[Korean Culture & Language] Chaebol

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재벌(Chaebols) is a popular theme in K-dramas. SKY Castle (2018), Shopping King Louis (2016), Boys Over Flowers (2009), The Master's Sun (2009), Graceful Family (2019), What's Wrong With Secretary Kim (2018), That Winter, The Wind Blows (2018), The Heirs (2013) are a few of them.



Business Proposal is one of the most recent webtoon-based South Korean television series that currently has a user rating of 91. It’s a story of an ordinary woman, Ha-Ri, who is dedicated to her job. One of her friends, Young-Seo, comes from a ‘재벌(chaebol)’ family. Young-Seo has been stressed out because of her parents’ insistence on forcing her to go on blind dates with the sons of other ‘재벌(chaebol)’ families. She offered Ha-Ri money and asked her to go on a date instead. Because Ha-Ri needed some extra cash, she accepted her offer. She pretended to be as stupid as possible on the date in the hopes of being rejected. The guy was later found to be Tae-Moo, the CEO of the company where Ha-Ri works. Just like Young-Seo’s parents, Tae-Moo’s grandfather, the company’s founder, was also pressuring Tae-Moo to go on blind dates and find himself a wife.

Because Tae-Moo was a workaholic who had no desire to marry, he was bothered by his grandfather. To stop his grandfather from bugging him about marriage, he decides to just marry the woman he meets on the next blind date his grandfather sets up. Then there was Ha-RI, the ‘crazy woman’ who was fooling herself to be rejected. Regardless, he informs his grandfather that he will marry ‘Young-Seo’.

When he realized that Ha-Ri wasn’t Young-Seo, he suggested Ha-Ri that he would pay for her dates to see his grandfather and pretend to be his girlfriend. He falls in love with Ha-Ri in the process.


It has always been a norm for 재벌s to marry other 재벌 figures. According to data collated and disclosed by CEO Score, 153 out of 317 chaebol owner family members, or 48.3 percent, are married to peer chaebol figures. However, marriages between 재벌 and ordinary people has risen recently. In the parent generation, this accounted for 12.6 percent, whereas in the younger generation, it was 23.2 percent. Kim Dong-Kwan, the Hanwha Group's heir apparent, married a female Hanwha Solutions employee. Seo Jun-Seok, Celltrion's Senior Vice President, also married a non-chaebol figure.

https://pulsenews.co.kr/view.php?year=2020&no=1290847

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