1. Get rid of notions of respect

챙피 (Cheng-Pi), which is the Korean word for shame or shameful. In Korean culture, and also Confucian culture, neo Confucianism, the new Confucianism practiced in abroad Chinese, Cantonese people, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc. is this; the number one thing to avoid in life is shame.

In America, we also have a similar same culture. Fat shaming, smoking shaming, poor shaming, etc. Ugly shaming, etc.

But what is shame?

2. Shame is a German word

In ancient Greece, the eternal shame is cowardice. Cowardice in the face of the enemy or in battle. To have discarded your spirit, and your shield, and have run away, is the ultimate tardis, shame, and vice. In ancient Greece, ultimate valor is dying with courage when facing the enemy. The ultimate shame was running away from battle, and living.

In Confucianism, which is effectively a synthesized thought concept cosmos order from the politician philosopher Confucius was basically the idea of how to create the ideal society and government.

Shame was the most effective technique to control people. To keep people in order, and to achieve harmony.

3. Why I would never shame my son

To me, shame is illogical, and, will stunt the potential of your kid. Assuming that you aspire your kid to become greater than you, why would you shame your kid? It makes no sense. Also, technically your kid is a mini version of you, or metaphorical clone of you.

I am very lucky unfortunate to have been grown as Korean-American, my DNA is Korean, South Korean, with my dad being from Seoul and my mom being from Busan. Yet I was born and raised in the states. Therefore, even though I still have some shame culture still within myself, my Americanness helped me supersede notions of shame.

4. Who does shame benefit?

Shame benefits the person who is doing the shaming. For example, it also prevents Koreans and Japanese people from stealing stuff; it is deeply entrenched within their upbringing that no amount of shame is worth a potential financial gain from stealing something. The only people who would actually have to resort to stealing in South Korea or Japan would be the insanely insanely poor and destitute, but even then, assuming they went through some sort of traditional K-12 education, they would prefer to starve than to steal.

5. Why is there so much more petty theft in America?

My theory is because America is so diverse; if you steal from somebody, you don’t put a face to them. Thus you think that you’re stealing from some other sucker, who is different from you. Compare this to South Korea, and also Japan, in which it has one of the highest homogeneity percentages in the world. That in South Korea, to be Korean is both a culture as well as a biological classification, so if you steal from a South Korean, and you are also South Korean, it is like stealing from your mom or your aunt.

Compare this to America, if I steal from somebody who is not of my ethnic group, my clan, or my racial heritage, I feel less shame. I am more afraid of being caught.

6. People just don’t question it

For example, in America as well as Korea, there is much more shame given to girls than boys. Why is that? Effectively, historically speaking women were household labor. In South Korea, my theory is that it was only poor working class Koreans in which the wife actually had to work. Why? If you were actually of royalty, the women will not lift a finger. It would be the slaves and servants who would do all the dirty work.

In America, maybe it was kind of a similar thing. That the initial American settlers were very poor; therefore it seemed that the most logical allocation of labor was for the men to do the hunting for the meat, and the women to do the household duties. But assuming that you were of royalty or high class in Britain, once again, you would have a small army of servants and maids to do your dirty work. Imagine Downton Abbey; would the royal women have to cook and clean? No.

Even if you think about the Iliad, or the Odyssey, the queens don’t lift a finger in the kitchen. They had a bunch of slaves and servants.

Even when you see some of the old school drawing depictions of the Ancient Greek queens, they were always accompanied by at least two female slave servants.

7. Boundary testing

To me, it takes more courage to walk around without a shirt on in public, down a busy street, than to drive with your top off in your brand new convertible Lamborghini. In fact, anyone who wears sunglasses, wears a hat, uses limo tint in their cars, are a bunch of cowards. They want to look cool without actually assuming any personal risk of looking foolish.

Something very interesting for me in South Korea, my mom always yells at me whenever I walk around without a shirt on. I asked her whether it was illegal, and she said no. Otherwise, people who would go to the beach in south Korea in Busan would be legally required to wear a shirt. However, it looks like in most of the world besides Europe, women are required to wear a top covering even when at the beach. I think it might only be Europe which allows women to be nude at the beach.

8. What is your desired end goal?

My friend Geoffrey Chen, told me the best advice life in life to be successful, is to be shameless.