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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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| How would you rate the "Western World"? |
| It is the best culture that presently exists. |
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29% |
[ 17 ] |
| It is the least worst culture that presently exists. |
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8% |
[ 5 ] |
| I am biased in favour of the West because of my upbringing. |
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31% |
[ 18 ] |
| I am not biased in favour of any culture. |
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14% |
[ 8 ] |
| The West has a lot to answer for. |
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5% |
[ 3 ] |
| The West is the present culture that has the most to answer for. |
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8% |
[ 5 ] |
| Mabye when the Western world declines, the balance will be restored. And BTW, where can I find half-decent net access? *Sips his Coke* |
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1% |
[ 1 ] |
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| Total Votes : 57 |
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indiercj
Joined: 30 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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 Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 4:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Badmojo wrote: |
| For a man, I don't know if it really matters. But you ask the women and see what they say. Do they want to come from an Arab culture? An Asian one? An African one? I don't think there's any doubt that Western culture treats their women the best. And maybe that's why it is, without a doubt, the best one. |
Maybe or maybe not. I do agree that Asian countries are facing a huge challenge regarding women's rights. But, speaking from my only "western" experience which is that in France, I also pity those french women. Although they are way ahead of us in certain departments: like legal system, more working opportunities availiable etc, they have their own cultural flaws IMO. Women there are prisonners of their own coquettery. There are deeply rooted and severly socialized sexual discriminations still existing. I won't choose them as a model to change ours for the better. No way. |
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Wangja
Joined: 17 May 2004
Location: Seoul, Yongsan
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 5:25 pm Post subject: |
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Had to go for upbringing bias, in spite of living in many non-western countries for many years.
As a westerner (European) I delight in the fact that I can freely criticise my own and other western countries. And I do. That privilege - some might say right - seems to be lacking in all the non-western countries I have worked in. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 7:51 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't think there's any harm in considering your own country, religion or culture to be "the best' as long as you are tolerant of and don't unnecessarily criticize others'. But, when some popular political, religious and cultural leaders are hell-bent on promoting cultural, political and religious wars fueled by envy and ignorance then you might have to fight for what you think is right - and let God sort it out... |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 7:54 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't think there's any harm in considering your own country, religion or culture to be "the best' as long as you are tolerant of and don't unnecessarily criticize others'. But, when some popular political, religious and cultural leaders are hell-bent on promoting cultural, political and religious wars fueled by envy and ignorance then you might have to fight for what you think is right - and let God sort it out... |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 8:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
I am biased in favour of the West because of my upbringing.
I am not biased in favour of any culture.
The West has a lot to answer for. |
In some ways, each of these are true I think.
But I voted for not explicitly being in favour of any culture.
A few years abroad hasn't made me appreciate foreign cultures any more than before, since I had a pretty open sensibility cultivated by an interest in anthropology and sociology, though I have been impressed by the level of civility and trust, the relative lack of violence and theft on the streets, the feeling of social cohesion and strongly shared values as opposed to the fragmented, tense and explosive attitudes on the streets back home, especially among younger men.
My previously rose-coloured view of my own country was further shaken when I spent a month in New Zealand and encountered people ten times as nice and polite as back in Canada (both Western countries granted, but part and parcel of my growing sense that there are as many drawbacks to the culture of my country as there are in the Asian cultures I know of).
I look at Korea not with a list of they "should" do this and "shouldn't" do that, but with a consideration that there's a logic to why they have done things this way or that, even when I don't think it's in their best interests to continue to do so. At the same time, there are many Korean habits we foreigners find annoying, and may always feel that way, because the locals don't want to change simply to appease our sensibilities or become more "global" when to Koreans their country is their world, an attitude which has helped them survive as much as it has cost them.
Those foreigners who implicitly believe the country of their upbringing is the best in the world are as annoying as Koreans who explicitly demonstrate that Korea is best. All chest thumpers, of every stripe and shade, seem a bit absurd to me. |
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Barking Mad Lord Snapcase
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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| tzechuk wrote: |
The problem with your question... as I see it, is that there are really *two* Wests. The European West and the American West are very different, even if they are not so different in the macro sense, there are many micro differences.
I don't know which to choose. If I were to look at it from a UK/European point of view, I'd have chosen option 2. If it's the American West.. then my answer will differ....
So... can you define your version of *west*, please? |
Perhaps you could use your own country as an example (being the one you are most famliar with). |
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Barking Mad Lord Snapcase
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 2:48 pm Post subject: |
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| VanIslander wrote: |
| Those foreigners who implicitly believe the country of their upbringing is the best in the world are as annoying as Koreans who explicitly demonstrate that Korea is best. All chest thumpers, of every stripe and shade, seem a bit absurd to me. |
But are they annoying if they keep those beliefs to themselves? Or subtly imply a personal preference? |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 3:12 pm Post subject: |
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Barking Mad Lord Snapcase, there is subtle and then there's subtle.
