How is Korean culture liberal? Maybe you mean consumerist?
Korea is a young democracy though - it's only had free and fair elections since 1987. Pretty much under military rule and dictatorships since 1945.
Freedom of speech, free and fair elections, the freedom of religion, and all the traditions that make democracies workable.
It does not refer to how "conservative" or "liberal" you are.
Korea lacks 'freedom of speech' and 'free and fair elections' whilst the National Security Act is still on the law books.
It's not right therefore to refer to Korea as liberal democracy. It isn't.
Consumerist is not the same as communist - in fact it is almost the opposite. North Korea used to be a communist country, but now is follows the philosophy of juche[1].
The GP said: Maybe you mean consumerist?
The parent comment said: It's South Korea, not North Korea.
They are plainly mistaking "consumerist" for "communist" - perhaps by misreading, perhaps not.
North Korea is the "communist" half of Korea. I quote communist because their political system meets no possible definition of communism I know of, and they themselves claim to have outgrown it:
"Kimilsungism is an original idea that cannot be explained within the frameworks of Marxism–Leninism. The ideas of Juche which constitutes the quintessence of Kimilsungism is an idea newly discovered in the history of mankind." Kim Jong-il went further, stating that Marxism–Leninism had become obsolete and needed to be replaced by Kimilsungism;[1].
They do argue that Juche is a type of socialism, which I guess could be construed as true by stretching the definition of socialism and ignoring the reality of how North Korea is run.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juche#Kimilsungism.E2.80.93Kim...