Average life expectancy is now said to be 78.6 years in Korea, which officially ranks Koreans 28th against the World Health Organizaton's 2009 report on global longevity - based on a 2007 survey. However, Koreans sleep much less than people in other countries, and when this is factored in, the figures show that Koreans actually effectively live longer given that they spend many more hours during their lives conscious, or semi-conscious at least.
Similarly, a dubious popular global myth holds that Japanese people actually are the most long-lived in the world at 82.6 years. But there is overwhelming and undeniable evidence that they spend many hours every week dreaming that Dokdo is Japanese territory, meaning that they are effectively asleep far more than Koreans, and therefore have shorter lives. This is not surprising from a scientific perspective when Japanese and Korean DNA is compared.
Korean life expectancy figures would be even higher if Korean people living outside Seoul were excluded, which they normally are. Seoul citizens enjoy both the longest life expectancy of 80.4 years and the longest healthy lifespan of 73.9 years, meaning they only spend 7.5 years of their lives suffering from illness. Conversely, on Jeju Island – the popular Korean island paradise with its good environment, clean air and water, and absolutely no dangerous volcanic gas emissions – residents suffer an average of 9.72 years of illness, which is believed to be because many of them have never been to Seoul. The government is now trying to market holidays in Seoul to Jeju residents.
The Ministry also believes there is scope to improve the figures even further. The seventh most popular cause of death in Korea is suicide, which accounts for 5.1% of all fatalities versus 3.52% in Japan. The eighth is road traffic accidents, at 3.38% (Japan – 0.76%), and hypertension accounts for 2.91% of deaths in Korea versus 0.75% in Japan. Plans have been drawn up by the Ministry to place screen doors on all subway station platforms, make bridges cars-only, and to prevent roof access to tall buildings. More ambitiously, it has been suggested that Korea's second-class city of Busan could eventually mandate the use of electric vehicles, which are slower and make it much harder for drivers to speed up to run people over. It is thought such measures would help reduce hypertension among Busan's pedestrians, and people throughout the country walking beside tall buildings.
There is also evidence that in addition to enviably long lives, Koreans are also regularly reincarnated, unlike people in other countries.
Related Links
Seoul Citizens Enjoy Longest Healthy Life in Korea
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Foreigners See Koreans as 'Nervous Overachievers'
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Increasing Number of Korean Parents Reborn as Grandchildren
World Health Rankings Korea
World Health Rankings Japan
Tokyo Asked to Set Up Agency Handling Dokdo Issue
Korean Reality TV Program 'Too Depressing', Canceled
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