After living in Korea for over 7 months, you start to understand the cultural differences more… mostly because they are in conflict with your own cultural ideals. At this point I still cannot claim to be an expert on the subject of Korean culture, far from it in fact, but I can draw from many of my own experiences. I decided to divert a bit from the usual Picture post blog and go a bit more in depth to the lifestyle that I have been living here.
I had a great conversation with Dani last week, we kept going over how it is so hard to explain to people back home exactly why living here is sometimes so infuriating… Not including the language barrier, the chopsticks or the excessive amount of carbs in the diet…( that was expected) the culture and the people encompassed by it can sometimes get you down. It is, however, not easy to explain why this way of living is so in conflict with my own lifestyle. I finally came down to one conclusion. Two words make living in Korea hard… but understanding them can make it easier to bear.
Saving Face.
I had a great conversation with Dani last week, we kept going over how it is so hard to explain to people back home exactly why living here is sometimes so infuriating… Not including the language barrier, the chopsticks or the excessive amount of carbs in the diet…( that was expected) the culture and the people encompassed by it can sometimes get you down. It is, however, not easy to explain why this way of living is so in conflict with my own lifestyle. I finally came down to one conclusion. Two words make living in Korea hard… but understanding them can make it easier to bear.
Saving Face.
In America this just basically means covering for yourself and maintaining dignity, but in Korea it is part of business, friendships, romantic relationships and family life. Due to the heavy Confucian beliefs Koreans are all about traits like
persistence, perseverance, respect for hierarchal relationships, concern for saving face, and respect for tradition. But as I see it saving face in today’s society can sometimes seem like displacing blame if you are from outside the culture. Nobody likes to be embarrassed or look foolish but part of the Korean nature is they don’t want to see ANYONE embarrassed or look bad or ever, even if it means shoving the blame where it doesn’t belong.
Take for instance my experience. I have been teaching the 2:30 America class for over a month with the new Level 1 book. I handed the books out the first day, and about a month and half later we were about a third of the way through the book when One day in class one of the children tells me “ oh teacher, no book today”. This happens sometimes since they have a different book for the days the Korean teacher works with them, so no problem, I went and made a copy of the pages and gave them to the student for the class. The next class the child still is missing their book, so I make note of it in the daily report that “so in so didn’t bring their book for the second time”…which is when the Korean teacher punishes them by taking away a star. Well that didn’t happen.
The student, so afraid of losing a star, tells the Korean teacher and their parents that “Allison teacher never gave me a book”... ok
So the Korean teacher approaches me and asks me why I never gave the child a book…. My answer “ I did, a month ago, when I gave out all the books, I think that particular student must have lost it” which is replied to with “ Well the child and their parents say you didn’t give them a book”….ok
Why would I forget to give a book to one child in the class, and if I did why did it take the kid a month and a half to figure it out… honestly. We were already 7 or 8 units in from the previous month, and suddenly the kids stops bringing it because I never gave them a book. That makes no sense.
Now this is where the face saving comes in. I am lightly reprimanded for not giving the child a book, because nobody is brave enough to tell the kids parents that the kid lied, ( because I gave the kid a book) So in order to keep the kid from being embarrassed or the parents from realizing their kid lied and really lost the book, they order a new one, and I end up looking incompetent.
Nothing is more infuriating. But that is what happens when you are the foreigner on the bottom of the social hierarchy chain…
It runs deeper than that. Koreans hate to say “no” or “I don’t know” so if you ask a question, if they are unsure of the answer… rather than be uncomfortable and look unwise they will LIE and tell you something that MIGHT be true, just so you don’t get uncomfortable and they can get your off their back without looking foolish.
Which usually ends up making trouble for the non-Korean speaker. Like for instance searching for an hour for a bus station in the wrong direction in Busan because we had the misfortune to ask someone who didn’t know either.
The crucial thing that saving face is up against is the concept of respect from a Western sense. Respect for my time, and my intelligence.
In the West, we strongly adhere to the idea that the highest measure of respect to show a person is honesty.
Americans can seem so friendly to other cultures because they engage in many "face-saving" activities in ways that Koreans do not. Take for instance how we deal with strangers. I grew up in a place where you hold the door for someone coming in behind you, give compliments, and do your best to help someone even if you don't know them. Something simple like smiling at someone as you pass them on the street does not happen here. Koreans are taught to withhold emotion at all times and even cover their mouth when laughing…But things I consider just simple consideration for another person seem lacking here. I have had the door slammed in my face at the bank, been pushed in the butt with a shopping cart to move and not told when a co-worker was leaving the workplace forever until 10 minutes before she left.
I sometimes don’t understand why a whole society of people cannot just stand by what they think, and if necessary, SAY what they think. I feel like those we hold in the highest esteem we show respect by being honest and giving opinions when needed or asked.
