Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Muffin]

During my admittedly brief time here I have noticed that if I get angry with kids they tend to like me more, whereas when I give them a reward like a coupon for snacks they don't give me the time of day next time I see them.

An adult Korean friend of mine told me his teacher used to hit him with a baseball bat and it made him respect his teacher more! Now I can honestly say that if anyone had hit me with a baseball bat I would hold a serious grudge to my dying day!

My school has a driver and he picks me up everyday. He used to pick up the last teacher literally at the door, however as I live in a complex with a guarded gate I started walking down and waiting the other side of the gate to save him negotiating it. I have always been very courteous to him, greeting him in Korean etc. Now I find if it is pouring with rain he does not repay my consideration but still waits down the road. And if he arrives one minute before I do (and I am usually early) he won't greet me at all! I really think I made a mistake showing him consideration and now he does not respect me at all.

What do other posters think?

[Newbie]

Perhaps kindness is wasted on "SOME" koreans, but definitely not all.

I have often felt that when I go out of my way to be polite, courteous, etc. that some Koreans seem quite smug and have an air of "Damn Right you better hold that door open for me!"

[periwinkle]

Your driver has issues, possibly. Ignore it- I'm sure its got nothing to do with you. Could be the ole ajossi with the chip on the shoulder. It gets pretty hard for some people to carry the world around on their back Don't take it personally- you're bound to encounter many more people like this. Your behavior is polite, and that's enough.

[sadsac]

Generally, yes it's wasted, but not always. Keep on being polite.

[laogaiguk]

Kindness is never wasted. It either makes someone good feel good or someone bad feel worse There is nothing that a xenophobic, white hating ajossi hates more than getting in the face of a foreigner who is consistently polite and doesn't get angry. Imagine, you just proved their stereotypes wrong and forced them to realize 'they' are the a$$, even if they don't accept it. Nothing worse than that.

And who knows, it might just help change someone too... Either way, you will start to feel bad if you are really a kind person and start withholding kindness.

[RACETRAITOR]

I don't know about you guys, but where I come from, bus drivers are the nicest, friendliest, most courteous people. They stand when you enter, they give you some coins if you don't have exact change, and they apologise every time the bus hits a bump. They even put the bus in park and hand out snacks to passengers if the bus is stuck in traffic. I'm disgusted by the shocking rudeness of Korean bus drivers here.

[billybrobby]

[excitinghead]

Depends where you are, where you're from...the bus drivers in Auckland, NZ were constantly on power trips (no pun intended), liking nothing better than to pull away once they see you running from the wrong bus stop 10 metres away. Smirking at you for lacking the god-like powers to discern the differences between completely identical, non-descript, sign-lacking rows of 4 bus stops was what they lived for.

In contrast, when I lived there the bus drivers in Jinju would let people on at the stop, see that an old woman was walking a bit slowly 30 metres away so wait for her too, then discover once she made it that she wasn't trying to get on the bus at all...then notice that a couple across the road looked like they wanted to get on too, so wait a minute for the traffic lights to change so they could cross the road and get to the bus stop...by this stage 2-3 mins had passed and there'd be a traffic jam 2km long behind the bus...

[Qinella]

[Zulu]

[RACETRAITOR]

[Corporal]

[Satori]

Huh, I've got you all beat, where I come from bus drivers can actually drive a bus smoothly...

[Dev]

I think you should not take it personally and blow it off. I find that many Koreans live in their own little word. They don't walk around purposely being rude to people or purposely being kind. They're just doing their thing. I'll bet the bus driver you have is not too smart and not thinking about you. He's got his mind on the soccer game or thinking about when his next coffee break is.

On the topic of politeness, I am often showered with kind gestures from Koreans especially the offering of food. I get more snacks thrown my way in a month than I did in a whole year back home.

Don't think too much about it mate. Be nice to Koreans because it makes you feel good. That's why I do it.

[SuperHero]