Korean Job Discussion Forums

[IncognitoHFX]

This is something that I've been wondering about for awhile now, and I think I need some clarification. By clarification, I mean explanations from logic and not pity or emotion.

So, what exactly is the deal with the Asian concept of cheating and lying? Especially in relationships? I've studied Korean culture and I'm aware of the confucian influence of East Asia... and I'm also aware of how this sort of thing happens in Japan (much more). Still, it's hard to find an account for this (an accurate one) on the internet so I've been going on the personal experience of others more than anything else.

My question, exactly: do Koreans lie more than Westerners quantantatively? How exactly do they lie, and how can you catch them in a lie (I know they tell "around the truth" but not the truth exactly)? Are most Korean relationships secretly polyamorous, and are most Korean/East Asians completely okay with that? Or are Koreans (women) who date foreigners pulled more towards open relationships and secrecy?

I've heard so many stories of expat men in relationships with East Asian girls... idyllic relationships, too, only for them to hear afterwards that they had two boyfriends... or that she was married... or that she was "going around the block" in her spare time... or all three (yes, I've heard of that, too!)

It's almost unbelievable. As a person who has never cheated and has no desire to, and as a person who would never date or marry a cheater, is it possible to find any monogamy in East Asia? I mean, actual monogamy and not just spoken monogamy? Or is monogamy only a spoken virtue these days in the East?

Sorry if I touch any nerves. I just want to get to the logical bottom of this. I have a thing for Korean girls but I also have a thing for the long term and I'm trying to avoid having my chest ripped open in agony.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Rumour has it that monogamy's easier to find if you're a guy than if you're a girl in East Asia.

[IncognitoHFX]

[Frankly Mr Shankly]

To be able to answer your question, which I think is absurd, you'd have to be able to measure truth as an absolute. Once you've assigned a value to this, which I will call 'truthyness', you may then set about formulating an equation or method of measuring this.

[xingyiman]

Korean marriages are basically a sham. There's the whole institution of matchmaking where the parents or friends introduce people to each other with the intent of them getting married.
Parents of the woman push her to marry the most successful suitor and parents of the man push him to marry a "pure blooded" Korean woman who has as light a complexion as possible.
Basically then you have two people who are marrying for "social face" who probably don't have much feeling for each other.
Then comes the wedding. The guy and his parents must buy a house for them to live in and the woman's family, to save face, must buy some outlandish gift (like a 20,000,000 won big screen television). So the married couple starts out in the red financially with little feeling, if any for each other and then couple that with the way society views divorce and there you have it. The woman eventually does her thing and the guy does his. They stay married only to keep up appearences.

[Easter Clark]

^

How do you know this

[nautilus]

I think there is just as much cheating in the west.

Only difference is the public attitude to it.

[IncognitoHFX]

[xingyiman]

[Kiarell]

[jkelly80]

[Ruraljuror]

Xingyiman is accurate in everything that he says. While it's not true for *all* couples, it is alot. More than 50%. The easiest way you can tell is to ask someone how long they knew their partner before they were engaged...in my experiences, every Korean I know became engaged less than a month after they met. It's like one night you'll be out drinking with a friend who was a total ladies man, and he'll suddenly drop the bombshell that he's engaged to a girl he's just met. This has happened to me so many times I'm no longer surprised by it. They guy freely admits that he doesn't love her, and is not expecting to anytime soon. And asked why he is getting married then, he gives an embarrassed shrug.

It wasn't until I learned from my wife much later what the deal was. Korean men get to an age where the family determines it is unacceptable to be single, and unless he wants to lose his inheritance he needs to wed and procreate immediately. So he gets set-up from his family or a matchmaker, and he does have veto power (as does the girl -- it's not totally an arranged marriage) but he is encouraged that unless the girl has some glaringly unacceptable flaw, he should choose her. And if she is unacceptable, another girl is provided. But his time is marked, he *IS* getting married, whether he likes it or not, the family has spoken and all he can do is (silghtly) delay the inevitable.

As incomprehensible as it seems to us, Korean guys don't really mind the system too much because:

1. They get nice housing from the deal, paid in full (from his family) and fully furnished (from his wife's family).

2. There isn't the same expectation of a romantic, loving marriage as there is in the West.

3. They already had a passionate love affair with their true love, but that relationship was nixed by their parents (EVERY Korean I've ever met has a story of their one true love, and the tragic circumstance which led to it's demise) and they are still broken hearted about it. They feel that since they can't marry their true love, they might as well marry anyone else.

4. They have no intention of remaining faithful, and there is no expectation that they should do so.

[sineface]

This is all rather despressing. Is't not?

[Kid65]

I have a few friends here who are the "other" boyfriend. As in, the girl they are with has both a Korean and a Waeguk boyfriend. The waeguks know about the Korean, not sure whether the Korean knows about the waeguk.

The same kind of thing (with regards non-faithful marriages, marriage being for show) applies in many Latin American countries.

[Newbie]