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neilsputnik
Joined: 11 Nov 2009
Location: Seoul
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 Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2010 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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| You see, openness and tolerance actually goes out on a limb and assumes cultural compatibility in all (or nearly all) social affairs. But the more narrow, important, and meaningful equality under the law is more easily established, and rests on the recognition principal human rights which may be established universally. Thus, for me, its completely understandable to have waegooks ridicule Koreans and then expect, in contract disputes for example, for their agreement to have legal power. There's no contradiction. |
Sure, but here is the issue of a mature civil society. Right now there appears to be a massive disconnect in the cultural space or civil society. The point I was making is that: a) a mature civil society depends on a sound political state (law and democratic process) and b) we need to first have a sound political state and the commensurate rights and responsibilities for both native and then foreign peoples to expect a mature civil society (the cultural space). |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2010 8:50 pm Post subject: |
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If there is one thing I notice amongst NETs, it is the latent belief that Korea and the Korean people exist to make them happy.
Everything that is done here is examined through that context. Does it make them, the individual NET, happy.
This is of course, human nature. Very few people I've met here did not come with that frame of mind. Some came here for money, others for women, others for 'cultural experience' but each expected the people here to do something for them and that the satisfaction they have with Korea is how much the nation and the people strove to meet that satisfaction.
Another big thing is expectations. If you read some of the posts on here it seems people are shocked at many a thing that goes on here. However, most of these things would have been known before hand
simply by spending about 6 hours on the internet doing some research.
That and it seems that for a lot of people this is their first time being a visible minority. A lot of what people experience here seems to be par for the course back home if you're a minority/immigrant/non-citizen. It's quite a shock to realize that "your people" aren't in charge any more.
Also related to this is that its many people's first time living in a big city or a place with a dense population or in an Old World society. I've heard people here be shocked that people live above their place of business and assume that they must be poor. The fact that everyone isn't living in American style suburbs and houses is quite a surprise.
One other 'first' many people have to deal with is this is their first time being REALLY independent and having to deal with paperwork, the business environment, bureaucracy and the like in a place where you don't know the language or the lingo or the customs. That can be pretty overwhelming.
And I should add to this 'new adulthood' is finding out that people aren't there to cater to you hand and foot. Some people have trouble getting used to the concept of "if you want it, you have to go out and get it." Think about the situation in reverse if some Korean person in the States asked you 50 questions a day about basic information and then got upset when you forgot to keep the abreast of every bit of minutiae. But very often we become that person.
Lastly I think a lot of people's frustration comes from a lack of humility, something that is very human in every culture and is especially common in young people. I've met plenty of people here who seem to think that they are a better parent, teacher, businessperson, military expert, politician, restaurateur, musician, driver, fashionista, etc. than the Koreans. Perhaps you are one, but you are not all.
I was fortunate. I went through all of these misconceptions and pratfalls dealing with Koreans before I came to Korea. I really think expectations are a big one. There is plenty that individual Korean people do that are responsible for problems here, but we can't control that. We can control ourselves.
EDIT- One thing I'd like to add is that there seems to be a correlation between negativity and having a religion. You'll hear a lot about drunken rude ajosshis and what not. What I don't hear are tons of horror stories from people attending Korean churches. If not religion then some kind of group that involves Korean people such as dance class or book clubs or sewing clubs or something like that.
One thing I've noticed is that regardless of culture, shady people tend to be drawn to the same kinds of places. If you're consistently running into obnoxious drunks, well maybe that has something to do with where you are. Birds of a feather.....
Last edited by Steelrails on Tue Sep 14, 2010 12:41 am; edited 1 time in total |
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engrishprease
Joined: 22 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2010 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
If there is one thing I notice amongst NETs, it is the latent belief that Korea and the Korean people exist to make them happy.
Everything that is done here is examined through that context. Does it make them, the individual NET, happy.
This is of course, human nature. Very few people I've met here did not come with that frame of mind. Some came here for money, others for women, others for 'cultural experience' but each expected the people here to do something for them and that the satisfaction they have with Korea is how much the nation and the people strove to meet that satisfaction.
Another big thing is expectations. If you read some of the posts on here it seems people are shocked at many a thing that goes on here. However, most of these things would have been known before hand
simply by spending about 6 hours on the internet doing some research.
