Korea

A matter of perspective

A comment by newcomer ma posted on yesterday’s blog entry got me thinking about relationships between Koreans and foreigners.  Thanks for your perspective–I really appreciate it.  As always, I enjoy hearing other people’s experiences in Korea.  I only have one perspective, my own.
 
I pondered ma‘s comment mentioning how easy it is to befriend Koreans.  This got me wondering as to why people can have such different perspectives the same subject.  My perspective on Koreans is a bit different.  When I write that I find Koreans to be the most wonderful yet elusive people I’ve ever encountered, I realize that this assessment is only based on what I’ve encountered here since I arrived earlier this year.  I talked to my wife tonight, and she says that her perspective is different from mine.  She finds Koreans very easy to befriend.  She is a Chinese American, so the Asian perspective she shares with Koreans likely helps her better relate to Koreans.  On the same token, she has had some difficulty befriending American in the United States (her husband excepted, of course).  A friend of ours, who is in her third trimester of pregnancy with a toddler and has had some bad encounters in Seoul, says that she finds Koreans somewhat rude.  Another colleague who is single, male, and handsome says he has no trouble befriending Koreans.  Americans in trouble in Korea that I have assisted tend to have a negative view of Koreans.  However, at the same time I see many Americans interacting with Koreans, and I know that thousands of Americans and Koreans marry each year.  I’ve met and read the blogs of foreign English teachers who generally have a wonderful experience with Koreans.  It’s an interesting dynamic.
 
I am a Caucasian, married, professional male.  On most days, I wear a business suit.  I interact with Koreans primarily at work, both customers and coworkers, and at night I usually return home to spend time with my family.  My job gives me a good insight into the Korean psyche.  On weekends my time is usually preoccupied with family activities, including getting together with friends.  Unfortunately, I have very little time to meet new people, so in a way, my own situation hinders me from meeting and befriending Koreans.  I am a very gregarious and open person, and I believe my demeanor does help me get to know Koreans better.  I suspect that my lack of time and opportunity, as well as the fact that I am in a job where I often act in an official capacity, hinder my ability to develop strong friendships with Koreans.  I wish it weren’t so.

Cicadamania!

I walk out the door this morning, headed to work.  Parked on a post next to my front door was a 2"x1.5" brownish object.  I took a closer look.  It was the shell of an oversized cicada, the largest of all the creepy crawly insects roaming the Korean countryside. It’s pretty creepy looking, this large insect with big eyes and black legs that look like pincers.  Although the back of the shell was ruptured, indicating the cicada had already flown away, it sure looked like a real cicada to me.  I posted a couple of photos of the shell stuck on the post next to our front door on this blog entry.  I have yet to see a real cicada; all I have seen so far is a couple of cicada remnants hanging from trees and posts.  Fortunately, these cicadas are not nearly as aggressive as the ones I experienced last year in Washington, D.C.  The ones in D.C., ominously known as Brood X, seemed to be attracted to humans and went out of their way to land on people.  It was quite unnerving.  Korean cicadas, although much bigger and a bit more menacing in appearance than their American counterparts, are much more platonic.  They hang out in the trees and buzz up a storm.  Because the area surrounding my home is suburban and relatively wooded, the noise emanating from the cicada brood is very, very loud.  The sound they make reminds me of the crescendo of multiple electric shavers used at once.  Unlike the ones in D.C., these cicadas have taken to the trees.  I have not seen a single one come down below the tree line.  When I was in D.C., the cicadas were so thick at ground level that you had to watch your step or risk crushing cicadas under your feet.  It was very disquieting.  Korean cicadas make a lot of noise, but that’s about it.  Seoul city folk don’t get to hear it as I do living in their concrete jungle.  Living here and listening to the cicadas brings me closer to Korean nature, whether I like it or not.  The sound lately has permeated our house, occasionally keeping me awake.  Tonight the cicadas are quiet.
 
