Where do Ajosshis Come From? Part 1: The Evidence For Militarism
( Surprising by superlocal )
Introduction
Like Michael Hurt said back in February, ajosshis ruin everything, and his post quickly went viral because so many people could relate to it. For not only is there a huge sense of male entitlement in Korea that begins when young and “continues unabated with the implicit knowledge that you can feel up, push, or even hit women with minimal social consequences,” but also there is the fact that “public drunkenness and rudeness – which are crimes in many other countries - are par for the course here.” If both are added to a legal system heavily stacked in favor of natives, then whole subway lines and areas of cities can be rendered virtual no-go areas for foreigners.
Is it really that bad? Well, yes. While the passion and dynamism of the place and – let’s face it – the eye-candy mean that long-timers like myself can (almost) tolerate the pollution, the habitual flouting of laws and the pervasive irrationality in exchange, the ever-present possibility that some drunk guy will not only attack my family members or myself but will also get away with a light punishment because of his inebriation, or hell, even his “troubled home situation,” is more than enough to make my time remaining in this country limited. It doesn’t matter that in 8 years here I’ve only suffered two very trivial, racist incidents myself; there’s enough of a critical mass of testimony from foreigners of all stripes here that I perceive the threat, and that’s good enough for me.
Ready access to cheap, strong alcohol is certainly a lubricant for this, and in many senses present-day Korea strongly resembles the “Gin Lane” of pre-Victorian England, a connection first pointed out to me by Gord Sellar and one which I hope he explores soon. But it is also a profoundly gendered social malaise too.
I’ve covered many ostensibly “women’s issues” on the blog in the past year, not originally my intention but I ended up doing so because, well, where do “social issues” begin and those concerning women stop? But a study of Korea also forces the subject upon you in a way that studying, say, France or Brazil would not, for, in short, gender here cuts across society like a virtual apartheid system.
( Source: jeremyallen )
Exaggeration? Well, I’m just as guilty of it as any expat in my rants about the place, but something is seriously flawed in a society when it’s first-world standard of living coexists with levels of female empowerment more akin to Middle Eastern monarchies (update here). No, really: South Korea has numbers of female politicians, business leaders and so forth similar to those in countries where, variously, domestic violence isn’t illegal, men can have four wives, or rape victims suffer “honour killings” by their families. Even Pakistan, that well-known bastion of feminism, is a better (if less hygienic) place to live for women. Yes, Pakistan. And say I’m reading too much into it, but I’ll be damned if Korea’s having one of the lowest birth rates in the world is a mere coincidence.
Why is this division so common and yet so unquestioned, “in the same way that the fish doesn’t notice the water around it”? Unusually for Michael, he doesn’t analyze the causes, instead focusing on the consequences. Admittedly that particular post is a self-confessed rant, but still, he hasn’t covered the subject since. Hence, this series is an attempt to fill the gap.
The “C-Word(s)”
( Source: wit’s )
Let me say straight up that invoking Neo-Confucianism doesn’t explain it. For sure, it provides an ideological bedrock, and the two are intimately related, but “explain” it? I’ve been guilty of attributing so much in Korean society to it, and feeling pretty damn clever about myself when I did so too (one does have to distinguish oneself from the newbies after all), but after eight years here I realise that the term has become like a mantra for me, as reflexive as the “That’s Korean culture” line from Koreans and almost as unhelpful. Knowing something about Neo-Confucianism is useful for Westerners first trying to make sense of the place, but beyond the most general of observations it should be avoided. It would sound absurd to English speakers to, say, discuss levels of domestic violence in Sweden in terms of, say, Protestantism, yes? But links like that are par for the course here.
What does explain it then? Part of the reason this situation exists is because, as Roboseyo puts it, the link between Neo-Confucian privilege and responsibility has been broken. The catalyst for that was people’s hand-to-mouth existence in the immediate post World War Two period, as ably described by Matt here in Gusts of Popular Feeling. Possibly the Korean War and its immediate aftermath were responsible too, although in Europe for one, the shared experience of war is universally regarded as leading to the exact opposite, leading to a half-century of social democratism, with some commentators even going so far as to argue that the Norwegian welfare state is more generous than that of its Swedish neighbour, for instance, because of the former’s experience of occupation by the Nazis.
But these don’t explain why it is primarily older Korean women who are notorious for their impoliteness and inconsideration towards others, whereas the sense of male entitlement that Michael describes is universal. I argue that the universal male conscription system is responsible, an institution much more entrenched in society, much more integral to notions of citizenship, and much more transformative an experience for its subjects than face-value comparisons of other countries with conscription like Russia, Germany and Israel would suggest. Being so central, the subject of gender must now take a backseat for the remainder of this post and the next as I discuss the background to conscription and to the South Korean military instead, albeit via a very circuitous route at first. Readers only interested in gender may well be tempted to bail, but I hope they don’t – I aim to convince all readers that, ultimately, any discussion of the origins of the gender gap in Korea without reference to the military is woefully inadequate.
( With a nod to my female readers; source: coplover )
One caveat and one point about sources before I get started. The caveat is that I’m not saying that conscription and/or military experience makes one sexist per se. While I do think that there’s a case to be made for the former’s existence in a society making that society more sexist overall, based largely on what I know about the German and Czech Republic’s records relative to their neighbors, I haven’t studied the subject enough to make any definitive conclusions like that. Also, whatever my gut instinct says about the tendency of militaries to be deeply sexist institutions overall, I’ve heard from reliable sources that the US military, for instance, is one of the most meritocratic institutions in the country. So I’ll try to keep my own prejudices and preconceptions to a minimum, and will reiterate here that I’ll only ever be referring to the South Korean conscription system.
Finally, this series of posts is loosely based on the journal article “A Feminist Exploration of Military Conscription: The Gendering of the Connections Between Nationalism, Militarism and Citizenship in South Korea” by Insook Kwon in The International Feminist Journal of Politics (3:1 April 2001, 26-54), and the book Militarized Modernity and Gendered Citizenship in South Korea by Seungsook Moon (2005), although neither get much mention in this post. If you can’t wait, you can read an excellent review of the latter here.
My Militarized Institute
( Source: wit’s )
Conscription in any country isn’t just about the actual service time, variously 22, 24 or 26 months in Korea. Kwon describes it as being “most usefully understood as a social process that can be divided into three sub-processes: (1) pre-conscription socialization; (2) miliary service; and (3) post-conscription interpretation of that miliatary experience”, and notes that none of those processes is an all-male affair. When I began this post over a week ago I tried to stick to the same format, but really, those neat-sounding divisions are actually very problematic: where do workers, civil officials, teachers, military personnel, and parents’ own interpretations of those experiences end and younger Koreans learning about conscription through those sources begin? Any starting point for discussion being somewhat arbitrary then, describing life at the institute I work at is as good a place as any.
