Hoesik in Misaeng: Why a Team Dinner Can Still Feel Like Work

Leaving the office doesn’t necessarily mean leaving its relationships behind. A meal with colleagues can be a welcome invitation and still leave someone wondering how freely they can behave.

In my Misaeng drama review, I wrote about noticing the hierarchy around an after-work meal and calculating when to leave for the last train. Those small pressures are a useful starting point for understanding hoesik, the Korean word for a group meal.

Scope and spoilers: This is cultural context for the 2014 drama, rather than a scene-by-scene recap. It stays with the opening workplace premise and leaves later career outcomes and endings aside.

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What does hoesik mean?

회식 (hoesik) describes people from a group or organization gathering to eat, as well as the gathering itself. The National Institute of Korean Language’s dictionary gives that broader meaning: it can apply beyond a company, and its definition does not require alcohol.

For Misaeng, a team meal is the relevant context. Calling it dinner tells us what people are doing. It leaves another question open: what relationship are they bringing to the table?

Why can a meal carry office pressure?

Geu-rae begins company life as someone still learning his place. For a viewer following that starting point, I would pay attention to whether a change of setting also changes who can speak comfortably.

A conversation may sound casual while the people involved still have unequal responsibilities. The person making a joke might also be the person who assigns work tomorrow. That can make responding feel less simple than it would among friends.

The Korean office titles explainer helps with the language of workplace roles, using A Business Proposal. Here, the useful question is what happens when those relationships continue into supposed free time.

What does research from the period show?

A study published in the Journal of Nutrition and Health in 2019 interviewed 22 full-time employees at 12 companies within one corporate group, between January and June 2014. Participants described meals as occasions for building relationships and exchanging work information, alongside pressure to attend or drink. Experiences differed with the team’s work, schedules, and leadership. This was a small qualitative study, not a representative survey of Korean employees.

Its value here is the range within one study. A shared label does not make every team’s gathering the same experience. That is a useful distinction to carry into a fictional workplace, too.

How can welcome and pressure coexist?

Being included can matter to someone who is unsure whether they belong. An invitation may offer time together that would be difficult to find during a busy working day. It can also leave the invited person thinking carefully about the right response.

I would keep two questions beside each other: Does this person feel wanted? And do they feel able to choose? The answers need not match. Someone can appreciate the company while wishing the evening would end sooner.

This makes the last-train concern more than a practical detail. Wanting to get home is straightforward; deciding how that wish will sound to other people can be harder. Watching for that gap gives the meal emotional weight without treating every friendly gesture as false or every uncomfortable response as ingratitude.

Does the 2014 drama describe workplaces now?

The distance in time matters. An Embrain Trend Monitor survey conducted in April 2023 questioned 1,000 employed adults aged 19–59 across South Korea. Its public summary included reports of earlier finishes and less unease about declining attendance after the pandemic, as well as a preference for gatherings without alcohol. It also recorded a sense that nominally voluntary attendance could still feel difficult to refuse.

That private survey captures respondents’ perceptions and preferences in 2023. It is neither a description of every workplace nor a measurement of conditions in 2026. Reading Misaeng as a drama first broadcast in 2014 leaves room for both recognition and change.

What should you watch for in Misaeng?

I would start with the difference between an invitation’s words and the freedom available to the person receiving it. Notice who seems comfortable setting the pace, and whether a quieter person has room to express a different wish. These are questions to bring to your viewing, rather than a checklist assigning a meaning to every gesture.

You can also leave room for an ordinary pleasure: sometimes people want company. The interesting tension is how that wish sits beside obligations and the need for time away from work. Holding both possibilities open makes the people easier to consider individually.

The workplace explainer covers a separate question: Geu-rae’s credentials, internship, and early attempts to contribute. For the original comic, the drama, and official starting routes, return to the Misaeng introduction.

Sources and further reading

• National Institute of Korean Language — 회식: the word’s meaning and examples.
• Park, Sung, and Gittelsohn, Journal of Nutrition and Health (2019): organizational influences on meals, based on interviews conducted in 2014.
• Embrain Trend Monitor — 2023 workplace hoesik survey: public summary of the April 14–18 survey; perceptions and preferences, not a current national census.
• tvN — Misaeng: the 2014 television drama’s official introduction.