Today was an eventful day.  The Six-Party Talks on North Korea’s nuclear program resumed today in Beijing.  I wish the U.S. negotiating team success.  As for me, I was busy helping someone with an emergency situation, and I dealt with a few new issues.  I had a late lunch with a nice Korean colleague who assisted in resolving the emergency.  During our lunch, she offered her insights into the Korean psyche.  When asked why it was difficult for Americans to get to know Koreans personally, she responded that it could possibly be because Koreans respect foreigners’ privacy.  I hadn’t thought of that before.  I wonder to what extent it is true.  I explained that Koreans don’t need to feel that way, that most Americans are easy to befriend.  Americans are generally private people, more so than Asians are.  It may be that because Americans are somewhat individualistic, they tend to limit how much they interact socially.  Still, I think that Americans in Korea are willing to sacrifice some privacy for the opportunity to meet good Korean friends.  It could also be that Koreans’ perception of Americans individualism exceeds our propensity to be individualistic.  Nevertheless, there seems to be some credence to the idea that privacy and individualism may hinder foreigners’ ability to befriend Koreans.

An update from the home front

In case you’re wondering what’s been happening here in Korea, I wanted to let you know that I really haven’t had too much to report lately.  Life has been quiet but good for my family.  Last week we had a small get together for my wife’s birthday, and my wife secured a promising job lead with a local accounting firm.  I made it through a hectic week at work.  I put in a few hours of overtime working on an operations management project for my boss, and the end result was well received.  The ongoing project measures our operational performance.  Although some of my colleagues aren’t too happy having their performance measured in key areas, overall my colleagues view the project favorably.  I feel like one part mad scientist squirreled away in a lab, concocting a strange, mystical brew, and one part salesman trying to persuade my colleagues to drink this strange brew.  By the time I leave Seoul, I hope we will achieve full ISO 9001 certification, a international quality standard.  Fortunately, my boss thinks it’s a wonderful idea and is sold on the concept.  It’s much easier to persuade the masses when leadership is behind an idea.  That’s good, because I consider myself a much better innovator than sales man.  I prefer to build nifty things and hand them over to someone to market and sell.  Hopefully I’ll rise to the challenge.

Last weekend my colleagues, my wife, and I went to a barbeque for newcomers who recently arrived in Seoul.  It was a lot of fun, and I didn’t even have to grill.  The conversation was great, and the meal was delicious.  It was nice to finally have a chance to get together with many of my colleagues outside work in a group setting.  It seems as if lately, whenever I run into my colleagues, we spend our time hashing and rehashing work-related issues.  There isn’t much time at work for “water-cooler talk.”  After I returned home from the barbeque, I mowed the lawn in the sweltering heat.  Did you read the nostalgic blog entry I wrote a couple months ago about mowing the lawn for the first time in almost two years?  Well, times change.  It’s now hot and humid here in Seoul, and mowing the lawn is no fun at all.  It is definitely a chore.  I now have to time lawn mowing so that I mow at the end of the day when the temperature has cooled but its still daylight.  Being outside in Seoul nowadays is akin to being in a sauna, albeit much less comfortable.  On Sunday afternoon my family and I visited Lotte World, a shopping center and home to the world’s largest indoor theme park.  It’s one of the better places for families to go when they’re out and about in Seoul on hot and humid days.  Then, on Sunday evening we went over to our friend’s home for dinner.  The food and fellowship was fabulous.  We decided to meet again in a couple of weeks for a barbeque at our house. 

Tonight I went to a community association board meeting.  I was happy that the board agreed to my proposal to invest our extra funds into bond funds and a certificate of deposit.  Currently, the funds are in low-return money market funds, and I wrote up a proposal to invest our funds into higher-yield, low-risk bond funds.  Tomorrow I’ll get started implementing the proposal.  I was also happy to report that we now have a cafeteria vendor, and the cafeteria will reopen soon.  As soon as the cafeteria opens and the funds are invested, I plan to tackle a couple of other important projects for our community.  One is a capital plan for our facilities, which will undergo major changes over the next decade, and the other is redesigning the association’s web site.  I definitely don’t want to take on too much, too soon.

So that’s life here in a nutshell.  I wish we could get out and about more often around Seoul, doing things beyond shopping, but unfortunately we haven’t been able to lately.  Many of my colleagues are on vacation, so I can’t take much time off.  And venturing out and about in Korea now has its costs—it’s still monsoon season, and many Koreans are trying to enjoy the summer.  It’s a formula for a bunch of crowded, unhappy, sweaty people.  I read this morning that 80,000 Koreans descended on one beach in Busan.  That’s crazy!  There’s no way I would take my family to the beach and share it with 79,997 other people.