One of the most impressive things I have seen in my life was the TV footage showing VERY long line of Koreans: after request of their government (at the time of "Asian crisis" a few years ago) they were donating their personal assets to help national treasury. I will never forget the image of women taking off their wedding bands and dropping them into the container. Koreans are truly a great nation!
I heard from some Koreans that the most respected people in Korea are scholars, after them the next group are aristocracy/military, then craftsmen and peasants. The least respected are the merchants.
I went to school with some of those people. They left for a year to go home and work to improve the country. Some never had a chance to go back.
As an aside, funny that an Asian country has become so Christian in the last few decades.