People Watching - Some Obvious and Superficial Differences Between the UK and Korea

For the last month, I have been back at home in England.  The differences between my home and Korea is something that has always fascinated me, so it has been interesting to wonder around in my hometown and do all the things I used to do and just people watch, whilst at the same time have a strange feeling that I now have a rather Korean perspective about it all.  Here are some really obvious things I noticed this month:

1.  Happy Dogs Being Walked

It is nice to see loads of happy dogs enjoying their time with their owners and stretching their legs. Such a sight is not a common one in Korea, despite great access to all the little mountain trails.  Even though it was wet and muddy for the whole of my trip back, dog owners would still put their animals in the back of their car and bathed them when they got home so they could curl up beside the fireplace later on and not sit outside in the freezing cold (no selfish and counter-productive worries about making the house dirty and unhygienic).  Generally, Korea is not one of the happier places on earth to be a dog.

2.  Fat People

The difference in the size of waist-lines in the UK and Korea is simply startling.  Yes, Koreans are becoming more obese as a nation, but they have some way to catch up with us Brits.  It is noticeable that there were lots of news stories about obesity and lots of TV programs about fighting the flab as well, while I was home. Attitudes to food, health and exercise appear to be much better in Korea (as I have alluded to before) and it amazes me just how ignorant many Brits are about diet and exercise.

3.  Cheap Looking Women

It had been nearly three years since I had returned home and I had a diet of a relatively more conservative culture in Korea for all of that time, so seeing British women on a night out again was a bit of a shock. Korean women will typically not be too shy about showing-off their assets, i.e. their legs, but most of the rest of their body tends to be covered.  But despite it being the middle of winter in Britain, I was treated to an exceptional show of flesh on a night out with friends.  Breasts, legs, shoulders, and bellies were all out there, regardless of whether these women had nice figures or not.

Now, I am a red-blooded man, just like any other and I know some of you will be wondering where the problem lies in all of this.  There isn't a problem, of course, women can dress as they please (obviously, but just thought I'd throw this line in to protect myself from the feminists).  Maybe I am becoming a bit of a grumbling old miser, but there was something horrible about it all - perhaps that something is that the vast majority of them were not especially attractive and had an air of desperation about them.  Hate to say it, but the Korean women I see come across as generally much classier, have a nicer style, and are more attractive. Perhaps at least some level of modesty in dress has something to do with this.  I suppose it could also have something to do with the amount of time they spend preening themselves in the mirror and forking-out half their yearly salary (at least) on beauty products and accessories.

4.  Arrogance/Confidence of the Young

While I was back in England, I spent a fair amount of time at my local squash club trying to recapture my old form, so I got to interact with a lot of youngsters and especially teenagers.  As a high school teacher in Korea, I can compare 16-18 year olds especially well and it is quite noticeable how different British teenagers are to Korean teenagers.  A staggering amount of confidence oozes out of many Brits at this age (much of it misplaced), so much so that it does lurk into the realm of cocky arrogance in some.  I am sure a lot of this has to do with insecurity and bravado and it is not as genuine as some would have us believe, but still it is a striking difference.  A dose of British-style teenage confidence would be really beneficial to some of my students sometimes and a dose of modesty would also help some of those cheeky British teenagers. Why oh why can't we find a compromise somewhere in the middle of the two extremes?

5.  The Size of the Young and People Generally

I while ago, I got hammered for what I thought was a fairly uncontroversial statement, in my Asian couples post, by saying that Western men tend to be taller and bigger than Asian men.  It turns out that this is factually correct, but if you use your eyes at all and visit different countries and areas of the world, words fail me to describe just how obvious this statement also appears to be.  The size of young people was a real eye-opener, not just the height but the width of them.  I had coached a number of young squash players a few years ago and three years later they had become absolute monsters, I barely recognised them.

Its not just the young though, as I stood-up having a drink with friends one night I looked around and discovered I was one of the smallest guys in the room, even some of the women made me feel small.  I have never felt this way in Korea.

6.  Interesting and Moronic People

People having to conform to social norms exists everywhere, but in the UK it is easier to be different and sometimes people are admired for being so.  Leeway is therefore given to people who don't quite fit in.  I have always thought less leeway is given to Korean people, there are tighter controls on their personalities created by society.  I think this is the source of a greater variation of characters in somewhere like England. This is both good and bad; I find this variation to create more interesting people, but at the same time more moronic people who can also be a right pain in the backside.  I know this sounds like a bit of a stereotype of East Asians, but I think it is true that they have a more rigid social structure which causes rather predictable patterns of behaviour and even appearance.  I find I am surprised more often by people in the UK.

