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Sagwa 사과 (Sahg-wah)
The Role of the Apology
Chae Sok Choe, author of The Korean Social Character, says that Koreans are unable to function in an orderly manner in relationships between equals; that they are so conditioned to superior-inferior behavior in the use of language, demeanor, and other responses that encounters with “free” people who are their equals are upsetting. Choe adds that maintaining the proper form and order in superior-inferior relationships is very difficult and is a source of a great deal of tension and anxiety for Koreans because of the constant fear that they might make a mistake and damage the other party’s “face.”
This anxiety is one of the reasons the sagwa (sahg-wah), or “apology,” has been symptomatic of Korean behavior for centuries. People are always apologizing for real as well as imagined mistakes, slights, or affronts. They learned over the centuries that apologizing to superiors, even when there was nothing to apologize for, was always the better part of valor.
Because apologies were so common, a casual or perfunctory sagwa could be as bad as not apologizing at all, resulting in people dramatizing their apologies to family members, friends, work associates, employers, and officials with deep bows and emotional declarations of regret. Choe goes on to say that Koreans were traditionally incapable of behaving in a humble manner toward strangers and apologizing to them with genuine regret. This factor is one of the reasons verbal battles and knock-down, drag-out fights were traditionally commonplace among Korean men. Men got into situations where conflicts, even minor ones, could not be resolved with conciliatory words, and they had no choice but to resort to fisticuffs to save face. (In more recent times, this propensity for Koreans to do battle has greatly diminished as society has become more open and people are freer to express themselves verbally.)
During the thirty-six-year period when the Japanese occupied Korea (1910–1945), they kept sealed dossiers on all Koreans of any social, political, or business consequence. These dossiers, compiled and kept updated by the regular police as well as secret agents and local informers, covered every aspect of the lives of the Koreans concerned, from the personal, private comments they made, to who their friends were. Every time any of these people committed what the Japanese were able to construe as a minor offense, they were required to write a simalseo (she-mahl suh), or “letter of apology,” to the Japanese authorities, asking to be forgiven and promising never to repeat the offense.
If these people continued to commit minor offenses, they were arrested and the accumulation of apology letters was used as evidence to prove that they were habitual dissidents or criminals and to justify their being sentenced to prison. Japanese managers in charge of commercial enterprises in Korea also used the dossier system of keeping a record of the attitudes and behavior of their Korean employees to keep them under control and to use as evidence against them anytime it suited the Japanese goals.
The simalseo custom institutionalized by the Japanese was continued by Korean authorities and company management after Korea regained its independence. While it is far less intrusive now than it was during the Japanese period in Korea, it is still an important part of Korean life.
Writing “apology letters” works just as well for foreigners as it does for Koreans, and foreigners who commit real or imagined transgressions are well advised to make use of this sanctified practice in their efforts to maintain harmonious relations with their Korean contacts and government entities.
Overall the role of the sagwa in Korean society has diminished considerably with the growing sense of individualism and self-confidence that began developing in conjunction with the introduction of democracy into the country. But an apologetic attitude and behavior is still characteristic of Koreans who are in an inferior position, and the apology continues to play a vital role in maintaining smooth interpersonal relationships.
All too often Westerners who are inexperienced in Korea take the typical apologetic behavior of lower-ranking Koreans as an indication that they are not as strong-willed, as capable, or as trustworthy as the Westerners would like. Most of the habitual apologies made by Koreans have nothing to do with any genuine transgression on their part. They are a form of traditional politeness that includes an element of humility practiced by people on all levels of society.
The humble element in Korean politeness is a double-edged product of Confucian influence. On the one hand Confucianism conditioned the people to be genuinely humble. On the other hand it also conditioned them to be outraged by any signs of arrogance on the part of superiors. Broadly speaking, Koreans were programmed to accept the social superiority of others because their superiority was “ordained by heaven” or by fate, but only as long as those in superior positions did not let their rank or power make them arrogant. The social factor that kept relations between the high and the low in harmony was ceremonial politeness and apparent humility expressed in the form of apologies.
Westerners who learn the role and power of the apology in Korea invariably get along much better in both their private and public relationships with Koreans.
San 산 Sahn
Korea’s Sacred Mountains
In the traditional Korean cosmos every san (sahn), or “mountain,” was a sacred place because it had its own san shin (sahn sheen), or “mountain god”—an idea that derived from the shamanistic belief that spirits dwell in all high places. Buddhism, introduced into Korea between the fourth and seventh centuries A.D., held mountains in high esteem for the same reason, and taught that the beauty and serenity of mountains was conducive to deep spiritual contemplation. As a result of these two concepts, mountains have traditionally played an especially important role in the history of Korea, and the higher and more spectacular the mountain, the more important this role.
Throughout Korean history shamans as well as ordinary people have made regular pilgrimages to mountains noted as the home of more powerful gods to commune with the spirits and seek their assistance. From the earliest times Buddhist priests have also sought out exceptionally scenic places on mountains to build temples and spend their lives in study and contemplation.
For shamans and their followers the most important mountain in Korea is Paekdusan, or Mt. Paekdu, located in North Korea. At 2,744 meters (9,000 feet), it is the highest mountain on the Korean peninsula. Mt. Paekdu, which is on the Korea-China border in Northern Korea, has been especially sacred to Koreans since ancient times because their creation myth tells them that is where the Korean race began in the year 2333 B.C.22 According to the myth, the lord of heaven (God) sent his son, Hwanung, down to earth where he met a bear and a tiger. The son offered the two a chance to become human by staying in a cave for a lengthy time, eating only garlic. The tiger failed the test, but the bear succeeded and became a beautiful woman. Hwanung and the woman mated and had a son, named Tangun, who became the Adam of the Korean race and the first king.
Like Mt. Fuji in Japan, Paekdu San is the cone of an extinct volcano that is visible for miles and is snow covered in winter. Close up it is made even more spectacular by a crater lake on its summit that is 14 kilometers (9 miles) in circumference and 380 meters (1,250 feet) deep.
The 1948 division of Korea into two political entities, separated by impassable military barriers at the thirty-eighth parallel, meant that South Koreans could no longer make pilgrimages to Mt. Paekdu. This eventually resulted in Mt. Taebaek in Kangwon province east of Seoul, facing the East Sea (Sea of Japan), being named as an alternate home of Tangun, the nation’s founder. Mt. Mani on the offshore island of Kanghwa, west of Seoul, is a third “alternate” for shamanistic rites marking the birth of Tangun.
Other mountains that have traditionally been sacred to Korean shamanists include Mt. Kumgang and Mt. Myohyang in North Korea and Mt. Chiri, Mt. Moak, Mt. Mudung, Mt. Inwang (in west-central Seoul), and Mt. Pukan north of Seoul.
Mt. Halla, the volcanic mountain that makes up the bulk of Jeju Island (Korea’s largest island and one of the nine provinces of South Korea), also has a small crater lake and is sometimes referred to as the Mt. Paekdu of the southern part of the country. Semitropical Jeju is some eighty-five kilometers (53 miles) off the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, and for many centuries was out of the mainstream of Korean life. Its relative isolation resulted in many of its shamanistic traditions surviving intact into modern times.23
(By the mid-1980s Jeju was anything but isolated. It had become a favorite vacation spot not only for Koreans but for Japanese as well, with world-class hotels and excellent restaurants with international menus. The island now boasts golf courses and many other amenities aimed at tourists. Some see it continuing to develop as a kind of Hong Kong and as an ideal jumping-off place for visiting mainland Korea as well as China, which is only a short jet hop away.)
Traditionally each village in Korea had its own special mountain, where there was a shrine to house the mountain spirit. Some villages in present-day Korea continue this traditional shamanistic practice, and each year hundreds of thousands of Koreans, from urban as well as rural areas, make pilgrimages to mountains to invoke the goodwill of the gods. For a growing number of young Koreans, however, the spectacular mountains on the peninsula are valued more as mountain-climbing and skiing destinations than as religious shrines.
Sayang 사양 Sah-yahng
Keeping a Low Profile
In pre-modern Korea boasting in any form about anything, but especially about one’s own intelligence and ability, was a serious transgression against the traditional morality. Bragging was equated with arrogance and was officially taboo in the Confucian concept of human relations. Koreans were conditioned from childhood to thoroughly despise people who boasted about their knowledge or accomplishments, and to exalt those who concealed their intelligence and ability out of consideration for the feelings of others. The lower the class of people, the stronger the taboos against displaying any kind of superiority.
This enforced sayang (sah-yahng), or “humility,” went a long way toward preserving harmony in Korean society. But it also contributed to the preservation of ignorance and mediocrity among the vast majority of people and generally prevented those with natural or acquired intelligence and ability from demonstrating their learning and skills and thereby bringing about technical and social improvements. Among the educated ruling class as well, one of the most prized traits of the truly wise and talented person was a humble manner in all things.
