You are a walking legacy.
Your family is wildly successful—through generations of hard work and maintaining pure-blood inheritance lines of frigid hearts, you were destined to be great.
You are Heather Cho, eldest daughter of the chairman of Korean Air Lines and a company executive.
When you board one of your own flights, you expect everything to be in a state of perfection; but today, you are faced with a terrible injustice. A despicable insult upon the Cho family name.
by Julia S.
When a passenger is served nuts, it should be done in the proper way — on a plate. Instead, the insolent bastard of an attendant serves it in a paper bag.
In order to right this blasphemy, the only solution is to show the incompetent serf his place by ordering the disgraced flight back to the gate, regardless of the delay it may cause. He would've ended up chewing rocks even if the plane had taken off, anyway.
“Heiress Cho, daughter of the skies, our savior. The only one with the guts to defend our peoples against the tyranny of bagged macadamias — let this wall of oppression collapse, once and for all.”
As if.
Now, what’s the actual problem here? Rather than Cho just being someone who obviously needs a check on her temper (Hey lady, keep an eye on your nuts. You don’t wanna lose ‘em again), the foundation of the problem lies in the severe power imbalance in Korea.
Corporate power is often passed down through families, like we see in major companies including Korean Air, Samsung, Hyundai, and LG Group. This form of organization is known in Korea as chaebol 재벌, which translates to, essentially, a type of business conglomerate structure in which businesses are a family legacy—it’s almost like a capitalist hereditary monarchy. Members of these families have more power than those who may be in higher positions, but remain just employees.
This brings up the question — what is power?
How does it influence people’s lives in such a dynamic way, so as to dictate which humans are worthier than others and deserve more respect?
Power is a human construct, unless you’re talking about work or time. It is not necessary for human survival (though it might be for a society to function), especially in cases such as these, where power takes its hold in corporations. Heather Cho was fortunate to be born into a opportunistic and diligent family that understood the power game; their success owed to generations of risk-taking and investment. (Obviously, the genes carrying alleles for business-savvy negotiation, astute perfectionism and dismissive entitlement passed through to her—it’s no wonder her reaction was what it was. The most minute of details are important when you’re burdened with the legacy of success on your shoulders.)
Wealth equals power—a capitalist economy was bound to create power divides like this; economically, socially, and politically. However, this raging illusion of self-determination and private ownership has extended its grasp much too far. Cho obviously thought that she was justified in making this simple call of disrespect, which means that this is simply a hyper-ballooned examination of a microcosm of the power imbalance in Korea.
Cases like these happen everywhere, though on a smaller scale — perhaps more subtly, or more privately, but they happen nonetheless. Young female pop stars are sexually harassed by their company CEO under the ruse that intimate connections would skyrocket their careers (contracted to companies which are just grinding out plastic dolls for money — carved perfection for sex, or for marketing?). Employees are being paid below minimum wage, and working overtime, all the time. Politicians being able to get away with almost anything because of their grip on the justice system. These are the true injustices, not getting your nuts served in a bag.
Money is power. If you’re born into a powerful family, life is bliss, with your only concern being that of improperly served nuts and muted public criticism. Be anything but, and you’re abused by people who have money. Without money, you can’t leave. How do you get out of a system like that?
Maybe immigrate?
Oh okay, wait, maybe not. Corporate America definitely outdoes this stuff.