7.  Interactions Between Young and Old

It was really fascinating, and rather shocking, to witness how much more natural young people are when interacting with their elders in England.  There were many times that I felt that not enough respect was being given to elders - this feeling was strangely strong, no doubt caused by such a long time spent in another culture - but overall the relationships between young and old felt much better, more friendly and both parties seemed to get a whole lot more out of interacting with each other compared to what I see in Korea.  It is also nice for me (as a getting on for middle-aged man now) to be able to act so normally - and this be reciprocated - with 18 year olds and those slightly older and younger.  They can even be friends, this would be almost impossible in Korea, which is something I have always thought of as a great shame for both the older person and the younger person.

8.  The Ease of Eating Badly

The temptations to eat badly are far more present in the UK.  Supermarket aisles are filled with more unhealthy food (with the bakery particularly tempting), desserts are served more often, and treats generally are sweeter, more fattening, less healthy, and occur in larger amounts.  Brits have some really bad habits when it comes to food, Koreans - especially in the older generations - tend to have much better habits when it comes to eating and preparing food.

9. Offence

Brits appear to get offended by almost everything; bad driving, skipping queues, not putting the divider down at the supermarket, subtle physical nudges, etc.  Slights such as these are regularly taken in Korean people's stride.  They seem not to have such high expectations of the behaviour of people they don't know and mistakes or examples of bad manners are taken like water off a duck's back most of the time.

10. Running and Walking

Perhaps this is down to the terrain of South Eastern England (my neck of the woods) and South Korea, but in Korea people are always walking and in England a lot more people can be seen running.  One of my students did inform me - upon seeing me running the streets of my city of residence in Korea - that Koreans don't usually do this.  They usually run in a park or in the gym, not on the streets.  He did so in a bit of a 'so you should not be doing it' tone, I don't really know why though.

11. Not Getting Bumped and Cut-Off

It really is extraordinary how often people are generally in the way in Korea.  I thought it might have been a view I had caused by Korea fatigue, but sure enough it was confirmed when I went home.  People in England generally have so much more awareness of their surroundings and other people, and therefore their manners in this regard are so much better.  It was so refreshing to be able to walk along, and in tight situations, have someone let me go through or at least make some space.  The same goes for the driving; people stopping at zebra crossings, they made kind and considerate manoeuvres, and (gasp) waited for each other!  However, as I said in No. 10, woe betide anyone who is not considerate to others because they will receive an earful in the UK.  Koreans seem much more tolerant of such misdemeanors.

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'.

Defending the Tiger Mother

First let me start with what I am not defending, and that is the whole idea of tiger mothering.  Perhaps it breeds success, maybe it gives some children a leg-up in the world today, but this supposes that earning lots of money should be the number one goal of life.  I strongly disagree with this and like many who disagreed with Amy Chua's first book, "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother", I believe success and happiness in life is possible without ruining the relationship between parents and their children, without placing undue stress, strain and pressure on them, without spoiling all their fun, and without emotionally scarring them for the rest of their lives.

What I am defending is the principle behind her recent ideas.  According to the New York Post, she argues that some groups of people are more likely to be successful than others for a number of reasons.  In the New York Post's article they equate greater success with being 'better' full-stop.  Without reading the book, I cannot be sure of Amy Chua's intentions and whether she really thinks these cultures are actually 'better' or not or simply more primed for success in a world of global capitalism.

If all she is saying is that the following cultures/religious groups/ethnic groups are more likely to produce successful people, I really don't understand what all the fuss is about:

• Jewish
• Indian
• Chinese
• Iranian
• Lebanese-Americans
• Nigerians
• Cuban Exiles
• Mormons

I don't know anything about the vast majority of the groups listed here, but I can make a well-educated guess on why she puts the Chinese there based on her previous arguments and the similarities with Korean culture also.  Tiger mothering, for example, is something that I see present in Korea and the three key factors she explains as being secrets to the above group's success (a superiority complex, insecurity, and impulse control) are also often attributable to Koreans.

So with this in mind then, I can readily imagine how some cultures or cultural thinking may serve some people better in helping them build successful lives in the modern world.  In fact, it seems a no-brainer to me.  The argument laid-out as simply as possible is basically, "Some cultural behaviours and thinking work better than others in certain areas."  Who can really argue with this?

