge in the after work happy hour, but that sounds tame compared to the corporate business culture of South Korea. Based on this article in The New York Times, a company manager will typically take out his underlings a couple of nights out of the week for some serious binge drinking to build up camaraderie. This usually involves dinner washed down with the Korean version of vodka, followed by a trip to a bar for some beer, and then a whiskey-lubed round of karaoke.

As is normally the case anywhere in the world, however, more level-headed influences have changed the nightlife of Korea a bit in the form of women. Because of the increasing presence of women in the workplace who are also invited along on these bonding practices out on the town, men have had to tone down their drinking habits a bit for fear of harassment lawsuits and alienating female coworkers who aren't as inclined to get totally wasted.

Anywho, what was the point of this post? Actually I have no idea. This seemed like an interesting article about Korean culture that shows how similar the East and the West are in some ways. It would be interesting to know if this was something practiced before the West moved into Asia, or if this is an adaptation of typical Western binge-drinking, but taken to the extreme, as many Western cultural practices are when translated by the East.

Also, my first thought was that Wankmaster Scratch would fit in well in this business model, and I would be whining like the women because I just couldn't keep up. My second thought? Was Firecracker George ever pulled along for one of these fraternal bonding nights on the town? And my final thought: don't challenge a Korean man to a drinking game--you'll probably lose.