A Complaint About People Complaining About People Who Complain

Me getting prepared to complain about the purpose of modern art, I believe.

Shoot me if you like, but the 'forget about our differences and let's all live as one big happy family' principle that exists in many circles today leaves me wanting to stick my fingers down my throat and bring up my kimbap.  It's not that I don't think - in a perfect world - that this is a good idea, who could argue against it, but I am pretty sure it only exists as an idealistic principle and never works in practice or at least that those who peddle this have no clue how to make it work in the real world.

This is why multiculturalism is on shaky ground at the moment in many Western countries, we have the above principle and think the way to live together in perfect harmony is to just forget about all the stuff that people from other cultures do that we really think is awful and chalk it up to differences we can simply laugh-off as unimportant, or at least not as important as keeping them happy.  We aren't honest with each other and we keep quiet when we want to say something, and by doing this we simply don't understand each other well enough to live together in harmony or truly respect each other.

I remember Christopher Hitchens once saying he considered himself a divider and not a unifier, but that if someone labeled themselves as a unifier they would get all the applause and all the plaudits.  People love a unifier and why not, but unifiers are not always good and sometimes dividers can be underrated.  His point was that if some people are evil or merely immoral or they exist in a culture which encourages abhorrent practices and will not listen and never change, he didn't think it was a good idea to live alongside them.  The divider works to keep these people away, the unifier wants to bring them in.

So, what am I getting at exactly?  As great as unifiers can be they can also have some strange priorities.  In the quest for togetherness they can ignore or explain away some pretty horrible stuff.  I could use many examples to illustrate this, but seeing as this is a blog about South Korea, let's take the example of complaining in a post from a new blog at sweetpicklesandcorn.wordpress.com.

The message is, stop complaining about Korea.  It isn't that bad in Korea (true) and all the bad stuff is the same or at least there are equally bad things going on in our own countries (kinda true).  I've gone true and pretty much true here, so what's the problem?  I have a few, but I should acknowledge some more nuance to the argument that wasn't really in the original post, but appeared from TheKorean in the comments section.  He is dead right that many complaints just aren't learned enough to be useful, the only problem I have with him generally is that he often paints every complaint involving Korea or Korean culture as unjustified and unlearned and every complainer as something akin to a racist or culturalist or just simply dumb. You don't always need to be a Korean, have a degree in Korean politics, or read 100 books about Korea to have a valid complaint while living there.  Here are the problems I see with keeping too quiet about the things that upset you.

1.  What if we are Discriminating by not Complaining?

Well, I'm a complainer, always have been, but I am an equal opportunities complainer in that I moan just as much when I am at home in England as I do in Korea, just usually about different subjects.  And, funnily enough I moan about England more when I'm in England and Korea more when I'm in Korea (conversely, I also talk-up England more when I'm in Korea and Korea more when I'm in England).  Why? Because you just don't think about complaining unless something has happened to you recently.  Should I stop moaning when I live in another country?  Surely this would involve not treating each place equally, not being honest, not considering Korean people my equals or of equal value to Brits, and not being true to myself.  Do Korean people never moan about things in their own country? (I know for a fact that they do).

One should perhaps check yourself if you find that you are moaning more than normal or without good reason, however, and this could be a sign of basic culture shock or discrimination in the other direction.

2.  The Moral Implications of not Complaining

Whether bad things happen everywhere is largely irrelevant.  If people are doing something dangerous, immoral, rude, or out of order, I do feel like one should not be afraid of pointing it out.  The unifier makes the mistake of trivialising some really seriously nasty stuff in their bid to make us all just get along and by trying to equal-up the cultures in all regards.  In the post I mentioned, there were two classics; bad driving in Korea and the treatment of dogs.

"Bad driving exists everywhere I go and, from my experience, the difference between Korean drivers and the rest of the world is negligible."

This old chestnut.  Even if this statement were true (which it isn't), why shouldn't we be upset about bad driving, wherever it occurs?  It is no trivial matter, people die from bad driving and according to OECD statistics people die at a 1.7 times higher rate in Korea than average in the OECD on the roads.  Yes, there are higher rates in third world countries, but Korea is not a third world country.