The argument presented by Amy Chua and friends is actually so banal and uninteresting that one wonders how it would cause any controversy at all.  But here again, the insinuation of racism comes to the fore.  This is summed-up by this statement (mainly aimed at her original book, but the accusation is that she is continuing the trend), which I believe should be apologised for:

"Her book really can be reduced to one simple argument: Chinese mothers are better than those of any other race"

How has race been brought up in this context?  As much as I disagree whole-heartedly with Amy Chua's style of parenting, she is not making the claim that her DNA is the reason why her children will be more successful in life (and is she arguing that Chinese mothers are 'better' or just better at making children successful?).  The whole point is clearly that it is her method of bringing-up her children - rooted in her country's culture - is what can make children more successful.  The colour of her skin has nothing to do with it.  These are the sort of errors in discourse that we should be at pains to point out, because the link to racism always serves as a tool to silence debate and to not confront arguments with reason and evidence.  It is a subtle and nasty little insinuation that must be confronted whenever it appears.

The inclusion in the list of what some would call ethnic groups is still not enough to justify accusations of racism because what is being put forward is that these group's culture - how they are behaving and thinking - is what is making the difference.

I think she may well be right that being brought-up in one of these eight cultures may give individuals a better chance of being successful in life and for the reasons she mentioned.  Of course it would need further investigation and evidence to sort it out, but she is making some logical inferences that are worth exploring, and this is what writing speculative books is all about, it drives us to further study, debate and to forward our knowledge.  So while I couldn't be more against Amy Chua's priorities in life, the principles behind her theories have some basis in reason and logic, are not racist, and for this reason are worth defending.

Problems of Mass Immigration and Multiculturalism in the UK - How Korea has Shaped my Perspective

In a few days, I will return home for a month long vacation.  It is a terrible time of year to visit the UK, January is cold and dark, but at least I will be there for the New Years celebrations and I will meet friends and family I have not seen for over two years.  It is amazing how the time has flown by.

As well as January being one of the most depressing months of the year for weather reasons, there is another reason Britons have cause for concern this January and that is the anticipated mass immigration of Romanians and Bulgarians.  From the 1st of January, restrictions will be lifted on these countries which will enable them to move freely to the UK and other countries in the European Union.

Immigration is of great concern for the British public, when Poland was allowed easier access to the UK in 2004 due to the enlargement of the EU, the then Labour government predicted 10 000 Polish would come; the actual number was more like half a million.  Much of the population is also concerned with the effect that growing Muslim populations are having.  The graphic murder of Lee Rigby on a London street encouraged some hysteria against Muslims, but terrorism is just one of many concerns people have.

In a report by the Democracy Institute, a think tank in the UK, it is predicted that 385 000 Romanians and Bulgarians will come to the UK once the borders are open to them after January 1st.

There are a number of red herrings in the debate on immigration in the UK often peddled by those on the right and those in the increasingly popular UK Independence Party (UKIP) - although the party does make many good points on immigration also. Apparently, migrants from Eastern Europe take our jobs, put strain on the economy, claim benefits, and commit crime.   This article from The Economist makes the argument against all of these and although there could be some debate about what they say, I am willing to accept it for the sake of argument as it makes no difference to mine.  I am sceptical about the benefits such mass immigration has on my country and this scepticism stems from my experiences with Korean culture and my marriage with a Korean woman.

Why is this you might say?  Surely I should be pro-immigration and longing for a world without borders.

Well, let's start with a rather controversial comment on my blog a while ago from someone who said they were against inter-racial marriage and breeding.  I invited him to debate me over e-mail as to why he would say such a thing, as I obviously am against such a position.  What I took out of the exchange was certainly not agreement with his point of view, but he did lay-out quite a bit of evidence to suggest that such unions tend to be more troublesome for the couples in question and for their children.  I acknowledged such relationships are generally more difficult, I just didn't agree that necessarily translated into inter-racial and cross-cultural relationships being something we shouldn't do.

The difficulty of such relationships is fairly obvious when you think about it; the pressures of a world that still places quite a high importance on the colour of one's skin is one reason, but also many inter-racial relationships are also cross-cultural, like between my wife and I.  We have unique problems that people of the same culture would not have in areas such as, personality, sense of humour, family, core values, and geography, to mention but a few.  These issues can be worked through with love, an open mind, and an appreciation of the enrichment these differences can have on each other's lives.  However, these can still be big problems that not everyone is capable of overcoming.

Perhaps you can see what angle I am taking here; replace one couple and their families with millions of people within a nation and people whose motivations to cope with these kinds of problems is not so strong and I think you can see why friction could be created.

