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Smithington
Joined: 14 Dec 2011
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 Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 4:08 pm Post subject: |
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| NohopeSeriously wrote: |
| Now you know why I feel more comfortable in my church than on a busy Korean sidewalk with full of passive mindless people. |
You shouldn't make it so easy there old chap.  |
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Who's Your Daddy?
Joined: 30 May 2010
Location: Victoria, Canada.
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| Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Lucas wrote: |
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| Now you know why I feel more comfortable in my church than on a busy Korean sidewalk with full of passive mindless people |
I like what you did there, very subtle! |
Actually, some of you knock the church, but they are full of the politest Koreans (I think the same is true in my home country too). |
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EZE
Joined: 05 May 2012
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| Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Who's Your Daddy? wrote: |
| Actually, some of you knock the church, but they are full of the politest Koreans. |
Yeah, Korean Christians steal salary and pension from non-Christian teachers while smiling and saying, "Have a nice day!" |
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Who's Your Daddy?
Joined: 30 May 2010
Location: Victoria, Canada.
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| Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 5:50 pm Post subject: |
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^^That's true. But so do non Christian bosses. But if you go to the church, you can see a difference.
Imagine walking down a street late at night, you hear young men approaching behind you. Would you be relieved to know they were carrying bibles, and had just left a church, or would you not?
I can see a difference in the church kids too. I never hear them swearing, and they're very polite.
There are bad christians and bad non-christians. But I'd say the percentage of bad christians is less than the percentage of bad non-christians. |
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Scorpion
Joined: 15 Apr 2012
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| Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Who's Your Daddy? wrote: |
^^That's true. But so do non Christian bosses. But if you go to the church, you can see a difference.
Imagine walking down a street late at night, you hear young men approaching behind you. Would you be relieved to know they were carrying bibles, and had just left a church, or would you not?. |
Would I be relieved if I knew they were carrying a bible (or other holy book) and had come from a place of worship? Not necessarily. In Baghdad, no. In Belfast, no. In Kabul, no. As a gay man in Mississippi, no. As a Jew in Tehran, no. The great (and much missed) Christopher Hitchens dealt with that one. It is the height of naivete to think that church pews are filled with angels. And even if they appear nice inside a church, that doesn't mean they are nice throughout the week when they are away from your gaze. Even inside churches you have some horrible people, even in the pulpit. Jimmy Swaggart, the last pope, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, paedophile priests, etc. Nice polite people don't spread homophobia, sexism and intolerance. And they don't condemn the vast preponderance of humanity to hellfire because they have different opinions than them. And they certainly don't fill their kids' heads with a lot of bronze age nonsense. I'll take someone who swears and drinks any day of the week over the 'polite' person sitting next to you at church.
And these nice Korean Christians, are you telling me they refrain from all of the obnoxious, selfish behavior we witness in Korea on a massive scale. Millions of Koreans attend church on a weekly basis. How come none of them are stopping to let me use the crosswalk? If church people were so polite it would have had a massive transformative influence on Korean public culture. Yet we don't see it, even though, as I said, there are millions of church goers in Korea. And where are these millions of polite Christians when foreigners, not least ESL teachers, are demonized by the Korean media. Their silence speaks volumes. Where were they when MBC aired its hateful scare-mongering program last year. Where are they when 3D workers are abused in Korea? How do they respond when their daughter wants to marry a foreigner? How many of them have adopted a child? How many of them campaign for animal rights in Korea, notably for regulation of the disgraceful dog meat industry. How many campaign for an increase in aid to Third World countries? How many are obsessed with their status in society and making as much money as possible, even if that means exploiting their employees. There's no shortage of ESL teachers who've been screwed out of health care, overtime and pension benefits by 'nice' people who attend church every Sunday.
Guess we have different ideas as to what constitutes 'polite'. |
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cabeza
Joined: 29 Sep 2012
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| Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 7:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Anecdotal evidence of my own: Taxi drivers with crosses hanging in their cab tend to be friendlier. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 8:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| How come none of them are stopping to let me use the crosswalk? |
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| And where are these millions of polite Christians when foreigners, not least ESL teachers, are demonized by the Korean media. Their silence speaks volumes. Where were they when MBC aired its hateful scare-mongering program last year. |
Dude, this may come as a shock to you, but Korean people's lives don't revolve around English teachers and the issues they face. You think issue#1 in Korea should be some MBC program, not say, health care?
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| How many are obsessed with their status in society |
For someone who rants about Koreans being selfish and rude and obsessed with status, you sure are selfish, rude, and obsessed with status. A little bit of religion might be good for you, teach you that whole "judge not lest ye be judged" principle and "look inside yourself for your own sin before looking at others". |
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SeoulNate
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
Location: Hyehwa
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| Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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| fermentation wrote: |
| There are very clear differences between the two instances in the OP. The first is people who know you, the second is people who don't know you. Although I have never seen anybody open the door for somebody they don't know. Hell most people don't hold the door open even for the people they know. |
Minus the last point made by the OP, pretty much this.
On the door thing, I do usually get thank yous when I hold the door for people, but it just doesnt seem to factor into the concept of politeness here. Hell, even after 6+ years I still have a good little chuckle whenever I see people pushing and cutting to go through the open door rather than pushing the one beside it open.
As far as the last point of the OP goes,
| Quote: |
| the Korea that regards most foreigners as a sub-human species not worth their dog's respect, then sends their kids to schools and academies thinking and acting the same way. |
This is a pretty small segment of the population in my experience. Generally it is older people along with the uneducated folk. Its the same in the West. The older, isolated (generally white) population gets half of what they believe to be true from the news which is very much subjective. While it has been changing in recent years, there used to be almost zero positive news on blacks in the US, it was always about some kind of crime, poor standards of living or some such, most of which came from a very biased point of view.
