Korean Job Discussion Forums

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In your opinion, which aspect of cultural difference between Westerners and Koreans is the biggest source of conflict?

I'm gonna go for "Saving Face"

We all make mistakes. Some of these mistakes can cause a whole boatload of trouble for others. When this happens it seems only natural to apologise sincerely and offer to do whatever you can to make the situation right.

When someone apologises, it goes a long way to pouring healing oil on the situation and restoring harmony. However to react in the opposite way makes things 100 times worse!

Here I mean acting like nothing's wrong, not apologising, not trying to make recompense and when called on it, refusing to accept responsibility and even lying!

The more the "victim" goes over it in their mind, the angrier they get! After a while, a sensitive soul, stunned by the lack of decency, may even begin to doubt themselves and feel guilty about being annoyed. After all the "perpetrator" is clearly Kool-and-the-Gang and has no problem. You are the one with the problem! This to me is an even bigger irritation - feeling bad about feeling bad! Meanwhile the other person glibly sails on as if nothing happened, genuinely confused that you are upset!

Here are two examples:

Situation 1: My first uni job. One day I had to call in ill. I had to call the female academic coordinator. She's cool and says that she'll inform the classes concerned.

She made my schedule so she knows that there 6 classes that day and all in different classrooms. (Having all your classes in the same classroom was a privilege reserved for teachers of some seniority and I was a noob).

Indeed I'd recently asked her about this and been told that new teachers have to travel around different rooms until they'd worked there a few years. No problem.

Next day when I return, I discover she'd written a note on the whiteboard of the classroom for the first class only. Throughout the rest of the day, the other classes had duly turned up, sat for up to 20 minutes in confusion before either going home or going to her to ask why the teacher wasn't there. Needless to say some students were not happy about it.

When I realised this, I emailed the AC to point it out, rather than complain. I made clear in the email that its only purpose was to give her a heads up, just in case people were asking/complaining.

In her reply, she lied. Just like that!

She said that in the phone call of the previous morning, we had in fact talked about the issue of how many classrooms needed a notice and that I'd agreed it was only one!

Now there are lies and there are lies! One kind of lie is when someone claims something took place (which did not) a long time ago, when peoples' memories have faded and doubt has entered about what took place.

However to lie about a phone call that took place the previous morning and which lasted all of 2 minutes is another thing altogether - a lie in which her version of events contradicted the protocols she herself had established (noobs getting their own classroom). She was prepared to launch a horrendous insult to my intelligence in order to save face!

Situation 2: My own Korean buddies refused to hear of me taking a KTX down to Busan before flying home for the Summer vacation. They offer to take me down in their car. Great!

My flight's at 10.50am, the journey's 80 minutes tops and they tell me to be outside my apartment at 800am packed and ready to go, as I duly am. This would get me there around 920am. Sweet!

No show! They overslept!

After some frantic calls from me, they finally show up at 900am. We arrive at Busan airport at 1020am and I'm not allowed on the flight!

I have to fork out another 400,000 won for another flight and have to make my own way up to Seoul. (The flight was Busan-Seoul-Germany-London).

I can't help being pissed off as I'm handing over the extra money, but not once do my Korean friends apologise and as I'm leaving to get to Seoul another way, I make a playful but pointed comment about waking up on time!

They are genuinely puzzled and surprised that I seem a little put out! Apparently I should have told them arrive at my place even earlier! By agreeing to be picked up at 800am I had apparently not allowed enough time for mishaps (like them oversleeping!)

I have learned my lesson! I will try not to get mad! But from now on I know this - I will do my best never again to allow others to do for me what I cannot do myself and I will try to make a risk assessment at all times.

This is gonna involve a lot of extra hassle but after the dust settled on both situations outlined above - I discovered that to the Korean mindset, I was at fault in both situations.

I made the mistake of not controlling the variables and trusting them when I actually needed to micromanage them!

It took me a long time to learn this, but if it helps someone to avoid conflict in the future I offer you this advice: where possible do everything yourself and risk-assess everything where negligence would leave you in a hole!

I think this is good advice in any context but because of "Saving Face" it's critically important in Korea!

Can you beat "Saving Face" as the no.1 cause of conflict between Westerners and Koreans?

[Kimchi Cha Cha]

I've had numerous somewhat similar experiences over the past seven years to the point that, unfortunately, I am quite guarded about many situations with locals as from past experience I've realised that often at any point where a miscommunication, blooper, accident or problem occurs it will either end up with the blulk of the blame being unfairly attached to me,or the other party not only not apologizing but not seeming to even consider the remote possibility of even doing so.

Unfortunately, a lot of locals - even friends - view us differently, ie. lower, than they do other colleagues or friends. As such, if a problem occurs a lot of people will have no problem in shifting, reappropriating or denying blame. It sucks but unfortunately it happens and I've often come to expect nothing less these days.

You have a right to be upset or angry when people let you down. If they do so and don't make amends for it, keep them at arm's length as they will do exactly the same next time.

[stevieg4ever]

I would vote racism myself, but hey that is just me.

[Stalin84]

My strategy to get around situations like you mentioned in #1 is to involve more people than just the two parties. That way you put them in the awkward position of being exposed if they mix something up. Which would cause them to lose face.

I guess the moral of the story is, always pass on important responsibilities to Koreans in such a way that screwing up will require them to lose face. I call it, motivation...

[Steelrails]

Indirect, passive-aggressive communication. That and the "groupy-clingy" mentality.

"I am doing X" = "You should do Y"

Can I eat lunch by myself today without it being a source of drama?

No, I don't want to play volleyball or soccer.

Stop telling me to use GOM player, I prefer VLC. And Internet Exploder is the cause of your viruses, not Youtube.

Because I'm not hanging out with you tonight, does not mean that I never want to hang out with you again ever.

It's okay go and talk in Korean, I'm okay listening to you. I can be in the background and be happy.

[redaxe]

I think what causes the most conflict is Koreans' lack of ability to tell a person something that he or she does not want to hear. It's why they constantly break contracts, cancel appointments, and change things at the last minute. They prefer to break a promise and disappoint you later rather than suffer the discomfort and embarrassment of telling you something unpleasant now.

[Old Gil]

There is no face for an underling, nothing approaching a basic expectation of decency. You are a non person, a cog in a wheel, expendable, a human component to be used up and cast out at will to serve the interest of the group, a group that is represented in every tangible sense by a lecherous, grasping, corrupt old man. Understand THAT.

[Pinished]

[Wishmaster]

Saving face= acceptable lying