It's both interesting and awesome that the dominant community wasn't the first to reach community status. Then again, the python community could have become lazy and just assumed they'd be the first. Congratulations to Hong Minhee on making Korea the first community on Gittip.

It took five hours, 51 minutes, and 36 seconds for Korea to go from 1 to 150 members.

Is this some kind of competition (serious question)?

It is a friendly competition to encourage participation.