My Glimpse of Korea: Filial Piety and Saving Face

(I apologize now for any misspelled words. This got long.)

For most of my life when I heard comparisons between Asian cultures and Western cultures people have often spoke of the social organization of each. The West being a very individualistic culture and Asia being very group oriented.

In Korea filial piety is most important. This is great when you look at how tight the family unit is. Within the family people will take care of each other and the grandparents play a big role in the lives of the next generation. There are fewer old folks living on the streets uncared for because the culture encourages adult children to take care of their elderly parents. It is quite possible for an individual as a child to know lots of love, protection, and security. This all begins to change when they get older.

Middle school...stress starts being put on the child to perform well. Not just for their own sense of pride but for the family pride. I had a middle school student come to class once who was really upset. I asked him why and he tells me that he didn't get an A on a test so now everyone in his family would be disappointed and upset. Parents being upset is one thing but this kid was carrying the happiness of his entire family on his shoulders and happiness meant an A.

I didn't mention the importance of saving "face" in Korea. It is what is seen on the surface that is most important. How an individual is viewed in society also reflects on their family. If a child doesn't get the top grade in class that effects the "face" of the family. I will come back to this later.

High school...is hell. Now in America it would be great if our high school students put even a .10 of what these kids put into their studies. I have seen nothing like it. Let me give you a break down on an average high school kid's day in Korea...8a-2p school, 2p-12a institutes/academies...math, english, science, other foreign languages, test prep, piano school, violin lessons, voice lessons, tae kwon do, komdo, art school, dance classes, swimming...and any number of other activities I can't even imagine. I have even seen a Lego school here. I am not exagerating when I say that some of these kids get home at 12a and haven't even started homework for the numerous schools they are going to. Many of them carry the pride of the family on their shoulders which is ,of course, what university they go to which will decide their place on the social ladder.

Oh yeah, and all schools have classes on Saturday mornings every other weekend. That changed...it was every weekend when I came here 4 years ago.

Filial piety...loyalty to family. This is the basis of the group centered society. Saving face is very important in Korea because it not only effects the individual but how the entire family is perceived. As a result of this, there is very little crime in Korea. (I wonder if it helps that most people, even little kids, are at least first degree black belts in Tae Kwon Do?)

I remember the first time I went to the bank and people were waiting in line at the ATM with BRICKS of cash in their hands!!! They were depositing money into their accounts at the ATM! There was one guard on duty. That is CRAZY!!! I remember one of my friends telling me how he walked into a department store and on tne first floor in the jewlery section there were displayed EXPENSIVE watches. I am talking a grand each at least and they were not COVERED!!! Dude...would not happen in America...nah, never! I am not saying that people don't steal but what I am saying is that it doesn't happen often.

Well, that is on the little people's level. When you get up into the upper echelons of society theft and corruption runs rampant. Since I have been here there have been at least two suicides committed by very wealthy, political types that got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Once again saving face. Somehow when a person publicly shames themselves it frees the family or group. For example, an actress and an entertainment company wanted to make a porn movie based on the women who were made sex slaves by the Japanese during Japan's occupation in the 40's. Some of these women are still alive. To make matters worse, they were filming in Japan, a country that has yet to apologize for its atrocities against Korea. Needless-to-say the shit hit the fan. Everybody was angry. I even wrote a letter to the editor of a Korean national paper expressing my anger. In shame, the men who owned the entertainment company shaved their heads and made a public apology. I don't know what happened to the woman but I have heard that she will never find work again as a legit actress.

Saving face is so important that a person will outright lie rather than tell the truth. One of the most frustrating things is that many people will not say no. They don't want to hurt your feelings. So, if you invite a bunch of Koreans to your house for dinner, you hold your breath and hope the phone calls don't start coming. If the phone calls start the cancellations start and sometimes AFTER you have bought the food. The worse is when you have already started making the food. Most folks would rather not disappoint you but end up disappointing you and causing an inconvience...to say it nicely. It happened to me once but I learned my lesson. When I have dinners at my house I am very flexible and plan to make something that I can start cooking an hour before folks are to arrive. This not saying no thing has driven many foreign people crazy. I think the word that is said instead of no most often is "It's okay"...something to that effect.

Not saying no seems to be a way of saving face and usually when someone doesn't follow through on something no one says anything. Once again, you never let another person know that they caused you an inconvenience. What happens instead is silence. That person may never speak to you again rather than talk about it and let it go. Lots of people who have dated Korean people have experienced this. Sometimes it is abrupt. There wasn't a fight or anything, they just stop taking your calls or responding to your text messages. Sometimes a person has no clue if they did something wrong or not.

The flip side to this though is that once you have a real Korean friend, they are a friend for life. My closest Korean friends are more like family and we have talked when there may have been misunderstandings. They will be there for you when things are really bad. Like 2 years ago, maybe more now, I found out I was working for an illegal company. One of my Korean friends came with me to speak with my "employers" and another one came with me to the school I was working at to speak with the vice-principal. Now these women had things to do and didn't need to help me but they did. I have countless examples of this. Friends of mine going far beyond anything I could have imagined. These people will tell you no :)

Yes, there is TONS more I could write about and in due time I will. This current blog writing is an effort to capture some of my experiences here before I head back to the States. There is much more where this came from!!!