Korean Job Discussion Forums

myenglishisno · Joined: 08 Mar 2011 Location: Geumchon

What I don't understand in the case of Korea and Japan is that it's always the same questions, the same insinuations and the same misunderstandings. It rarely varies. Why does everyone ask if we can eat spicy food? Why don't they ask questions relevant to their lives/our lives/the situation at hand?

It just seems odd to me, like everyone agreed to ask these specific sets of questions to foreigners...

Konglishman · Joined: 14 Sep 2007 Location: Nanjing

slothrop · Joined: 03 Feb 2003

PatrickGHBusan · Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 2:46 am Post subject:

Konglishman · Joined: 14 Sep 2007 Location: Nanjing

Seoulman69 · Joined: 14 Dec 2009

Today on the train:

"Welcome to Korea!"
"Thanks."
"Do you know Jesus?"
"Yes."
"Have a good time everyday in Korea."
"Thanks."

Strange? Yes. Irritating? Mildly. Aggressive? No.

Last week in a restaurant when I was mixing my 알밥 the ajumma tried to take my spoon and do it for me. A quick "하지마세요" and she backed off.

I don't think they are deliberately being nasty, I just think there are a lot of strange idiots in the world.

Son Deureo! · Joined: 30 Apr 2003

PatrickGHBusan · Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 3:48 am Post subject:

SojuQueen · Joined: 29 Dec 2010 Location: Land of the cold winters

I also wondered at this for a long time. I don't think that the questions themselves are irritating, but how predictable they become if you have been here for a long time.

I truly believe that the questions are just how high, generally speaking, people's English level is. Most people, any country you go to, will be able to belt out a couple of questions in English to make conversation and then it will stop before the 'ah, how do you say this in English?', 'let me check my dictionary' begins.

And the, regardless of whatever country you are in, people will gear their questions towards whatever questions it's normal to ask. In Kore and Japan, as in any other hierarchical society, people will ask questions in order to find out what class you are in etc. This is very common.

Yet, it can gear towards 'microaggression', depending on the context. One time I met a Korean man that asked me how old I was and then he asked me to guess his age. I was off by about a year of his age, judging by his expression, it wasn't the number he was hoping it would be, but y he was happy that I guessed that he was younger because according to him 'foreigners always look their age or they look older, while it is very hard to guess a Korean person's real age because they look so young for their age.'

I agree with this man's opinion, however, back in U.S. and most Western culture, a man would usually not make that statement, especially to a woman as it could be misinterpreted. I wasn't offended by his comment. But then again, I still remember it.

Another comment that I did take offense to was said to me by my director when we were discussing her daughter's university choices. I told her that I chose to go to a good in-school public university instead of going to a private out-of-state school for undergrad because I did not want to pay off lost of school loans. Even though my school was not Harvard or Yale, it is one of the best public schools in the country. Ever sine then my director has pointed out that I went to a 'B' university and that my experience was different because I went to a 'B' school. After she said this to me a couple of times, I asked her what 'A' type school she went to, she ignored my question and has never made a mention of it before. Yes, it was a below-the-belt comment, but she got my point and has never mentioned it again.

Son Deureo! · Joined: 30 Apr 2003

Thank you for your thoughtful and constructive response. I'll definitely agree that understanding the reasons for others' behavior makes it much easier to handle or tolerate.

I think that a lot of the discussion here on the idea of "micro-aggressions" is an attempt to do just that. I'm not convinced that "aggression" is the right way to describe it either, but I can definitely understand how one might feel that it is.

slothrop · Joined: 03 Feb 2003

joelove · Joined: 12 May 2011

What is wrong with you?

Konglishman · Joined: 14 Sep 2007 Location: Nanjing

Slothrop,

If If I do not like a given girl or her attitude, I am certainly not going to be inclined to take a shower with her or anything else for that matter... as if that were even an option.

Now, with regards to extra dimensions, I think you misunderstood my metaphorical use of the term (although I have no problem with extra spatial dimensions and have in fact done research on that subject before taking a break from graduate school). In terms of consciousness, things such as color, sound, touch, smell, and taste can be considered dimensions in a more abstract sense. This is because these senses can be considered varying parameters which define the world as we know it.

For example, it is easy to imagine that there are colors which one's individual consciousness cannot produce. If suddenly, one had access to some of these individual colors, this would be an example of increasing the depth of one's access to the color dimension. What I am suggesting is that our perception of logic may in fact be limited by the incomplete tool set available to human consciousness. There might be additional aspects to logic that we cannot perceive and therefore cannot think about.