My take on this is (ignoring Korean culture and how they treat expats) after a heated exchange, the captain grabbed for the engineers badge. The engineer then went took a shot at the captain. I take the side of the engineer of this.
If someone invades your personal space to that degree you have the right to knock his lights out. It does not matter if he has four bars on his shoulders or a the four stars of a general..
You obviously didn't read the original post. The captain never made physical contact with the engineer. The engineer assaulted the captain. I guess that's ok. After asking the engineer his name and ID(which he declined to give) the captain lifted the badge up to see the name and ID #. Never did "grab" it. All of the physical contact was made by the engineer. As for the invasion of space, again that was all on the engineer. He approached the captain. I wonder if the engineer would have done that to a korean captain.
May you someday have the opportunity to fly there. Then it will be interesting to hear your comments.