Difference between Chinese and Korean 5

•           Style: Chinese generally don’t care that much how they look. It depends, however, if they’re from Hong Kong (very stylish), the mainland (total lack of style), or Taiwan (somewhere in the middle). Koreans really care about how they look, sometimes to a fault (plastic surgery is huge business in Korea, and materialism—everything from Prada bags to designer clothing—is also huge).

•           Economics: Though both China and Korea are economic powers now, Korea is definitely the greater country per capita. It’s just that China has 1.3 billion people so it’s hard to compete with that! But for such a tiny nation, Korea sure outperforms both China and Japan. With Samsung smartphones and flatscreen TVs, and sophisticated cars like Hyundai and Kia (which are no longer in the low-end market but can compete with the best of the rest of the world), Korea has come into its own. China mainly does mass production of everyday items, not high-end goods. But just in terms of sheer economic weight, no one can beat China—not even the United States (China owns most of the USA’s debt). China is an economic juggernaut that is just crushing the competition. The only thing that can beat China is China itself, and it just might collapse under its own weight, or at least the rate of expansion is perhaps unsustainable.

•       Sports: Koreans love baseball and soccer and are pretty good at both. Chinese are horrible at both (unless they’re from Taiwan, then they might be good at baseball)—but they excel in things like gymnastics and basketball. Therefore you will see Koreans being fairly competitive in the World Cup, whereas Chinese do really well in the Olympics. Yet, similar to the previous characteristic, Korea way outperforms China per capita. For  such a tiny country, it is amazing that it always ranks in the top ten in the world in both Summer and Winter Olympics; but China always ranks in the top three in the world in the Olympics.