I am the only Westerner amongst eighty staff at my branch, and only one of perhaps five out of the total of 1500 or so staff at all ten branches. With those numbers, I think I can be forgiven for thinking that my presence makes little impact on office culture there, and that it’s not substantially different to any other Korean workplaces either (especially public schools). But still, I’d be interested to hear how much my experience there and assumptions about the rest of Korea based on it match those of readers’.
The bizarreness begins as soon as I arrive, as I must loudly announce “반갑습니다” (literally “Nice to Meet You”) to all sixty people already in the staff-room, who reply in kind. Later, when I’m going to class and come across individual teachers in the corridors, we must say “수고하십시오” to each other (“Do a good job”), unless I haven’t already greeted them with my collective staff-room greeting, in which case it’s “반갑습니다” again (it can be difficult to keep track). And after class and when leaving for the day we have to say “수고했습니다” (“I did a good job”) to each other. With 100 staff in total at my branch, you can imagine how grating all that soon gets.
It is tempting to dismiss the literal interpretations and argue that they are really effectively “Hi” and “Bye” respectively, but that would be very misleading. It is certainly convenient to explain to learners of Korean that ”주세요”, for instance, is “please give” in English, but as soon as you realise that it’s really just the “요” conjugation of “주다” (give) with the honorific term “시” added, then as an English teacher of Koreans you suddenly understand why Koreans rarely say “please” in English, as there is no Korean equivalent, and overall that the Korean language reflects, at the very least, a completely different mode of social interactions. And on a higher level, “우리나라” – “our country” - supposedly meaning ”Korea” in the same way that I think of the concept of “Korea”? Don’t get me started.
( 夏 summer estate by nicoloacassa )
To return to my workplace then (which by the way is “직장” in Korean, by coincidence also meaning “rectum”), anyone that doesn’t think that these thousands of empty greetings said at my workplace are anything but virtual salutes should see the manner and gusto with which they’re said when the boss walks into the staffroom….it’s virtually “Captain on the bridge!”.
That’s bad enough, but then every hour my boss turns on the loudspeaker and loudly berates the students for 5-10 minutes for chewing gum and using their cellphones too much. Nothing wrong with that per se, but then they heard exactly the same at the end of class an hour ago, the hour before that, and three times the day before that too, and so they give his mini-lecture precisely the attention it deserves. Sometimes names of students who didn’t, say, do their homework will be called and they will have to go to reception, and as I go through there on the way to the staff-room later I may pass 30 of them squatting on the ground with their hands on their heads being screamed at by a male teacher, and after 20 minutes of that they’re jumping up and down in unison (still with their hands on their heads) chanting “We will try harder!” after him. And their parents pay money for this? Well yes, precisely this.
Sure, kids need to be disciplined, but then every day my department head makes sure to scream at all English teachers for 20 minutes or so too (as do the other department heads to their teachers). My Korean skills don’t extend to translating screaming in real time, but I think the contents are irrelevant: it’s all just a show of authority. Every other week the boss, the nicest of guys most of the time, comes into the staffroom and does the same to all teachers, for exactly the same reason I’m sure: it’s quite a transformation. I should also point out that there are no separate offices for most staff regardless of their position, so when a teacher has screwed up (I’m still not entirely sure how one does so…the students only got a 95% average or something?) he or she has to stand in front of his or her superior, be loudly and publicly berated by him or her in front of sixty colleagues, all the while staring at the floor like an 8 year-old who’s being told off by their mother.
My chain of institutes is bit tougher, well a lot tougher than most – it only began hiring women to teach English and Maths a few weeks ago, after 19 years in business, and the teachers walk around with big sticks to hit students – but still, it’s going to be difficult to persuade me that the screaming and the constant displays of authority and hierarchy at any workplace are a result of Neo-Confucianism rather than what male workers learned in the military…you too would think “boot camp” if you walked into it, not an image Confucius usually invokes. And considering what they learned at the receiving end as youths and then themselves as young adults, I strongly suspect that many Korean men know few alternatives to shouting, embarrassment, shaming and physical violence to getting others to do what they want. Of course, there is much more to Korean protest culture than that, but recent events certainly haven’t dispelled me of the notion.
If Korean dramas are any indication, this workplace culture is the norm rather than the exception. Let me pass on a description of it (which I’ll paste in full because the original requires registration) and ask you from where else would a workplace culture arise that tells people that not only should work never be for pleasure or personal development and fulfillment, but also that have to accept any crap from their bosses for the rest of their working lives? No wonder so many Koreans are self-employed:
Koreans’ Motivation to Work
( Source: Christian Bjork )
CHOI Sook-Hee
Samsung Economic Research Institute
Jun. 11, 2008
Job-switching is rampant today with the percentage of new workers who quit within a short time growing every year. This is a genuine matter for concern, given the huge costs incurred by businesses to recruit and train new workers.
To prevent new workers from quitting early, P&G has introduced a new employment system differentiated by job type. Based on its understanding that young workers prefer interesting work, P&G has attempted to minimize the disparity between aptitude and work content by presenting them with a clear description of tasks they will undertake from the beginning.
Florida-based power firm CHELCO is running a career coach system that is designed to promote understanding of the work orientations and aptitude of employees through dialogue, enabling them to improve their work capabilities.
As seen above, global companies are increasingly reflecting on the importance of work orientations in the process of personnel and organization management. “Work orientations” refer to the attitude and thinking of employees. Work orientations are inseparable from job satisfaction, commitment, the acquisition of talent, and the retirement rate.
Today, we’ll take a close look at how Koreans think of their jobs and how their workorientations are shaped.
Based on the International Society Survey Program (ISSP) for 2005, an international survey conducted with 31 out of 43 ISSP member countries, SERI classified people’s work orientations into four types: relationship-oriented, self realization, livelihood, and value-oriented compensation, by using two axes’ value of work and interpersonal satisfaction.
“Self realization” refers to countries like the US, in which jobs are expected to bring high value of work. The exemplary case of the “value-oriented” type is France, a country in which employees enjoy high motivational rewards but suffer rampant skepticism about authoritarianism.
Korea belongs to the “livelihood” type, indicating that most employees here in Korea regard their jobs as a means of livelihood with the degree of value of work and job satisfaction remaining low.
SERI also analyzed and compared the key trends and features of the work orientations of four major countries: the US, France, Japan and Korea. The Korean employees turned out to have low satisfaction regarding “opportunities for skills improvement” and “interest in work.”