At the same time, the pride and arrogance of people tended to increase in direct proportion to their political power, making humility a personal and arbitrary factor rather than a universal cultural trait. In this social and political environment inferiors tended to behave in a humble manner when interacting with superiors, and superiors tended to exercise their prerogatives of pride and privilege in their relations with inferiors. In other words, humility, like every other behavioral trait in the traditional Korean character, was circumstantial and was based primarily on the hierarchical relationship of the people involved.
Sayang continues to play an especially important role in Korean life. Modern etiquette requires that people downplay verbal references to their ability and accomplishments, but it does not preclude them from demonstrating what they know and can do. In fact the confidence that Koreans demonstrate in their ability is virtually unbounded. As long as this “can do” attitude is expressed in terms of a group, rather than as an individual, it is not only culturally acceptable but expected and admired.
Probably the most common manifestation of the sayang syndrome is when people are served tea or a meal. It is customary to wait until the invitation (or request) to drink or eat has been repeated at least three times before actually beginning. In this context the term refers to doing something that is against one’s will (refusing to drink or eat when you are actually thirsty or hungry) but behavior that is an integral part of Korean etiquette.
The importance of maintaining a humble attitude in Korea contrasts sharply with the role of aggressive self-confidence, pride, and self-embellishment that is characteristic of Americans and other Westerners and is often the source of substantial misunderstanding and friction between Koreans and Westerners. Westerners who do not speak Korean and have had little or no exposure to Korean culture often misjudge the intelligence and competence of Koreans not only because Koreans downplay their abilities but also because the Westerners are not capable of judging them.
At the same time, Koreans are likely to view the aggressive, self-promoting behavior of many Westerners as arrogant and as a sign of callous disregard for the feelings of others, further compounding the problem of cross-cultural communication and cooperation. Koreans have special difficulty accepting and dealing with the type of curt, aggressive behavior that is often associated with some foreigners. When they encounter this kind of behavior, whether it is subtle or out in the open, their reaction is naturally negative, compounding the situation.
There are no fast, easy solutions to the problems caused by this particular cultural clash. Obviously, any effort to resolve the conflict must begin with both sides being aware of the underlying reasons for the friction, taking steps to alter their own behavior to achieve an acceptable compromise and develop tolerance for the things that cannot be changed quickly or easily.
Of course, for Westerners contemplating doing business in Korea, the ideal is to begin with a concentrated course in the Korean language and culture, then work out an approach that will allow them to behave in a straightforward and candid manner toward all Koreans, regardless of their status—something that will eventually gain them more respect and cooperation than trying to emulate Korean behavior.
Segyehwa 세계화 Say-gay-hwah
Korean-Style Globalization
Korean history has been linked intimately with that of Japan since ancient times. From around the fourth century A.D. until the first decades of the seventeenth century the relationship was one-sided, with cultural and technological influence flowing from Korea to Japan. In the 1630s both nations practically sealed themselves off from the world. The Japanese left only three tiny windows open for limited contact with the outside—one small group of Dutch traders, who were kept isolated on a man-made islet in Nagasaki Bay and allowed one ship visit per year, and periodic visits by Chinese and Korean trade ships that were controlled carefully by the shogunate.
Korea’s only doors to the outside world were no more than tiny cracks, consisting of annual missions to Beijing, China, to deliver tribute, and limited contact with Japan, generally through the island of Tsushima, which lies midway between Pusan, Korea, and southwestern Japan. Both countries were to remain “hermit kingdoms” until the nineteenth century.
Japan’s geographic position in the North Pacific, where it became known to early American whalers, Russian explorers, and European traders in the eighteenth century, resulted in it becoming the first to reopen its doors to the outside world. As more and more ships from Russia, the United States, and Europe’s great colonial powers began entering Japanese waters, and now and then being wrecked offshore by typhoons, these countries began competing with each other to force Japan to end its isolation policy.
Using gunboat diplomacy, the United States won this competition and in the 1850s became the first foreign country to reestablish diplomatic and trade relations with Japan since it had closed its doors in 1637. Japan’s shogunate system of government could not survive this encounter with the West and fell in 1867 to a group of young radicals determined to transform the country into a Western-style economic and military power.
Less than fifteen years later a rapidly industrializing Japan used military force to end Korea’s isolation and ultimately to bring about the collapse of the Korean government. But rather than allow progressive elements in Korea to form a new government, the Japanese invaded, captured, and, in 1910, annexed the country.
Although Japan took the lead in industrializing Korea between 1910 and 1945 (when Korea regained its sovereignty as a result of Japan’s defeat in World War II), the industrialization was done as an appendage to Japan’s own economy. Thus, in 1945, when Japan was defeated and Korea regained its independence, the Korean business community was some sixty-five years behind that of Japan in terms of management experience.
The situation in Korea was exacerbated by the division of the country in 1945 into North Korea and South Korea and then by the Korean War from 1950 until 1953, which further devastated the country’s industrial infrastructure and killed hundreds of thousands of its best-educated and most experienced men.
It was not until the mid-1950s that Korea was able to turn its energy to rebuilding the country, and then it started out with an industrial base that was far smaller than that of Japan. Only a few hundred Korean managers had had limited experience in running large-scale operations, and practically none of them had had any international experience.
What Korea did have was a historical reverse in its traditional relationship with Japan. Japan had become an economic role model for Korea to follow, and it did so with such speed and efficiency that it astounded the world. Some maintain that the economic “miracle” accomplished by Korea was, in fact, more of a miracle than Japan’s own rapid rise to economic prominence because Korea started with much less and had much further to go.
Korea has continued to emulate Japan in its economic policies and in some areas has virtually eliminated the managerial and technological gaps between the two countries. In fact many expatriate businesspeople in Korea say that Koreans are better managers than the Japanese because they are more candid, open-minded, and flexible, and that they take a much more pragmatic approach to research.
It may very well be that the last lesson Koreans take from the Japanese experience is both the process and the pace of the globalization of the Korean economy. In the 1980s some of Japan’s more farsighted industrial and political leaders began talking about kyosei (k’yoh-say-ee), literally “symbiosis” or “living in harmony,” in reference to integrating the Japanese economy into the global economy. But given the fact that the overwhelming majority of Japanese businessmen and bureaucrats were vehemently against the idea, believing it would destroy the country, those in favor of deregulating and globalizing the Japanese economy took the typical Japanese way of attempting to achieve kyosei in small increments over a period of several decades.
Beginning in the early 1990s, Korean business and political leaders began using the term segyehwa (say-gay-hwah) in their comments and speeches regarding their economic system and international trade relations. Segyehwa literally means “worldization,” i.e., “globalization,” and refers to a state of mind as well as to the structure of business. Like their Japanese counterparts, however, while these Korean leaders began publicly espousing segyehwa, they generally continued to do things the way they had always done them out of deep-seated fear of foreign competition in their home market.
Top executives of Korea’s huge multinational firms were well aware that the globalization of the Korean economy would be inevitable in the future if they wanted to continue to have access to foreign markets. But the first aim of these newly converted globalists was to blunt growing criticism from foreign businesspeople and governments about the closed nature of the Korean market and the inroads Korean manufacturers were making abroad.
Segyehwa quickly became a catchall slogan aimed at impressing foreign critics and to program both bureaucrats and businesspeople to accept globalization of the Korean economy. Much to the surprise of many older Koreans who were swayed by memories of the past and believed that Koreans as a whole would not accept globalization, the younger generations of Koreans converted virtually en masse to this fundamental cultural change.
Most of this remarkable change in the outlook and goals of Koreans was due to national, regional, and local programs to provide intensive training in English for all students—programs that have had extraordinary success, resulting in large numbers of Koreans being able to speak virtually fluent English.
All of Korea’s international companies have large numbers of employees who are bilingual, and many of them require English language ability in all of their new hires. Some require that all of the daily business in their international departments be conducted in English.
As of this writing South Korean students also rank No.1 or No. 2 in math and science on a worldwide basis—a remarkable testament to the importance that Korean parents attribute to education.
Seodo 서도 Suh-doh
Writing as a Cultural Discipline
The system of writing that developed in China and subsequently spread to Korea and Japan has had more influence on more people than any of the world’s other writing systems. The Chinese way of writing did not stop with simple pictographs or hieroglyphics, which were the basis for most writing systems. Over many centuries in the early history of China the basic symbols representing everyday life and the cosmos as the Chinese knew it were combined with other pictographs to form increasingly complex concepts that eventually numbered over a hundred thousand.
To be even moderately literate a person had to spend years memorizing several thousand of these “characters” and learning how to draw them properly—as opposed to having to memorize and draw only twenty-some letters that could be used to represent all of the sounds in a language, as the ABCs do in English. The ordeal involved in becoming literate in Chinese was a process that dramatically influenced the character and personality as well as the mental and manual abilities of those who were subjected to it.
Because of the extraordinary investment in time and energy that was required to become literate in Chinese, virtually all such learning in pre-modern China was limited to members of the elite ruling class and generally to male members of this class. Eventually education in writing was not only limited by economics but also circumscribed by law as a privilege of the upper class.