That and it seems that for a lot of people this is their first time being a visible minority. A lot of what people experience here seems to be par for the course back home if you're a minority/immigrant/non-citizen. It's quite a shock to realize that "your people" aren't in charge any more.
Also related to this is that its many people's first time living in a big city or a place with a dense population or in an Old World society. I've heard people here be shocked that people live above their place of business and assume that they must be poor. The fact that everyone isn't living in American style suburbs and houses is quite a surprise.
One other 'first' many people have to deal with is this is their first time being REALLY independent and having to deal with paperwork, the business environment, bureaucracy and the like in a place where you don't know the language or the lingo or the customs. That can be pretty overwhelming.
And I should add to this 'new adulthood' is finding out that people aren't there to cater to you hand and foot. Some people have trouble getting used to the concept of "if you want it, you have to go out and get it." Think about the situation in reverse if some Korean person in the States asked you 50 questions a day about basic information and then got upset when you forgot to keep the abreast of every bit of minutiae. But very often we become that person.
Lastly I think a lot of people's frustration comes from a lack of humility, something that is very human in every culture and is especially common in young people. I've met plenty of people here who seem to think that they are a better parent, teacher, businessperson, military expert, politician, restaurateur, musician, driver, fashionista, etc. than the Koreans. Perhaps you are one, but you are not all.
I was fortunate. I went through all of these misconceptions and pratfalls dealing with Koreans before I came to Korea. I really think expectations are a big one. There is plenty that individual Korean people do that are responsible for problems here, but we can't control that. We can control ourselves. |
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Hotwire
Joined: 29 Aug 2010
Location: Multiverse
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| Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2010 9:34 pm Post subject: |
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^^
You do have to admit though that part of it is the very strong wall, the Us vs Them lines that Koreans put between us and them though.
It puts you on the defensive and you can get to see everything as a battle between Self and Other and feel there is no common ground or mutual interest. Makes it hard to relate to be honest and I've now given up even bothering as it only ever leads to dissappointment.
And peole like TOMATO who have tried will telly ou even when you do try you're always seen as the other / outsider / competition / invader / barbarian etc to a lot of Koreans.
I've felt like that here but never in Europe where I was treated as less of a freakshow exhibit and more like a Fellow Human.
Also Steelrails said he got the chance to sort out these problems before he came to Korea, so he should try and remember if he hadn't had that chance he would likely be complaining about a lot of things that others do here on this very forum..
Finally I will admit to something that I'm not very proud of. I honestly think it's like some genetic, instinctual thing becuase I did not act like this in Europe but when I first came to Korea I would be a lot more demanding or agressive with the natives even the men, even ones bigger than me and most of this was just that I FELT LIKE I COULD... Very hard to define and after each time I'd feel very bad about it, but I just kind of felt that I could be more pushy or get away with more here... In Greece, Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands and many other places I never felt that. Though by the same token I never had to put up with some of the bareface cheek and insulting behaviour there that I have here. But sometimes I was just in hindsight purely pushy and out of line in a way I wouldn't in other places, just because there was no feeling of fear or potential reprimand or something liek a bully who instinctively knows who he can intimidate or not at first glance. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2010 11:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Also Steelrails said he got the chance to sort out these problems before he came to Korea, so he should try and remember if he hadn't had that chance he would likely be complaining about a lot of things that others do here on this very forum. |
Yup, just trying to clue people in to the mistakes I've made. I try to hint at it but if I come right out and be "awww shucks about it" people will listen but not learn from what I've said and go and make the same errors or feel that its "just part of the process". It doesn't have to be. I feel if I'm more insistent that they may actually see that it really is in earnest. |
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koreabust
Joined: 27 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 1:59 am Post subject: |
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| Has Korea made me an angrier person? It's really hard to say. I might have been angry anywhere I lived at this stage in my life. NO idea if Korea is to blame. but like back home, a bad boss can really mess up your time. |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:20 am Post subject: |
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| captain kirk wrote: |
