🇦🇺 Australia · 🇰🇷 South Korea
By Suki Nakamura, Out of Office
Australia and South Korea are the only two countries I have lived in where declining a drink required a medical excuse rather than a personal preference. The Australian version is horizontal — loud, egalitarian, suspicious of anyone who appears to be sober at a barbecue on purpose. The Korean version is vertical — hierarchical, ritualised, and embedded in a work culture so thoroughly that refusing the third round of soju at a company dinner is a career decision as much as a dietary one. Both countries drink. Both countries drink a lot. The social architecture around that drinking could not be more different.
South Korea, according to WHO data, consumes more spirits per capita than any other country on earth — a statistic that becomes less surprising once you have attended a Korean office dinner, a concept called hweshik that translates roughly as "company gathering" and functions in practice as a mandatory three-location drinking relay with your direct manager. Australia, for its part, has built an entire cultural identity around the idea that a beer is not just a beverage but a social contract, a class equaliser, and a test of character administered at irregular intervals. The cultures approach the same activity — getting drunk with people you know — with radically different intentions.
| ✅ Do | ❌ Don't |
|---|---|
| Buy your round. The shouting system — where each person in a group buys a round of drinks in rotation — is the foundational social contract of Australian pub culture, and opting out without explanation is remembered | Be a snob about beer. Ordering something craft and small-batch when everyone else is drinking mid-strength lager is a declaration of difference that Australians will find faintly annoying |
| Accept an invitation to the pub after work — in Australian office culture this is where actual relationships are formed, and the person who always goes straight home is the person nobody knows | Complain about pub closing times — they vary wildly by state and licence, and the correct response to a 10pm lock-out is not outrage but preparedness |
| Pace yourself — Australian drinking culture values longevity over intensity, and the person who gets visibly drunk first is a cautionary tale not a hero | Drive if you've had more than one or two — Australia's drink-driving laws are enforced with random breath-testing and zero cultural tolerance |
| Accept a snag (sausage) at a hardware store on a Saturday morning — this is not a non-sequitur, it is a cultural institution, and the correct condiments are tomato sauce, not mustard | Assume that "we're going for a quiet one" means quiet. It never means quiet. |
| ✅ Do | ❌ Don't |
|---|---|
| Pour drinks for others before yourself — in Korean drinking culture, you never pour your own glass. Watching your neighbour's glass and refilling it before it empties is both courtesy and a signal that you are paying attention | Refuse the first drink at a hweshik (company dinner) without a very good reason. The first pour from a senior is an act of inclusion and declining it is read as rejection, not preference |
| Use both hands when receiving a drink, or rest one hand on your forearm — the two-handed receive is standard respect and omitting it is noticeable | Mix your soju and beer incorrectly. Somaek (soju plus beer) has a ratio and it is not negotiable. Ask before you pour |
| Eat while you drink — Korean drinking culture is inseparable from food, and the anju (drinking snacks) are half the point of the evening | Drink faster than the most senior person at the table, especially in the early stages. The pace is set from the top |
| Know how to gracefully exit after the second venue — three-stop evenings (chimaek, norebang, then somewhere else) are common and the art is leaving without making it feel like a departure | Post photos from hweshik on social media without checking first. What happens at the company dinner circulates carefully |
Australia's drinking culture is one of the most thoroughly mythologised aspects of Australian identity and also, inconveniently, one of the most accurate to its stereotype. The pub is not just a place to drink in Australia — it is a civic institution, a social leveller, a place where the CEO and the junior analyst drink the same beer at the same bar, which is not an accident but an ideology. The shouting system, in which each member of a group takes a turn buying a round, is an economic equaliser as much as a tradition: everyone contributes, everyone benefits, and nobody tallies.