As the centuries passed, some writing teachers and scholars began to stylize the characters according to their own artistic inclinations, eventually creating a variety of “schools” that taught different writing styles. As more time passed, writing the characters became more and more of an art, with the masters of successive generations striving to emulate and surpass those of the past. Eventually these masters made writing the characters a fine art within itself, with the content of the chosen characters playing a secondary role. The Chinese word for the art was shufa (shuu-fah), or, in modern terms, “penmanship.”
Chinese scholars began introducing their system of writing into Korea in 108 B.C., when the small kingdoms on the Korean peninsula came under the suzerainty of China. The art of shufa became seodo (suh-doh) in Korean. However, it was to be some five hundred years before Korean masters of seodo began appearing in relatively large numbers, and another millennium before it was to begin having a significant impact on people outside the elite class of male scholars who administered the national and local governments.
With the gradual spread of education following the establishment of the Joseon (Yi) dynasty in 1392, the practice of seodo also became more common. Ultimately, skill in seodo came to be equated with not only one’s educational achievements but one’s morality as well. Developing skill in calligraphy was believed to elevate spirituality and refine behavior and therefore to provide a variety of social and cultural benefits.
The use of Chinese characters—and the practice of seodo—lost considerable favor in Korea between 1945 and 1985 because of the emergence of strong nationalist feelings against foreign things. But the characters were so deeply embedded in the literature as well as the culture in general that attempts to abolish their use were premature. By the end of the 1980s the growing self-confidence of Koreans and the country’s growing involvement with China, Japan, and other countries in Southeast Asia with large populations of affluent overseas Chinese made it obvious that continuing to use the characters provided major economic and political benefits.
In modern-day Korea seodo art of the past is highly prized, and practicing the art is part of the education of virtually all Koreans. It is widely recognized in Korea that the discipline and process required to learn how to write Chinese characters, especially with any degree of stylized skill, contributes significantly to the aesthetic sensibilities, the manual skills, and the diligence of Koreans and is therefore a major factor in sustaining the attributes that help make Koreans a skilled, hardworking people.
While it does not have official recognition as such, seodo could certainly be described as one of Korea’s cultural treasures.
Seonbae/Hubae 선배/후배 Suhn-bay/Huu-bay
Seniors and Juniors
A careful study of Korea’s business and professional worlds reveals that the whole economic and political spheres of activity in Korea revolve around personal rather than objective factors. The basis for employment in government and in private industry, relationships between government agencies and commercial companies, business ventures, and so on are more likely than not determined by where individuals were born, where they went to school (especially university), and other personal considerations.
Blood and childhood friendship ties are key elements in social and economic relationships in Korea. But school ties, particularly those created by attending the same high schools and universities, play an especially important role in public life. Graduates from the same schools feel an extraordinary obligation to cooperate with and help each other throughout life. The roles that older graduates play on behalf of younger graduates often take on the character of godparents.
Two key words express the special relationships that exist between students and graduates of the same school: seonbae (suhn-bay) and hubae (huu-bay). Seonbae means “senior” or “superior,” with a number of other connotations that include “master” and “patron.” Hubae means “junior,” “subordinate,” or “follower.” Once this relationship is fixed by attendance at the same school, it can never be changed or sundered. Hubae are obligated to show deference to their seonbae and to serve them in whatever way they can. Seonbae are similarly obligated to help their hubae in any way they can. This junior/senior relationship is fixed by who graduates first.
Probably the most common role played by seonbae who have gone into industry or the government and advanced to the managerial level is helping new graduates from their old schools get jobs in their own organizations or at places where they have strong contacts. This function of seonbae is so important that many high school graduates try to determine which university they attend by the number of its influential alumni. The more alumni a school has in powerful commercial and government positions, the higher its status among students.
Korea’s university alumni associations, including those made up of graduates of foreign universities, are understandably strong, as are the alumni groups in individual government agencies and corporations. Generally each annual crop of graduates going into companies and government agencies from one university form their own individual alumni groups informally and become members of the organization’s consolidated alumni group. Tonggi (tohng-ghee), referring to same-year students, and tonggisaeng (tohng-ghee-sang), meaning “classmates,” are key words in these scenarios. Practices differ, but there are usually monthly or semimonthly and annual meetings, along with parties and other events.
Foreign businesspeople recruiting employees in Korea should be aware of the role and importance of the seonbae/hubae connections and take these connections into consideration. Generally speaking, employees from the same schools will be more cooperative with each other and therefore function more effectively as a group.
Another factor to be considered is that staff members and managers who are graduates of the most prestigious high schools and universities may resent being subordinates to managers who came out of lower-ranking schools. This social and class sensitivity can be a serious morale and efficiency problem, particularly if the “lower-class” managers are not diplomatic in their attitudes and behavior.
The easiest way for foreign companies to avoid this kind of problem is to relegate all hiring to their local staff. Koreans are old hands at dealing with age, sex, and social classes in the workplace. The obvious weakness of this approach, however, is that those given the authority to recruit new employees will generally favor those whom they can dominate. Veteran businesspeople in Korea say that the only way a foreign company can be assured of getting the best possible mix of employees is to have all of its recruiting handled by a well-established and reputable consulting firm.
Seong 성 Suhng
Sexual Mores
One of the most conspicuous and powerful facets of Confucianism was its attempts to control human behavior by strictly limiting the role of love and by making seong (suhng), or “sex,” a restricted function that for women was basically reduced to producing offspring. Generally Confucianism did not recognize or condone sex as a pleasurable activity. Talking about sex, much less writing about it, was taboo, and those who broke this prohibition were often punished severely. As a result of this combined religious and political taboo against sex, ordinary Koreans became extraordinarily inhibited about sexual matters and conduct. Among other things, it was taught that indulgence in sex for pleasure had a negative effect on the life force, was therefore harmful to one’s health, and reduced longevity.
But the sexual impulse was far too powerful to deny completely, and as in all societies that attempt to control sexual behavior, men, particularly those in the privileged upper class, exempted themselves from most sexual prohibitions. Upper-class Korean men of means maintained concubines and mistresses (cheop [chuhp]) and patronized a professional class of prostitute-entertainers called kisaeng. Cities, towns, and villages had their inns or houses of prostitution, where in many cases women were held against their will. (One of the reasons for the appeal of Taoism among upper-class men of early Korea was that it not only condoned sexual activity but prescribed it as one of the ways of achieving nirvana.)
The idea that women also needed sexual release to maintain mental and physical health appears to have been unknown in Korea (as it was virtually everywhere else until recent times). The sexual behavior of wives was generally limited to procreation, making a variety of psychological and physical maladies common among women and having a fundamental effect on the overall social and political system of pre-modern Korea.
In The Koreans and Their Culture (Ronald Press, New York), anthropologist Charles Osgood described pre-modern Korean men as the most aloof in the world when it came to women. He also said that Koreans were emotionally unstable because of their sexual inhibitions. He compared their typical reactions to that of a hibernating bear on one hand and the fury of a goaded tiger on the other—behavior that was no doubt linked to the suppression of the sexual impulse.
From the beginning of the Joseon dynasty (1392), when a much stricter form of Confucianism was adopted as the state ideology, boys and girls were segregated at the age of seven (which is either six or five by the Western way of counting age because Korean infants were counted as one year old at birth and two years old on the first New Year after their birth). This official policy of segregating the sexes was known as naeoebeop (nay-way-buhp), literally “inside-outside code.” An expression commonly used to denote the social gap between the male and female sexes was namjeon-yeobi (nahm-juhn-yuh-bee), or “honored men-lowly women.”
In families young brothers and sisters could sit together for meals and play together but were segregated by sex when it came to interacting with other children. The lives of females in a household were centered around the anbang (ahn-bahng), or “inner rooms,” while those of males were centered in sarang bang (sah-rahng bahng), or “outer rooms.” Sons of the elite yangban class were educated in the Confucian classics and were eligible to take government-sponsored examinations for civil service positions. Girls were taught home-making skills and nothing else. When married, girls became virtual servants of their mothers-in-law. They gained a measure of personal freedom only after giving birth to sons and getting older.
The lives of Korean women were controlled strictly by a list of taboos known as the chilgo chiak (cheel-goh chee-ahk), or “seven evils,” which were disobeying their in-laws, failing to have sons, committing adultery, exhibiting jealousy, having a hereditary disease, talking excessively, and committing larceny. If a woman committed any of these “evils,” her husband or in-laws could sever the marriage ties, leaving her totally ostracized because her family would not take her back. There were no grounds for women divorcing their husbands.
During the more than five hundred years of the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) urban women were confined to their homes during the day to prevent them from being seen by or interacting with any males other than members of their own families. The only exception to this rule was that maids or other female servants could be sent out on special emergency errands, such as procuring medicines. Women were allowed to go out of their homes for a few hours at night after sundown but only after men had been warned to go indoors by the ringing of large bells. Even though it was dark during the time that women were outside their homes, they were required to wear shawls concealing their heads and partially concealing their faces in case they inadvertently encountered a male.