The primary reasons behind workers’ low satisfaction regarding “opportunities for skills improvement” include a lack of appropriate job training and mentoring programs that are necessary for the improvement of careers and job skills. In this regard, Korea needs to learn lessons from Denso, one of the world’s top three auto parts makers, which runs an in-house job training program aimed at improving skills for less educated employees.
Even in terms of interest in work, Korea ranked last among the four countries, indicating that people here tend to place more value on the level of income, job stability and social reputation than their personal aptitude when getting new jobs. The US was positioned at the top in this category, showing that the job seekers put their personal capabilities and attributes first in the list of considerations. Not only when looking for jobs, but also when entering a school of higher grade, Americans make active use of counselor systems.
Korean workers also showed a low level of satisfaction in the category of pride in their jobs. This is quite different from US counterparts.
Smucker’s, for example, committed itself into bolstering company loyalty in close collaboration with regional partners. Thanks to these efforts, employees began to feel a strong sense of loyalty toward their company, while believing that the company loves them like a family. Smucker’s, as a result, was named one of the best workplaces in the US in 2006.
In sum, Koreans still regard their jobs principally as a means of livelihood. This mirrors the reality here in Korea where work does little to enrich the life of the people.
Many workers still take it for granted that they have to tolerate anything in return for getting paid. This kind of job atmosphere produces a negative influence on both companies and employees alike. With this in mind, businesses need to make more efforts to develop new programs, aimed at bringing a higher sense of value of work and satisfaction to their employees.
They also need to come up with a new educational training program, in which job placement and career management are performed in consideration of personal interest and growth potential. Also needed is a program to balance life and work that could be achieved by respecting personal time, providing due consideration about the families of workers, helping them upgrade their skills and supporting their leisure activities.
( My emphasis. Hat Tip to Tom Coyner’s Korea Economic Reader for the article)
Having hopefully convinced you that there’s something more to a sense of pervasive militarism in Korean society than a mere vibe on my part, in Part Two I’ll discuss why the Korean military has been and remains so uniquely involved in Koreans’ daily lives, which in turns means examining its origins. The resulting jump from gender in the beginning of this post to Japanese colonization and then “developmental states” may seem quite a leap on the surface, but like the example of my institute has hopefully at least hinted at, my intention is to show how something so abstract-sounding is in fact really so practical and relevant to ordinary people, something I’m not sure I would have been able to do in a stand-alone post devoted to the topic.
And on that note I’ll finish this post, before Safari conspires against me too!
Holy Shit!
I’m glad I teach adults. Also, I have another thing in life to be happy about – I’m not Korean.
One of my students told me today that he works 14 – 16 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week, sleeps 4 hours a night. Despite the fact that what he calls work is probably mainly smoking cigarrettes and drinking coffee, what a shitty life.
I agree with your assessment:
As an exercise in debating, to play the devil’s advocate, I used to go into my classes and argue that Korean women should serve in the military, too — I wasn’t totally serious, but it was an interesting topic to debate, and I managed to convince a few. Here would be the results if women served:
1. Women would feel more empowered and confident
2. Women would be more able to protect themselves from assault
3. Men would no longer be able to disrespect or dismiss women because “I’m a soldier; who the hell are you?”
4. Women would have an easier time adjusting to the Korean work place, where so many managers run their departments like a platoon
5. Women would be less ostracized during office social events (the men always seem to lump together during office social events, which I think is partly “ex-soldier camaraderie” — if the women were ex-soldiers, too, they’d be able to access that connection, instead of being automatically barred)
6. Women wouldn’t be the subject of that misogynist resentment I’ve heard in many young men, that “All women cheat on their boyfriends while they’re in the military”
7. The presence of women in the military would change some of the ugly stuff that goes on in the military, as well.
Girlfriendoseyo, and a few of my female students, after hearing my argument, said “Good idea. . . for OTHER women. Not me.”
I agree. Confucianism is a bedrock, but military service institutionalizes it.
Good to see you posting again; I really like this topic, and I’m very interested to see what you have to say on it.
This was a most interesting read. I greatly look forward to part 2. I don’t, however, think that all of the behaviour you describe is so restricted to Korean males. Just about everything you describe, especially berating students and inferiors, I’ve seen from Korean females as well.
So many secondhand stories come to mind after reading this post, as well as firsthand experiences. My friend was walking along the beach and saw a Korean man hit the girl he was with. Of course the impulse would be to go over and stop him because we’ve learned its wrong to hit women (for so many reasons) but all the Korean passersby just kept walking and took no action! However, had there been a foreigner involved, trying to stop the hitting, we all know the result; public beatdown and the foreigner goes to jail.
Another funny quip about ajummas. Another friend was flying back to Canada. The plane landed and people were lining up in the aisles to get off the plane. One ajumma started jabbing the man in front of her with her forearm. He turned around and yelled “Would you stop hitting me in the back?!” She was in utter shock and embarrassed; then my friend said to her “Welcome to Canada :-)”
I was actually mad after reading this post, as I went out for the day, looking for instances of Koreans showing no courtesy. I think part of the way we deal with it is to just start acting like them, shove your way through and dont say anything. Wonder if its worthwhile, after being shoved by a Korean, to yell out in English so everyone looks…
I want to know what you’d yell, Jon? I suggest random, nonsensical phrases in English. Or maybe stuff like, “HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN IN KOREA?” “DO YOU LIKE KIMCHI?” “DO YOU KNOW PARK JISUNG?”
Thanks for the comments guys. Some quick replies:
Roboseyo,
I used to do much the same in my adult classes too, and my best Korean friend – quite an exceptional woman – once pointed out to a male student who argued that women were too psychlogically and physically frail to serve, that he couldn’t make that argument until enough evidence from women having served was available. She reminded me of Mary Wollstonecraft then, who argued in much the same vein in the 1790s that feminine weakness could not be spoken of until a generation of girls had received the same physical and mental education of boys.
Having said that, as Kwon reports and as I’ll get to in a later post, no modern society has ever fully accepted women as warriors. Of those rare countries that do or have conscripted them, it is only ever in response to a shortage of manpower (non-PC term obviously intended), and the policy is rapidly rescinded once the shortage or initial threat recedes. Even in Israel women are never placed in any combat roles, despite them receiving the same initial training as men.
I’m reminded of a documentary on the subject I saw perhaps ten years ago, which described the construction of the most basic field latrine – a quickly dug, shallow pit in the ground – and that having women urinating and defecating alongside men in it would necessitate a fundamental shift in the way the armed forces think of sexuality. Considering how reluctant I am personally to use shared toilets in older buildings in Korea myself, then it’s no great suprise that armed forces haven’t reached that point yet either.