The people who will die in the future are potentially my friends, my family, my wife, and possibly even me (and actually we really should also care about those we don't know).  So when reckless driving nearly puts me in hospital while I'm riding my bike - even on the pavement - I might be justified in having a little moan, because it happens more here than anywhere else in almost the entire developed world (and even if this were not the case, complaining is still valid if you feel there are safety issues that can be improved and even better if you can suggest how they could be improved). When you are a genuine part of the culture and have real Korean friends and family, who you care about, this kind of thing should move you to at least speak out about it.  How would you feel if someone in my family really did die on the roads by reckless driving in Korea?  Would you condemn me for complaining then?  Until some changes actually occur and something is done about deaths on the roads in Korea, continued complaining is justified.

The treatment of dogs is another one.  You are pushing at an open door with me if you say Western countries don't exactly have a sparkling record when it comes to animal welfare and we eat pigs and cows, and in raising them for slaughter, treat them badly too.  But does this excuse the cruelty inflicted on dogs every day in Korea?

"I also harbor no bias in my disregard for people that dress up their dogs, dye their fur or carry them around in the streets—regardless of what street they are on, in whatever country it may be, and whether they plan to eat them or not."

I know the writer doesn't like bad driving or the poor treatment of dogs, so why not complain about it?  I think he should because we all hate the mistreatment of dogs, but if you are being honest, all of the above in the quote occurs far more often in Korea than in most other countries.

Dogs can't speak, but if they could, I am pretty sure they might disagree with the concept of having their tails dyed pink and their ears luminous green.  Also, they might just say that they want to have a walk, have a sniff, and enjoy the outdoors rather than being carried about for fear of getting their paws dirty (bad for dust in the apartment I hear).  It is all a failure of care on the owners part and the treatment of the dog as an accessory.  Whether I see this - admittedly fairly minor mistreatment - in England or Korea (never seen it in England as it happens), it matters not, it's wrong, period. I will complain about it.  So if the writer harbours the same disregard for such behaviour, again, what is wrong with complaining about it?

When it comes to eating dogs, I have some sympathy to the argument that we eat pigs, chickens, and cows, so who are we to comment.  However, there are some troubling aspects to dog meat.  It is technically illegal in Korea, so it is unregulated and severe cruelty can result, both in the care for the animals and in the slaughter.  The practice of beating or strangling the dogs slowly to death is still something that occurs in the daft and sinister belief that it makes the animal taste better or conveys a sexual boost for the person that eats the meat.

So when people say stop complaining about the driving or the treatment of dogs, I have to wonder whether they are just ignorant or simply have a callous disregard for human life or the treatment of other living beings.

3. Complaining Works

A couple of years back, you wouldn't believe how much crap my country of birth put me through to get properly settled in the UK with my wife and what the government and many companies tried to get away with making me pay for.  I was constantly moaning at them, and what did I get for it?  Money back, stress relief, personal satisfaction, some justice, and an easier life.  So I'd say complaining was pretty successful.

Just a couple of months ago, a Korean airline tried to change my flight home to a day later on New Years Eve, so that I'd arrive late in the evening that night - as you can imagine, most inconvenient, as well as knocking a day off my trip back home.  They offered nothing in response to this inconvenience, not even an apology, so what did I do?  That's right, I had a good complain, twice by phone and twice by e-mail.  And where did it get me, you ask?  I got a seat on a more expensive date a couple of days earlier, a heartfelt apology from Mr Moon at customer services, and lounge service at Heathrow and Incheon airports.

Complaining gets things done, especially in this day and age, as long as it is done in the right way.  Surely, complaining is the first step to change in almost every negative situation.  But how does complaining specifically stop Koreans driving badly and treating their dogs cruelly?  Shaming people can go a long way*, particularly if you shame a country with a sometimes nationalistic mindset, as well as raising consciousness to issues that some people may know nothing about.  And it should work the other way too. When a Korean complains that we are hypocrites for criticising them for eating dogs and treating them cruelly, when we eat pigs for example and treat them poorly too, this should be cause for self-reflection, shame, and change.  As an Englishman, the more complaints about the UK from people of other countries, the better, because I'd really like to learn their perspective and I find it interesting.  If they are nonsense complaints, I can ignore them or argue against them, but I am sure many can be used to help build a better society or at the very least educate me a little.

