Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Captain Corea]

Ok, do me a favor and read the whole post before jumping in - the title can be misleading.

I recently returned from a very brief vacation in Canada, and while I was there I visited with an old family friend. She's an Immigration Officer in Canada, and while many people were sitting around chatting about my 'overseas life' she dropped quite the bomb.

"Why are Koreans such liars?" she asked. And when I said, what do you mean, she elaborated that during many (immigration) interviews, they (Koreans) would lie about some of the oddest things. She said that they were usually just things that you didn't really need to lie about. She'd ask them why they were in Canada, and they'd answer "for visiting", but then she'd look at their papers and see that they were there on a student visa. When asked, they'd reply "oh yeah, I'm here for studying."

She said that these lies were usually not critical to the case, but that she'd encountered enough of them to make her wonder; why do Koreans lie so much?

I spent about 10 minutes trying to give my theory on her experiences, but I'm curious what you guys think.

I'll post what I actually explained to her tomorrow, but what do you think of her observation?

[UknowsI]

I second her observation. I don't mean to bash Koreans and for all I know we might be too strict about the truth, but I have noticed numerous cases where they have been lying about trivial things which to me doesn't make any sense to lie about at all.

Even a very Christian friend who goes to church almost every day didn't see any problems with lying just to make the conversation a little easier. She actually suggested that I lie and was surprised to hear that I prefer to tell the truth.

My conclusion is that lies to make a conversation smoother is socially acceptable here.

[proustme]

Christ knows why...

[andrewchon]

I don't think the Koreans lie anymore than the rest of the human race. I'm fairly sure the immi officer lies about her age, weight, and dress size just as I lied to my GF to get her to go to bed with me. You should have told her about the maledicta in her upbringing that manifests in her as prejudice. But since her pride will prevent her from seeing through her AT field, why bother?

[Captain Corea]

[andrewchon]

What, you're saying that there is a woman alive who does not lie about her age, weight and dress size? Eh, what am I talking to porcupine of the western world for?

[redaxe]

I've noticed that people here seem to make lot of excuses not to go to things, which are often partially or completely fabricated. For example, several of my boss's uncles/aunts have conveniently died on the days he was supposed to attend a teleconference that he really didn't want to.

Also I've invited Korean friends to parties and concerts and stuff... but I stopped doing that because apparently it causes their uncles to suddenly die.

But I guess that's the thing--in Korea, when someone asks you to go to something, it is not socially acceptable to decline because you don't want to go. You have to have an excuse that makes it impossible for you to go.

That sort of lying seems very common here.

But in other ways, Koreans seem very honest. Especially when it comes to stealing--theft is VERY uncommon here, especially considering how common it is in China.

[GoldMember]

As George Costanza famously said, "It's not a lie IF you don't think its a lie".

Firstly, they don't think they are telling porkys.

or as Jack Nicholson said, "You want the truth, you can't handle the truth".

Secondly they can't handle the truth.

[Joe666]

UknowsI wrote:

[Captain Corea]

[Real Reality]

Cross-cultural deception in social networking sites and face-to-face communication
by Carmen C. Lewis and Joey F. George
Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 24, Issue 6, 17 September 2008, Pages 2945-2964
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2008.05.002

[proustme]

Where are the articles that attest to Koreans' honesty?

[Jane]

My two cents, which probably isn't even worth two cents.

Maybe Koreans are lying at immigration because they are scared to death of anything that isn't Korean. So they want to take the easy route and just tell the agent what they want to hear so they can move faster paster the troll at the gate. That's similar to in Korea, when Koreans will give you what you want just to get your out of their face.

On another note, my father has a tendency to tell stupid lies at land border crossings (Can-US). None of us are sure why. I think he enjoys it.

[Unposter]

While I think there have been some good posts on this discussion such as Real Reality and even GoldMember, the cases that your friend the Immigration officer may have found may come down to errors in speaking. The kid may have meant "student visa" but in the momment just blurted out "visiting" because he suddenly froze up and did not know what to say.

We have probably all faced this at least once in our life trying to chat up a beautiful woman, so it should not be too surprising it comes up occassionally when speaking a foreign language going through customs when you have to answer uniformed officials, especially when you are a kid.

Anyway, we all know that in societies that value social harmony, telling people what they want to hear rather in order to prevent others from losing face is quite rampant. The key is to understand in context when you are being told what you want to hear versus what is reality.

Still, I think there is a high chance the kid was just nervous.

[doggyji]

I can think of the cases when they almost instinctively parrot pre-programmed English phrases they are most familiar with to answer quickly and flawlessly rather than pause to compose new sentences, mumble and possibly look stupid, especially in an intimidating/awkward atmosphere.