(2 of 3)
This is the real motive behind the country's single-minded devotion to the Internet. Three years ago, games like Lineage didn't exist. Even if they had, nobody had access to the high-speed broadband pipes needed to load their complex graphics. But South Korea's government has been encouraging IT businesses like networking, software development, system integration, content business, B.-to-B. portal operations and database mining. It has slashed red tape for Internet start-ups and deregulated the telecom industry. Result: Internet-access rates in South Korea were dirt cheap just as the Net started to take off. Today more than 3.5 million homes have high-speed Internet access, more than double the number five months ago. The figure in Japan, by contrast, is a puny 640,000 for homes and businesses combined. Internet-ready phone lines are standard equipment in new South Korean apartment blocks.
For younger South Koreans, the major catalyst for the Web craze was the proliferation of "PC rooms," Internet cafes offering high-speed access for as little as a dollar an hour. Three years ago, there was a handful of such cafes; today there are at least 20,000. At any hour of the day or night, people are playing games, sending e-mail, doing homework or looking for online love. Cho Jung Wan is spending up to 10 hours a day playing Lineage, killing a few weeks' time before he starts his military service. "After collecting weapons and stuff online, I feel like I've gotten rich in the real world," he says.
The Internet has also provoked something of a cultural revolution. In a society still deeply influenced by conservative Confucian values, the anonymity and freedom of cyberspace has provided an escape from old-style mores that the young in particular find oppressive. The Web has made casual encounters between the sexes much easier in a society where Western-style dating is a relatively new concept. Online dating is hugely popular among high school and university students.
Just ask Choi Moon Sun, 27, and Kim Kwang Chul, 26. Choi was in a PC room in July 1998, trying to stay awake while waiting to catch the first morning bus back to her home in the suburbs. Kim, a university senior, accidentally clicked on her icon and kept pestering her for a chat. They dated, got married a year later, and are expecting their first child later this year. Says Choi: "PC and the Internet became an important part of our lives."
Unfortunately, the Internet has created many unhappy endings. Teenage girls are offering themselves for sex at chat sites, and police have set up a special squad to patrol cyberspace. In a society where smut isn't readily available, easy access to the Internet is exposing more kids to pornography, says Kim Yong Hak, a sociology professor at Yonsei University. In a survey of 10 elementary schools in Seoul, he found 10% of 11-year-olds had visited porn sites. With PCs in kids' bedrooms and PC rooms on every street corner, it isn't easy to turn back the tide. Says Kim: "With one key stroke, a child can switch from an educational site to a porn site."