Two South Koreans told me that pay rises are a rarity for employees in the semiconductor industry, and making money in the stock market is nothing but a feel-good fantasy that never comes true in real life.

"The phrases I have heard most frequently from these people recently are 'It turns out that you can never make money from stock trading' and 'Why does the stock price fall the very moment I buy it every time?'" Director Kim from South Korea said to Zhiwei.

South Korea's stock market staged a dramatic, roller-coaster run over the past summer.

The trend originated from the historic rally in the semiconductor industry: SK Hynix's share price surged continuously, followed closely by Samsung Electronics, and South Korea's benchmark stock index KOSPI kept hitting new all-time highs.

The meme of "Korean girls" also went viral on Chinese internet, and the much-envied "golden age for Korean stock investors" came into being accordingly.

But soon, the scenario of falling to trigger circuit breakers followed by a sharp rally repeated itself over and over again.

Amid this volatility, Zhiwei talked to Section Chief Park from Samsung Electronics' DS Division (Semiconductor Business) and Director Kim, owner of a South Korean medical aesthetic institution, to figure out how the mindset of South Koreans caught in this historic market rally has changed.

"'People on the streets of Seoul suddenly stopped, hugged each other and cheered in celebration.' To be honest, I really laughed when I read that part. This kind of description is almost impossible to happen in South Korean society, I think it's far too dramatic and does not align with Korean people's personality and social culture. South Korea is not a society where people would openly share with everyone exactly how much money they have earned." Director Kim thinks those viral posts about the so-called golden age are overly exaggerated, even though his own stock investment once tripled in value.

"If we talk about what real changes have taken place in South Korean society, I think it is mostly a change in sentiment. When the stock market rises, people who hold stocks generally appear more optimistic and positive. However, they usually do not show it deliberately. In most cases, investment is only occasionally discussed among a small circle of friends, and rarely becomes a topic of discussion across the whole society. Especially for the younger generation in South Korea today (Generation MZ), many of them will not even take the initiative to talk to their supervisors about their private lives at work, let alone openly discuss their investment returns."

As for why Korean stock investors seem so crazy about the stock market now, Director Kim believes that social media and news have played a huge driving role.

"When people keep seeing news that someone has made a lot of money and the stock market keeps rising, plus they occasionally hear that people around them have made money from investment, many people will naturally have the thought that 'maybe I should start investing too'. Therefore, South Koreans' enthusiasm for the stock market in recent years is real. But in my opinion, this is more reflected in phenomena like the rising number of newly opened trading accounts and continuous capital inflow into the stock market, rather than the scene described in those viral posts where the whole society is immersed in a collective carnival and hugging each other to celebrate. There is a huge difference between the two scenarios."

Director Kim said that when the market falls, the overall social sentiment will indeed get a little lower. However, this change is still relatively restrained. Most of the time, South Koreans will not show their anxiety, losses or pressure too obviously.

The gap between the special cases shown on social media and the general reality is not limited to the stock market.

From the once widely spread rumor that "Hynix employee ID cards have become hard currency in the dating market" to the news that "Samsung's labor union launched a strike demanding higher salaries and better benefits", these widely circulated messages often cannot represent the real situation of ordinary employees in the company.

Section Chief Park from Samsung Electronics' DS Division explained to Zhiwei, "First of all, the labor union does not represent all employees. Generally speaking, in South Korean corporate culture, welfare benefits are often prioritized for a small number of union members, so not all employees agree with the labor-management negotiation. This is because sharing most of the company's profits with employees does not necessarily guarantee the company's development."

Yes, you read that right, the "labor union" in South Korea is not what Chinese netizens imagine it to be. Union members in South Korea are often a kind of "minority privileged class" that does not truly represent the general workers, but is more like a certain "interest group". There is even a term in South Korean public opinion to criticize this phenomenon called "noble union" (귀족노조).

"In addition, there has been no overall salary growth so far. Moreover, the salary competition between SK and Samsung only targets core employees such as researchers or management, and generally does not extend to ordinary frontline employees. I don't know much about the situation at Hynix. Samsung has not held annual salary negotiations this year, nor have we received bonuses yet, so no one can feel any tangible change."

Even though the outside world calls this semiconductor boom cycle from 2024 to 2026 an "AI-driven structural recovery". From Section Chief Park's perspective, South Korea's semiconductor industry has actually maintained a growth momentum all along, so a single growth period will hardly be regarded as a "change".

He told us that the company is indeed seeing performance growth, but this only means an increase in the number of employees, not that the salary of two people is allocated to one person. Therefore, apart from gradually improving benefits and raising salaries, there are almost no other substantial impacts. So apart from stock prices, few people talk about other things, and everyone just does their own job properly.

According to Director Kim, on the whole, the life trajectories of ordinary office workers in South Korea have been relatively similar for a very long time in the past.

Many people save their salaries step by step, then buy a house through bank loans. As housing prices keep rising, the value of real estate also increases, and their assets keep accumulating, naturally preparing for their retirement life.

This way of life used to be very common in South Korea.

The reason why this model can be formed is that South Korea's real estate market has maintained a long-term upward trend, and housing loans are relatively easy to obtain.