And then there's thinking one is being subtle, where one is not.
In some cases much is implied and insinuated.
That's sometimes the most annoying. |
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the_beaver
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 9:01 pm Post subject: |
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I prefer my culture because, as someone else has said, I grew up with it and it's comfortable.
Also because I wouldn't be here under electric lights using a computer while listening to rock with my phone headset on waiting for my washer/dryer to finish before bringing my shirts down to get steam ironed.
In terms of individuals and personalities and actions, by and large, I don't give a *beep* what culture somebody acts (assuming they don't bother me). But the vast majority of all the little gadgets, comforts, and entertainment, while made in various countries east and west, were intially created in the west. |
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indiercj
Joined: 30 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 9:40 pm Post subject: |
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Simply put, our world is a giant pool of people with different colors and backgrounds, 90% of which(my own guess  ) stick this one big principle : keep company with the familiar and reject the unfamiliar, 10% following the opposite : keep company with the unfamiliar and reject the familiar.
Ok ok. That was too black and white. |
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Barking Mad Lord Snapcase
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 9:54 pm Post subject: |
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| VanIslander wrote: |
Barking Mad Lord Snapcase, there is subtle and then there's subtle.
And then there's thinking one is being subtle, where one is not.
In some cases much is implied and insinuated.
That's sometimes the most annoying. |
Without doubt, an oafish, clumsy attempt at subtlety can be annoying.
The question is; at what point does the insinuation become deliberate, at what point is it a Freudian slip, and at what point do you start reading too much into other people's comments?
For example: You are chatting with an expat over some goggi mandu, and the expat (say he's Australian) tells you about the burger joint down the road back in Melbourne where he went every Saturday. He goes on (rather enthusiatsically, wearing a nostalgic grin) about how superior the burgers were to "that franchise fast-food cr@p", how they always used fresh ingredients, how they allowed you to choose your own sauce & salad dressing, how the service was friendly etc etc. He states that when he gets back home, the first meal he's going to have is at that very burger joint. He adds that the burgers at the expat bar that he visits every Saturday are "almost as good".
How would you interpret his monologue? Is positive talk about one's home country a form of "implicit" whining about Korea? |
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peemil
Joined: 09 Feb 2003
Location: Koowoompa
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| Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 2:50 am Post subject: |
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| I think we should kill everyone and take their islands. |
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travel zen
Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Location: Good old Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2005 7:36 am Post subject: |
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I've seen many countries in the EAST and I can safely say that I'd rather be living/growing up/ thriving in the WEST.
The East has ALOT to learn and grow through. Yes, I said GROW THROUGH. IF nations are people, then the EAST needs some growing.
I'm talking: Human Rights, World Vision, and Internationalism.
The West is not perfect...but much better overal to live in. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2005 7:46 am Post subject: |
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| tzechuk wrote: |
The problem with your question... as I see it, is that there are really *two* Wests. The European West and the American West are very different, even if they are not so different in the macro sense, there are many micro differences.
I don't know which to choose. If I were to look at it from a UK/European point of view, I'd have chosen option 2. If it's the American West.. then my answer will differ....
So... can you define your version of *west*, please? |
The phrase "the American West" refers to everything in the United States west of the Mississippi. I don't know it that's what you were asking, but that's what that particular phrase means.
Also can expand on your point a little further. "The Western world" also includes all of our underdeveloped sister republics in Latin America. And I don't think many of us would choose to live in those places for very long -- endemic poverty, instability, and political violence, for one thing.
"The West," then, includes such disparate places, for example, as London, England; Beverly Hills, California; San Salvador, El Salvador; and the deepest, darkest favela in the hills surrounding Rio, which is a place I'd never want to live. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2005 8:00 am Post subject: On the Other Hand... |
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While I think the West has much to be proud of, and I'd choose the West over the harsh East, here are two of the things the West must answer for:
(1) Hispanic Catholicism and its treatment of the pre-Hispanic peoples and cultures it encountered. In their campaigns to extirpate idolatry and "save" the natives, they consciously destroyed uncountable historical and archeaological records and data. Unpardonable, man. Un-freakin'-pardonable. (the data seems clear that the diseases were unconsciously, thus accidentally brought over, so the depopulation was not deliberate)
(2) The "man vs. nature" theme of civilization as it arose in the West seems to have made the most significant strides in the environmental cataclysm that is apparently sneaking up on us.
Anybody think of anything else? This is double-edged: these are valid criticisms, but only the West spends so much energey so profoundly criticizing itself. |
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