Sunday, August 4, 2013

The lowdown on Koreans


Okay, okay, all of this is SORT OF interesting, you say. But what about the KOREANS? What are THEY like?

Like us, dear reader, they are human. They go about their lives as best they can and, eventually, die.

Yes, I know that, you say. But what makes them different? What makes them KOREAN?

I don't really know. I'm not Korean. And as you are aware, I don't speak Korean, so I'm not really in a position to ask a Korean what it's like to be Korean, let alone comprehend their answers (in Korean), which will no doubt exceed my limited Korean vocabulary of "hello," "thank you," and "rice." But I can give you some general facts about, well, Koreans. And obviously, we're talking about South Korea. Not the other one. And I'm not an expert - I'm just reporting what I've heard from students, friends, coworkers, and Wikipedia. And obviously, not every single Korean is exactly like the people I'm describing below. I'm generalizing.

Enough disclaimers. Per usual, I will give you an answer in a list. I'm OCD. I like lists.

1. The average Korean works 60 hours per week. The American average of 45-ish hours per week pales in comparison. While the Korean government has done a lot to reduce the number of hours people work per week, I think it's safe to say that the average Korean is quite, quite busy, and probably quite, quite stressed out.

2. Also, education is quite competitive. Grades are usually done by rank, not percentage; in other words, only the top few students in a class will get A's, even though many more kids will have done reasonably well on their work. As a result, there is very little collaboration between students and quite bit of competition. Education - from elementary school to college - can be quite stressful. Children are expected to spend most of their waking hours studying or doing homework.

And almost everyone attends college. Which college they attend is usually a matter of how well they do on the National Scholastic Ability Test (NSAT). A top score can mean a place in a top college - a low score can mean a place in a mediocre college, or in no college at all. This could be disastrous for a student's future plans, since employers often choose employees based on the university they got into after high school.

3. Based on all of this, it may not surprise you that South Korea has high suicide rates - the highest of all OECD nations. Suicide is the most common cause of death in Koreans under 40. Youth suicide is often motivated by bad results on the NSAT. In fact, suicide is so prevalent that all subway tracks in Seoul are blocked off by bulletproof glass, to prevent potential suicide victims from jumping in front of trains.

Well, this all sounds very intense, you say. Are they ALL stressed out of their minds?

Probably not. But I would guess that they're more stressed than the average American.

4. Enough about suicide. Let's talk about something else. Something less morbid. How about...North Korea.

Although North Korea is a formidable presence - after all, it does block South Korea off from the rest of the world, at least in a geographical sense - it does not prevent most South Koreans from leading healthy, productive lives. They do not worry constantly about the threat of war.

My students had their own views on the matter.

"Someday, we might reunite, you know, become one country again," they said. "It would be difficult because North Korea is quite poor and South Korea would have to take care of them, but I think we would do it. It would be the right thing to do. Because we don't hate the North Koreans - we just hate their government."

"Now, it is better to be dead than be North Korean," said one of them. "It is better to be a pet or a dog."

Every now and then, it hits me that I'm a mere 30 miles from the border of a country whose citizens face extreme censorship and mass starvation. And it certainly hit me then.

5. Okay, ENOUGH depressing stuff, you say. Let's talk about...fashion. Socializing. Anything.

Okay. Fashion. In general, most people dress about the same as Americans, but a little classier on average. Whereas the average American woman might wear jeans and a t-shirt, the average Korean woman might wear a blouse, a pencil skirt, and sky-high pumps. Quite stylin.

One major difference is in Korea, pale is in, tan is out. People apply sunscreen regularly. There are even lotions to make skin paler, and oftentimes, women wear makeup to make them look whiter, not rosier or...bronzier.  And in Korea, there are two sorts of umbrellas - umbrellas for rain, and umbrellas for sun, to keep UV rays from darkening the skin.

At first, the idea of having umbrellas for sun seemed fusty and Victorian. But I've begun to see the benefits. Not only are you the owner of a exquisite lacy parasol - you also carry shade with you wherever you go. And I don't think that is such a bad idea. It certainly covers more of you than a hat would, and it saves all that time for putting on sunscreen.

Still, this is rather different from the US, where pale people often make self-deprecating comments about their paleness ("Ugh, I'm such a ghost." "Look, it's like I'm translucent.") and tan people are quietly proud of their golden skin tone.

Also, in Korea, there's an entire beauty standard dealing with "face size" that definitely does not exist in the US. My students tried their best to explain it to me. Small faces are good, big faces are bad, they said. It has to do with head size relative to body size, and also where cheekbones are, and something about having a face that could be completely hidden behind a CD.