Yu Bumsuk,
are you the same Yu Bumsuk from Dave’s ESL Cafe we all know and love? Regardless, you’re quite right, but my intended point was that the military ethos has been largely transplanted intact to corporate life – indeed, it’s where most males learn how to adapt to and accept it – and given the lack of women in postions of authority then they’re hardly in a position to challenge it. Hopefully I’ll demonstrate that much more clearly in my fourth post in the series, and in my third too how it works both ways, as corporate life deliberately mirrored military life originally.
Jon,
I’m sorry my post made you mad. I too feel much the same way when I read of such things on the internet, and often incredulous too considering how little has happened to me personally. But enough vile stuff has happened to people I know well and trust that can’t be ignored, no matter how peachy things seem to me down in breezy Busan.
I think the best response to a lack of courtesy is to use Korean to (loudly) point it out, as most Koreans switch into their “He-is-not-one-of-us-so-he-can-be-dismissed” default mode when dealing with a non-Korean, but are seemingly rendered all the more ashamed by having a Korean-speaking Westerner pointing it out. See this post by The Joshing Gnome for a good example of that.
James,
Interesting read…It rang a few bells for me having worked at a high school hagwon a couple of years ago, although it was nowhere near as bad as you describe. Now I work in an office with mostly female employees. Most of my colleagues do seem a bit intimidated by the management, and work lunches can be damn awkward with the bossmen (yes, the top dogs are still men) around. But we don’t scream 반갑습니다 at each other, the managers don’t yell at anyone … it’s not even remotely bootcampish really. So maybe it is just a male-dominated environment thing?
Cheers
Good read and I look forward to part 2.
I think the shared military experience by males in Korea definitely is part of the social equation in Korea but there are many other factors as well which is why I’m looking forward to your other postings.
As far as mandatory service I am against it because I am of the belief that if a nation cannot get its young people to volunteer to defend it then maybe it is not a nation worth defending? I understand in extraordinary circumstances conscription is necessary but Korea is definitely past that point and conscription today in Korea is just forced labor so the government doesn’t have to pay the real bill for national defense.
However if a nation is going to have mandatory service then I believe that women should serve as well, just not in Korea. I say this because considering the amount of sexual assaults against male conscripts could you imagine what would happen if every female in Korea had to put up with the same sexual assault problems as well? Korean females in my experience tend to be the most reasonable people in Korea and conscription of them would probably change them for the worse.
Also the comment about women not be fully accepted as warriors is not true in all cases. In 2003 I was part of the 4th Infantry Division which was responsible for disarming the MEK:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/mek.htm
The MEK was led by a female General and most of their officers were women. There were remarkably well armed and equipped and are still allowed to operate in Iraq but in a political instead of military capacity today. Interesting experience to say the least.
Well said. I find the mere mention of it in that knee-jerk way very off-putting, as are most grand unified theories of everything, including my own ‘everything bad in Korea comes from amoral familism’ mantra.
Let me also theorize that, in many bosses’ eyes and perhaps rightly so, they feel that the only way to get a good job out of their workers is to scare the crap out of them.
My boss acts moody and yells at all of my co-workers, but I have noticed that this is pretty much only when they get lazy or sloppy. From personal observation I would say they’d be much sloppier if he didn’t. Snack times abound, is what I’m saying.
“are you the same Yu Bumsuk from Dave’s ESL Cafe we all know and love? ”
Indeed I am.
I’m not that familiar with Korean corporate or military culture, but from what I’ve heard it sounds like you’re right. However, I wonder about the extent to which there’s a Japanese influence. Korea had a centuries-long tradition of conscription until the Japs took over, and then went through a period of rapid and massive conscription shortly after they left. What happened in the decades in between, and what’s the cultural legacy of that on Korea’s military/corporate culture? In the case of the educational system, there’s no doubt about the extent of Japan’s influence.
Another interesting thing to consider is that traditionally the yongban class was exempt from military service. While this is going back over a century, it’s part of a tradition of society’s governing class not having a military culture or background. So, if your thesis is correct it would also be a more recent phenomenon.
Just a quick note to apologize to everyone for not commenting earlier, but – not to put too fine a point on it – I had to leave work early last night with a sore stomach, and have been vomiting constantly since 3am this morning (Saturday). I did just manage to eat a whole two slices of plain toast though, my first food in about 30 hours, so hopefully I’ll be okay tomorrow and will be able to give everyone’s comments the attention they deserve.
In the meantime, no jokes about drinking please…the last day would have been much a much less unpleasant experience if I had!
Sorry again for the delay, and woah! Quite a few to get through. I’ll get started and add more to this comment throughout the day as I get time.
A general note first. Given what people have written about their own workplaces then I do seem to have generalized my own personal experiences of working at an institute and particularly my most recent one to the rest of Korean working life too broadly. Having said that, I’ve seen a great deal of similar behavior from bosses to subordinates in Korean dramas, but now that I think of it they are surely no more accurate a reflection of Korean working life than, say, Dave’s ESL Cafe is.
G.I. Korea, you’re quite right about my comment about women not being accepted as warriors being incorrect. I was passing on an misrepresenting a comment of Kwon’s without properly having read it myself, and I’ll make sure to clarify exactly what she was saying on that point in a later post, probably Part Four.
Yu Bumsuk, again also quite right, but in Part Two I aim to show how the links between the Japanese military and the Korean one are much more profound than they may at first appear. Jumping ahead, the bulk of officers in the 1950s and 1960s had experience serving in the Japanese military, as did Park Chung-hee, which is why he himself and his plans for Korea originally had such universal military support.
You make a good point about the yangban traditionally not serving, and the results of the contradictions between officers not being given a lot of respect in Korean society (albeit for their behaviour after 1961 as much as before it) and the important role that conscription plays in Korea today, as well as it being the best medium of social advancement for working-class Korean males, are still underlying factors behind much of domestic politics today. Again, I’ll deal with that more directly in Part Four.
James: For the sake of clarity and replying to it, I’ve moved this comment down here, although it was actually made on June 21st, at 11:10. Hope that was okay!
Hi there,
I found your website through a friend’s facebook profile…
I have created titles and capitalised certain points not to patronize you but for my own benefit as I am feeling very tired as I write this and am not constructing my points of view very well…
The Korean workplace
I am wondering where you work…in an actual public school or a hagwon? ( I think I read hagwon?).
Yes, in a hagwon, and an unusually formal and almost militaristic one by all accounts.
I am a white British woman married to a Korean man who was born in Korea, raised in Korea, and spent only one year in Oz to learn English, only to return back to Korea again.