4. And Finally...

If my complaining combined with many others, spares some people dying on the roads and a few dogs suffering, I've done something good, but even if it doesn't do anything at least it has made me feel better.  I have hurt no one by doing it because if you don't want to hear me complain, don't listen and don't read my negative blog posts, it really is a simple as that.  Same goes for any other moaning expat; stay away from them if you don't like it.  Why must we all be so damn sensitive to any little thing some expat says on some forum on the internet, on facebook, or drunk in some bar.  Feel free to complain about this post though, but please realise that you are not on some higher plane of moral consciousness and that you are doing exactly the same thing you are complaining about.



* One should acknowledge that you have to be careful with 'shaming', this is because it has partly backfired when it comes to dogs.  After the 1988 Olympics and the 2002 World Cup, the issue of embarrassment about eating dog lured the government into making dog meat illegal.  This would have been great if the laws were enforced, but as they haven't, the effect has been to deregulate the rearing and slaughter of dog meat, making cruel treatment easier to get away with (although I bet it when on before).  However, it is still possible the net effect of the feeling of shame has reduced the consumption and therefore the suffering of dogs overall in Korea.  There is still a long way to go though.

As I have written before, however, the cruel treatment of the dog for the purpose of food - and generally - in Korea should give us all pause for thought about our own practices in rearing animals for food.

Good on you McDonalds, get those Ajusshis Outta there!

For the first time in my life I find myself a supporter of McDonalds.  I know they are loved by some, but personally, I can't stand McDonalds; I hate their food, I hate their image of corporate greed, low wages for employees, watching big fat slobs munching their way through gargantuan amounts of their food (and then not seeming to understand why they are overweight), that they market such unhealthy food heavily to children, and the fact they manage to weed their way into almost every city and big town on planet earth.  I don't like McDonalds, got it?

However, as much as McDonalds grinds my gears, there are some things that irk me so much that I rather spend my evenings listening to a nails on chalk board orchestra than have to hear about or see on a regular basis.  One of these are flippant accusations of racism or discrimination and phoney outrage, when the issue has nothing to do with discrimination or insensitivity (happens a lot these days) and one of the others is the smug, magnanimous, arrogant sense of entitlement of some older men in Korea and how they get away with it.

Why do they think they are entitled to so much respect?  Because they are old, period.  Well, it might work in Korea, but when they do something dumb, annoying, rude, or down-right out of order in other countries, they should not be surprised if some people call them out on it.  It isn't about racism, ageism or any other form of prejudice, in fact it it is the opposite; when people are being a dick, they should be called out for it, regardless of race, age, or whatever.

So to help me raise my blood pressure this week, we had a story that combined these two pet hates of mine.  Apparently, some Korean-American old fellas have been thrown out of a McDonalds in Queens, New York, by police because they - after only buying coffee (obviously not eating and I don't blame them) - then spent hours and hours gossiping away with each other whilst taking-up seating in the establishment.  One of the gentlemen involved, Man Hyung Lee, 77, had this to say (with some added commentary taken from the New York Times article):

"Mr. Lee said the officers had been called because he and his friends — a revolving group who shuffle into the McDonald’s on the corner of Parsons and Northern Boulevards on walkers, or with canes, in wheelchairs or with infirm steps, as early as 5 a.m. and often linger until well after dark — had, as they seem to do every day, long overstayed their welcome.

“They ordered us out,” Mr. Lee said from his seat in the same McDonald’s booth a week after the incident, beneath a sign that said customers have 20 minutes to finish their food. (He had already been there two hours.) “So I left,” he said."

Then, upon being ordered out of the restaurant by the police, what did he do?

 “Then I walked around the block and came right back again.”

