Learning How-To From the Animals

Elephant, penguin, wolf, dog, duck, frog, fish: any one of these animals has something to teach those suffering from terminal confusion in today’s world -- and aren’t we all? People, highly successful or otherwise, are passé. Today animals rule in the ever profitable world of self-help books. “It seems that animals, who had their heydays in Aesop’s Fables, boarded Noah’s Ark and finally found a new habitat in South Korea in the 21 century,” says book critic Han Mi-hwa. “Publishers in Korea are vying with each other to bring out modern-day fables.”

Some books are straightforward fables revolving around an animal character. A case in point is “Ping: A Frog in Search of a New Pond” by Stuart Avery Gold. It ranks 11th on the Publishers’ Association of Korea bestseller list. The tale of Ping, who is on a journey to find a new pond to live in and encounters many ups and downs along the way, is meant to teach readers what decisions they make at critical junctures in their (business) life. The book looks at notions like vision, change, conflict, patience, learning and risk, mainly through Ping’s conversations with his teacher, a wise old owl. It sold no fewer than 100,000 copies in Korea in two months.

“Don't Eat The Marshmallow...Yet! : The Secret to Sweet Success in Work and Life" by Joachim de Posada remains the nation’s no. 1 bestseller after 13 weeks at the top. It too uses a fable of African animals to convey a message that those who want to survive have to be first to start.

The first to tread the ground in contemporary self-help literature was Spencer Johnson with “Who Moved My Cheese?” which came out here in 2000. The book looks at the way two mice and two people in a maze deal with changes in life in their pursuit of cheese. The “cheese” stands for any desirable goal, from a good job to personal relationships, from money to health. The book sold 2 million copies right after it came out here and still sells some 4,000 copies a month.

Why do the authors choose animals? Han says it is because they are ordinary, meaning everyone can imagine themselves in their skin. “Such books target a wide range of readers from office workers to teenagers,” Han says.

Other books reflect on animals from the outside. “Beg the Elephant: How to Win and Keep Big Customers” by Steve Kaplan is one such book, which looks at the way elephants behave and compares them to big customers.

That trend started in 2002, when “Whale Done!: The Power of Positive Relationships” by Kenneth Blanchard et al. was published here. The book, which also sold more than 1 million copies here, establishes what it calls a “whale done response” to positive attention and praise.

Trends are fickle, and what the next driving force will be once the animals are extinct is anyone’s guess. Plants?