Australian alcohol consumption has been declining steadily for two decades, particularly among younger Australians, but the cultural centrality of drinking to Australian social life remains so firmly embedded that the decline has changed the numbers without changing the architecture. The after-work drink, the barbecue beer, the Saturday afternoon session at a sports match — these are not primarily about alcohol. They are about the specific social contract that alcohol has traditionally facilitated: the relaxation of hierarchy, the performance of egalitarianism, the proof that you are not, at your core, taking yourself too seriously.
The Australian pub's other great function is the management of class. In a country that is theoretically uncomfortable with explicit class distinctions, the pub provides a venue where they can be temporarily dissolved. The fact that you order at the bar — not from a table, not from a server — means you stand in the same queue as everyone else, and the ritual of the round means you drink at the same pace.
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Korean drinking culture is one of the most precisely structured social systems I have encountered, and I grew up in a country where the correct way to present a business card requires practice. The rules are not arbitrary — they are a liquid extension of the Confucian hierarchy that governs Korean professional and social life — but they are numerous and they matter in ways that a foreigner can underestimate until they don't.
The hweshik is the most important institution to understand. It is a company dinner that typically unfolds across two or three locations — a Korean restaurant for food and first drinks, often followed by a bar or pojangmacha (street tent bar), often followed by a norebang (karaoke room). Attendance is expected. The pace and content of the evening is typically set by the most senior person present. Leaving early requires a reason, and the reason must be proportionate to the inconvenience of leaving.
What makes hweshik genuinely complicated for foreigners is that it functions as a professional assessment as well as a social event. How you drink — whether you pour for others, whether you wait to be poured for, whether you drink when toasted, whether you handle the soju without making it an event — communicates something about your professional character. Getting it right is not sufficient but getting it wrong is memorable.
Australia and South Korea both treat drinking as social infrastructure rather than recreation, and both will make you feel the gap between their understanding of that infrastructure and yours. The Australian version is more forgiving of mistakes — if you break the shouting rotation accidentally, someone will tell you and you will laugh about it. The Korean version is less forgiving precisely because the rules are more load-bearing: they carry information about hierarchy, respect, and professional competence that the Australian round does not.
If you are moving to Australia, relax and buy your round. If you are moving to South Korea, pay attention to who is pouring for whom and do not let anyone's glass run empty. In both cases: pace yourself. The evening is longer than it looks from the first drink.
Waygook.org — "My first hweshik I politely declined the second round of soju because I had an early class the next day. My co-teacher looked at me with an expression I can only describe as concerned. Later she explained that my principal had noticed and asked if I was unhappy at the school. I had been there three weeks. I learned very quickly that 'I have work tomorrow' is not a reason in Korea because everyone has work tomorrow."
Internations Sydney — "The shouting system caused me genuine anxiety for my first month. I didn't know when it was my round, I didn't know how to track it, and I was terrified of getting it wrong. Eventually an Australian friend explained: it's not tracked. You roughly take turns. The worst thing you can do is be obviously stingy. After that, it made perfect sense and I stopped overthinking it entirely."
expat.com Seoul — "Koreans drink a lot of soju and the serving sizes are small and frequent, which means you can be significantly more drunk than you realise before the first venue is over. The move to the second venue is when you discover this. The norebang at the third venue is when everyone discovers it together. I have no memory of singing Bohemian Rhapsody but apparently I was excellent."
Australia and South Korea will both incorporate you into their drinking cultures whether or not you asked to be incorporated, and both will judge your participation as a proxy for something larger — your willingness to be part of things, your understanding of how social belonging works in this particular latitude.
In Australia, the measure is whether you show up and contribute. In South Korea, the measure is whether you show up, contribute correctly, and remember that the person across from you is watching how you pour.
The good news is that both countries are, in their own ways, forgiving of genuine effort. Make it clear you are trying to participate rather than opting out, and both cultures will meet you most of the way. Just buy the round, fill the glass, and remember that saying no to a drink is a much bigger statement than you intended it to be.
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Danny Fisk
Staff writer covering financial markets and corporate strategy. Has strong opinions about spreadsheets.