Korean Job Discussion Forums

[earthbound14]

Since the first moments I arrived until now this has been one of the most difficult things for me to deal with...the Korean way of dealing with things in an indirect way in which the positive things are well stated (to the point where they simply are not true...I saw a 25 hour store once....I know clearly a symbolic statement but you get the idea) and the negatives are omitted and sometimes completely denied even if proof exists to say other wise.

In the taxi from the airport to my very first job in Korea I asked if they had computers at school. To which I was told, yes of course. There was not a single computer and after I brought it up with them they brought in a broken one from home and set it up...

My second job had medical insurance in the contract. It was poorly written in English and was labelled "The Korean Medical Insurance". As it turned out it was insurance from a private company and not as good as the real deal (but cheaper). When asked about it my school stated, "it is Korean insurance"....just not "our national" insurance. I told them they lied, which they denied. The woman who wrote it knew full well that what she wrote omitted the words 'private' and was worded very similar to Korean national medica insurance....which every teacher thought they were getting. I stated that all the teachers had thought it was the real thing and felt cheated because of it. We all really liked the job and didn't feel it was worth quitting over. We just wanted them to change it and say they were sorry for the misleading text....nope. They insisted they didn't lie and infact made an issue about it and got angry at us. Forget that it is part of Korean law to offer proper national medical insurance to your staff.

Recently I started work for a great school, one of the top schools in the country. In their ad they said they offered 40,000 won for additional classes. As it turns out our over time hours for classes taught to registered students are 20, 000 won an hour, while other classes offered outside the system (but still baring the name of the school and still on campus) are 40. These 40,000 won an hour classes aren't even reserved for us. They are open to anyone legal or illegal.

Now it's all nice in theory that you don't say bad things, but the flip side is one of those things I never really seem to grasp, sometimes it is amusing, sometimes it's just a window into a different culture...other times it just pisses me off.

It seems that all the saving of face simply allows dishonest people to do back room deals, mislead people and generally lie.

[Unposter]

I'll bite: It is mostly lying. Especially, in the case of the health insurance and the overtime rate, I'd say it was lying. In the case of the computers, it might have been saving face.

Take a look at Korean politics - it appears that a certain level of corruption is expected. My guess is business is not much different, including the education industry.

[KoreaninKorea]

Korea isn't perfect. It claims to be, but we know thier just trying to save face.

[Adventurer]

Well, the majority of teens in Korea in 2002 when polled said they felt there was too much corruption in the country. It is dishonest obviously to not give your teacher national health insurance if the contract states that. What that school did was lie to the teachers and has failed to be honest with the government, but we are talking about a heavily corrupt government. In 2006, Korea introduced jury trials because it's harder to bribe a bunch of jurors, I imagine.

In Egypt and Mexico, it's not uncommon to get ripped off and to have people tell you wild stories, so they can get money. However, the people of those countries have somewhat of an excuse - they're impoverished countries. Korea is not an impoverished country. A wealthy Egyptian is not going to fleece you if he is making a profit, in general, but there is a good chance a Korean making a profit will try to cheat you out of what's owed to you and sabotage his own livelihood in the process out of greed.
Some people think they must do whatever they can to make money and there is much more of a focus on counting pennies rather than the idea of
"you have to spend money, to make money".

Something that is not true or where someone is hiding information is dishonest. Selfishness and finding ways to cut expenses even if it entails angering your employees is a common practice here.

I am not saying the majority are like that. I don't think that's true, but too many are corrupt. People know they're not supposed to break the law, but they do. I always say that if Korea had a clean government where they actually investigated hagwons and randomly checked to see if they gave their foreign employees health insurance then the illegal practices would be rather rare.

There is a reason why this is not investigated, I assume, is because the bureaucrats and the government do not care. Basically, a government with such limited integrity encourages many hagwon owners to not have integrity. If I were running government, I would such low tolerance against corruption and people who know me would know I would put in spies and agents to ensure people were clean and fire high-level people to make an example out of them. I wouldn't be popular with some, but I wouldn't care.

[mheartley]

The concept of 'face' and dishonesty are often interchangeable anyway, no need to make a clear distinction between the two imo. Not always 'dishonesty' in the most negative sense of the word, like it could be harmless exaggeration or white lies or what have you, but is very often twisting the truth around a bit to suit a situation.