When all of this failed to make much sense to me, I showed them a picture of myself and my sister and asked, "Who has the smaller face?"


Apparently, I do. I have no idea how. I have no idea why. At this point, my students gave up. As a Westerner, it would be impossible for me to understand Korean face size standards apart from knowing of their existence.

"This does not mean you are prettier," they said. "Because she is paler."

"I thought that went without saying," I said. Anyone with eyes can tell that my sister is the attractive one. Especially in the picture above.

And finally, plastic surgery. It's a big thing in Korea. Mostly, it's women who get it, but men do too, occasionally. The most common surgery is eye surgery (to make eyes bigger and more "Western"), but other cosmetic surgery is quite normal, too. It isn't weird if someone undergoes a beauty procedure - it's just a sign that they care about how they look, and they've decided to make themselves more beautiful. You can find plastic surgery clinics all over Seoul.

5. Okay, but how about social stuff?

Social stuff? "Social stuff"? Seriously?

Well, I know what you mean. Social interaction. Courtesy. All that...stuff.

Since Koreans are also humans, it is not too difficult for non-Korean humans to interact with them. This, of course, is assuming that the non-Koreans speak Korean, or (in my case) the Koreans speak English. But aside from the language barrier, I never felt that I was plunged into a completely different culture from my own. People are generally friendly and respectful. We laugh at similar things, resort to the same small talk (usually, "God, it's hot today") when other conversation fails. But there are a few major differences when it comes to social interaction.

First of all, they do not smile at strangers. They do not even greet strangers. Americans do both things quite often, and for the first week or two, I had to stop myself from smiling and saying "hello" to approaching pedestrians before they gave me a withering look and went on their way.

Also, handshakes are not a big thing. Waving is not a big thing, either. Bowing is quite common, though. It doesn't have to be a big, sweeping bow - it can just be a nod of the head - but it will do in situations where either smiling or waving would be normal in America, such as when you're saying thank-you to a cashier or greeting a person you've never met before.

In America, eye contact is very important - it shows that you're listening, that you care about what the other person is saying, that you're confident, all that good stuff. But it's not as big of a thing in Korea. Inferiors are not supposed to look superiors in the eye for extended periods of time - it's considered rude. For example, when I showed my students how to do a proper beaming-smile-loud-voice-gaze-straight-in-the-eye-good-strong-grip American handshake, they confessed they found it embarrassing, because they had trouble maintaining eye contact with me (their teacher). They said they weren't supposed to maintain eye contact with elders, bosses, or other people in positions "superior" to their own.

Which brings me to my final topic - the social system.

6. The Social System
(It looks much more official with capital letters and its own little number, doesn't it?)

America is usually defined as a country with a low "power distance" - in other words, there is not a lot of different in how a person treats a social inferior, superior, or equal. This is partly because the English language only allows for one way to address other people ("you"). Whether you're talking to your boss, your mother's friend, or your annoying little brother, you use "you." Thus, while we can use other things to show respect or lack thereof (for example, addressing someone as "sir" or "ma'am" versus "kid" or "asshole"), our position relative to the person we are talking to will never be obvious from the pronoun we use to address them.

In this respect, English is a little strange, compared to to other languages. Most other languages have at least two forms of "you" - a singular form (usually also familiar) and a plural form (usually more formal). Off the top of my head, I can think of several major languages - French, Spanish, Russian, and Georgian among them - that have multiple forms of "you." Korean, however, is strange in the respect that it has more than two forms of "you."

I won't get into the specifics. I'm no linguist. If you want the details, go to the Wikipedia page on Korean pronouns and see for yourself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_pronouns). I'll just say that in Korean, you can express formality or informality in several different ways. There are variety of word endings (honorifics) that can indicate a level of respect; even other pronouns change along with the level of formality (for example, the "I" you use in formal situations is different from the "I" you use in informal situations).

What you should take away from this is that imbedded in the Korean language is a complex system used to express hierarchy. And in Korean culture, hierarchies and differences in power are much more important than in American culture. For example, even though I was younger than most of my students, many of them had trouble calling me something other than "teacher" because I was technically in a position of respect.

This is quite different from American culture, where familiarity is usually an essential part of politeness.  "How ya doin there, Mr. President?" would be just about as acceptable as "How is your day going, Mr. President?" In Korea, this level of informality with a superior would be completely unacceptable.

So there's my hurried, disorganized, generalized lowdown on the people who live in Korea.

Until next time,
-Emily

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