Though to the Koreans, Honesty is often in conflict with relationship-preserving or face saving actions. They believe to make someone close to you feel bad for any reason, even with honesty is considered rude and hateful. Americans simply trust that our good friends will not be hurt by our outright comments because we respect them enough to tell them the truth.
persistence, perseverance, respect for hierarchal relationships, concern for saving face, and respect for tradition. But as I see it saving face in today’s society can sometimes seem like displacing blame if you are from outside the culture. Nobody likes to be embarrassed or look foolish but part of the Korean nature is they don’t want to see ANYONE embarrassed or look bad or ever, even if it means shoving the blame where it doesn’t belong.
Take for instance my experience. I have been teaching the 2:30 America class for over a month with the new Level 1 book. I handed the books out the first day, and about a month and half later we were about a third of the way through the book when One day in class one of the children tells me “ oh teacher, no book today”. This happens sometimes since they have a different book for the days the Korean teacher works with them, so no problem, I went and made a copy of the pages and gave them to the student for the class. The next class the child still is missing their book, so I make note of it in the daily report that “so in so didn’t bring their book for the second time”…which is when the Korean teacher punishes them by taking away a star. Well that didn’t happen.
The student, so afraid of losing a star, tells the Korean teacher and their parents that “Allison teacher never gave me a book”... ok
So the Korean teacher approaches me and asks me why I never gave the child a book…. My answer “ I did, a month ago, when I gave out all the books, I think that particular student must have lost it” which is replied to with “ Well the child and their parents say you didn’t give them a book”….ok
Why would I forget to give a book to one child in the class, and if I did why did it take the kid a month and a half to figure it out… honestly. We were already 7 or 8 units in from the previous month, and suddenly the kids stops bringing it because I never gave them a book. That makes no sense.
Now this is where the face saving comes in. I am lightly reprimanded for not giving the child a book, because nobody is brave enough to tell the kids parents that the kid lied, ( because I gave the kid a book) So in order to keep the kid from being embarrassed or the parents from realizing their kid lied and really lost the book, they order a new one, and I end up looking incompetent.
Nothing is more infuriating. But that is what happens when you are the foreigner on the bottom of the social hierarchy chain…
It runs deeper than that. Koreans hate to say “no” or “I don’t know” so if you ask a question, if they are unsure of the answer… rather than be uncomfortable and look unwise they will LIE and tell you something that MIGHT be true, just so you don’t get uncomfortable and they can get your off their back without looking foolish.
Which usually ends up making trouble for the non-Korean speaker. Like for instance searching for an hour for a bus station in the wrong direction in Busan because we had the misfortune to ask someone who didn’t know either.
The crucial thing that saving face is up against is the concept of respect from a Western sense. Respect for my time, and my intelligence.
In the West, we strongly adhere to the idea that the highest measure of respect to show a person is honesty.
Americans can seem so friendly to other cultures because they engage in many "face-saving" activities in ways that Koreans do not. Take for instance how we deal with strangers. I grew up in a place where you hold the door for someone coming in behind you, give compliments, and do your best to help someone even if you don't know them. Something simple like smiling at someone as you pass them on the street does not happen here. Koreans are taught to withhold emotion at all times and even cover their mouth when laughing…But things I consider just simple consideration for another person seem lacking here. I have had the door slammed in my face at the bank, been pushed in the butt with a shopping cart to move and not told when a co-worker was leaving the workplace forever until 10 minutes before she left.
I sometimes don’t understand why a whole society of people cannot just stand by what they think, and if necessary, SAY what they think. I feel like those we hold in the highest esteem we show respect by being honest and giving opinions when needed or asked.
Though to the Koreans, Honesty is often in conflict with relationship-preserving or face saving actions. They believe to make someone close to you feel bad for any reason, even with honesty is considered rude and hateful. Americans simply trust that our good friends will not be hurt by our outright comments because we respect them enough to tell them the truth.
( Hey sorry, you have lettuce in your teeth!)
There is, however, some irony here in that, from an Confucian perspective, Americans can often seem cruel to those close to us (friends and family) or appear that we take close relationships for granted with our honesty. Go figure.
So there you have it, East vs. West…. I can see both sides… and I think I fall somewhere in the middle. I think there is a fine line between honesty for the better, and honesty just to be mean or make someone feel foolish.
There is, however, some irony here in that, from an Confucian perspective, Americans can often seem cruel to those close to us (friends and family) or appear that we take close relationships for granted with our honesty. Go figure.
So there you have it, East vs. West…. I can see both sides… and I think I fall somewhere in the middle. I think there is a fine line between honesty for the better, and honesty just to be mean or make someone feel foolish.
Next post, My birthday weekend in Seoul!
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