Although the virtual enslavement of women officially ended with the downfall of the Joseon dynasty in 1910, it was to persist for several decades. As late as the 1950s many Korean women in larger cities had never been outside the walls of their home compounds during the day, and some had never been outside their yards in their lifetime.
Korean men were so obsessed with female chastity that women who were widowed or discarded by their husbands (for misbehavior or failure to have male children) were generally forbidden to remarry, resulting in large numbers of them resorting to a kind of common-law marriage known as “sack marriage”—referring to the practice of men wanting second wives or concubines to enter the homes of widows or divorcees at night, wrap them up in a sack, and carry them off—often with the connivance of the widows.
Legal prohibitions against women remarrying officially ended with the elimination of the feudal family system following the introduction of democratic principles into Korea from 1945. But social sanctions against women who married more than once continued to play a significant role in Korean life.
Sociologist Tong Se Han says in “The Korean Conception of Sex,” an article published in Sedae (The Generation), that the “procreation-centeredness” of sex was responsible for the family centrism, male supremacy, obsession with descent, and female submission and dependence that were characteristic of Korean society until modern times. In that environment, Han adds, it was the supreme duty of husbands and wives to have numerous offspring to ensure the continuation of the family line. One of the problems with this kind of thinking was that it gave the family line precedence over the welfare of women and all children except the first son.
Historically, Korean women were targeted by Chinese, Khitan, and Mongol invaders who sought them as both work and sex slaves, and women were included in the annual tribute that the early kingdoms of Korea paid to China. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Japanese pirates regularly raided the Korean coast for women and other loot.
During the 1930s and early 1940s the Japanese conscripted large numbers of Korean women to serve as prostitutes for its military forces. In the mid-1990s survivors of this group, whom the Japanese military officially registered as “comfort women,” were still trying to get the Japanese government to recognize their existence and make some kind of amends for the suffering they endured.
The Korean War (1950–53) was to be the watershed event in the lives of most Korean women. Once it was over and rebuilding began, large numbers of young women began to enter universities, go into industry, and take up professional careers. Another key factor in the social and sexual emancipation of Korean women was the stationing of large numbers of American and Allied troops and civil service personnel in Korea following the end of the Korean War.
With so many Korean men killed during the occupation of Korea by Japan, World War II, and the Korean War, and most Korean families reduced to absolute poverty by the wars, large numbers of young Korean women were drawn to the foreign troops stationed in the country. Fraternization between the Allied forces and Korean women gave new meaning to the term foreign relations.
The entertainment infrastructure that sprang up to serve the needs of the occupation forces included red light districts, independent brothels of every description, and nightclubs staffed by large contingents of hostesses. These nightclubs attracted some of the most beautiful, intelligent, and talented women in Korea—women whose physical attraction would hypnotize many of the male Western visitors. During the 1960s and 1970s thousands of young Korean women also worked as call girls in an industry that was as highly and efficiently organized as any other business. Male guests checking into Seoul hotels invariably got their first calls from these young women within a few minutes after they entered their rooms. Many of the young women who took up with foreigners during that period ended up marrying them. Others went into business on their own, and some built up small fortunes.
Korean women have come a long way since the postwar period, but today they are still treated as second-class citizens. Male children are still preferred, mothers have no legal rights over their children, and in divorce cases fathers generally get custody of any children. By the 1970s it was common for young single Korean men and women to court each other in the Western fashion and choose their spouses, but arranged marriages are still common, particularly in rural areas.
One interesting teenage response to the weakening of the traditional social barriers caused by separating the sexes might be described as a Korean version of “spin the bottle”—but without the element of chance. In this “game,” a group of teenagers would meet at a prearranged place. Boys would place personal items together on a table or some other surface in front of the girls. It was then up to the girls to pick up one of the items. The owners of the items became their dates.
Recent surveys of university students indicate that their attitudes toward sex and sexual behavior are no longer Confucian, but they are not as liberal as some critics of contemporary behavior claim. Surveys show that about half of college-age Korean men and women believe that premarital sex is all right and that it should not necessarily presuppose marriage.
One of the legacies of Korea’s lingering family clan system often has a negative impact on young couples wanting to get married. Korean law prohibits marriage between couples who have any paternal ancestors in common, no matter how far back the connection might be. The law allows maternal relatives to marry after the fourth generation. It was not until 1995 that a new law made it legal for members of the huge Kim clan to marry if there was no traceable relationship between the two parties.
Seonmul 선물 Suhn-muul
Gift Giving as “Social Oil”
Establishing and nurturing personal relationships has traditionally been a key part of life in Korea. One of the ways that people developed and nurtured these relationships was through seonmul (suhn-muul), or “gifts.” Seonmul were used to express friendship, respect, and loyalty and to build up social, economic, and moral obligations that could be drawn on at a later date.
Because gifts played such an important role in Korean life, their selection, presentation, and receipt involved a great deal of protocol and became one of the most distinctive features of Korean culture. The formalities that grew up around gift giving during the long feudal era in Korea have lessened considerably, but there is still substantial etiquette involved.
Gift-giving protocol includes the etiquette involved in handing other people objects of any kind. Which hand is used may signal very clearly which is the superior and which the inferior. The right hand is used when passing something to a person of superior status. In formal situations the amount of courtesy and respect demonstrated is increased greatly by supporting the right hand with the left hand (by placing the left hand under the right hand). Either hand may be used to pass things to people of lower status, but both hands are not used unless people are humbling themselves to a person as part of an apology for some serious mishap or transgression.
Among the gifts that are appropriate for home visits are fruit, fruit juices, pastries, wine, and other alcoholic drinks. Toys are always appropriate for families with small children. Koreans generally do not give household appliances or decorative items as gifts on the occasion of home visits. Packaging is also of special importance in Korea. With more than two thousand years of handicraft traditions, Koreans have high standards when it comes to wrapping and boxing gifts. But except for homemade gifts (cookies, for example), packaging is usually not a problem because department stores and other shops that specialize in selling gift items are also expert at packaging them appropriately.
Cash has long been a popular gift in Korea, but it took on new dimensions following Korea’s emergence as a major industrial power and the spread of affluence among ordinary people. Now, giving cash gifts, particularly on the occasion of funerals, weddings, key birthdays, and other important celebrations, is a very important part of life in Korea.
Proper etiquette calls for gifts of money to be enclosed in an envelope or wrapped in a sheet of paper. Cash gifts given to hosts on ceremonial occasions are called bujugeum (buu-juu-geum), literally “help money”—that is, money to help pay the costs incurred by the hosts.
The importance of keeping track of gifts given and received is indicated by the fact that many people, families as well as individuals, have traditionally kept a mulmokkye (muhl-moak-keh), a kind of record book of gifts, particularly the names of people who bring gifts to special functions. One of the reasons for this is that it is also customary for hosts (at receptions, weddings, and so on) to give gifts to guests when they depart. These latter “guest gifts” are known as daprye-poom (dahp-reh-poom), which literally means “thank-you gifts.” There is also a special word for people who attend such functions without bringing gifts: bin son (been sohn), which means “empty hands.”
An equally important facet of gift giving in Korea is the country’s own regional myeongmul (m’yuhng muul), or “famous products.” Over the centuries all of the main regions in the country have developed myeongmul, which are prized as gifts and souvenirs by people from other areas. People who go on pleasure as well as business trips (chuljang [chuhl-jahng]) within Korea are expected to bring back myeongmul. Koreans who travel abroad are also expected to bring back gifts that are representative of the regions they visited.
Sadness in Korean Culture
Westerners who are newly arrived in Korea are frequently taken aback by a traditional style of folksinging called chang (chahng), which, according to new-comers, sounds like the singers are crying in agony. Chang singing is, in fact, one of the traditional ways Koreans have of expressing the soul-deep seulpeum (seul-peum), or “sadness,” that is so much a part of their psyche. Songs sung in this manner are charged with expressions of sadness about the problems of life.
Aigo chukketta (ay-go chuke-ket-tah), which literally means “I could just die,” is another reference to the sadness that has been so much a part of Korean life since ancient times and is common in everyday speech.
Seulpeum has been a major element in Korean culture for well over a thousand years—more precisely, since the adoption of Buddhism as the national religion and Confucianism as the national political and social ideology. Buddhist philosophy emphasizes the fragility and briefness of human life and predisposes people to a fatalistic and essentially sad attitude about life. Buddhist-inspired poetry typically compares human existence with that of flowers—short and bittersweet.
Son (Sohn), the Zen sect of Buddhism, which was intimately associated with Japan’s samurai warriors and less so with the hwarang, or “warriors of the flower circle,” of Korea, teaches that one should disdain the soft, the easy, and the fear of death and embrace the hardships and sadness of life.
Confucianism imbued Korean culture with an element of sadness through its prohibition of the verbal and physical expression of emotions that forced people to behave unnaturally and to suffer their frustrations in silence. The lives of women in particular were so limited by law and custom that they had no concept of deliberately pursuing happiness for themselves alone. Sadness was built into their lifestyle.