Therefore, for a fairly long period of time in the past, real estate has been regarded as the most important investment method for South Koreans.

In contrast, the stock market is far less popular than real estate.

Only in recent years has this situation begun to change. As the South Korean government continuously strengthens supervision over the real estate market, increases the tax burden on holders of multiple properties, and tightens real estate transaction policies, the real estate market has gradually cooled down.

At the same time, the South Korean government has also continuously launched policies to support the development of the capital market, hoping to attract more capital to stay in the South Korean stock market, and even encourage part of the capital invested in overseas stocks to flow back to the South Korean market.

Against this backdrop, around 2025, South Korea's stock market entered a very active stage of development.

More and more South Koreans are beginning to feel that stock investment may have become one of the important opportunities for ordinary people to change their wealth status, and even change their social class.

This idea was further amplified especially after various "wealth myths" kept appearing on the internet.

Director Kim said that many investors use margin loans or leveraged products to invest in popular stocks such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix in pursuit of higher returns.

"What surprises me a bit is that those cases reported in the news actually happened around me. One of my friends is exactly in that situation. He always felt that the growth rate of salary could not catch up with the rise of prices, and kept wanting to seize an opportunity to 'get rich quick'. So he took out loans to invest in leveraged products, hoping to magnify his returns quickly. However, after this round of market correction, he lost almost most of his capital. Recently, many friends around me have begun to cut their expenses significantly. During the bull market, they often treated friends to meals, bought more expensive goods, and some even directly changed to a new car. But now, some people have sold their cars, and others have started bringing their own bento to the company every day, trying to save as much living expenses as possible."

"I don't think he was a person who truly loves investment in the first place. It's more because he saw the South Korean stock market rising rapidly, and developed the anxiety that 'if I don't get on the bus now, I will be the only one who gets poorer later'. It is under the influence of this emotion that he kept increasing his investment, and eventually took risks far beyond what he could afford."

A few days after Director Kim finished his interview with Zhiwei, the South Korean stock market triggered circuit breakers again. The subsequent repeated circuit breakers even led protesting stock investors to lay wreaths outside the South Korean National Assembly building.

"Since the end of July, the reactions of people around me have become much stronger, especially my uncle. He even called me specially and asked what he should do. The stocks that had made him a lot of money before have now turned into losses." Director Kim said many people around him have lost their composure. Some people even can't eat because of this incident, and are under huge pressure, especially those friends who invested through loans or used leverage.

"The phrases I have heard most often from these people recently are 'It turns out that you can never make money from stock trading' and 'Why does the stock price fall the very moment I buy it every time?'" he said.

Although Director Kim is also experiencing a sharp pullback in his returns, he thinks this is a process that a mature stock market needs to go through.

"In fact, for a very long time in the past, the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) breaking through the 3000-point mark was already something close to a miracle in the eyes of many South Korean investors."

Why is that so? Because for a long time in the past, many South Koreans believed that South Korean enterprises did not get market valuations matching their actual strength.

Many leading semiconductor enterprises in the United States are granted price-to-earnings ratios of hundreds of times by the market, so their market capitalizations keep hitting new highs.

But at the same time, some South Korean semiconductor enterprises, whose operating revenue is even higher than some American enterprises, have long only had a P/E ratio of around 10 times.

"Apart from low valuations, the South Korean market had another problem in the past. Due to the large number of small and mid-cap stocks, some individual stocks were often speculated by market capital, and there was even the so-called 'manipulated stock' phenomenon. Many people feel that South Korean stocks have little investment value, most stocks are just hyped up by capital, and truly excellent enterprises cannot get the valuations they deserve."

Director Kim said this view has existed in South Korea for many years. Only in recent years, as the real estate market cools down and capital market related policies continue to be promoted, more and more capital that originally stayed in the real estate market has begun to flow into the stock market.

Overseas capital also began to pay attention to the South Korean market, further accelerating the overall market's rise.

When more and more people who had almost no investment experience in the past started to enter the stock market because of the continuous market rally, risks actually began to accumulate slowly.

A part of overseas capital and institutional investors who had made considerable profits took profits and left the market one after another, and the market began to enter a correction phase.

However, many ordinary individual investors, with limited capital strength and having used methods such as loans and leverage for investment, cannot withstand the pressure brought by continuous declines.

In the end, some people had to cut their losses and exit the market, while others were forced to liquidate their positions. They chased the rising prices and sold at the lows, suffering huge losses in silence.

"All the above factors are important reasons for the recent sharp correction in the market. Even so, I remain optimistic about the future of the South Korean stock market. Right now, I am still buying in batches. Because whether it is Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, or many excellent enterprises in the South Korean and US markets, I believe there are still many companies with long-term investment value. I also hope that more and more Chinese friends can understand South Korea better." Director Kim said so.

In fact, overall, the changes brought by this round of semiconductor boom in South Korea are not essentially different from those in China. It is only because of the lack of cultural understanding that people add imaginary dream filters to many things.

After all, people always think that others are living a happier life than themselves.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Zhiwei", Author: He Bi, Editor: Da Bing, published with authorization from 36Kr.