I have been writing this blog for nearly two years now and it has become a bit of a library of how British and Korean culture can clash.  I am never short of material in this regard and this fires-off warning signals in my brain.  My wife and I have spent time in other countries, we understand where our difficulties arise based around our cultures and we can absorb and understand them.  I don't think this is the case with the vast majority of my fellow countrymen in the UK and the immigrants that go there.  The British people have tolerance hammered into their brains, not understanding, and the people coming into the UK lead largely separate lives in islands within the British Isles.  The combination causes a culture of blame, resentment, frustration, inequality, and prejudice.

In my post, "The Hypocrisy of Western Prejudice", I now believe I was too harsh on some of my fellow Brits who found it awkward to make friends with my wife.  Perhaps some of them could have been more open-minded and made the same effort as my wife was making, but the fact is that this kind of openness to others is something that tends to be learned - most often by travel or living in another culture - and doesn't come naturally. Tribalism and discomfort with people of other cultures is what comes naturally to most, even the very warm-hearted and kind.  That's where the hypocrisy comes in, they are told that everyone should be treated equally and to be open-minded to people of other cultures and they say they believe it, but until they actually practice being this way, it doesn't really happen in reality.  Interaction with people from other cultures often has to be practiced, it is like a skill, and like any other skill, there will be some people that pick it up easily and some that will require much more time to get into the swing of things.

All of this takes time and hard-work as a couple, let alone a population of a country.  Mass immigration is a recipe for disaster because it takes away the ability of the native people to adjust slowly and comfortably to people from other countries and cultures.  Some of these people are from cultures that, until relatively recently, have lived apart for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years and whose value systems are completely different, even opposite on occasions.  Whether the country is benefited economically by immigration or not is largely irrelevant to most people when they see behaviour from others that abhors them because their core moral values are so different.

Immigration has always been a part of Britain, and as some people like to say, "most of us are immigrants".  But figures don't lie, Britain has had an unprecedented rise in immigration from a decade or so ago.  Now, in London, only about 44% are White British.  Such a rapid change in the make up of the British population is a concern for many and it is causing racial and cultural tensions.

What we see in Western countries in particular is constant talk about how life-enriching and beneficial all this mingling of different cultures is for all of us.  This is true, I know it from my marriage into a Korean family and wouldn't change things for the world now.  But I also know that the difficulties are significant and seriously under-addressed and the problem is that when they are addressed they are often dismissed because the people who address them are regularly right-wing nut-bags, like the EDL or the BNP in the UK (UKIP are often perceived this way also, although unfairly, I think), who are genuinely racist and genuinely closed-minded.  Because of this, when people speak-up from a similar position who are not prejudiced and have genuine concerns, they are shouted-down by a culture of progressive liberalism as belonging to groups of racists and neo-nazis.  We end up with too many people being extremely pro-immigration and too many extremely anti-immigration with not much sensible argument in the middle.  The extreme pro-immigration side has been winning for some time - at least in the political arena - but that may change soon with right-wing political parties gaining popularity all around Europe.

Another issue, which we are at pains to address, is the fact that the people from different cultures that enter the UK are not all equal.  Western Europeans and North Americans, for example, are not likely to disrupt the traditional culture of the UK and create as much tension as some others, like people from mainly Islamic countries for example.  This is a hard problem to acknowledge, but we must honestly address it because it is causing significant difficulties in many European countries at the moment.

The Importance of Cross-Cultural Relationships

There could be a significant amount of self-interest involved in what I am about to say, but still I think it is true.  A year or so ago, the British government made it a lot more difficult for married couples - British nationals with non-EU member nationals - to come to the UK (this is the reason I am not in the UK now and planning to live in Australia instead).  I believe this is a major mistake (a mistake motivated solely by saving a little money for the economy and making headlines) because if there was ever a chance for different cultures to truly interact with each other and for multiculturalism to really work, these kinds of couples hold the key.  They are the ones who can comprehend the difficulties and know how to overcome them and they are the ones who can create positive interactions between different cultures and communities living in the same country.  They can encourage true integration because they can share the same friends and family as their spouse.  This is the kind of immigration that is genuinely beneficial and the chance of better unity and communication has been squandered in an attempt to show that the government is "getting tough" on immigration.

Living together in peace, equality and harmony is the goal, but we won't get there by forcing mass immigration on people that are not ready yet, it must occur more slowly and in a way that encourages integration.  We are failing on both in the UK and there is trouble ahead because of it.

A Culture Bias in Reporting of Korean Culture and Plane Crashes?