I was surprised and shocked to hear about the public berating of teachers by the boss. My husband’s mother is a public middle school teacher with more than 30 years teaching experience, and she has never experienced nor witnessed this kind of behaviour from a boss. My husband in his 14 years of work experience (waiter, video bang assistant, bar attendant, construction labourer and now a web designer of 4 years) he has never experienced or witnessed this kind of behaviour from a boss either. The only kind of arguement he has ever had with a Korean boss was related to a last minute project given to him Friday night when he was about to leave, which meant coming in on a Saturday to meet the deadline. When I say argument, I mean exactly that; he did plenty of yelling himself. He has also told me stories of women breaking down in tears in his office and the male boss being sympathetic and taking them out of the office for a cup of coffee, and many colleagues complaining directly to their boss if they are not happy.
I don’t know about his friends’ experiences…I didn’t ask. So I suppose I can go only by my husband’s and my mother in law’s experiences.
However I have witnessed it in a hagwon in Gunsan, a town 3 hours south of Seoul, and heard about it at another hagwon I worked at in Seoul itself. From my (perhaps limited) knowledge it seems that this kind of militant and backwards behaviour exists mostly in hagwons. As my husband points out routinely ” the losers of Korean society work in hagwons, and their ideas are very old-fashioned. If you are a 30 year old Korean man working in a hagwon it is difficult to even date as women are not interested in you’. But yes, military-style punishment of students is universal across public schools and hagwons.
I agree and disagree about how exceptional behaviour like what I descibe is in workplaces here. Like I think I said in an earlier comment, it looks like I’ve been overgeneralizing my own experiences of hogwons to Korean workplaces as a whole. But in addition to what I’ve read on it, given the number of times I’ve seen that happen in Korean dramas too then it seemed reasonable to suppose that Korean employees everywhere are often publicly berated by their bosses. Those dramas exaggerate and focus on the negatives of life for sure, but presumably viewers didn’t find that outlandish.
The obvious corollary of that is not arguing with bosses also, and books on the Korean economy invaribly end up focusing on the top-down nature of Korean organizations, with directives from the top to be followed to the letter, and feedback, suggestions and/or criticisms from often more knowledgeable, experienced, and closer to the action inferiors either ignored or never proferred for the sake of their jobs. In my own experience in the abysmal jobs I’ve had here in the past, I’ve had Korean colleagues literally gasping as I disagreed with some of my bosses plans, let alone arguing with them.
Like you say, hagwons are notorious for this, and in 4 out of the 5 hagwons I’ve worked for here I’ve experienced levels of incompetance by management would have had out on their ears had they been in any Western organisation. Unfortunately I’ve only ever worked for hagwons in Korea, and although I strongly suspect that public shaming by bosses and not disagreeing (let alone arguing) with them is much more common outside of educational institutions than you think, I’ll concede that I don’t have enough personal experience to be certain of that.
In terms of customs and language used in Korean workplace, my husband has never experienced such military style behaviour from his superiors. For instance, if everybody is busy working at their desk in the office and the boss was absent all morning and then suddenly walk in, they would never stand up and bow in unision and say 안녕 하세요 or whatever like I had to when I worked in a particular hagwon. When he leaves the office at the end of the day, everybody says goodbye in the normal way to the boss if he/she happens to be in the room and then says a general sweeping goodbye to everyone else, just like you would in the UK. Nor has he ever had to say “Do a good job etc” to a colleague whenever he sees them. The BOSS would say “수고 했어요” or “내일 뵐 께요”(I’ll see you tomorrow) and my husband will say the same kind of thing back. Actually, in his opinion it’s nice to hear “you did a good job” every time he leaves the office. Besides, don’t we in the west greet people we haven’t seen at the beginning of the day and bump into later with a ‘good afternoon’, ‘hello’ or ‘have a good day’? (We do in the UK, at least).
Again, my present hagwon is very unusual like that, and is the only place I’ve experienced it to the degree I have. But like I say in the post, I disagree that the phrases are equivalent to the Western ones used in similar situations: no matter how perfunctorily(?) and repetitively they are made, I’ll always think that saying “I did a good job” when you leave a workplace ulimately reflects a wholly alien and, well, rather wierd way of looking at the world.
My husband also served in the army, and has worked in foreign companies as well as Korean ones, and he says that a Korean workplace has never felt like the army for him, but that many hagwons are run like a military camp, not only because it is run by ‘losers’ but they are also employing ‘losers’ (ref the Korean staff) who are not willing to stick up for themselves, and unsuspecting foreigners who are spoon fed nonsense by their bosses and colleagues about what is ‘normal’ in Korea.
I’ve heard that reputation too, although I think it’s exaggerated. I do think that my colleagues are losers for putting up with what I describe, and working 14 hours a day, 6 days a week on top of that, but they do make a great deal of money (although their salaries only ever rise slowly and only by seniority) and some of the younger ones especially are perfectly okay and whom I’d be happy to have a beer with (I wonder where women fit into this reputation?).
Quite spot on about being spoonfed nonsense about what is “normal” by colleagues and especially bosses though. It’s a sign of someone’s EQ when they realise that its invariably used as trump card to justify you doing something which defies all notions of fairness or common sense. Which reminds me, Korean friends have also told me that hagwons are not at all normal places to work for either. But to be honest, apart from that last point it’s getting more and more difficult to believe. At least until I wrote that post and read everyone’s responses that is!
AJOSSIS: NO MANNERS AND NO RESPECT
Perhaps part of the reason for this could be the conscription, but I feel that it is still present for a myriad of reasons, many of which I suppose we cannot hope to put our fingers on, only speculate. However many younger Koreans believe that the older generation are not well educated while the younger ones are, resulting in improving attitude towards women as each generation passes, and an improvement in attitude to employees in general.
I suppose I lean towards the origin of the Ajossi’s behaviour as still holding the Confucian ideas of superiority without taking the social responsibility of acting as positive role models and teachers for the younger generation, as this may be very convenient for themselves (which I think you have already mentioned). Also they haven’t had the chance (back to social education again) to be part of the international/world stage as Korea was closed to foreign influences so they are not aware of the western situation of the changing roles of women, the younger generation beginning to speak out against their elders and the internationally accepted manners of not staring at another man’s wife’s arse (if you did this in some Arabic countries you could wind up getting murdered!!!) or pushing in queues. They have never had to survive in an international setting so they have never developed some of the basic rules that apply in the vast majority of countries. The sudden opening of the doors to westerns lead to a sudden change in point of view of the next generation it seems.
Many ajossi’s feel that they risked their lives in the war to make Korea a better country for the younger generation, so they deserve ultimate respect from the younger ones, but this attitude is also present in the UK somewhat, and it does not explain their treatment of women.
I largely agree with all of the above, but naturally having started on this series of posts see a larger role for conscription. Sorry if this is an unsatisfying and frustrating reply, but I’ll make much more direct links between in and the various social malaises you identify in Part Four.