| Re; my comment, 'it's as real as cheeseburgers back home' that was disparaging. My folks came over to Canada from the British Isles in 1860. If I was still on those British Isles, the home of my forefathers, it would be home on the hallowed ground as much as Koreans are. So I think the impact of Walmarts and Globalization is more fierce upon those 'recent arrivals' (since 1492) in North America. Compared to Korea that's nothing. Paleolithic tools are found there. That's a million years old plus. I still can't get over how old Korea is. The mountains are round because they're old, especially seen at night when dreams seep in. |
I always thought geologically Korea is not that old, whereas Britain, whose mountains certainly are not round, is geologically ancient. Paleolithic tools are found in North America too at least up to 12,000 years ago, and in just about every other part of the world too going back up to 100,000 years. Anything a million years old is probably homo erectus and thus not in any meaningful sense 'Korean'. |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:42 am Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
| I came here with incredibly low expectations, but hoped for the best. So far Korea has vastly exceeded them. |
You're saying the best way to cope with Korea is to have low expectations?   |
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captain kirk
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 5:42 am Post subject: |
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| Privateer wrote: |
| captain kirk wrote: |
| Re; my comment, 'it's as real as cheeseburgers back home' that was disparaging. My folks came over to Canada from the British Isles in 1860. If I was still on those British Isles, the home of my forefathers, it would be home on the hallowed ground as much as Koreans are. So I think the impact of Walmarts and Globalization is more fierce upon those 'recent arrivals' (since 1492) in North America. Compared to Korea that's nothing. Paleolithic tools are found there. That's a million years old plus. I still can't get over how old Korea is. The mountains are round because they're old, especially seen at night when dreams seep in. |
I always thought geologically Korea is not that old, whereas Britain, whose mountains certainly are not round, is geologically ancient. Paleolithic tools are found in North America too at least up to 12,000 years ago, and in just about every other part of the world too going back up to 100,000 years. Anything a million years old is probably homo erectus and thus not in any meaningful sense 'Korean'. |
Well if you head up to the area south of Sokcho where the caves are you'll find that they were created before shifting of earth plates just moved the whole cave, as is, to where it is now. They are really fantastic by the way.
Yes, 13,000 years for Clovis culture in North America. I have a copy of one from Lithics Casting Lab in Illinois. A Debert Clovis from Maine, to some theorists where ex-Soleutrians from Europe (18000 yag) came over following the seal along the ice floes. In the Ice Age period the sea was icy to a lower latitude. I think in South America there are suspected sites back to 60,000 yag MAX but that is highly speculative given the rarity and condition of the site material.
Across from Korea, in China and Vietnam, are found homo erectus tools and fossils of their bones. Korea has found achelian handaxes, the hallmark tool of home erectus. I remember seeing a newspaper article and photo of one found during building/road excavations near Daegu. In Paleo times Korea was a part of China, there was no Yellow Sea.
Of course I'm not saying that homo erectus is 'Korean'. I really can't picture homo erectus singing the Korean national anthem while wearing a 'Go Red Devils' t-shirt. That came much later. I think the poet Auden talks about a desirable, doctirineless 'ism-less' state so perhaps homo erectus was a 'noble savage'. He wasn't ruled by crappy presidents and hidden governments and lived like bambi in the meadow, licking his own *beep* as a dog would, cleaning himself.
Re; the acheulian handaxe I read an interesting article about a theory that it is actually a core. Homo erectus having feeble fingers, not a strongly developed hand. So the 'handaxe' could be a core with more to grab on to as flakes were struck off the 'handaxe' using a hammerstone. Flakes for scrapers, knives, sharp implements in general. Later cores, for eg. Neanderthal's Mousterian culture, were much smaller. Arch'ies didn't know what the handaxe was for; were they thrown at game ambushed at a waterhole? I can see the core theory.
England has acheulian handaxes especially in the south, where Brandon Black flint was mined from the chalk formations. In the Neolithic in Enland tunnels were dug thru the chalk to mine flint. I actually have a replica made by John Lord. He was the custodian of the ancient flint quarry and reproduces knapped artifacts. He sports a god-beard and looks like he has been around for eons. The flint he used, Brandon Black, was the stuff of gunflints for muskets. Exported from knapping workshops in England they reached Canada to the fur posts. Geez, small world.
Last edited by captain kirk on Tue Sep 14, 2010 6:26 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 6:17 am Post subject: |
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| Privateer wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
| I came here with incredibly low expectations, but hoped for the best. So far Korea has vastly exceeded them. |
You're saying the best way to cope with Korea is to have low expectations? |
Yes.
Seriously, people's expectations, especially from generation X, Y, whatever are seriously ridiculous.