With rare exceptions, such as festivals and other celebrations, the women of pre-modern Korean could not socially interact with non-family members for purposes of recreation and self-fulfillment. Meeting, talking to, even making eye contact with males other than family members was taboo for women. People in general were not free to make even minor decisions about their lives. Behaving as an individual was immoral and resulted in serious consequences. The family and the group came first.
In this environment sadness was a more natural state than happiness because it is unnatural and damaging not to express emotion, associate freely, hug, or embrace each other, or have skin contact.
One of the ways Koreans traditionally expressed feelings of unhappiness with the social obligations and other restraints on their lives was by yearning for the simple, uncomplicated, and safer life of the sonin (soan-een), or “hermit”—a theme that appears over and over in the literature of old Korea.
Modern-day Koreans are now free of most of the programming that traditionally distorted their lives and created a culture of sadness. But a cultural legacy that was nearly two thousand years in the making cannot be exorcised in one generation. An element of sadness is still discernible in the attitudes and behavior of most older Koreans when they are in repose—sadness that wells up from the inherited pain of the past and from all the joys and opportunities that their forbears missed. This sadness adds a special kind of poignancy to Korean life that makes it especially appealing to some people who are sensitive to the human condition.
Another key term in the understanding of Korean culture that is related to seulpeum is eomsuk (uhm-suuk), which means “gravity, solemnity, sternness”—the mood and attitude promoted by shamanism, Buddhism, and particularly Confucianism as the only appropriate and acceptable manner for the conduct of private as well as public affairs. Most Koreans still conduct themselves with a stern dignity that generally sets them apart from Americans and others.
Shigan 시간 Shee-gahn
On Fast Time
Expatriate businesspeople in Korea often have occasion to smile at first-time visitors from New York who are prone to brag—or complain—about the pace of business in that city. It usually doesn’t take more than a week or ten days before these visitors change their tune and begin looking forward to getting back to their home bases so they can rest up.
The Korean view and use of time changed dramatically from 1961 on, when General Chung Hee Pak (Park) established a virtual military dictatorship and set out to turn South Korea into a Japan-style economic superpower. For the next eighteen years General Pak (who retired from the army in 1963 and won election to the presidency as a civilian) ran Korea with stern military efficiency. He was assassinated by the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency in 1979 as a result of growing discontent over his dictatorial policies and rigging of elections, but in the meantime he and his administration had successfully launched an economic miracle that was far more impressive than what the Japanese had succeeded in doing because they started with far less and got far less help from the United States and other Western nations.
Given the traditional Korean view and use of shigan (shee-gahn), or “time,” the dedication of the Koreans to General Pak’s program was astounding. Factory hands and managers alike worked from sixty to eighty hours a week, with a diligence that was almost superhuman. Senior executives often lived in their offices for days and weeks at a time. Their wives brought them clean clothing and food. For more than thirty years the pace of work and business in Korea continued at a frenzy and still today is much faster and more intense than in most countries.
This extraordinary transformation in the character of Koreans obviously came about because for the first time in the history of the country the people were actually working for themselves and for the nation. The government, rather than blocking their efforts as it had traditionally done in the past, played a leading role in planning and promoting economic progress on a massive scale.
Having been subjected to the arbitrary rule of their own kings and ruling class from the beginning of their history until 1910, and then used as virtual slave laborers by the Japanese from 1910 until 1945, the Koreans literally exploded with energy and determination. Part of this transformation was complete repudiation of the harsh and unhappy past. The past was something to be forgotten.
Like modern-day computer software programs, the Koreans attempted to compress more and more activity into each hour of the day and night. Speed became one of the key values motivating the business world. Nothing was too big, too technical, or too complicated to attempt. During this period there was little distinction between private and public or work time. Generally speaking, income was not based on how many hours people worked but on how much they were able to produce. For some thirty years everything was secondary to work and productivity.
Business activity in Korea has since slowed down to something below the speed of light, but most Koreans, especially those in high-tech export industries and service industries catering to international clientele, still work with a dedication and energy that sets them apart from most other people.
Korean essayist Kyu Tae Yi says that shigan in Korea is intensely “tight and fast.” He says that present-day Koreans regard rushing about, doing things as quickly as possible, and doing several things at the same time as a virtue. He adds that they like to be first and to “take the high ground” in everything. But despite this attitude and the kind of behavior it entails, on a personal basis typical Koreans are not nearly as time-bound as Americans and other Westerners. They regard time as more elastic or flexible. They do not see being “on time” as an inherently serious matter. Intentions take precedence over time.
As far as personal appointments are concerned, being thirty minutes “late” is culturally acceptable to Koreans. However, businesspeople, especially those who are used to dealing with foreigners, generally conform to the Western concept of time when making and keeping appointments.
Koreans still tend to blur private and public time. Their concept of time, Yi continues, is “human centered” and “work centered,” so they do not automatically keep track of the hours they work as Westerners are wont to do. Employees do not dash for the door at the official quitting time. However, the attitude toward shigan among the younger generations is changing. They are becoming more and more interested in having a life away from their workplaces, and pressure for a more equitable division of their time is growing.
Shilpae 실패 Sheel-pay
Avoiding Failure
Koreans have a phobia about shilpae (sheel-pay), or “failure” in both an individual and personal sense. They were programmed for centuries to shun individualism and personal responsibility in favor of groupism and group responsibility, making them exceptionally wary of any kind of personal failure. The legacy of this conditioning remains a significant part of the national character of Koreans. This does not mean, however, that Koreans do not experience or recognize individual failure. It happens all the time, but there continues to be considerable effort to diffuse personal responsibility for failure by dealing with it in a group context. Being personally blamed for failure would result in shame, which is one of the worst things that can befall Koreans and is therefore avoided whenever possible.
Fear of personal shilpae is one of the factors that imbues Koreans with extraordinary energy and motivation to persevere, regardless of the odds, in anything they undertake in an effort to avoid failure—a cultural trait that is virtually the opposite of the attitude of Westerners, who rationalize failure as one of the best ways to learn, routinely take chances that are likely to end in failure, and preach the philosophy of getting up and trying again.
Generally speaking, Korea’s early society was not tolerant of failure of any kind on any level. The Zen sect of Buddhism taught Koreans that the goal of all actions was perfection and that people should strive endlessly for that goal. At the same time, the social and economic ideology greatly limited all innovation and experimentation, correspondingly reducing the chances of failure because people were limited in what they could do.
In addition to the personal shame resulting from failure and taboos against trying to change things, there could also be punishment of some kind, ranging from loss of privileges to demotion in rank or social status. Because of these social sanctions against shilpae, Koreans generally did not undertake anything they felt might prove to be embarrassing or get them into trouble.
The end of the feudal social system in Korea in the mid-1900s freed Koreans for the first time to try new things and take chances, but it did not eliminate the centuries of conditioning to abhor failure. This led them to go to extremes to avoid failure by studying and working with almost superhuman energy and diligence. Between 1960 and 1990 Korea literally roared with a cacophony of noise rising from the incessant activity of people and machines.
Still today Koreans regularly note that Americans and people in other large industrialized countries can afford to make mistakes because they can start over again without any serious consequences, whereas they often have only one opportunity to succeed. Foreign businesspeople and diplomats involved with Korea invariably encounter this fear-of-shilpae syndrome and must devise ways of getting around it. This involves long-term indoctrination in the concept that failure is not the end of things if the effort was sincere and that more often than not failure is a valuable learning tool. To make this lesson stick, it is vital that Korean managers and employees have solid guarantees of job security.
The idea that it is better to try and fail than not to try at all was totally alien to Koreans until the aftermath of the Korean War (1950–53), when they literally had no choice if they wanted to survive.
Shinyong 신용 Sheen-yohng
Operating on Trust
Throughout the last five hundred years of Korea’s pre-modern history its society functioned primarily on the basis of Confucian precepts that were an integral part of the culture. People absorbed these precepts naturally as they grew up. Their behavior was determined by this cultural and social programming rather than by written laws. In this environment all relationships were based on a combination of obligations and shinyong (sheen-yohng), or “trust.” Each person was expected to conduct himself or herself according to a minutely prescribed etiquette based on the immutable factors of sex and age as well as social class and position.
The basis for social conduct, including the foundations of Korean morality, was the family unit. While the same etiquette and morality generally applied to all families, it was more of a personal thing than a universal thing, which had the effect of confining trust to family and to a limited number of others with whom one had some kind of personal relationship.
Shinyong based on family and personal ties remains a key factor in Korean life, particularly in the areas of personnel recruitment in business and government service, and in management in general. This has led Korean social scientists to list categories of people according to “trust scales” that went from 100 percent trust down to zero trust. Generally the only people who were rated at 100 percent on these scales were parents, spouses, children, and brothers and sisters. Next in line were nephews and nieces, who come in at 99 percent. Cousins were rated at 97 percent and other relatives at 96 percent. High school classmates came in at 97 percent, college classmates at 85 percent, and members of the same church at 95 percent. People with the same family name, as well as those whose ancestral homes were in the same part of the country, were ranked at 70 percent on the trust scale. Other Koreans who were strangers got a very low 5 percent. Lowest of all were foreigners with whom there was no relationship of any kind. They got a very conspicuous 1 percent.
