Korean society 'chaotic' in 2015 By Chung Hyun-chae "Chaotic" was the word that most aptly characterized Korean society in 2015, a group of professors said Sunday. The group said that 524 out of 886 professors at universities in Korea chose the four-letter Chinese phrase "honyongmudo"(昏庸無道) as the idiom most representative of this year. The phrase means that society is chaotic and without moral justice. It is a combination of the Chinese words "honyong," which refers to an incompetent leader, and "mudo," which means there is no road. Korea University Prof. Lee Seung-hwan, who recommended the phrase, said the nation's leaders were responsible for the chaos in society. "Restlessness has prevailed among the people because of the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) since May, but the government failed to control the situation and demonstrated incompetence," Lee said. He also said that Cheong Wa Dae forced the governing party's floor leader to resign, which he believes undermined the separation of legislative, administrative and judicial powers guaranteed by the Constitution. "In the latter half of the year, we had political conflicts over the government's move to adopt a state-authored history textbook, wasting national power," Lee said. "I think the academics picked this phrase as the idiom of this year to reflect their wish for the administration to stop being incompetent," he said. Following the phrase, "sasiibi" (似是而非) was the second most-voted phrase with 14.6 percent of the professors casting their votes for it. It means that what seems to be right is actually wrong. Geumgang University Prof. Seok Gil-am recommended the phrase, saying, "Although the government claims that its policies are for the whole nation and are fair, it often distorts facts to justify them. And despite such attempts, the public already knows that such things are not true." About 13 percent opted for "galtaegieo," (竭澤而漁) meaning catching a fish by scooping up all the water from a pond. It showed that people pay attention to immediate interests without a plan for long-term development. The professors' group has picked one idiom to characterize each year since 2001.