[VanIslander]

Honesty and truth telling have no pride of place in this country, no special standing, are just one of many values in Korean society to be subverted when more important priorities obtain.

Telling the truth or lying, the value of each isn't considered in the abstract as being very important.

Sneaking, cheating, deceiving, misleading, these are all acceptable things to do sometimes around here. Corruption is a misnomer, as Korea is essentially 'corrupt' down to the very nature of corporate business dealings between chaebols, and the term is too crude to capture the nuances of what's going on around here.

The entire sense of morality and ethics is quite different. The more you hear, the more it's evident.

[SamJ85]

If the lying was happening just cover up a few minor honest mistakes I'd accept saving face as an excuse.

Telling a casual aquantance, "Sorry I can't make it out tonight because I feel sick" (When you actually just can't be arsed) is saving face.

Saying, "Oh, I didn't tell anyone about the 50m Won that businessman left in the back of my car because I didn't want people to think he was forgetful" is LYING!

To be perfectly honest I find this issue the most infuriating issue of living/working in Korea. I find it hard to trust (and therefore give a sh*t about) an employer who can't give an honest answer to his employees.

This kind of thing happens all over the world, British politicians aren't exactly pure as the driven snow these days, but there does seem to be a lot of lying going down here that simply wouldn't be accepted elsewhere, wether it's from politicians, businesses, or anyone else.

The fact it's all dressed up as saving face simply means people can get away with it more.

[beercanman]

It's common in China too. Sometimes you can use it to your advantage. It's funny in a way, when all involved know it's a lie, but the game is played to avoid embarrassment. It's not funny when you're getting seriously taken advantage of, of course.

[Chet Wautlands]

I think most Koreans know that their country has its share of problems. When I tell people I'm from Canada, it's not rare for me to hear that Canada is better than Korea.

There is corruption in the government, major education issues, terrible pollution... Koreans realize these problems and will tell you that they are a bit embarrassed by them.

My standard response is that Canada has many problems too, but it is a great country.

So, yeah, there are some Koreans who will lie and/or choose to be willfully ignorant, but they aren't the majority. They are easier to notice, though.

[ryoga013]

Here's a challenge. Try to save face without lying. Make a tally sheet for this. For every example that you try to think of a scenario and then realize it's simply lying, misleading, excluding pertinent information etc, put a mark in the "dishonest" section." Every time you don't have to, a mark in the "honest' section. Each example has to vary by at least a little bit. The first person to 5 on the honest side wins OR the first person with 100 on the dishonest side wins. I choose the dishonest side. Ready, go.

[moosehead]

what appalls me the most is how young the kids are when they start this game; it's just so incredible - trying to get little ones to own up to something - sometimes I'll ask the class a q and no one wants to answer simply because they think they've done something wrong and are afraid of the consequences, which all kids are (of course) but then it gets to a point where it's not so much they are afraid of being punished as they are the FACT they made a MISTAKE and have lost face on account of it - !!!

[Medic]

Some of our expats who have decided to live here and run buisnesses get caught up in it too. You would expect appropriate behaviour from them, but they succumb and aren't any better.

I seem to remmeber reading that in Korea with some people it's culturally acceptable to do something illegal iff it can be done without the appearance of being illegal. In other words iff your illegal act isn't noticeble then it's OK. If it is noticeable then you have lost face, and that's bad. Got nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of what one is doing.

[poeticjustice]

Statistically, I bet America has a lot lower instances of infidelity, home abuse, divorce rates, etc. than Korea, but since America isn't an asian country and we have no "face to save", you can see all of America's problems written all over every cultural vessel (movies, music, novels, etc) coming out of the country. Which leads Koreans to think that America is a cesspool of crime, sex and all other kinds of debauchery.

I think Koreans simply don't understand the Western concept of talking about problems openly. While a situation might be worse in Korea, we would never know about it unless we experienced it directly as it isn't talked about. East asian countries fudge everything. There is some major lie inflation going on here.

To be blunt, that's what "saving face" really means. Lies. "Saving face" is just some cute Sociological term slapped on it by foreigners.

Where I come from, we call it what it is: LYING.

[T-J]

[Bloopity Bloop]