Korean Job Discussion Forums

[sarbonn]

On the weekends, it's really nice of the boss, but he buys pizza for the whole group here. That's fine. Everyone eats in the same room, and on the surface, that's fine. But EVERYONE of them chews with his or her mouth open and when you're hearing fifteen of them chomping on pizza nonstop with their mouths open, and talking while their mouths are full, I find myself completely disgusted and can't eat anything myself. So people think there's something wrong, and there is, but how do you tell a group of people that you can't eat because you're disgusted by their table manners?

My excuse has been that I can't eat pizza, so I go to another room until the feast is finished. And yes, I know it sounds really elitist and stuck up and all of that insulting kind of stuff, but unfortunately, I just have a really hard time being in a room with that many people making that much noise and whenever I look, all I see is open mouths with tons of food just being chomped at.

[cruisemonkey]

Tell them it's against your religion to eat corn.

[The evil penguin]

Change the part of your contract where it says "must work weekends"

[Milwaukiedave]

I don't think you really can tell them. The best thing is to excuse yourself and do something else. I agree with you that it is disgusting, but I don't let it bother me. Then again, I usually don't end up eating with co-workers very often, so I don't really have that problem to begin with.

[sarbonn]

Yeah, the problem is: I really like these people, so I'd like to hang out with them during these times, but I just can't seem to do it.

[VanIslander]

if you're disgusted by something just avoid it

i still lose my appetite at the sight of green beans (childhood experience)

don't think you can change them: adapt, as you have

you'd be a big jerk and it'd be unproductive to mention how disgusting their habit is: they're oblivious to it and if pointed out, they'd lose face

the alternative is to GET USED TO IT, at least to the sound of it. Then simply avoid their mouths when in the room with them, look at their eyes or the wall behind their heads (fuzzies out the foreground)

if you drop the morality of it ("they ought to close their mouths, they ought to not talk with their mouths full, all those moral lessons we learn in our culture back home growing up) maybe the disgust will become more bearable

eating with their mouths open and making all kinds of slurping and other eating sounds used to bother me, though just a bit, and before long the SOUNDS stopped bothering me, i simply stopped noticing, but the SIGHT, yeah, that still takes me aback, though it's not a strong sense of disgust with me like it is with you

good luck whatever

[crescent]

I'd be in there slurping, and chomping away with the rest of them! Show em how it's really done!
Don't forget to say "Ah, Ma-shi-ta!" every 3 seconds too. If you do it right, you won't even hear the others!
I mean, free pizza.. and a chance to regress back to the days when table manners were a bother.

It will feel great. Try it.

[VanIslander]

What still drives me crazy is how they have no idea how to pick up a slice, consistently doing it the same way, losing half the toppings in a sloppy mess if the pizza is still hot.

THIS is how you pick up a slice of pizza! I say and demonstrate.

I must at least shake my head everytime at their inability to understand basic physics with a pizza.

I sometimes assuage their sense of self by saying "Koreans taught me how to count money fast, man am I slow. I teach you how to pick up pizza, you teach me to count money." That seems to evens things out.

[bobbybigfoot]

I can relate. My Korean girlfriend's eating habits took some getting used to. She chomps away, eats very loudly, mouth partly open. In the beginning, I found it really disturbing. Finally, I told her that she's just too loud for me and asked if she could eat with her mouth closed (like we do in North America). She was horrified. Didn't realize she was noisy. The rest of that meal was uncomfortable. She barely ate, conscious of every bite she took. Next time we ate together, she completely forgot about what I had said, and her old habits returned. I didn't say anything. A little while later, I got invited to her house for a family meal. They all eat like that, chomping away, mouths half open. Talking with their mouths full of food. To us North Americans, it's disgusting, rude. But to Koreans (and I suspect Asians in general) it's par for the course. But if I ever brought my girlfriend back to Canada for a family meal, I'd pull her aside and tell her that she must eat with her mouth closed, and that my signal to her, should she forget, would be a little kick under the table. But here in Korea, we play by their rules: My advice to you is to grab a slice of pizza, eat away, quickly, don't look at their mouths, then move on. You've been polite, but kept the exposure to a minimum.

[bundangbabo]

I don't mind the slurping and chomping away when I ate with my co workers at lunchtime but I do remember being the only person with elbows on the tables whilst the others had the elbows off the table!

They must have thought I was a right low class pig! Anyway I bring in my own butties now!

[Pooty]

[cruisemonkey]

[Arthur Dent]

You know, I'm usually fairly careful and somewhat politic about what I do and say here - except if the chance arises to tease or make a joke. Then I'm all in and don't care. Most Koreans deal with it well if I show that I am joking. Even my "superiors" have been targets of this.

Perhaps this is a chance to make a joke as well attempt to introduce some more cosmopolitan behaviour amongst your colleagues. The challenge is finding the way to do it while......you can take it from here.

[NoExplode]

The sounds I can never get used to. At the table, or in the shower room at the gym. Cripes, the farmer blowing, and horking up loogies and spitting the contents of their lungs out on the communal shower floor is like a veritable Hepatitis Party.

I think the louder they are, the more recently they came off the farm. The cultured Koreans I know don't chew like cows and grunt.

[EuroFunk]

food noises are nothing. Just wait till you see how food is prepared/served.