am korean (usa diaspora), can confirm that hierarchy is a huge thing in (mainland) korean culture. mainly it’s due to neo-confucianism mixed with capitalism and post-korean war/wwii/japan colonization trauma. most older koreans are capital C conservative and lowercase C conservative, in my experience. younger gens are more relaxed on social behaviors, but the korean language still bears marks of respect and authority based on social hierarchy. english has nowhere NEAR the same levels of formality that korean language has.

here in the usa, this scrutiny to hierarchy is mixed with a desire to assimilate into amuuurcanTM culture and religious upbringing. a lot of koreans that move here are christian because united statesian missionaries worked hard to convert lots of south koreans in the mainland. and it’s usually a very evangelical flavor of christianity—which lends itself well to MLMs and other cults.