Female Inequality
My husband feels that the problem of female inequality is also partly the fault of the females themselves. 100 years ago western women were chaining themselves to railings and refusing to eat in prison until they got the right to vote. Through consistent fighting from one generation to the next without care for the social or physical consequences women have managed to almost level the playing field in the workplace and at home. He feels that Korean women need to learn to do the same thing.
Moreover these days Korean women DO get the chance to prove themselves and often don’t take the chance because it is regarded as socially unacceptable not necessarily from a man’s point of view but because of the sub-culture of women. For example in my husband’s workplaces the boss sometimes announces an extra project and wants volunteers to take it. Most of the men will volunteer as they want to compete, but none of the women volunteer to take the projects. I put it to my husband that perhaps it is socially unacceptable for women to compete in the workplace, and he argued that nowadays men don’t care about that and many female colleagues have told him that they just don’t want to do the extra work, even though they know it will benefit their career. My point here is that in some situations IT IS THE WOMEN WHO DON’T TAKE THE CHANCES THAT ARE GIVEN TO THEM. Also both in UK and Korea women have silly perceptions on what it means to be feminine or whatever, so women do put a lot of pressure on themselves to act a certain way. I’m sure the same thing goes for men too…they go down to the pub together in groups, get drunk and pressure each other and verbally test each other’s ‘manliness’. I’m sure the equivalent happens in every country.
Incidentally my Korean female friend has just got married and has moved from Gunsan to Seoul to live with her husband. She told me that she is scared to apply for a new job now that she is married because bosses assume that she will need to take time off to have children, and so will not offer her a job. I can see that Korea needs to improve in this area. All I could do was cheer her up by saying that “bosses who don’t want to hire you because of that are not worth working for (do you really want to work for that kind of person anyway?), and the bosses who do decide to hire you despite you being married are most likely to be decent. So in away it’s positive selection even if it greatly limits your choices”.
Again, largely agree, and I written many posts on the same point. I think your next point is a little simplistic though:
The big leap towards male and female equality in the UK began during the second world war when there was a shortage of men so they put the women to work in the factories and on the buses etc. This was excellent tactics and meant that women were able to prove themselves as capable as men at the same job. From one angle it can be argued that despite there being a war 30 years ago there were very little weapons factories in Korea at the time (and most of the weapons came from the US) so Korean women were not given the chance to prove themselves, thus putting the timeline for female equality behind that of the west.
The effects of Western women working and proving themselves as capable as men, only to be turfed out once the men arrived back home, was certainly revolutionary. At the very least, a lack of that partially ensured that while Korean women’s subsequent extensive participation in the labour force was crucial to the “Korean Miracle”, that participation was sharply curtailed by Confucian notions of gender roles, a subject dealt at great length by Moon and, again, something I’ll get onto. But personally I find much of Korean feminism today more explicable because of two factors:
1) Something like 80% of Koreans were poor, uneducated farmers in 1953, and so only now that all Koreans have high levels of education overall, and that women have had virtually identical levels of education as men for at least two decades but severely curtailed job opportunites, are we seeing a state of female malaise not at all dissimilar to that described by Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique. Hmmm, maybe I’m not disagreeing with you really! Certainly the lack of wartime workforce participation played a role in making that occur in the 2000s rather than the 1960s, but I place more emphasis on the lack of education then myself.
2) The 1997 IMF Crisis meant lay-offs of primarily women and a reaffirmation of the male-breadwinner work and welfare ethos, so a severe step back. In a later post, which I’ll entitle “Korean Feminism Stalled” or something like that, I’ll explore that further, making a lot of comparisons to what occurred in Japan during it’s similar “Lost Decade” also.
Nonetheless despite my friend’s experiences, Korea is a much better and more equal country to live in than that of their mothers, which shows that it IS IMPROVING AND WILL CONTINUE TO IMPROVE, but it could improve much faster if women were willing to fight for their rights.
So not only to I speak of a closing gender gap, but also a widening GENERATION GAP DUE TO AN IMPROVEMENT IN SOCIAL EDUCATION RATHER THAN LESS MILITARY PRESENCE OR MINDSET.
Again, very much agree, and the accelerated and huge generation gap here is what makes studying the place so interesting. I do overemphasize the negative on my blog, and I keep meaning to balance those with posts on the positive, as like I say I do agree with you. But with one exception: Kwon writes a great deal about how much of a transformative experience conscription is to a Korean man, largely in a negatively in a feminist sense, and Korean women all over worry a great deal about what will happen to their formerly sweet, innocent and hell, nice sons, brothers and/or boyfriends as a result of it. I do think that Korean men overall are changing positively, but they retain huge shifts in their mind-sets in their mid-twenties because of conscription.
To share with you my own experiences as a woman in Korea, my husband is wonderful; very responsible and treats me with respect and dignity and would never try to dominate me in anyway. My life is my own, and he is full aware of that; he married me to share my life with him, not to run and control it. One possible sexist thing that he does is offer to take my handbag, but I only allow him to take it if my shoulder starts to hurt; in fact he enjoys being a gentleman. His male friends also respect me, even if they sometimes don’t understand me (and they let me know when they don’t!). I have come across Korean men in their 20’s who would prefer to date a virgin, but I have also met men who have a western view: to expect a virgin is unrealistic, and perhaps the idea of dating a virgin scares me, so I would prefer a woman who is not a virgin but ideally has slept with less partners than me. But, hey if they have had more partners than me and she is a lovely woman then there is not much I can do about it. So it seems for the 20’s generation that there is a mixture of opinion depending on the person.
As for the ajossi’s…that’s another story altogether. I have escaped rape in my own motel room (I can only guess that my door lock was broken) solely due to me distracting him with the little Korean I knew while my mouth wasn’t covered with comments like “ there’s a person outside my room,! Quick! Hide in the bathroom!’ until he got frustrated and gave up. He got caught and was sentenced to a maximum of 5 years in jail. What got me was not only the soft sentencing but I was given a choice, sue him or send him to jail…shouldn’t he be sent to jail anyway whether I sue him or not? I chose to send him to jail rather than take the money, of course.
This happened before I met my husband but since I met him I have lost count of the nasty situations I have been in, even with my husband standing right next to me. My husband has argued with older men on the train, on the street and even with a Lotte World worker who took a shine to my bum and would not stop staring up and downmy body even with my husband standing next to me. When my husband asked politely “what are you looking at” the worker immediately stood up, strode across the museum shouting curses and grabbed him by the collar, raised his fist and threatened to take him outside to ‘finish the discussion’. While standing alone outside my hagwon or on the subway I have been followed, yelled at and asked for sex, even though I am dressed from neck to toe in a sweater and jeans. It seems that if you are young, female and not tall or obese you will suffer here in Korea. And if you are a white foreign female of the above description, you stand very little chance of leaving Korea without a very unpleasant experience.
