Korean Job Discussion Forums

[MoneyMike]

While I do believe that there are some Koreans that I have more in common with than certain Canadians, I don't think that in any way proves your point Steelrails.

The point you're trying to make (correct me if I'm mistaken) is that regardless of culture, people are essentially the same everywhere. But when I pointed out how common rape is in South Africa, your response was to say that this is just a small sub-culture within South African culture. Regardless, I still maintain that they (gangs of youth who openly live a lifestyle espousing rape) are incredibly different from me. So are you saying that a sub-culture CAN cause big differences, while the more general culture, (of which a sub-culture is a part) can't? That doesn't seem logically consistent.

[exit86]

cedar:

Good point about Nahm. Though 15 or 20 years ago he was good in that he was one of very few historians writing in English with a bit less of the standard K. historian brain-washed slant, today he is very much irrelevant, particularly in light of the very balanced scholarship coming out from outside Korea--the only way to write about Korean history in a free and honest manner.

I just want to find out about this nonsense about eye examinations to determine "foreign" individuals. Honestly, I think matthew (the poster who mentioned this) has no reliable source on this, though he was nice enough to offer Nahm; so, i'll take him at his word and see what Nahm says, though I know Nahm should always be taken with a few containers of salt.

[earthquakez]

While I think Steel Rails has made some perceptive points I do think that he/she has also artificially diminished the cultural differences that Koreans display in all kinds of ways including the topic of this thread. This is not a criticism, it's just my observation of what was otherwise a great post.

No, Koreans are not at all like most people from Anglo/Celtic/European backgrounds that are the predominant group of immigrant countries such as the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US (although the US is changing its composition) and whose culture provides what are still the political, legal, social and cultural norms of those countries despite multiculturalism, in key ways of seeing others and expectations of how they will behave.

Of course we care what others think of us but to see it as similar to the way Koreans care what other Koreans think of them is just not valid. Koreans whether they like it or not are similar to the Japanese and other Asians broadly speaking in the sense of others always watching and keeping them in line by that act. 'Westerners' in the sense I referred to before in the immigrant countries most English teaching foreigners come from quite some time ago sloughed off the excessive concern Koreans have about what other Koreans think, even those they have never met but who claim to be able to tell them what to do and how to dress etc because they are older or come from a 'better' class. This stifles freedom of thought and expression.

It results in the idea that a mediocre sameness is better than standing out, better than difference. You can see it in the ugly apartment buildings which most Koreans do not see as anything but a normal way to live, nearly everybody lives that way, there is no real privacy and most importantly of all, the lack of diversity and the continual presence of others is needed by Koreans.

The UK has been noted for class distinctions but the working classes developed their own ways of doing their own things - in relatively recent times from the 50s onwards what was then Great Britain had distinct youth movements with their own fashions and lifestyles. John Lennon was the only Beatle who came from the middle class and even then it was the lower middle class via his tearaway Mother's respectable family.

The Mods etc gave way to more angry movements like punk in the 70s which was a hugely working class movement and which also paved the way for other music/other cultural movements with its 'do it for yourself and create your own fashion/expression of your identity'. On the other hand the French were laughed at for trying to copy these Brit cultural expressions of the youth and not succeeding. But they had their own strongly political culture, mostly left wing, that challenged another, just as or even more, classbound society in France.

The whole point of these movements (and there were others in Europe) was having the opportunity to develop your own ideas and be part of things without worrying too much or at all about what older people or those from the privileged classes or the ruling classes thought. This is lacking in Korea and always has been. In Japan the flowering of art and other cultural and political expressions was briefly in the 20s and came about through the foreign influences that Imperial Japan stamped out.

In the countries most of us come from the idea of conformity has been challenged in different ways for longer than the 20th century. Take a country like Australia where their traditional English-Scottish-Irish-Welsh culture has produced national leaders who refer to their own party elites by their first name publicly, the different party members call each other by their first names, and there's a familiarity with politics among the average person.

Australians talk more about politics and serve it to their politicians inlcuding their Prime Ministers more than any people in the UK or any other people I've met. There's far more of a democratic attitude there as in ordinary people thinking they're as good as anybody in Australia than I've encountered anywhere including in the US. That attitude is not new there, it came with the successive waves of convicts and immigrants.

When you have attitudes like that and those generally in our immigrant countries that were founded by the British, there is also far less of a sense of heirarchy and caring so much about what others think. 'Mind your own business' is an old and still widely held concept in the UK and hundreds of years ago ordinary people said that as Englishmen their home was their castle. That's directly opposed to how Koreans, Japanese and other Asians view themselves.
Heirarchies exist in our countries but conformity just does not have the same expectations it does in Korea and other countries like it.

From what I've seen and heard Koreans are overly burdened by the desire to keep others in their place and they also conform to being kept in their place. I have to say Korean kids and young people exhibit far more envy of those who do something or have something they don't do or don't have , and its expression in daily life is without embarrassment. I've first hand heard from friends with nice houses that they made the mistake of showing photos in class when discussing their country's lifestyle and the responses from their students were mostly discontented, envious ones with negative comments about how 'selfish' their family and foreigners were.

A case in point is the thread here by Jeunesse in which this poster has become distressed by the negative attitudes of Koreans regarding other Koreans inviting a foreigner to dinner - this thread reminds me of just why I am keen to get out of Korea and live again among more open minded, less bullying people. If Koreans don't want to invite a foreigner to dinner fine but they then get jealous and resentful when another Korean does so.

Envious people generally in our countries are not presented as people to follow the dictats of, nor are people who continually harp about others' appearances and presume to tell them what they should look like.

This behaviour is part of human nature but how acceptable it is is something that definitely distinguishes cultures and Korean culture has a big envy component and a need to put others (including strangers) in what is seen as their 'place'. Yes Koreans are overly concerned with appearances and from my experience they are not discouraged from being envious and jealous because of the idea they should all be given the same thing regardless of how little they contribute.

[ZIFA]

[legrande]

[Steelrails]

[cybermutiny]

[Jeunesse]

Why is Steelrails so interested in downplaying cultural differences? I think we can acknowledge that human beings are generally pretty similar while still organizing themselves around different priorities as a society. The social concerns of Koreans are <i>usually</i> the same as social concerns for anyone else, but the way in that they're ordered may be different from, say, a Brit - and that's interesting, I think.

[Jeunesse]

[Chalmers]

oh...so you have a korean girlfriend. ok.

[Captain Corea]

I find all this talk about Westerners being non-conformists quite interesting.

I'm not sure where all of these Westerners grew up, but I know that where I grew up, people were often beat down if they didn't conform.

Now, the ideals of what to conform to were different...sometimes vastly so, but there was still a lot of social pressure.

I just think that the West and Korea vary in terms of expression of enforcement and, to a lesser degree in some areas, the ideal target.

[atwood]

[quote="Steelrails"]

[atwood]

[quote="Steelrails"]

[Steelrails]

[happiness]

Ill just say it like this:

the needs may be similar. motivations are different. thus the results are different.