Now, there is something quite comical about this, and at this stage, I did see the funny side of this story, at least to begin with.  Then Christine Colligan, a leader of the Korean Parents Association of New York, called for a worldwide boycott of McDonalds because of it all (from the New York Times second article on the story):

“Senior citizens should not be treated as criminals,” said Christine Colligan, a leader of the Korean Parents Association of New York, as she stood outside the restaurant, her voice rising. “They should be respected.”

That morning, Ms. Colligan had contacted her sprawling network in the Korean community urging a “worldwide” boycott of the fast-food restaurant for the month of February. In a letter, she attacked what she saw as “stark racism” by McDonald’s: “We will teach them a lesson,” the letter said.

"Stark racism", really?  Surely, in any restaurant (especially a fast food restaurant) if customers were buying a minimal amount and taking-up seats all day, something would be said, and if they didn't move, they would be forced to.  In my neck of the woods, if someone (and let's not forget, it seems to be a number of older Koreans) bought a coffee in a fast food restaurant and sat there for hours on end, preventing other customers from sitting down, most people would be thinking, "Are you taking the piss?  Bugger off."  I got told off for flicking through a magazine for a minute or two in a newsagents the other day and told, "this is not a library." Wait a minute, perhaps that was an example of racism, I should be outraged!  Or maybe they were just being a little harsh, but perhaps I'd had been reading it too long and they are a business selling magazines after all and many people do push the limits of browsing through a magazine in order to buy it sometimes.

I wonder if these Korean-American older men thought, "I wonder if my behaviour could be deemed a little cheeky, unacceptable, or inconsiderate to others" or "I wonder if a group of White older men - to prove a point - made sure they got into the restaurant before them at 5am and then sat there all day - not allowing us to sit down and have a chat over coffee - how we would feel about it?"  I am guessing from the stupidity of these reports and what has been said by the Korean community leaders, that this may not have seriously crossed their minds.

I suppose the 20 minute rule might be a bit strict, but they brought it on themselves.  If they stayed for half an hour, even maybe just an hour, they might have been annoyingly tolerated, but let's face it they were pushing it from even the most generous perspective.

I have ranted about Korean respect cultural many times on this blog, and this one side effect of it really gets to me.  I genuinely hate the feeling of superiority, the entitlement of elevated respect that many Korean older gentlemen think they deserve, and what they feel they can get away with because of it.  You're in America now gentlemen, respect has to be earned and you will be treated just like everyone else.  The horrible irony is that, these days, when Western countries do treat people of other countries, races, and cultures the same as everybody else, it's called 'racism'.

The Land of Distraction - Smart Phone Zombies

According to CNN's "10 things South Korea does better than anywhere else", over 78% of people in Korea have a smart phone and this rises to an incredible 97.7% in 18 to 24 year olds.  As a result of this I have even noticed a change in the language used in my English classes, the word "cell" as a part of "cell phone" never makes an appearance anymore, it is now an almost extinct term having been completely replaced by "smart phone."

As time goes by, South Korean people seem to be becoming more and more reliant on these things, not only is it a fascinating curiosity to see literally hundreds, if not thousands, of people a day with their heads buried in them, but it is also starting to become an annoyance for me.

I don't drive in Korea, so to get from a to b in my daily routine, I use a bicycle.  It is not the safest form of travel on the roads due to Korea's slightly dodgy reputation for driving, so it is quite fortunate that the city where I live has many cycle paths on the pavement along the routes I need to go.  However, this has its own disadvantages, the main one being people on smart phones.  No one really takes notice of the cycle paths anyway, but at least some people can hear or see me coming and move out of the way or at least stick to going in one direction.  I say some, because a great many do not do this.  As time goes by, my regular commutes are turning more and more frustrating as I approach people walking in zig-zags along the pavement with their heads down focusing on their smart phones and their ear-phones in.  With almost complete sensory deprivation to the outside world, I struggle to predict where they will go next.  Some of these smart phone zombies often get so uncoordinated with it all they regularly stumble into a 90 degree manoeuvre just as I approach them, sending me in all directions.

I believe the problem has steadily got worse, people even cross the road without looking and with ear-phones in, and with Korea's horrible - almost third world - statistics for traffic accident deaths, you would think this kind of behaviour would be significantly discouraged, but it appears that no one cares.