Korean consultant and go-between H. J. Chang (Semco International) and others say these assessments are now much too narrow, but that “trust scales” continue to serve as the base from which Koreans contemplate, start, and manage any kind of venture involving employees or partners. In many common situations, these precise relationships take priority over all other considerations. They play some role in virtually every enterprise in Korea. In addition to a trust scale applied to individuals, high schools and colleges in Korea are rated according to a prestige scale. These two scales are generally combined when it comes to evaluating employee candidates. Until the early 1990s most larger Korean companies made a practice of hiring graduates from just one or two schools so as to take advantage of the relationship ties that exist among the alumni. Now hiring practices are more likely to be driven by individual qualifications as well.
Given this shinyong factor in Korea life, newly arrived foreign businesspeople who have no prior relationships with individual Koreans or with Korean schools are seriously handicapped. Old-timers say that it takes around three years for newcomers to be accepted and become productive, even when they are very much aware of the obstacles they face and work diligently to overcome them. This time frame may be shortened, however, by establishing a network of connections months in advance of actual entry into Korea. This can be done through Korean embassies, consulates, banks, universities, service organizations (Kiwanis and Rotarian contacts), professional associations, local groups of expatriate Koreans, the foreign subsidiaries of Korean companies, and the like.
Whatever the situation, foreigners should keep in mind that business and other relationships in Korea are invariably based more on personal trust and confidence than on contracts, laws, or such principles as equality, fairness, and justice.
Shipiji 십이지 Sheep-ee-jee
Living by the Numbers
During Korea’s long pre-modern era, astrologers were a mainstay of society, consulted by virtually everyone. There were full-time astrologers attached to the king’s court. Families in the elite yangban class also retained astrologers to guide them in making all kinds of decisions, from when to hold weddings to the most auspicious days for traveling or engaging in some enterprise. Astrologers, many of them part-time, also made their services available to common people, often by setting up temporary makeshift sidewalk “offices” in villages, towns, and cities in the evenings.
The key to Korean astrology, the shipiji (sheep-ee-jee), or “zodiac,” (literally “twelve earthly columns”), like so many other things, was imported from China some two thousand years ago. As in other areas of Asia, it is based on the lunar calendar rather than the solar calendar as in the West. Since the lunar calendar is shorter than the solar calendar, it is necessary to add a month every thirty months to keep the two calendars more or less synchronized. Because of this, astrological forecasts and the date of holidays based on the lunar calendar can vary by as much as thirty-eight days.
Korean astrology also differs from its Western counterpart in that a person’s tti (tee) sign is based on the year of birth rather than the month. The role played by the exact time of birth is the same, however. Another difference in the Asian and Western shipiji is that while the Western zodiac is based on the movement and relationships of the planets and stars, the Asian zodiac is symbolically based on twelve animals and various characteristics attributed to them.
There is a disarming story about how the names of animals came to be applied to lunar calendar. According to the story, Buddha commanded that all animals appear before him. The only ones who responded were the rat, ox (or cow), tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig, in that order.
Since that time, these animals have been honored by being used to illustrate the attitudes and behavior demonstrated by people, with each characteristic related as closely as possible to the nature of the animal representing the year of birth—an approach that may better fit the traditional character and personality of Confucian and Buddhism-oriented Asians than people from other philosophical and religious traditions. (In my own case, I have some difficulty equating my personality and character with my “birth animal”—the dragon—even though it “sounds” a lot better than being compared to a rat, rabbit, goat, or pig.)
Astrology no longer plays the defining role in Korean life, but it is still an important cultural factor in the lives of many people, with the degree of its importance determined primarily by the individual’s level of education and internationalization. Still, relatively sophisticated people pay careful attention to the shipijikan signs of prospective mates and to time cycles and dates in general.
The Jealousy Taboo
Until the advent of a semidemocratic society in Korea following the end of World War II, there was a strong Confucian taboo against shisaem (she-saem), or “jealousy,” in Korean society. Historical records reveal that from the earliest times until the end of the last dynasty in 1910 there were laws prohibiting wives from exhibiting jealousy over the extramarital affairs of their husbands. In earlier days wives who crossed this line were subject to execution. In more recent centuries the punishment was divorce, dishonor, and usually a life of poverty.
Confucianism taught that being jealous of anyone over anything was immoral and would end up damaging not only the spirit of the jealous person but also having a negative impact on his or her family members and ultimately the country at large—and this latter threat made jealousy the business of the authorities.
From the early years of the fifteenth century until the twentieth century Korean society was divided into fixed classes. With rare exceptions those in the lower classes, which accounted for more than 80 percent of the population, could not move into a higher class. The shisaem that these people felt for those who were better off than they were had to be suppressed, and they had to continuously humble themselves before their betters.
In this environment it became particularly frustrating for common Koreans to see others placed above them in hereditary positions, with no possibility that they could ever change the situation. There was no rooting for the underdog or supporting people beyond what might simultaneously improve one’s own circumstances.
There were no celebrations if one’s neighbors somehow improved their lot to even the slightest degree by working harder or being smarter. Any demonstration of superiority by one’s peers, and especially by anyone below them, was regarded with hateful spite.
This extreme form of built-in prejudice has not yet disappeared from Korean culture. It is still characteristic of Koreans to be maliciously jealous of those around them who better themselves by legal or illegal means. Their traditional reaction is that their own average or inferior talents have been exposed and the only way they can expunge these bruised feelings is to bring the more successful people back down to their level.
Shisaem can be especially rampant in a Korean-foreign joint venture when the foreign side is responsible for the hiring and does not abide by the Korean custom of stratifying the staff by sex, social class, education, schools attended, school ties, even blood relationships among the employees. Jealousy also continues to play an important role in the lives of Korean women, especially among those who date and marry foreign men. Socially and legally free to exhibit jealousy since the mid-1950s, the degree of their jealousy and the violence with which they often react to being cheated on by boyfriends or spouses is one of the remarkable features of Korean society.
Silhak 실학 Sheel Hahk
The Coming of Practical Learning
From around the fifteenth century until the last decades of the nineteenth century the primary political and social focus in Korea was to conform to social and political forms detailed by the Chinese sage Confucius in the fifth century B.C. This focus included a hierarchical arrangement of people within society, an authoritarian government, male dominance, and ancestor worship—all factors that contributed to an intellectual emphasis on the past that virtually precluded social and economic progress.
Another element in the traditional mind-set of Koreans that contributed to universal stagnation was the Taoist philosophy that people should not attempt to change things, that they should be totally passive and spend their lives attempting to merge with the cosmos. Buddhism also encouraged a reflective and passive life that worked against innovation and evolution of any kind. The individuality, the spirit, the curiosity, and the ambitions inherent in the psyche of the people were stifled in the name of Confucian harmony.
As a result of these philosophical and religious influences, with only a few exceptions over the centuries, the only people in Korea who were permitted to become educated were caught up in a system that limited their education to philosophical, literary, and esoteric matters that could not be questioned or changed. From one century to the next the majority of the most learned men in the country spent their time contemplating, commenting on, and debating subjects that had no relevance at all to the problems of the state and society.
It was not until the seventeenth century and afterward that a few maverick Confucian scholars, most of whom were not government officials and had no political power, began to focus on silhak (sheel hahk), or “practical learning,” and to propose a variety of social, political, and economic reforms based on Western concepts seeping into Korea from China. Historians say that the greatest of the silhak scholar-writers was Yag Yong Chong (1762–1836). Chong’s critiques of Korean society and the political system of the day were greatly influenced by the Catholicism of Rome. Because of this relationship, Chong was exiled from Seoul for eighteen years and banned from holding public office for another seventeen years.
But the influence of these “practical learning” scholars was minimal at best and did not slow the downward spiral of the Joseon dynasty. Yonsei University’s Professor Chong Hong Pak said, “All that the silhak advocates could do was to remonstrate and rage ineffectually.” Much of the impetus for these belated efforts resulted from the influence of Jesuit missionaries who had taken up residence in China in the sixteenth century, particularly the writings of the Catholic priest Matteo Ricci, which were brought back to Korea by the missions sent to Beijing each year to take tributary gifts to the Chinese emperor.
Commenting on this period in Korea’s history, Professor Pak added that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Confucian factions in the elite ruling class spent their time “picking the dry bones of Confucian doctrine” and “sucking the thinning blood of the country.”
By the mid-1800s the squabbling Confucian officials of the Joseon court had exhausted themselves and the country, and the advocates of silhak were gaining both strength and momentum. But events set in motion by foreign powers, notably Japan, were to prevent the “practical learning” scholars from being able to reverse the course of the country, and silhak was not the vehicle of progress that was hoped for. Within twenty years of the opening of Korea to the West, Japan had virtually taken over the economy as well as the country’s foreign relations and in 1910 formally annexed the country, making it an integral part of the Japanese empire.
