Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

The Culture Shock Test

You are in the grocery store with your cart, wandering up and down the aisles. The peanut butter is not where it was the last time and you get a knot in your stomach and maybe mutter something about why they can't just leave things alone. As you continue your search, knowing you can't ask where the peanut butter got moved to because you don't know the Korean word for it and even if you did you wouldn't understand the answer, you notice that an ajumma takes a peek in your cart as she goes by, even maybe picking something up out of your cart to inspect it. The knot in the stomach gets a little bigger. More muttering under the breath. You ignore the bumping and make no outward reaction but the knot gets tighter. You finally stumble across the peanut butter and finish up shopping. You head for the check-out counter and find yourself in a sprint with the lady with her cart filled to the brim and beat her, only to have another ajumma cut in line in front of you.

Do you:

a) Cuss her out under your breath, then ignore it and get on with your life, forgetting the incident within a minute?

b) Cuss her out out loud and say, "Hey lady! Get back to the end of the line where you belong"?

c) Reach into her cart and start throwing her stuff down the aisle, all the while cussing her out at the top of your lungs and turning red, denouncing Korea as the most uncivilized place on the planet, possibly the universe, and questioning the manhood, womanhood, legitimacy and mental ability of every Korean who has ever had the gall to blight the face of the earth in all of recorded and unrecorded history?

d) Do nothing, but the rest of the day, in every free moment, re-play the scene in your mind, fantasizing what you could have/should have done? Possibly take revenge on some agasshi (who had the unmitigated temerity to stop on the sidewalk 10 feet in front of you) by deliberately bashing your shoulder into her back on the way by--and NOT saying 'Excuse me'. Get home hours later, log on to Dave's, and post the story while ignoring the story about free pair of socks the shoe store man gave you when you bought new shoes after grocery shopping and forgetting to mention the ajumma who shared her umbrella with you while you were waiting to cross the street?.

e) Never refer to the incident again, but add one more reason to avoid Koreans as much as possible, restricting your social life mainly to bars and almost exclusively to foreigners. Your main and maybe only topic of conversation is reviewing the failures of Korean society, culture, food, people, fashions, music, weather, architecture, sports, TV and movies.

If you chose A or B, you are a well-adjusted Westerner. If you chose C, D or E you are caught in the web of culture shock.

***

Feel free to enter your culture shock test question.

[eamo]

I'll go with 'A'.

I've made my peace with Korea. It doesn't bother me and I don't bother it.

There are a lot of things that bother me strongly about Korea. Most of them stemming from confucianism which I see as being very contrary to modern, 21st century life. But, I've managed to rearrange my brain cells in a very radical way so that I can get through each day and not be bothered by all but the most serious incidents. Which don't happen often.



My culture-shock test question?

A smiling ajeossi at the table 4 feet away in a floor restaurant is so enthralled by the sight of you and your 3 foreign friends eating that he spins around on his cushion and gets comfortable so he can concentrate on watching you and ignoring his wife. He never says a word. Just smiles and makes appreciative sounds each time you take a piece of kimchi or knock back a soju.

Do you,

A. Smile at him and offer a soju pour with full respect.
B. Smile but turn away from him slightly for a little more privacy.
C. Spray soju from your mouth, put a lighter to it and napalm his stupid grin.

[RACETRAITOR]

I'll pick A for 1, B for 2.

Here's one.

You catch some schoolgirls on the subway taking your picture with their camera phones. Do you:

a) smile and pose for them
b) try to get a picture of yourself with them to put on your weblog
c) try to strike up a conversation with them and follow them around the rest of the afternoon
d) ignore them
e) pretend to get off and move to another car

[bitter_hag]

B. I'm all about accepting the culture on a certain level, but I'm not going to be so accepting that I let anyone cut in front of me. I just tend to shove them back out of the way or I give them the "oh I know you're not trying to cut" stare and that usually works.

[crazylemongirl]

A for 1. B for 2. A for 1.

A person is giving you or your korean partner weird looks and makes comments about you or your partner being a 'race traitor,' '*beep*,' '*beep*,' or nasty words to that effect.

You

A. Try to ignore them and remove yourself and partner from the situtation if need be.
B. Defend your partner's honor and throw back some insult at the person.
C. Defend your partner's honor and throw a punch.

[SPINOZA]

[Swiss James]

[SPINOZA]

Okay,

You're at a food stall buying some squid. The K-folks at the stall are clearly talking about you, laughing and joking along the way. Do you:

1. assume it's good-natured and don't give a rat's butt;
2. assume they're discussing how very handsome/pretty you are;
3. assume they're saying unpleasant things, being racist, xenophobic and trashing you for being foreign; later post thread #1,000,000 about how xenophobic and downright inferior the entire Korean race is based on this isolated incident;
4. don't think anything - positive or negative - of it.

[baldrick]

[billybrobby]

[baldrick]

I was only two hours from Seoul on train. In HongSeong. ChungCheongNamDo.

[bitter_hag]

[ninjamonkey]

f) try to pick up the ajumma

[Babayaga]

The test for me was whether I could endure constant embarrassed giggling every time I went out somewhere. Every time I'd ask a question in English, they'd giggle and smirk which made me feel stupid. If I tried speaking Korean, they wouldn't understand me either. So I had to endure giggling for 2 and 1/2 years.


I guess I had culture shock the entire time.

[vlcupper]