Perhaps I simply have heightened sensitivity towards excessive smart phone use, but I am now noticing it in places I never did before.  As well as cycling, I also run 3 times a week.  I try and head out to the mountain or park trails for this.  Beforehand, I do have to wade my way through the smart phone zombies on the streets first, like I do on the bike.  However, once I actually manage to find the relative peace of a mountainous trail, I still can't get away from the smart phone.  Sometimes I still have to dodge the people walking through the beauty of the sights and sounds of the forest because they have their eyes down in their smart phones and either headphones in, or simply music blaring out loud spoiling the peace and quiet.

Then I go to the gym for a workout and what do I see.... a man sitting on a piece of equipment I want to use, playing games on his smart phone.  He does one set of bicep curls, flexes and admires them in the mirror and then sits down to exercise his thumbs once more for another few minutes.  I am sure this wasn't happening before, even as recently as last year.

It seems I can't escape these blasted devices, where ever I go.  On a trip to the hairdressers the other day, I had to wait for a boy to have his haircut first; he was about 7 or 8 years old I guess, and in front of him, crouched down, was his mother showing him a cartoon on her smartphone.  As the hairdresser moved his head and herself to cut different angles, so the mother adjusted her position.  When she became distracted and was late to move, the boy whined in disapproval and she quickly corrected herself.  It looked absolutely ludicrous, and goodness knows what this was teaching the boy in question.

Of course, we all know the prime example of smart phone zombies and that's on the subway system.  It amused my mum and dad when they visited Korea earlier this year.  They could look down a carriage and probably 80-90% would be transfixed on their smartphone screens.  It is hard to not think there is something drastically wrong with it all when you witness such a spectacle. 

A friend of mine, with slightly conservative views on life, can't stand it.  He thinks it shows an inability to be entertained by one's own thoughts, shutting oneself off to the outside world, a lack of self-reflection, and a loss of patience.  I think I agree with him in most cases, however, when it came to situations of waiting, like on trains or waiting for buses at a bus station, he appeared less concerned with people reading books and I am not sure there is much difference in this kind of situation.

When I visited Japan a year or so ago, I was struck by how many people were reading books or comic books on the subway system, in stark contrast to those being fixated on their smart phones in Korea.  Maybe now, a couple of years on, things have changed in Japan too, but anyhow, whether it is a smart phone or a book, I actually don't see much of a problem in killing time immersed in either, in a situation of passive waiting as long as it isn't all the time. 

There are some circumstances, though, where I think this smart phone trend is rather harmful; sometimes it is not good to be distracted too much.  When it comes to walking, especially in the mountains or in the countryside, there seems something particularly sad about drowning-out nature with a smart phone.  There are also some situations where we should not want to be disturbed and we need to focus and our lack of focus is troublesome to others, like in the gym or on the street.  When it comes to chances of injury or even death, at least South Koreans don't have to worry about the "Knockout Game", but there are plenty of other dangers out there to which many are oblivious to because of an addiction to smart phones.

"All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Perhaps the greatest of all down-sides to this obsessive smart phone use is the time it is sapping from self-reflection.  One of my issues with South Korean culture has always been the feeling that many people are just on the treadmill of life and it simply keeps on rolling.  This happens everywhere, but I do think Korean culture runs a greater risk than most because of their adherance to strict social rules, and people's similar life goals, causing a rather set and unquestioned way of life.  Time with one's own thoughts, is something we all need to weigh-up where our lives are going.  This can sometimes be depressing, especially if we are not going in the right direction or going nowhere and struggling for meaning, but it is vitally important.  When I am feeling a little sad or depressed it serves as a sign that something needs changing and it requires time to figure-out just what needs fixing and altering sometimes.  A walk in the countryside or to the shops, the bike to work, silent contemplation at home, or even waiting for a bus can provide the time necessary to set things straight.

The modern world is full of distractions, but it appears as if Korea has become the masters at providing it.  Their high-tech, hard-working culture has brought the people prosperity, but it has also brought them misery in the form of the highest suicide rates and unhappiness in the young.  In the land of distraction, many people do not think about and confront problems, they appear to distract themselves from them (perhaps this is also a factor in the love of computer games).  Without time for a bit of self-reflection, things aren't going to get happier any time soon.