Korea is very much the same. You will never see a feel good story about a western foreigner here. If we are on TV, its always about some sleazy crap that wouldn't even get reported on if it was done by a Korean. That has a HUGE baring on what many older adults believe as they have even less of a chance to interact with foreigners and form their own opinions than old people back home do, at least they usually have to deal w/ other races at the store/bank/service shop. Remember most of those people who hate you (minus the AES) have never had any kind of contact with a foreigner. Its not an excuse, it just is what it is. Same explanation as to why many people living in the 'South' in the US are scared when a black person or middle eastern person walks up behind them in the store. Its irrational and mainly caused by a lack of experience and education. |
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RangerMcGreggor
Joined: 12 Jan 2011
Location: Somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 9:21 pm Post subject: |
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| EZE wrote: |
| Who's Your Daddy? wrote: |
| Actually, some of you knock the church, but they are full of the politest Koreans. |
Yeah, Korean Christians steal salary and pension from non-Christian teachers while smiling and saying, "Have a nice day!" |
Oh come on, everyone knows they steal far more money from fellow Christians than non-Christians |
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optik404
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 9:37 pm Post subject: |
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| This one time I held the door for this older woman and she did a 90' bow to me. It was awkward as hell. |
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Threequalseven
Joined: 08 May 2012
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| Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 9:44 pm Post subject: |
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| fermentation wrote: |
| There are very clear differences between the two instances in the OP. The first is people who know you, the second is people who don't know you. Although I have never seen anybody open the door for somebody they don't know. Hell most people don't hold the door open even for the people they know. |
For the door thing, there are at least two restaurants I've been to where someone (the owner I assume) rushes to the door when I'm on the way out. I've never had a random person hold a door open for me, to be sure, but I wouldn't say I "knew" the restaurant owner. Also, I usually don't know the kids who bow or the guy who gave me the umbrella. I think the umbrella guy just wanted to leave me with a good impression, because he said "Korean style" to me afterward.
However, your point is sound. There's definitely an distinction in how people treat you: either your "in" or your "out". There's no in between. I even read an article about this exact topic. Sure, this is true to a degree everywhere. But it's amazing how easily it is to go from "out" to "in". My example of giving some soju to a stranger highlights this perfectly. Someone I didn't know two seconds ago is now buying me Hoegaardens and Heinekens like we're best mates. It's not a bad thing. But I don't think this lack of any middle-ground is as commonplace as some of the long-timers here might be accustomed to.
| SeoulNate wrote: |
As far as the last point of the OP goes,
| Quote: |
| the Korea that regards most foreigners as a sub-human species not worth their dog's respect, then sends their kids to schools and academies thinking and acting the same way. |
This is a pretty small segment of the population in my experience. Generally it is older people along with the uneducated folk. Its the same in the West. The older, isolated (generally white) population gets half of what they believe to be true from the news which is very much subjective. |
I'm not going to lie and say my experience applies to all of Korea. I live in a medium sized city, but it's in a really remote part of the country, so there's a lot of that element here. I imagine if I spent most of my weekends in Hongdae, this wouldn't apply so much. |
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fermentation
Joined: 22 Jun 2009
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| Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 11:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Who's Your Daddy? wrote: |
| Lucas wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Now you know why I feel more comfortable in my church than on a busy Korean sidewalk with full of passive mindless people |
I like what you did there, very subtle! |
Actually, some of you knock the church, but they are full of the politest Koreans (I think the same is true in my home country too). |
Also very different from my experiences. Religious Koreans are no different from everybody else in terms of manners, except when they try to convert you and shove pamphlets in your face. Then there are the people who shout at passengers in the subway cars. I guess most people don't see these people as rude since they just lump them in the crazy category. |
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metalhead
Joined: 18 May 2010
Location: Toilet
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| Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 1:05 am Post subject: |
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| Irrelevant. There are far too many negatives in Korea; in fact, there are more negatives than positives. But of course I am lying, which is why the majority of people living there absolutely love the place and are having the time of their lives. |
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transmogrifier
Joined: 02 Jan 2012
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 2:09 am Post subject: |
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| metalhead wrote: |
| Irrelevant. There are far too many negatives in Korea; in fact, there are more negatives than positives. But of course I am lying, which is why the majority of people living there absolutely love the place and are having the time of their lives. |
Well, I'm enjoying it; love my job, love hanging with my friends here, love my wife and her siblings, love going hiking and cycling here. Are there some things I miss from home? Of course, family being one, good beaches being another, but I'm not going to sit round crying about it, it's a choice I made. Are there some things that irritate me about living in Korea? Of course, the shitty banking system for one, the pushing on public transport another. But I'm not going to sit around crying about it - I'll either deal with it at the time (Re: the pushing) or play the game the best I can.
Sorry I'm not miserable enough for you to believe what I'm saying, but it is what it is. |
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Otherside
Joined: 06 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 3:12 am Post subject: |
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OP.
I agree, it definitely does feel like two different countries at times. I must admit though, that the longer I've been here the less frequently I've been seeing the "good" Korea. Perhaps that has to do with me, or perhaps the "good" Koreans can spot a jaded expat. Maybe just luck of the draw?
As for the "True, but the same can be said about anywhere" comments. Yes, that's true, however, I've never experienced such a difference even closely on the same scale as Korea. |
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