|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
johndoe
Joined: 29 Jun 2005
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
joe_doufu
Joined: 09 May 2005
Location: Elsewhere
|
 Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 6:40 am Post subject: Re: Why can't Koreans just be honest? |
 |
|
| johndoe wrote: |
| http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/biztech/12/01/samsung.price.fixing.ap/index.html |
It's not really a case of honesty or dishonesty. It's a company whose practices broke the rules of what is allowed. However, they were doing what was in their best interests, this is legitimate (if risky) business behavior. An example of dishonesty would be a businessman taking bribes/kickbacks to do what was against the best interests of his company. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Homer
Guest
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 6:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
Johndoe...what you mean like WalMart being so honest about their factories filled with child workers?
Damn John...why can't Americans be honest?  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
The Man known as The Man
Joined: 29 Mar 2003
Location: 3 cheers for Ted Haggard oh yeah!
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 2:48 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| That is a fair question-why can't Koreans be honest, Homer? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
desultude
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Location: Dangling my toes in the Persian Gulf
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 3:31 pm Post subject: |
|
|
We had a discussion about honesty in my advanced conversation class yesterday- what a really bright group of students they are, and most of them have traveled a lot.
Anyway, we were discussing values. We were doing a bit of hypothetical questioning, and the responses were interesting. If I ask a student, and this has been the case consistently for the three years I've been here, if he or she missed the last class, as I forgot to take attendance, or I made a mistake, they will tell me the truth. I tested this with the class yesterday, and they all said of course, they wouldn't lie about that. I have also had the case of asking students about a grades that maybe I misrecorded, or failed to record. They will tell me the truth, and they agreed with this yesterday- of course they wouldn't lie about their grade.
Then I asked them if they were ever asked for the test questions by other classes after they had taken an exam. I got a guilty, low voiced, "well, no". When I asked if another student if someone had copied his homework or looked at his test paper, and I got the same sort of answer. They all admitted they would lie to cover for a friend, or to maintain "harmony".
Honesty is a value here, quite clearly, but harmony and social relations seem to sometimes trump honesty.
Most of us are aware that there is an in-group, out-group factor to values here, also. I trust the Koreans I have relationships with, but I will never belong to the "in-group". I really believe that makes me vulnerable to some manipulation and deception. But I feel lied to less here than in the States- home of Honest Abe, and 'never tell a lie' G.W. (George Washington), that is. It's just different moral reasoning.
I'm reading a book called "The Geography of Thought". by Richard E. Nesbitt, that discusses some of the serious distinctions between East and West, and within different western countries, regarding how we think about things. I suggest it to anyone who actually wants to understand this. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bobbyhanlon
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Location: 서울
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 4:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
if you were back in your own country and were confronted with a news story about an injustice or act of bad faith, you would probably think that those responsible were pretty lousy individuals. but if you were a poster on this board in korea, and those responsible for the act were korean, you would might extend your judgement to the whole of the korean people, it seems...
just because foreign teachers get screwed over by hakwon owners doesn't mean the whole country is any more dishonest than say, america or britain. are our own countries really any better? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 7:39 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| bobbyhanlon wrote: |
if you were back in your own country and were confronted with a news story about an injustice or act of bad faith, you would probably think that those responsible were pretty lousy individuals. but if you were a poster on this board in korea, and those responsible for the act were korean, you would might extend your judgement to the whole of the korean people, it seems...
just because foreign teachers get screwed over by hakwon owners doesn't mean the whole country is any more dishonest than say, america or britain. are our own countries really any better? |
I get the feeling tho' there is a greater acceptance of dishonest practices in business dealing here.
Recently an adult student of mine told me that he had suggested to his boss that, as a way of saving on costs, they should refuse to pay for goods that they had received from an american supplier. He had researched and found that there was a company in China that could supply his company with the same type of goods in the future so they were not dependant on the american company to supply them. The boss was delighted with his proposal and agreed. They started to ignore demands for payment from the american supplier.
Eventually they got a letter from the american company threatening to sue the freight forwarder (a Korean company) who had released the goods to them without proper authorisation unless they paid. This was bad news as, for some reason, their business was in some way dependant on this freight forwarder...but they ignored this letter as well.
Finally the freight forwarder contacted them and told them to pay the american company or else there would be consequences so they capitulated and paid. My student was outraged by the underhand method the american company had used to obtain payment. 
He aknowledged that his company had done wrong in attempting to avoid paying but blamed it on the american company's stupidity in affording credit to his company when they had never dealt with them before. He was intending to write a personal letter to the woman he had dealt with in the american company expressing his shock and dismay at the way they had reacted and he wanted me to proof read it.
I was stunned by the tone of hurt, grievance and betrayal his letter contained and by the fact that he expected it to be taken seriously by it's reader (given the circumstances).
Okay this is just one example but it is reprentative of an attitude I've noticed here, one that's become even more evident in my students' reaction to the Professor Hwang contoversy. The same sense of grievance, the same aknowledgement that he may have done something wrong but that Professor Schatten's betrayal was the greater wrong....  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
desultude
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Location: Dangling my toes in the Persian Gulf
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 7:55 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Yeah, and I have a Korean student who is having very similar difficulties with a client in New York.