"An unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates

Why does Korea Make us so Angry?

Picture by Charles LeBlanc (flickr.com)

Why is it that so many people get so upset about Korea while living in Korea?  I have never sensed the same acrimony about living in Japan or South East Asian countries, not even China.  When bad things happen in these countries, people get upset and move on more easily than Korea, it seems.  Is it simply that Korea is attracting only angry Westerners to its shores?

This was something I was musing on the other day while one of my uncle in-laws was talking to me over some spicy grilled eel (one of my favourites) outside his house.  I was in a good mood, eating happily away when he started a conversation about England in comparison to Korea.  He started with history and said, "America and the UK have only short histories, not like Korea.  You know Korea has a great history that goes back 5000 years?"

Firstly, why he lumped the US in the conversation is anyone's guess (Roboseyo might have the answer), but I suspect that, try as he might, even knowing that I am not American, he still can't quite bring himself to separate me from them.  In fact, many of my relatives regularly ask me questions about the US, to which 95% of the time, I simply say, "I have no idea."  Despite this, the questions still get asked and the message has not quite sunk in that I almost certainly know more about Korea than I do the US.

I can't help but feel I would have better received his comment if he had just forgotten about the comparison between countries and just said, "You know Korean history goes back 5000 years?" and left it at that, and then we could have had an interesting discussion about Korean history (something he might also know something about), albeit in my rather shoddy level of Korean.  I guess what he said was true about the US, it does have a young history, but the UK, not so much.  And as well as the fact he clearly knew nothing about the history of the British Isles, he had a goading, belittling, and magnanimous tone that encouraged a defensive response.  If I had been American I would have been tempted to say (as I got semi-offended on their behalf), "Well, I know your country has been around a long time, but....." you can add any number of responses here considering the great influence the US has had and still has on the world and has had on Korea itself.

The same goes for the UK of course, I had an overwhelming urge to list everything great about my country compared to his.  Also, unless we are talking about a continuous culture, the same race, or the same borders, the history of almost any country goes back over 5000 years, doesn't it?  But why did I have this longing to bite back?  I am not normally like this, I am not always so overly proud to be British, in fact I hate patriotism in many ways.  Why should I really be proud of a history I had no part in, based on the mere accident of my birth in that particular country? Logically speaking, it has never made that much sense to me.

Perhaps I am simply not immune to an innate form of tribalism that we all have, or perhaps it was also a combination of factors, like the inaccuracy, the ignorance, and the magnanimity of the way he was speaking, with all the authority given to him by his age and status as an older man in Korea.  There is just something about a Korean older man who speaks with confidence and authority on something that he knows absolutely nothing about and in a way that is clearly self-promoting that raises my heckles.  This biting reflex may be a natural Western instinct to rebel against authority.  This freedom to question and even grill the views of the supposedly superior is a great thing, which of course has some disadvantages in our societies when it comes to law and order, but is necessary for progress and freedom of expression.

Now, the very act of disagreeing with my uncle in-law tends to cause a bite-back response from him as well because - even when he is dead wrong about something that he obviously knows nothing about - he simply is not used to being told so.  So what could have started out as a friendly and interesting conversation about history, has turned into subtle slights on each other's culture when he probably had no previous quips about the UK with me, and I none about Korea with him.  I was starting to pick up that this was indeed what was happening, so started to check my tongue.  He however, wasn't quite done.

Picture by Leonard Bentley (flickr.com)

Next came the inevitable comment about smog (I don't know how many times Korean people have brought this up to me).  He also added how much cleaner the air must be for me now I am in Korea.  I had to correct him on this by saying that we no longer have smog because we don't really use coal as an energy source anymore (I think we stopped having smog when my mother was a child).  Since we stopped using it, we now don't have smog and that sometimes we have fog because we are quite a damp country, but the two are quite different and should not be confused.  I held back from saying that the air quality in the UK is undoubtedly better than Korea because the weather comes from thousands of miles across the Atlantic ocean and not from energy-hungry China and other highly populated and therefore fossil fuel burning parts of Asia.  There is evidence also to back this up.

