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kiwiboy_nz_99
Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Location: ...Enlightenment...
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 Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 4:46 am Post subject: |
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Well kiwi, thats precisely what culture is my man....
Culture encompasses not only beliefs but codes of behaviors and social norms. Beliefs are just a part of culture.
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These little practical differences of habit and behaviour you talk of are NOT precisely what culture is. Now YOU are taking the simplistic view. It's the deeper motivations that are what is interesting about culture, like the way confusionism influenced this place so heavily. Agreed, some people include behaviour into a full definition of culture, I simply say that is not the interesting part. Using chopsticks versus using knives and forks tells us nothing about the Korean people, it's surface stuff.
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This however is just a superficial view of things.
You need to look deeper then that if you are going to discuss cultural differences.
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I've been here nearly three years, and you? Tell me exactly how my view is simplistic, and how exactly should I be looking deeper? |
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Homer
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 4:59 am Post subject: |
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This is not a competition kiwi but a discussion...
since you asked i have been here over 5 years and have been married to a wonderful korean woman for 4 years.
Culture is many things and you are right that behavior stems from beliefs.
but, behavior is also culture as beliefs are most of the time not something the person is aware of.
If you are raised a certain way, in a society that has certain codes of behavior you will usually integrate those codes as you grow up.
These constitute a part of your cultural heritage and hence are culture.
You view on comformity seemed simplistic because of the way you expressed your views on it. I do not hold the "thruth" here, I was just making conversation.
Looking deeper is precisely what you said when you talked about the beliefs behind the behavior. Conformity is a belief in many asian countries. But not a belief in the same sense as active faith. Its intergrated as a social norm to preserve harmony or respect certain social norms.
From the outside it can lead a casual observer to believe that it stiffles new ideas and that everyone behaves the same way.
Looking deeper in this case simply means reading a few books on the subject, talking with your Korean friends about it (you must have some after 3 years...).
Me I learned more about this behavior from my father and mother in law.
What a Korean does in public is not how he or she is in the privacy of his home or among friends.
Its just a cultural norm that they respect while in public or in a work environment.
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| Using chopsticks versus using knives and forks tells us nothing about the Korean people, it's surface stuff. |
I disagree.
That behavior tells you a lot about eating habits and about social norms.
Much like pouring a drink for your friend using two hands tells you something about the korean people.
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whatthefunk
Joined: 21 Apr 2003
Location: Dont have a clue
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 5:09 am Post subject: |
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| Everything we do is culture. Chopsticks are just as important as religion and love and conformity. |
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kiwiboy_nz_99
Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Location: ...Enlightenment...
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 5:21 am Post subject: |
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| That behavior tells you a lot about eating habits and about social norms |
All it tells me is that they use chopsticks to eat. Looking deeper it may tell me they traditionally eat different food, but again, sure it's a fact, but it's not interesting. Pouring a drink with two hands on the other hand tells me something, ie that there is a respect structure based on sex, age, and other factors that designate social rank. That's interesting.
Agreed, culural norms are complex. I don't pretend to be able to see into the heart of the Korean psyche. Conformity is definitely a value and a practice here. You could posit several hypothetical reasons. One may simply be that the intense population density would have meant that in historical times too many conflicting ideas and behaviours would have been too chaotic. You could bring in confusionism again, cementing the strong value on obedience and heirachy. You could look at geography and the fact of a very monochromatic racial pop distribution, or the fact that Korea has been invaded so many times that it may have drawn them together as a people psychologically.
Maybe people do indeed have wayward thoughts and ideas in the privacy of thier own homes. But anecdotal evidence based on very uniform positions on various conversation topics suggests that this uniformity penetrates to mind as well as the behaviour. I'm not sure if you were following the "creative and critical thinking" thread but there's a lot of good discussion there, I think it's still on the board. How many people here believe in fan death? There does seem to be less creative and critical thinking here, and I believe it can be linked to the high value placed on conformity, along with the wrote-learning education style.
And hey man, I've read books on Korea, and have plenty of Korean friends, naturally.
I'm not a Korea-hater, I just call things as I see them. |
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Homer
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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Very well said kiwi,
But calling it as you see it is precisely the point.
You see it through your eyes as we all do.
The fan death is pulp fiction. some do seem to believe it and its one of those things that float around in society.
These kinds of things are present in every society on Earth.
We all have our versions of "Fan Death".
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There does seem to be less creative and critical thinking here, and I believe it can be linked to the high value placed on conformity, along with the wrote-learning education style.
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On the outside thats true. Also the social structure here means that in the workplace it places limits on indivual innovations. No debate there.
It does not mean the thinking is the same however. To imply so requires quite a long logical leap.
No doubt the education style and social norms do put limits on public displays of individuality.
confucianism does play a role here to an certain extent as it places rigid limits on social behaviors based on sex, social status and so on. In some workplaces, this implies that a junior worker will not challenge his superior or bring up new ideas unless asked too. In that sense it is conformist.
The value of conformity is present in many asian nations where people while in public do not display too much. the japanese take this to extremes by never really showing if they dislike someone or something while in public, all in order to preserve the harmony.
However, you should not dismiss small behaviors as insignificant because they all represent something..even using chopsticks...  |
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kiwiboy_nz_99
Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Location: ...Enlightenment...
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 11:54 pm Post subject: |
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even using chopsticks...
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OK I have to bite. What does it tell you apart from that they eat different food? This better be interesting! |
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Homer
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| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:54 am Post subject: |
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| No need to bite my New Zealander friend... |
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kiwiboy_nz_99
Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Location: ...Enlightenment...
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| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am Post subject: |
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ok, I'll put it another way ... what's the answer/  |
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whatthefunk
Joined: 21 Apr 2003
Location: Dont have a clue
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| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 6:12 am Post subject: |
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| kiwiboy_nz_99 wrote: |
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even using chopsticks...
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OK I have to bite. What does it tell you apart from that they eat different food? This better be interesting! |
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Okay. It depends on how you look at things.
If you look at culture through the material world and through the development of new products, you will see that chopsticks were invented in China 2000 to 3000 years ago. This means that Korea sucked chopsticks off China (as did alot of other countries). But, China uses bamboo chopsticks where as Korea uses metal chopsticks. This could mean that Koreans like to improve old inventions or that they produce alot of steel in Korea.
Also, compare this to the Western world. The fork was invented in the 1600's. So, maybe us westerners like to come up with new ideas where as the Koreans, Chinese, Japanese etc. find something that works and stick to it.
Were the ancient chopsticks made by special chopstick makers? If so, this could tell alot about societal structure in ancient Korea.
Did the ancient nobels in Korea use different chopsticks than the peasants? Did priests or merchants use different ones? All these could tell you about social relationships and positions.
So what came first, the small pieces of food or the chopsticks? Maybe the koreans had an ancient spork before the Chinese chopstick invasion, but they simply found it easier to eat their small pieces of kimchi with chopsticks rather than sporks. Have you ever eatin kimchi with a fork? It sucks...
Maybe, the chopsticks represent an ancient strickly male dominated society feature not unlike chinese foot binding. Maybe young women were not taught to use chopsticks and so lacked the coordinationg to do so later in life. Maybe the chopsticks were used to make the women more submissive.
Maybe chopsticks are an alien invention brought to earth by a super race from another galaxy.
Whats scary, is that there is probably some group of socially deprived anthropologists sitting around a pile of old dusty textbooks discussing this problem as we speak. |
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kiwiboy_nz_99
Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Location: ...Enlightenment...
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| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 8:32 am Post subject: |
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| That was a valiant effort ... |
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Homer
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| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 5:04 am Post subject: |
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| Indeed it was.... |
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