It was not until after Korea regained its sovereignty in 1945, had been split in half, and then suffered a devastating civil war initiated by Communist-dominated North Korea and its Chinese allies that South Koreans were finally free to embark on a national program of silhak. But again that was not to happen immediately. South Korea first had to overcome the destruction of the Korean War and the corruption of the first postwar governments. It was not until Chung Hee Park, an army general, took over the government in a bloodless coup in May 1961 that the people of South Korea were finally in a position to use their repressed ambitions in an all-out effort to industrialize and modernize the country.
Silhak played a central role in this transformation. South Korea began importing technology on a massive scale. Thousands of young Koreans were sent abroad—or went on their own—to attend foreign universities and soak up the “practical learning” that had been denied to them throughout most of the country’s history. The Korean thirst for silhak was almost unbounded, and in one generation the country leaped into the age of technology, competing on many fronts with Japan, the United States, and the other advanced countries of the world. Today silhak and its use are at the heart of the government’s economic and political policies, often taking precedence over the interests of other countries. Today there are few people in the world who are more practical minded than Koreans or more interested in seohak (suh hahk), “Western learning,” when it comes to their economic welfare.
Limiting Introductions
In pre-modern Korea people did not meet and mix in a casual way. Korean society was segmented into strictly enforced social classes that were further divided into exclusive superior-inferior relationships within families and work groups. The exclusivity of the family and kinship groups was so encompassing that it virtually precluded people, particularly women, from forming casual friendships with outsiders. There were simply too many social barriers.
In this environment people did not have a wide circle of personal friends, even on their own social level. Nor did they want them, considering the various obligations that friendship involved and the dangers of exposing themselves to others. Because of the very real possibility that serious obligations might follow, sogae (soh-gay), or “introductions,” were taken very seriously and involved a strict protocol.
This system, which existed for well over a thousand years, became so deeply embedded in the psyche of Koreans that today it still plays a significant role in their lives, in personal as well as professional relationships. Even though Korea’s traditional social system with all its carefully defined ranks and taboos has changed dramatically since the last decades of the twentieth century, introductions are not taken lightly.
Most Koreans who are in public with friends do not automatically introduce them to other friends they meet. Generally they will not introduce them unless they specifically want the two parties to develop a formal relationship for business or political reasons. In such situations Koreans cannot ignore their respective social classes and take each other for granted. They must quickly determine their relative social status and then assume the accepted demeanor and level of respect language to use to each other.
When people make a point of performing introductions, they are careful to establish the relative social standing of each party as part of the introductions so that the two can respond to each other appropriately. In addition to the family and generational name, these introductions include such things as company or organization affiliation, rank or title, educational background, birthplace, and so on, because all of these things affect whom one can meet, the etiquette involved in the meeting, and the relationship that develops thereafter. Generally speaking, present-day Koreans still reserve their social time and resources for a small tightly knit circle of kin and friends made during their school years.
Introductions in Korea, particularly when they involve middle-aged and older adults, tend to be on the formal side. People stand and bow and give their names. Men, especially those involved with the international community, shake hands as well as bow. Ranking older men often just nod if they are being introduced to lower-ranking people. If they are meeting people in their age group of similar rank, they are more likely just to shake hands. It is a gesture of extra courtesy, respect, and enthusiasm to use both hands when shaking hands.
One of the reasons Koreans have traditionally been wary of meeting other people was that once a relationship had been established their new friends felt free to ask for favors—something they could hardly refuse because of their Confucian orientation. The more emotional an appeal for favors, the more pressure there was on people to grant them.
While the interpersonal behavior of Koreans is becoming more and more Westernized, the degree of the Westernization depends on many factors, from age and gender to education, place of residence, work experience, and interaction with Westerners, both in Korea and through travels abroad. And although the pace of these changes is speeding up as communication and cultural barriers continue to dissipate, it is generally not wise for outsiders to presume automatically that individuals they meet are Westernized in either attitudes or behavior. Until their degree of Westernization becomes obvious—which can happen in a matter of minutes—it is better to maintain a formal, polite manner in keeping with known Korean values.
Sogaejang 소개장 Soh-gay-jahng
Letters of Introduction
One of the reasons Koreans like living and working in the United States so much is that they can dispense with much of the age-old etiquette that controls—and fundamentally limits—their lives when they are in Korea. An example that is often mentioned is that in the United States they can telephone or walk up to and start talking to anyone without having to be concerned about sex, social class, rank, or any future complications. In Korea, on the other hand, it has traditionally been virtually unthinkable for people to make “cold calls” or introduce themselves to other businesspeople or government bureaucrats they need or want to meet. Such behavior was—and still is to a great degree—considered both rude (if not immoral) and unprofessional.
Where doing business in Korea is concerned, one must first have connections. Generally the next most important thing is sogaejang (soh-gay-jahng), or “letters of introduction.” Koreans therefore spend a great deal of their time and energy arranging for sogaejang to people they want to do business with or get something from. Among the most valuable sources of introductions are relatives, university professors who taught the individuals they want to meet, classmates, alumni brothers and sisters, leading government bureaucrats, as well as bankers and businesspeople who have strong relationships with the people involved.
Ranking government bureaucrats and corporate executives who take up second careers as consultants and mediators after retirement are often valued as much for their introductions as for their advice. Those with high public profiles are especially effective as go-betweens.
Korean businesspeople and government bureaucrats tend to be tolerant of foreigners who approach them without introductions, particularly if the foreigners concerned are people they would like to know for their own benefit or if the reason the foreigners approach them is especially interesting to them. On almost all other occasions, however, the receptions foreigners get are usually very polite and hospitable but stop there.
The situation changes entirely if one goes in with a sogaejang from someone with whom the individual has a relationship. The stronger the connection, the more obligated the individual is to respond favorably. It therefore behooves foreign businesspeople in Korea to adopt the Korean custom of using introductions, making the practice a regular part of their overall approach to doing business. In this approach the personal factor in Korean society should not be ignored. Generally the more personal the relationship connecting two people, the stronger the social debt that binds them and the more concerned they are about fulfilling their obligations to each other.
There are, of course, exceptions to these general rules and customs, particularly among the growing number of Korean businesspeople who were educated abroad or spent years in overseas assignments, but it still pays to approach even these people with good, strong introductions because they dramatically speed up the process of establishing the desired relationship.
Sokdam 속담 Soak-dahm
Wisdom in Proverbs
A great deal of the culture of Korea is reflected in its sokdam (soak-dahm), or “proverbs,” which incorporate not only the folk wisdom of the people but also their weaknesses, fears, and idiosyncrasies. In the 1970s Korean psychologist To Hwan Kim analyzed seventy-three hundred of the most common sayings and proverbs in the Korean language in an attempt to shed light on the Korean way of thinking and behaving and published the results in a book entitled A Psychological Analysis of Korean Proverbs.
Kim divided his findings into eleven categories having to do with poverty, economic pragmatism, hostility toward officials, hostility and envy toward the elite yangban ruling class, contempt for people who did menial labor, anxiety about social conditions, authoritarianism, optimism, fatalism, this-world orientation, and superstitious beliefs and prejudices.
References most often repeated in the sokdam Kim studied grew out of the fact that it was the official policy of the last and longest Korean dynasty (1392–1910) to keep common people in a permanent state of poverty. When this was coupled with natural disasters and the vagaries of nature, the lives of ordinary Koreans were in constant danger.
Because of that state, Koreans became obsessed with the idea of achieving the wealth that would relieve them of the terrible burden of poverty, but because of social and political barriers all they could do was complain about their situation and dream about changing it.
Traditionally oppressed and exploited in every way imaginable by their own officials as well as invaders, common Koreans naturally developed an extreme hostility toward officialdom in whatever form and on all levels. Most of their ire was directed toward members of the yangban class because this elite group monopolized material wealth and political power in Korea and was symbolic of all that ordinary Koreans hated about government.
The strong sense of contempt for menial labor that was characteristic of Koreans during their long feudal period grew out of Buddhist taboos against such “unclean” occupations as butchering animals, working with hides, grave-digging, and collecting trash. People in these hereditary occupations were invariably at the bottom of the pecking order.
The strict etiquette demanded by Korea’s male-dominated hierarchical society and the taboos against demonstrating emotions, particularly affection and love, made Korean life cold and frustrating. When this was coupled with the corruption that was rife among the ruling class, common people were in a constant state of anxiety. The whole Confucian system of order within the family, the government, and society in general was based on absolute authoritarianism and the constant threat of force, resulting in anxiety’s becoming second nature to Koreans.
But Kim found that despite the hardships and dangers faced by Koreans there was an optimistic streak in their character and outlook that helped them endure their poverty and lack of freedom. He also found, however, that their optimism took second place to a profoundly fatalistic attitude that their primarily sorrowful lives were preordained and that there was nothing they could do to change them.