My husband can’t cope if I have to be alone at night in a public place; he goes to bed but he can’t sleep until I am home in one piece. It must be worse for you as you risk being thrown out of the country if you try to protect your wife or daughter. Our experiences with ajossis are one of many reasons why we have decided to apply for his UK spousal visa. The other crimes in the UK are much higher but I somehow feel less vulnerable in the UK in regards to my sexual safety. I really hope that his visa application is successful. Wish us luck (and my apologies for such a long comment!).
Sorry to hear about what happened to you, and most of my Western female friends can confirm that they’ve had at least one unpleasant experience like that that they’d be unlikely to have experienced back home. And of course he should have gone to jail, and that you were offered a choice of monetary compensation instead confirms to me that the “law” here does not so much serve the pursuit of abstract ideals of justice but more to assuage a sense of greviance, regardless how legitimate of not.
Sorry if my comments have been getting increasingly incoherent…my fingers are getting tired and my laptop too hot! But once again, Thank you very much for the amount of time and effort you put into the comment, and hope I replied in kind.
Uh oh, here comes a long and wordy comment, mostly on the comment content:
To add to that very last bit of the comment: this is undoubtedly a major problem in terms of the law. I can attest from the experience of some of my female Korean friends that even attempted pedophilia (on someone as young as a middle schooler) as recently as a decade ago was dealt with in the same way: you can force someone to pay you a fine, or have him jailed, but not both. I’ve been told that no less than three separate times, all of the cases having happened in rural areas.
And again, who’s dealing with these situations? Working cops are almost certainly informed by the experience of having done military service — with all that entails. Police forces, more than any other organization, I’d imagine, would show the effects of the peculiar culture of the military in their country. I am curious whether you see any links between what’s increasingly looking like a remarkably inept and backwards police system and the military culture.
I used to think Korean men were nuts for going to university for two years and then doing military and coming back to university, because when they come back, they’ve lost almost everything they’d learned, and many just drag their feet through the last two years of school. But given the drudgery of military service, two years of uni almost make sense — have your last fun before you’re made into a “man,” for a value of “man” that doesn’t include much of the stuff that they probably value about themselves as young men pre-service. And of course, there’s the fact that if you went at 18, instead of at 20, you’d be the youngest and the brunt of everything.
Will you also be discussing ROTC here? That’s another interesting phenomenon. I have a few students who’ve been in ROTC, and it’s… very odd. All kinds of occasional excuses to miss class for parade inspections or ROTC functions, plus all kinds of bizarre requirements like wearing a uniform on certain days depending on which year in university you’re in, never holding hands with your girlfriend when in uniform, and always carrying schoolwork/supplies in a briefcase — even if it doesn’t all fit! That might be totally normal for ROTC anywhere — we didn’t have it in Canada when I was in Uni, you see — but it seemed particularly prone to rendering the educational side of University a secondary concern squarely after excelling in ROTC and making your ROTC buddies and seniors respect you.
(And in true Korean style, some of them confessed to me that they’d “cheated” on the mandatory physicals exams. It’s not just TOEIC tests that are irrelevant and gamed, it seems.)
By the way, in terms of Korean Feminism Stalled, that goes back at least to the Japanese Occupation. I remember when I visited Yonsei library one afternoon, happening upon a book of essays in English about the Japanese occupation, including a really interesting essay that described the ways in which Korean women’s groups who were rallying around essentially feminist causes were cajoled into throwing in with the male-dominated movements in the interests of critical mass, and on the promise that once the bigger goal of liberation from Japan was reached, women’s issues would be handled next. The (predictable) result, as the essay described it, was that women took the male leaders at their word and were aided in their unwillingness to follow through by the tumult that followed in the 40s and 50s. I suspect feminist issues, like any other social reforms, were generally off the table during the dictatorships that followed, though I’d like to know more about the rhetoric used to sideline it… especially since, in a very realistic way, some Communist states did pursue a more egalitarian (if still unpleasant) balance of power between the genders. (Jan Wong argued that China was much more sexually egalitarian than it had ever been, until about the mid-to-late-90s, when a sudden influx of wealth made women of relative means eager to retire to the home. Or so I remember in Jan Wong’s China: Reports From A Not-So-Foreign Correspondent. To whatever degree one can trust Ms. Wong, that’s an interesting point.)
In that light, it could seem as if it’s not only the military conscription, but also the overall militarization of Korean society through the majority of the latter half of the 20th century, that created this situation. I’ve not worked in businesses like some, but I’ve met enough older guys who behaved like petty generals around their “underlings” to wonder how explicitly other social hierarchies have been militarized, and how effective a bulwark this general militarization has been as a force for braking social change — one reason why womens’ changing roles draw so much attention from foreigners and Koreans alike.
Final point: oh, yes, the Japanese connection to the military in Korea. That’s going to be fascinating, and I think you’re right about the profundity of the connection, and how little it gets recognized by Westerners talking about the Korean military. And of course, this brings us straight to all kinds of dangerous territory, historiographically speaking…
This discussion does sound a bit like we’re dissecting a monster. I think it should be said that while ‘typical ajeoshi behaviour’ may undeniably exist, Korean men do not have a monopoly on rudeness and belittlement, nor are all Korean men prone to such things all of the time. I also think the vast majority of Korean men are well meaning, if at times well meaning idiots.
Yu Bumsuk,
certainly it easy to overcriticise Korean males, and it has to be said that much of the behavior at my institute described in the post, for instance, has been remarkably absent since I wrote it. That happens often actually: I witness some phenomenon here for years, but as soon as I blog about it there seems to be some conspiracy to prove me wrong.
Still, what I describe about drunk ajosshis is still palpably true, and seeing as it’s precisely that which will drive me out of the country then I don’t make my criticisms lightly.
I’m just so tired of feeling so damn tense and emasculated when I so much as step out the door here, let alone at night. Many things not related to ajosshis engender that feeling of course, fear of being sued leading people not to help me in if I have an accident for instance, but regardless of how little has happened to me personally, other people’s experiences make me feel constantly under threat from drunken ajosshis, doubly so because should some form of confrontation occur then I may well be the one paying damages to the other party regardless of the rights or wrong of the matter. What kind of country is it when drunken jerks get free reign of it, or where the police and legal system are virtually useless protectors of my and my family’s safety and liberty?
Of course there are numerous other things that make me feel like an outsider in this country, but those in particular make me feel like a second-class citizen here too. And as Parts Four and Five in this series will make clear, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Korean women are effectively legally and economically second-class citizens here also. “Sexism”, for instance, doesn’t quite do justice to the effective gender apartheid that exists in Korea today, and I think many readers will be genuinely shocked at how integral it is to modern Korean life.
