Korean Job Discussion Forums

Swiss James · Joined: 26 Nov 2003 Location: Shanghai

hehe- I totally missed this thread first time around, good to see Shawner was here to try and get me into trouble though!

If I was in your situation I would've done exactly the same thing, except a bit more awkwardly. I don't really understand all that well how things work here, but it sounds like you do- gifts have a different meaning over here, I know that much.
The first Chusok I was here the office boss didn't want to give me the time off, so I went to the local airport giftshop and bought- well in fact it was some honey. When I handed it over the bossman got distinctly nervous and was asking the translator how much it was worth before he would accept it.

Anyway he did accept it, then came up to me a few minutes later and said I could have the time off. Sweet, sweet honey.

JongnoGuru · Joined: 25 May 2004 Location: peeing on your doorstep

rawiri · Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Location: Lovely day for a fire drill.

I use to do a bit of skindiving back home and on one particular dive i got about 20kg's of abalone. I knew of korean's love of seafood so I generously gave the whole lot to a korean buddy of mine, telling him to pass some on to his other korean mates. What he did next pissed me off a lot, he went into my kitchen and took some plastic bags and weighed out 4 piles of abalone, making sure that each pile was exactly 5 kg's. I told him, don't sell them to your mates, just give it too them, He was all "ok ok", but i know he would have sold them to his friends.

Thats pretty low in my way of thinking, but after living here for a year i guess i can see where that type of mentality stems from, over here screwing people over to make a won or two isn't frowned upon the way it is back home.Pretty sad really.

TheUrbanMyth · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Location: Retired

itaewonguy · Joined: 25 Mar 2003

there are many ways you could played that scene!

if he was tryign to selling you the honey! he is not a very good sales person.. he didnt even let you open it.. try some..
then mention its for sale.. maybe you might know some foreigners who may be interested in it..

it doesnt acually make sense.. what were they thinking? and bring the girlfriend along?.. emmmm., I would have said,,

ohh im sorry,, I thought it was a gift... what gave you the idea I wanted to buy honey?.. I thought you were bringing a house gift as in korea thats customs is it not??

well you can have it back.. its no problem.. I understand its so expenisive you should give it back to your uncle!..

I dont like honey much anyway.. it would probably just sit there for ever,.

now that covers all the grounds..

polite..
alittle insult.. how could you force a sale on me like this? as my friend!
and leaving it on good terms..
no harm down.. and he wont ever put in in a postion like that again!

rawiri · Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Location: Lovely day for a fire drill.

You just "know" do you? How do you know that he didn't want to share and share EQUALLY, so that he couldn't be accused of favourism? I fail to see in any way how this story backs up your point about "screwing people over to make a won or two."[/quote]

Do you know him?, no?, well i do buddy, and i know that's what he would have done, I must admit that it is a side of him that i don't much like because where i'm from there is a saying "tato tato" which basically amounts to "share and share alike. My point is that I gave him the abalone for free....so for him to go out and sell them is a slap in the face to me. That said i recognize that cultural differences come into play here so that puts things into a little perspective.

I thought my point was fairly obvious, do you have trouble ascertaining main points from blocks of text?. If so then University must have been a bit of a struggle aye?, or did you major in crocheting?.

mindmetoo · Joined: 02 Feb 2004

Ha! I admire your out. Actually one time I went car shopping and had this old-style, plaid blazer wearing car sales guy putting the old style hard sell on me. (Big mistake, never tell them up front you can pay cash for a new car.) Everything about him said he loved going to annual sales conventions simply because he got away from his wife and could pick up 200 lbs street walkers who were no thinner or better looking than what he was married to.

Anyway, I told him thanks and I was going to keep looking , this was the first dealership I had visited, etc. He wanted me to sign some paper saying I'd buy the car. Hello? See I had to sign this paper if I wanted to come back and get his great price (it wasn't a great price). Uhhhhh. I eventually had to say something like "well, I'm not signing anything until I have my girlfriend come back and take a look..."

(I had no girlfriend of course.)

Yes, it's a damn uncomfy situation when a friend or coworker suddenly crosses that line and views you as a mark. A coworker and his wife in Seattle invited me over for dinner once. He also wanted to discuss what sounded like a contract job. We were both in the software industry and everyone has clients outside work and we're always hiring each other for stuff. Anyway, turns out it was some Amway/herbalife clone. God.

The dinner was good and I had to sit there for about 2 fluking hours after the dinner listening to his dry, unpracticed spiel. Eventually I had to stop him and go "I need to go to bed... thank you for dinner" *grab shoes and run for it*

Even worse, a female friend once had a boyfriend take her to an Amway meeting on their second date. She thought it was going to be a nice romantic dinner at his apartment...

itaewonguy · Joined: 25 Mar 2003

chiaa · Joined: 23 Aug 2003

TheUrbanMyth · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Location: Retired