Consideration and Kindness

One of the best things about Korea is the kindness and helpfulness of the people here. People go out of their way to help a confused or lost foreigner. Being "considerate" is one of the most valued character traits in Korea. At dinner the reason everyone is so keen to pour you another glass or stock you up on whatever's been finished is because they want to show they are thinking about you.

But, they're not really thinking about you. They're thinking about a foreigner, or rather what they think a foreigner is, wants, likes and doesn't like. They even try to guess what you know and don't know. If you've been in Korea a while, you might have noticed that although they are extremely congenial and polite, sometimes they just don't answer a question. Especially if it's about something which they think you don't know or do.

In fact, Koreans spend so much time worrying about what you're thinking that they don't actually hear the words you're saying. A prime example of this was in one of my English classes with one of my best students (he improved amazingly in just 2 months). I told him "At the weekend we rented a car and drove to Namhaedo". Bear in mind this is a high level class... He pulled an extremely confused face, didn't say anything for a while and then "But taking a taxi there is very expensive". Before you all go and say "he didn't understand you..." Let me just point this out: "rent a car" in Korean is 렌트 카ren-tuh caa Furthermore I never mentioned a taxi which is also the same word in Korean. He simply could not believe that a foreigner could drive in Korea, let alone rent a car. He was being "considerate" and showed concern at what he assumed was something very irrational (but logical because Im a foreigner).

Another experience happened on a train, fair enough, my Korean is terrible and in all likelihood wrongly phrased. Also my question was in a way answered. I asked the conductor on a train "기차는 대구 역에 가요?"gi-cha-neun daegu-yeok-e ga-yo? / does the train go to daegu station? He proceded with a long list of all the stops between where we were and Seoul including what time the train got there. So fair enough, he did actually tell me that it was stopping at the station, but he didn't answer the question. So my response was "how weird!" What was a Korean friend's take on all of this? "how considerate!". He was covering all the angles and thinking about me, not actually listening to what I was saying, but rather trying to help what he saw as a lost foreigner.

I have had countless experiences like this, and it's only now that I've realised when Koreans take a long time to answer something, or give a strange answer, it's not about understanding. They are trying to fit an answer to you, not to your question. Korean culture (and in my experience, most culture except for the Anglo-Saxon/Northern European culture) is more about performing social function than giving information. Which explains why we Brits are sometimes taken aback by how respectful other cultures are, but it also explains why they talk so bloody-much!