Meddling is indeed a terminal disease of Korean society
Well, as for the constant comparisons, it's a hyper-dense society where over 50 million people live in just 100,000 square kilometers, so there's not much that can be done about that.
But criticizing others when you aren't even going to help them—that has truly been a toxic culture.
Still, things have improved a lot lately. In my family too, even the elderly seem to walk on eggshells during holidays and don't nag as much. The kids don't listen to it anyway. There are also many relatives who don't visit at all. As for me, I'm forced to go for the sake of my parents' reputation, but I just read the room and head out when it's appropriate.
People talking about collectivism or calling us a "comparison society" on SNS or the internet is their own business, but that meddling habit of lecturing others is something that truly needs to be fixed. I am no exception. I found that having people around me with a "mind your own business" attitude was actually less exhausting than those meddlers. For me, at least. With those types, you can just respond with "mind your own business" and be done with it.
But meddlers make you feel like a petty person by saying things like, "I did all this for your sake, how can you be so ungrateful?" That's why I hated it.
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