I don't really think I had any expectations beyond some vague hope that my contact would be honored. After that I pretty much expected the worst.
I was going here because it was something I had to do. For better or for worse and I was going to do it.
I didn't come here with expectations of human rights or people welcoming me or me being thought of as "one of them" or being able to walk down the street and have nothing bother me or having every creature comfort back home be here as well or honest cops or sensible employers or Taco Bell or safety or not being hated for being foreign or any of those things people seem to expect when they come here.
I came here expecting it to be something different than back home (how could it not be?), something that would challenge me (how could it not?) and let me explore myself (how could it not?). Beyond that.... |
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captain kirk
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 6:36 am Post subject: |
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At an early point in my Korean stay I realized 'Korea is for Koreans'. Unless you marry a Korean women, learn the language, buy a house, and get off the just visiting guest voyeurism I believe that's so.
It's a very good point that alot of foreigners have the idea that Korea should satisfy them. Korea certainly satisfies Koreans because 'Korea is for Koreans', made, decorated, and sung for Koreans. A good result of this alienation, feeling outside of culture, is that one's own culture looks like artifice when one returns, there is objectivity. It is a suspiciously created thing, culture, the socioeconomic structure. Just growing up in the same old country makes it delicious pap, wrong!
There's a Carlos Castenada book wherein the anth student is walking with the shaman and asks what is that woman doing in the wooden cage over there, just sitting. And the shaman says she is reliving her life so that she can deliberately let it go, all that baggage, to reset for her shamanic work. Such culturally stipulated 'consenses' that really are artifice. |
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JBomb
Joined: 16 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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| I worked in retail for 7 years. That already crushed my niceness, humanity, and positivity. |
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AsiaESLbound
Joined: 07 Jan 2010
Location: Truck Stop Missouri
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| Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 1:35 am Post subject: |
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I can't say it's made me angrier, but disappointed many times. I can' expect a tiny country to be the most open minded people on Earth, but I expected fellow foreigners to be just that. I'm disappointed how defensive many other foreign teachers act when something negative is said on here as if it invalidates their decision to come live and teach in Korea. Angry in how I'd like to fly home about once every 3 months to catch up on family, friends, and other matters, but can't since this isn't one of those high flying jobs where you go on short term business stints like I should have with my education, skills, and abilities if I had the competitive advantage to be the man. I'd like more camaraderie with you folks doing the same as I'm doing; not animosity. It's a lonely road not taken by most, but it doesn't make me angrier; just disappointed in how this life makes people act online. Online is a very difficult place to get to know people yet socializing opportunities outside of bars are almost 0. I'm not saying you are all insecure, but those that are, love to troll and flame in name of saving face for Korea.
It would make me angrier if I was worrying about money to get the rent monkey off my back, some bad 5-0 piggie trying to pin some bogus heinous crime on me like illegal drug dealing within 500 feet of elementary school children, getting taken to court for simply telling someone to stick it where the sun don't shine, some ditzy gold diggin woman claiming I looked at her kid in a sexual manner, and if I'm going to get paid or not for the hours enslaved by my evil corporate employer. With these not so funny jokes said, it can make me angry if you niggle at me in my personal matters such as my drug abuse surrounding taking a sleeping pill 10 nights in July when you aren't even a doctor. You will make me angrier if you ask me stupid questions like, "Are you OK? Can you walk 5 meters since we can't park at the entrance?" Me: After you seen me climb a steep 700 meter high rocky mountain in 90 minutes without issues, you seem to not understand I could actually walk from Seoul to New York if the Siberian straight was dry.
Korean: Can you eat gimchee? Me: I can eat it all I want, but it's not pleasant; just provides us vitamin C if we are forced to live in famine with the economic system flat busted broke at some point in the future. Korean: Are you OK with eating Korean food? Me: Heck, I can eat anything and I've ate Korean food for about 6 months straight and I'm nothing near ill or dead from it yet. |
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Hotwire
Joined: 29 Aug 2010
Location: Multiverse
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| Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 2:34 am Post subject: |
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^^
I hear you.
This is when you take a 4 week break from Dave's and do something else with the time you'd be posting on here....
I post on here expecting it aint gonna be pretty.... |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 3:38 am Post subject: |
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| JBomb wrote: |
| I worked in retail for 7 years. That already crushed my niceness, humanity, and positivity. |
Food Service as well is a good one for that. |
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