Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Carmy]

By that I mean being told to keep quiet.

So yesterday a few of my mates and I went to the Van Gogh Exhibit. There were 100's of people and obviously as people were walking in line to see the artwork, people were talking. There was a natural buzz of banter in the air. I myself was just talking to one of my friends about whatever I saw in the pictures (I'm not an art fundi but I appreciate it nonetheless)

Anyways, to get to the point, all of a sudden I feel a tap on my shoulder and it's one of the staff members telling me not to touch the paintings. At first I was completely confused because I hadn't touched a darn thing, I merely pointed to something and I certainly wasn't the only person doing that. And then when I realised what she was saying, I told her that I wasn't touching anything and THEN she tells me "Ssshh sssh be quiet" and puts her fingers to her lips as if I was a child.
Oh my gosh, at that point I was ready to explode because amongst EVERYONE in the museum she decided to tell ME to be quiet. And when I told her to go and tell everyone else the same thing she continued to harrass me. Eventually I just turned around and ignored her.

After the exhibition I was then told that she had done the same thing to my other friends who were ahead of us!! So basically she purposely sought us out to quieten us down as if we were the only people in the entire exhibit that were talking!

*sigh*

[Rock]

One of those strange idiosyncracies. The exhibit probably offended her ego, or made her think it was of extreme value it being Western Art and all. Or maybe she thought you were less careful as the Koreans were since it was an international art show.

Either way, this once happend to me at the Art Museum of Chicago.

I'd been working as a guard in the galleries for months when all of a sudden a Korean shows up. What does she do? She complains the art isn't good enough to be famous.

She complains the art here was less important, or insignificant, even though some paintings were The Masters. This she'd said ince it wasn't as old as Korean art. She basically put it, and us, down. Out of all the thousands of people, zillions of art works, a Korean, of all people, was the only one to downgrade some of the most famous artists in the world. So here's the take.

They probably don't hold the art in high esteem and she was probably venting.

Nonetheless, I'd lodge a complaint.

[Unposter]

I've seen Koreans hush English speakers on the subway. I assume that since they don't understand the English, it just sounds like noise to them. While many Americans are known for talking loudly, sometimes this is not the source of the problem and the Korean is being somewhat rude.

But, your situation with the museum guard seems different. It sounds like discrimination as English speaking people were singled out, treated differently and accused of things that they did not do.

You probably should have lodged a complaint.

I wonder if such incidents will increase as English teachers become more and more demonized by the media and Immigration.

[sojourner1]

I have never had problems like this in museums in other countries other than being told to not take pictures. I too was told to be quiet in Gyeongju last Summer.

In Korea, I got told to be quiet many times, even in noisy restaurants and streets. Even my Korean friend has told me to tone it down and yet I was not being rude or having problems of any sort, just trying to hear and be heard when trying to converse in noisy places. I think we intimidate people's proud egos or challenging some superiority complex present in Korean ideology. We are not trying to be better than them, many Koreans just think we could be due to us symbolizing all this westernization and that is silly, but true.

[itaewonguy]

JESUS koreans are the loudest people I know!!
i cant handle sitting near them in restaurants!
and that HAPPY BIRTHDAY SONG played in every restaurant in the country, man the artist of that song must be killing it.. becuase it seems to be the same song,.. IS the most RUDE thing I have ever heard!
there you are trying to enjoy a quite a meal, and a chat with a date or friend and then BAM BAM BAM! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!! BLAR BLAR BLAR ringing bells, and beating drums!! I didnt pay for that!!

or on subways, ajjoshis shouting into their phones! NE NE NE NE NE!!!
koreans always getting excited when they talk, just look at dramas on TV, they think acting means SHOUTING! every line is shouted!!

and they want to tell us to tone it down>? GIVE ME A BREAK!!!

like the 5am vege truck speaker doesnt annoy anyone! but if you try to talk to your friend on a bus or subway at 4pm in ENglish , thats rude???
YEAH OK WHAT EVER!!!

hahahahahaahahha like sitting in a restaurant always drunk ajjoshis there yelling at each other, laughing, and shouting the more and more they get drunk! do they give a toss about anyone else in there!! does the owner tell them to keep it down!! HELL NO!! but if it was a table of waygooks you bet the owner would say, please quite! alittle..
ITS BS!!

[RACETRAITOR]

I'm gonna take a wild guess the OP was being too loud.

[Carmy]

[VanIslander]

korean teenagers were chatting up a storm on a bus but when a waygook friend and I talked in English we were shhh-ed

just talking in English offends some Koreans, but believe me, it pisses off the Japanese more in Japan, they just are more restrained in their reactions

i'd guess that about one in five Koreans are bothered by hearing English in public: it offends their ears for at least a few reasons I can think of

[crusher_of_heads]

When they stare, I stare back.

Maybe I just haven't clued in, but I haven't been shushed-but I will shush right back if I hear it.


Who will think of the 45+ year old Korean children if I won't?

[trubadour]

A group of us English speakers were out on a Saturday night, going to the beach in Busan. We were shushed rather angrily by a rather annoyed old lady. Frankly it was funny. If a little unsettling, esp. as she got more wound up. Frankly, everyone else on the subway was nice and quiet. But we were having a laugh, just chattin'..

I know from London and stuff that sometimes foreigners can seem to be insensitive to cultural norms regarding behaviour in public places. Having been on both sides of the fence, I think that the volume goes up in groups and that it goes up more in the situation of a relative social isolation that comes with living abroad. It is hard to gauge subtle social norms, even when people get angry. And even when they do, ones investitment and/or commitment to the culture is weak anyway. Previous caution is discarded for the catharsis of speaking your mother tongue with friends and having fun. And other people often get annoyed with people when they are having fun. Fun is almost inherently a kind of transgression anyway.

I'm not saying the OP was talking too loudly. She was probably just having too much fun.

[bluelake]

I'm the first to admit I have a fairly loud voice (my lecture voice). I don't always notice when I'm speaking too loud. However, there was one time I remember well. It was about ten years ago and a colleague of mine and I were on a train back to Kyongju from a KOTESOL conference. He and I were just talking in a normal voice when a guy in the seat in front of us turned around and said in English, "Shut up!" I informed him that we would do no such thing and my colleague and I continued our conversation. Soon after, he turned around and said, "I thought I told you to shut up!" I told him that I already said we would not. This went on for awhile, but in the end my colleague and I left the train and that was that.

[flakfizer]

English is noise to those who don't understand it. I was in the subway just a couple weeks age with a fellow American male and a Korea female. The subway was packed and of course, there were many, many conversations going on. An old lady pokes our Korean friend and tells her that we are being too loud (we were not even close to being the loudest in that subway car). Our friend relayed the message to us that we were "too loud." Our friend was in the awkward position of feeling the need to show deference to an old lady and knowing that we were unfairly singled out just because we weren't speaking Korean. We kept on talking and the lady got off at the next stop anyway. I guess she couldn't take our "noise" for a minute and thirty seconds longer.

Foreigners are to be stared at and not heard.

[VanIslander]

[Underwaterbob]

and the next thread will be about how Koreans are always trying to get us to talk, want nothing more than free English lessons and won't leave us alone in public places...

[mindmetoo]

Yeah getting Koreans to obey customary etiquette in art galleries and symphonies is a fool's game.