Gord,
I could easily spend at least an hour replying to you and probably will, but I’d like to get Part Two out of the way before anything else sorry (you’ll see why when it’s up…it’s been taking much longer than I thought). Hopefully that will be up by tomorrow afternoon, and so I’ll reply properly then.
Er…I’m hopeless. At 11pm I fully intended to reply, duly humble and apologetic for being 36 hours late, and I’ve even printed your comment out and have some doodles on it masquerading as notes, but man…these whiskey and cokes I made were much stronger than I thought. Have to postpone a proper reply again sorry…*hic*
Got there in the end! But after all that, my reply will be quite minimal I’m afraid.
Naturally I do see links between the police system and military culture, but strangely the sources I’ve been using barely mention the police at all. But given that a large number of conscripts serve in the police rather than in the military, and that much of the police’s present problems stem from a lack of professionalism that having such large numbers of temporary and thoroughly not enjoying the experience 22 year-olds would suggest, then the links may not be as great as at first appear. I’m not disagreeing with you mind you, but I do personally need to look at numbers and specifically the police rather than the military in more detail before I can make any meaningful judgements.
I won’t really have any time to discuss ROTC, but I agree that its interesting due to its quirks and maintaining the notion that maintaining networks through that is much more useful than university education. In my personal experience it just appears a great big waste of time, most employees scheduled for it at the big companies I’ve taught at spending the entire day smoking in the cafeteria in their uniforms.
I didn’t know about that gender issue in nationalist movements, as I confess that for all I talk about the colonial period in Part Two I’ve only ever studied it from the top-down. But it makes a lot of sense, as Moon discusses how exactly the same occurred in labour and democratization movements even until the 1990s. I more precisely mean “Korean Feminism Stalled” though, in the sense that women’s movements were becoming increasingly aware of and just a tad sick of it by that stage, but then the economic crisis hit. Feminism was stalled by an ideological step back towards the male-breadwinner model of welfare, which justified firing women disproportionately, and compounding that that most women were simply too busy focusing on economic survival to maintain the momentum of the fledgling non-union and non-labour feminist movement then. It does seem to have taken a decade to have reached that point again.
Finally, you’re quite right about communist states pursuing a much more egalitarian balance of power between the genders, at least in the provision of childcare at workplaces and women’s rates of workforce participation, but while Jan Wong may be correct about new wealth convincing middle-class Chinese women to retire, the overwhelming reason for the huge drop in women’s workforce participation in China in the 1980s and 1990s as a whole was because of State-owned Enterprises, with those egalitarian rules, closing down or being restructured. While they certainly maintained Confucian-derived gender divisions in the workplace in practice, they were still paragons of feminist virtue compared to many private Chinese (and Korean) companies today.
I did an essay on precisely that for my MA, one of the only two I got an “A” for, so if you (or any other readers) are interested I can point in the direction of a lot of reading. In the meantime, I’m afraid I’ve got to get back to work!
James, it’s interesting what you write about feeling emasculated, helpless, and at the mercy of idiots. For me, Korea seems more liberating than anything else. Sure, the guy in charge may be a drunken jerk, but when he’s a drunken jerk who’s easy to befriend, impress, ingratiate yourself to, and is pathetically gullible and ignorant for someone of his position and education, is that necessarily a bad thing? Yes, the random idiots you don’t know and don’t have any sort of relationship with can be troublesome on occasion, but if you have Korean friends they can’t cause you more than temporary problems. And if anything, we can get away with a lot more because we can play either the Korean or the foreigner card. We can break rules all the time because people are too timid or embarrassed to tell us ___________ is not allowed, or if we are confronted about it, can just plead ignorance. At work I hardly have to worry about meeting standards and criteria, false allegations, union BS, political correctness, or occasional mistakes because my principal and VP love me and I observe basic Korean manners. Back home I’d be in constant worry of being fired or sued for inane, trivial crap. Here I never have to worry about being stranded anywhere because public transportation and taxis are so readily available and cheap. Youth violence is practically non-existant over here and the idea of having to fear anyone on the street seems like a foreign concept.
As for the liability thing, ask yourself, would you be more likely to be the victim of a frivilous lawsuit here or in the US? At least here your coworker won’t sue you for $100,000 for farting.
I’ll admit that I feel emasculated more in an intellectual sense than anything else. Like I said, I’ve had so few negative experiences in my 3 years in Jinju and now 5 in Busan that it’s sometimes difficult to believe what has happened to Westerners in the north of the country (what is it here? the air? the climate?). But enough people I know and trust not to exaggerate have had them, and give me cause for concern that anonymous posters on Dave’s ESL Cafe no longer really do.
Also, I totally understand and appreciate the sense of liberation for Westerners here, but personally I found the disadvantages to outweigh the advantages after a few years. As I’m sure you know, it becomes tiresome and frustrating always being treated like a 21 year-old newbie regardless of your actual age, Korean ability, time spent in Korea, knowledge of Korean culture, Korean wife, half-Korean fruits of your loins and so on…I’d really rather just be treated like everyone else (but which is not to say that I’d react to that treatment like most Koreans!).
Similarly, while I forgo ties at work and couldn’t care less about what the boss thinks of my declining his offer of 100-won warm crud from the office vending machine, the corollary of that is that I’m the least highly-considered person in my organization of thousands, with the respect accorded and promotion prospects more akin to those of an 19 year-old intern than to a 32 year-old with 8 years in ESL. I don’t mean to sound rude, but I’d imagine that your own position at the public school you work in would be pretty similar? It’s just fine for a while when you’re young and have time, but not as a way of life.
But I/we are getting off topic a bit really. Being, say, waved on at breath test checkpoints because we’re not Korean is all well and good, but it doesn’t quite compensate for being involved in an accident, attacked and/or blamed by the other driver, and having to pay compensation simply because the Korean male’s version of events is automatically believed over mine. Like I say, nothing bad like that ever has actually happened yet (and not just because I don’t drive), but I feel emasculated because I live in constant fear that something will, and that when it does I’ll be simply screwed, legally, financially and through the injustice of it all.
Things like a lack of youth violence, the 24/7 availability of cheap taxis, and not being sued (alebit never really a fear for me in NZ) are great, and we could both compile long lists of the pluses to living here, but they’re not really related to the topic sorry.
[...] as people like James keep pointing out, is bizarre for a society that just legalized miniskirts and hot pants a couple [...]
[...] I have begun to find to exist between it and modern Korean culture’s relationship to soju, as requested by our good friend James at The Grand Narrative. Who, by the way, has a funny contest on, which [...]