Kim also found many sokdam that demonstrated the real-life orientation of Koreans as opposed to an afterlife. Their thoughts and efforts were directed toward meeting the day-to-day challenges of life and enjoying themselves as much as possible now. His eleventh point was that sokdam show that Koreans were traditionally a superstitious people with many prejudices but were innately concerned about family members, kin, and close friends, as well as themselves. In this respect they were no different from most people everywhere, and hundreds of Korea’s most repeated proverbs have their exact counterparts in other cultures.
Some examples: poverty is the mother of crime; don’t try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs; fields have eyes and woods have ears; bad news travels fast; what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine.
Sonnim 손님 Sohn-neem
Honorable Guests
One of the dichotomies of Korean culture is the difference in the way Koreans treat known and unknown people and how their behavior changes toward previously unknown people once they are recognized as sonnim (sohn-neem), the common term for “guests.” The honorific term for guest is naebin (nay-bean). Koreans, like Chinese and Japanese, were traditionally conditioned to avoid unnecessary contact with strangers to avoid complicating the loyalty they had to give to their families, work groups, and superiors—and, in earlier times, to avoid endangering their lives as well.
One of the key reasons for this avoidance syndrome was that all interpersonal relationships called for following a very precise etiquette, based on both language and physical behavior, that was determined by the social status of the people involved. Correctly determining this status was a touchy and often time-consuming process that simply wasn’t worth the effort if an ongoing relationship was not going to be pursued.
Furthermore, it was socially unacceptable for a person of inferior social status to seek to establish a personal relationship with a person of superior rank for no specific reason. Vice versa, it was unheard of for ranking people to seek any kind of casual social relationship with people below them. Another factor in Korean behavior toward strangers that went beyond social stratification and snobbery was that the exclusivity of the family and close kinship system virtually eliminated establishing personal relationships with outsiders.
In sharp contrast to this restrained behavior toward outsiders, Koreans have traditionally treated sonnim with such effusive hospitality that it could be smothering. Going all out for guests was a matter of extraordinary personal pride and desire for “face.” In earlier times it was one of the few occasions when ordinary Koreans could dispense with frugality, indulge themselves, and literally show off.
Koreans now have virtually unlimited opportunities to entertain themselves, their friends, and their business and professional contacts, but there are still significant cultural barriers to forming casual or close relationships indiscriminately, particularly with people who are outside their social class. These barriers can be breached, however, where guests are concerned, and still today being a guest of Koreans, whether in a business or personal relationship, is a special experience because their traditions of hospitality are not only alive and well but have grown in proportion to their affluence.
Present-day hospitality in Korea also continues to have a strong nationalistic as well as a personal element. Koreans have always been extraordinarily proud of their country, and this pride has become even stronger as a result of their economic accomplishments. Demonstrating profuse hospitality to sonnim remains one of the most important ways that Koreans gain face for themselves and their country. This cultural feature is especially conspicuous in the international hotel industry, where the level of service and hospitality far exceeds that found in most other countries and is a matter of national pride.
This pride in service to guests is one of the many cultural attributes of Koreans that has contributed to their success and competitiveness in international trade. In almost all cases foreigners like visiting Korea and doing business with Koreans because Koreans make the experience so pleasurable.
Ssireum 씨름 Ssee-reum
Korean Wrestling
Ssireum (ssee-reum), or Korean wrestling, is believed to have originated some time around A.D. 400 in the kingdom of Koguryo. The compound word itself means “competition of man.” The first matches may have been associated with religious rituals. In any event they soon became a regular feature of festivals, particularly the Dano (Dahn-oh) holiday on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, now usually celebrated in early May.
Dano, described as a “spring festival,” was originally a shamanistic ceremony designed to bring about good harvests. It is now marked in villages, towns, and cities by a weeklong series of events that includes folk dancing, singing contests, wrestling, and various prayer rituals and is classified as “Intangible Cultural Asset No. 13” by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Sports.
Until recent times no consideration was given to size or weight in ssireum matches. Contestants met all comers, with the championship going to the one who eliminated all rivals or had the least amount of losses. Winners of these annual elimination contests were given the title “Super Strong Man” and awarded a bull as a prize. At first ssireum wrestlers were sponsored by well-to-do public officials and monasteries. Then the sport spread among the common people, becoming a favorite of farmers and fishermen because it was simple and required no special equipment. Nowadays one of the main ssireum tournaments of the year is held in September in conjunction with Chuseok (Chuu-suhk), the Korean Thanksgiving. Instead of a live bull, tournament winners are now given golden ox trophies, plus cash.
In the early 1980s ssireum was organized into a professional sport under the auspices of the Korean Ssireum Association (KSA), with weight divisions—those weighing over one hundred kilograms (220 pounds) and those weighing under one hundred kilograms. Wrestlers belong to teams of clubs consisting of a dozen or more members.
The KSA sponsors three “Top Super Strong Man Competition” tournaments and four “Super Strong Man Contests” annually, making it one of the most popular spectator sports in the country. Coaches scour the countryside for exceptionally strong teenage boys wanting to take up the profession. Those who are accepted become members of clubs or “stables,” where they undergo rugged training. Ssireum wrestling is also part of the physical education program in all middle schools and high schools in Korea.
Ssireum might be called the Korean equivalent of sumo wrestling, but about the only real similarity is that like sumo it originally developed in ancient times as a semi-religious ritual and over the centuries gradually became a spectator sport patronized by the court and well-to-do officials.
In ssireum the two opponents, dressed in trunks or a loincloth, face each other in a sandpit. They are tied together at their waists and their right legs by two bands of stout cloth called satba (saht-bah), one red and the other blue. The bands of cloth are about 1.5 meters (5 feet) long and prevent the wrestlers from moving away from each other. The referee wears a red band on one arm and a blue band on the other arm.
At the beginning of the match the wrestlers assume the starting position. Facing each other in a semisquatting position, each wrestler grasps the back of the other’s neck with his right hand and the cloth around the other’s right leg with his left hand. At a signal from the referee, who moves out of the way and strikes a massive gong, the wrestlers try to pull, push, or throw their opponents off balance, making them touch the sand with any part of their body other than their feet. The first wrestler to touch the ground loses the match. The referee signifies the winner by raising the arm bearing the band that corresponds to the color of the wrestler’s satba. The best two out of three falls wins.
Some historical sources say that ssireum wrestling is Mongolian in origin, suggesting that its appearance in Korea was much more recent. The Mongols invaded Korea in A.D. 1231, gradually increased their control over the peninsula and from the 1260s exercised total hegemony over the country for the next one hundred years. During that relatively brief historical period the influence that the Mongols had on Korea was remarkable, given the country’s long vassal relationship with China.
Korean food as well as Korea’s traditional male and female costumes are much closer to Mongolian styles than to Chinese styles—which some historians suggest may be accounted for because there was already an ethnic and cultural affinity between the Mongols and the Koreans. But Korean historians date the origin of ssireum wrestling at least a thousand years before the arrival of the Mongols, and it is apparently a form of wrestling practiced nowhere else in the world.
Growing Westernization in Korea has done nothing to diminish the popularity of ssireum. On the contrary, as Koreans have become more affluent there has been a resurgence in their appreciation of such traditional practices as ssireum, and it is now more popular than ever and includes a growing number of female wrestlers.
Sujupeum 수줍음 Suu-jupe-eum
The Shyness Syndrome
Korean social scientists, and Koreans in general, invariably include sujupeum (suu-jupe-eum), or “shyness,” as one of the most important facets of the traditional Korean character. The term is often used by Korean men when extolling the virtues of Korean women, as well as when they are explaining to Westerners the passive behavior of Korean employees in many work situations.
But as usual in the Confucian sphere of Asia, there are two sides and several facets to Korean shyness. In earlier times, when Korean society was totally dominated by men, females were conditioned to be shy, humble, and obedient at all times, particularly in expressing their sexuality. Males, on the other hand, were taught to be humble in the presence of superior males and to obey them without question, but to be aggressive toward females.
Much of the fabled charm of Korean women was due to this conditioning in shyness, passivity, and vulnerability, because all of these things traditionally were a sexual turn-on for most men. At the same time, the reputation that Korean men had of being peaceful by nature and paragons of Confucian etiquette was due in part to their conditioning in humility and passivity in the presence of superiors.
Culturally induced shyness is still a significant part of the Korean character, but it is now regularly mixed with a spirit of independence and aggressiveness by both males and females that can be startling to the outsider. Korean males still defer to their superiors, but they are no longer shy about voicing their opinions and speaking up for their rights, even though they may choose to do so only in group situations.
Korean women have changed the most, however. Even though their public demeanor is generally very shy by Western standards, they can be as positive and as forward as men, if not more so, in business and in private, intimate situations. They are generally even more forthright where Western men are concerned because they are not inhibited by cultural taboos that still influence their reaction to Korean and other Asian men.
All things considered, there is still enough of the pure sujupeum of traditional Korea to provide an appealing factor to life in modern Korea, especially for Westerners whose own cultures no longer value shyness as an attractive asset for men or women.