Anecdotal evidence proves nothing but bad logic. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
itaewonguy
Joined: 25 Mar 2003
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 9:17 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I think the real question is.. why cant humans be honest!?
becuase deep down we all have that ability to cheat and lie!
some people just go through with it.. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 10:33 pm Post subject: Re: Why can't Koreans just be honest? |
|
|
| joe_doufu wrote: |
| johndoe wrote: |
| http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/biztech/12/01/samsung.price.fixing.ap/index.html |
It's not really a case of honesty or dishonesty. It's a company whose practices broke the rules of what is allowed. However, they were doing what was in their best interests, this is legitimate (if risky) business behavior. An example of dishonesty would be a businessman taking bribes/kickbacks to do what was against the best interests of his company. |
I am not engaging in the overall debate, but only to the point that being dishonest is not, well, dishonest. While there are differences in why and when different people, or cultures in general, will be dishonest, it makes no sense to say fraud and deception are not dishonest.
dis��hon��est ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ds-nst)
adj.
1. Disposed to lie, cheat, defraud, or deceive.
2. Resulting from or marked by a lack of honesty. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Homer
Guest
|
| Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 3:19 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
That is a fair question-why can't Koreans be honest, Homer?
|
TMKATM....it is a fair question. It is also a completely ridiculous question as it is being applied to an entire nation of people.
Such a question, phrased about any nation of people would be equally ridiculous as my Wal Mart = americans example showed.
It is very interesting that when Wal Mart got busted last week for running factories with child labour in Bangladesh that the cry of "those americans...why can't they be fair and honest" did not go up. Yet, a teacher gets screwed by some shady korean school owner here or a Korean corporation gets caught for illegal practices and its "those Koreans are all crooks" and that gets picked up by many here when in reality making such a statement simply proves that a person is ignorant. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
|
| Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 5:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
| desultude wrote: |
Anecdotal evidence proves nothing but bad logic. |
If you re referring to my post i wasn't offering the anecdote as evidence of anything. You're reading too much into it. I started my post with
| Quote: |
| I have a feeling... |
and went on too illustrate one of the things that had given me that impression.
By the way....how similar is your student's experience...is the american client complaining about being forced to do the right thing? That was what i found to be distinctive in the situation, not that a company had tried to cheat....there would have been nothing uncommon in that.
Perhaps my post was too long for you to read fully before replying. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
joe_doufu
Joined: 09 May 2005
Location: Elsewhere
|
| Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 7:52 am Post subject: Re: Why can't Koreans just be honest? |
|
|
| EFLtrainer wrote: |
| joe_doufu wrote: |
| johndoe wrote: |
| http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/biztech/12/01/samsung.price.fixing.ap/index.html |
It's not really a case of honesty or dishonesty. It's a company whose practices broke the rules of what is allowed. However, they were doing what was in their best interests, this is legitimate (if risky) business behavior. An example of dishonesty would be a businessman taking bribes/kickbacks to do what was against the best interests of his company. |
I am not engaging in the overall debate, but only to the point that being dishonest is not, well, dishonest. While there are differences in why and when different people, or cultures in general, will be dishonest, it makes no sense to say fraud and deception are not dishonest. |
How is price-fixing fraud or deception? The decision-makers in these businesses are agents of the company's shareholders, with a professional obligation to make decisions to benefit the company. It would have been dishonest of them to cheat the shareholders by taking bribes to harm the company.
But that's not what they did.
They used a strategy of price-fixing to try and increase the company's profits. It may be "sneaky" or "unfair" and could be "illegal" (meaning a risk of losing a lawsuit, not of going to jail) but it's not dishonest. Certainly we (Americans) would like to discourage this kind of aggressive tactic (from being used against us!), but that's no reason to disrespect our adversaries. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Roch
Joined: 24 Apr 2003
Location: Seoul
|
| Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 9:12 am Post subject: |
|
|
| bobbyhanlon wrote: |
if you were back in your own country and were confronted with a news story about an injustice or act of bad faith, you would probably think that those responsible were pretty lousy individuals. but if you were a poster on this board in korea, and those responsible for the act were korean, you would might extend your judgement to the whole of the korean people, it seems...
just because foreign teachers get screwed over by hakwon owners doesn't mean the whole country is any more dishonest than say, america or britain. are our own countries really any better? |
Mr. Hanlon, my advice to you is check out the preponderance of lying here vis-a-vis, say, a very, by U.S. standards, corrupt place in the U.S. such as Louisiana.
Sorry, that lying and other types of corrupt behaviour exist in the U.S. does not negate nor do justice to the fact that lying is essentially a cultural norm in the Third and Second World, and the R.O.K. is one example of the latter type of nation.
Perhaps you are now curious to discover if I dislike Korea and its people. The answer is, like the Brit who was quoted in Michael Breen's first pseudo-opus about the R.O.K., "The Koreans," I enjoy some aspects of the country but dislike the widespread, predatory nature of its groups. More, that being a Korean is the end all in life is, of course, very disturbing in the year 2005. In sum, the respondent in question said that he dislikes and enjoys some aspects of life in the R.O.K. I suppose, Sir, that I am the same as this guy. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
|
| Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 12:07 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Price-fixing deceives consumers, who think that the companies are competing to provide them with lower prices or higher quality. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