Bizarrely, on a trip to Suncheon Bay with my parents (who were in Korea for my wedding) we were interviewed by a woman working for Gwangju kbc television and she reiterated much of the same sort of stuff.  After a few questions about how we felt about being there and how beautiful it was, it came up again, the comparison question: "How do you feel about being in Korea in this beautiful nature compared to England?"  It was an odd and uncomfortable question and the tone suggested she wanted an answer something along the lines of, "Yes, the air is so much fresher and the scenery so much more beautiful than my own country."  My mother and I sensed the gist of the question and gave a measured response saying how beautiful Korea was but also how England was just as pretty and picturesque, but perhaps in a less rugged and mountainous way.  She didn't seem overly satisfied with those answers, but it was better than my father's; he simply said - in his rather strong London accent - "Well, I'm not really a nature person."  The look on the reporter's face was golden.

Suncheon Bay in the background, two idiots in the foreground.

I digress, so anyway back to my uncle in-law.  After a few more back-handed comments about my country he then got round to giving me advice about how to raise a puppy given to me by my father in-law.  It was like chewing on glass to have to tolerate being told terrible advice about raising a dog even more than it was being told about the failings of my country of birth (compared to the mighty South Korea), especially as I knew how he treated his own dogs when they were alive.

As I have mentioned before in a previous post, my uncle in-law had two Jindo dogs a couple of years ago, which he tied up in the driveway and that he never walked - they simply stayed there for their whole life - with no bed or significant shelter in the heat of summer, the cold of winter and in the wind, rain, and snow. This would have been enough for me to disrespect his views on animal welfare already, but when I asked my wife one day why they had disappeared from his driveway, she said that he had sold them for dog meat because they were getting old and he didn't want them anymore.  Only yesterday did I learn that one of those dogs was actually my own dog's grandfather.

Coincidentally, this all happened just a few days before South Korean professor Kim Seong-kon at the Korea Herald released an article about Korean mothers, which was perhaps the very definition of diabolically awful, ill-formed, nationalistic nonsense, and quite rightly received a number of rebukes, first at Asiapundits, then by the boss at wangjangnim.com, and then my favourite of all by Roboseyo.  Actually, I was a little peeved with Roboseyo's post at the same time as it said precisely what I wanted to say about how Korea can wind us all up the wrong way sometimes and their reasons for it, plus it was done probably a lot better than I could have done it.  So check it out and I won't repeat anything here, he at least saved me some time in writing.

So in summary then, I understand the difference in culture and I know that some things will just get my goat because they are different and it is simply not what I am used to.  I think I have the means to fight these kinds of feelings, but perhaps the biggest reason for me to bite is this nasty little habit that so many older Koreans have of dishing out advice that is not only not asked for, but is for their own benefit, self-promoting, ignorant, vindictive, wrong, and magnanimous all at the same time.  Then, running a close second is the other tendency some Koreans have to shamelessly promote their own country as the best, whilst at the same time belittling others often right in the face of that particular country person, without having even the tiniest snippet of knowledge about their country.  Yes, I think I have figured out why I get a little snappy sometimes.

I sort of get why many often feel compelled to do preach advice and to compare the rest of our countries unfavourably to theirs, and I do feel genuine sympathy for what has happened to Korea in the past.  I also know that I should just be the bigger man and take it all with a smile on my face, yet at the same time, sometimes it is perfectly natural and right to become a little annoyed with it all.  More importantly, perhaps it is even our responsibility to respond and be upset, to ourselves, to others, and to the perpetrators of this stuff themselves.

Sources:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/health-sapping.html
http://obrien-envproject.wikispaces.com/HaileeZiehr-man+made+vs.+natural+air+pollution
http://roboseyo.blogspot.kr/2013/09/korean-mothers-are-best-you-know.html
http://www.asiapundits.com/regions/korea/korea-worlds-best-mothers/
http://wangjangnim.com/korean-mums
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20130917000515