I might have some issues with TheKorean's writing, but that does not detract from the fact I read his blog more than most others.  His opinion on many matters seems to run opposite to mine and I enjoy hearing my opinions challenged, which most of his writing does, in an eloquent, well thought-out way.  It is easy to think that just because people disagree with each other that this necessarily involves hatred or even dislike. I do not see it this way, so I'd like to begin this post by saying that I really appreciate TheKorean's blog and the time he has taken recently and in the past to respond to me.

I do, however, still disagree with him about his theory on cultural explanations and culturalism.  I will explain why in this post.  I do believe TheKorean's ambitions in his first post were greater than the position he is taking now, but the way I understand things now - and with his arguments stripped down as generously as I can - it goes like this:

1. We should not posit a cultural explanation for something, especially if the issue is a sensitive one, before we know the facts or at least have explored other avenues first, with particular responsibility placed on the media.

2. In the West, we jump onto cultural explanations when it comes to the non-Western countries and we don't when it comes to ourselves or other Western countries.  This is an example of a bias called "Culturalism."  Here are some quotes to verify this:

"If national culture is such an important concept that must be examined to promote airline safety, why does the discussion about cultural factors never happen when a European or an American plane crashes?"

 "The honest answer to these questions must inevitably involve the concept of bias, for culturalism is a form of bias."

 "This is why Europeans and Americans get a pass from the culturalist desire. It is not that Europeans and Americans do not have a culture that impacts their behavior; they clearly do. It is that Europeans and Americans are always afforded the luxury of being treated as individuals who are not slaves to their cultures. The same luxury is rarely afforded to South Americans, Middle Easterners, Africans and Asians."

"CNN will continue running stories about Korean culture whenever a Korean plane crashes, while never raising questions about American culture when an American plane crashes. That is the discrepancy that I want you to think about."

As I said, I think his ambitions were greater than this in his original post, but I am not going to dwell on it and I am willing to concede that it may only be my mistaken interpretation of what he wrote which is the cause of me thinking this.  This is what he is saying now, so let's examine it.

The first part of his argument I have some sympathy to, but the second part is simply showing complete indifference to the multitude of situations where culture is used by Europeans and Americans to explain their own behaviour, their own problems, and their own disasters, rightly or wrongly (and the behaviour of other Western countries).  Culture isn't used specifically for explaining plane crashes, he's right, but it is used in many other situations which include (and are glaringly easy to find); obesity, gun crime, healthcare, and education in the US, soccer hooliganism, violence, binge drinking and anti-social behaviour in the UK, and the economic crisis in Southern Europe.  Whether all these cultural explanations are correct or even justified are irrelevant to the 2nd point, because it does definitively show that there is no bias and Europeans and Americans don't get a pass from the "culturalist" desire as he says. 

When TheKorean talks specifically about plane crashes, the reasons for supposing a nation's culture might cause them is absolutely vital in the positing of a cultural explanation.  The fact is that we had good reasons with Korean culture, the reasons are not so clear with Western countries (even if these reasons turned out to be wrong, I think you can see how it is someone might hold them based on Korean hierarchical respect culture).  If I was to start talking about traditional Korean food culture as playing a role in rising obesity in Korea, it would be ridiculous and difficult to comprehend.  But if I started to talk about American food culture seeping into Korea and that being a cause of rising obesity, you might begin to think I am making some sense judging by the fact Americans have the highest calorie intake on the planet on average and have high obesity rates, and American food is generally higher in calories than traditional Korean food (especially fast food, which is becoming more popular in Korea).

In a reply to me, he did however, express another factor that could be involved.  He argued that problems, say, in American culture are often localised or universalised and that we didn't do this with Korean culture and airplane crashes.  He gave the examples of people not talking about Korean pilots coming from the military and the effect that might have (localised) and people not talking about "cockpit culture" being a factors across all countries (universalised).  For example, in education the problem isn't so much American culture, but arguments are given relating to the poor within America or the immigrants from other countries (localised).  And in the 2008 financial crisis, again American culture wasn't directly blamed, but corporate greed or "the one percent" a problem we see everywhere (universalised).

I think he was wrong about this because I distinctly remember reading articles in the Western press talking about military pilots becoming airline pilots in Korea, and this possibly being a factor in past crashes, and a large amount of talk about "Cockpit culture" not being uniquely Korean.  So the accusation that we don't localise or universalise with other cultures is false, at least in the example he uses.  I provide these links to show this:

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/south-korea/130709/asiana-airlines-crash-possibly-effected-cultur

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/12/asiana-pilot-feared-landing-safely-ntsb-report

In the second article, the Guardian never even mentions Korean culture in the Asiana crash investigation findings. 

When it comes to point 1, however, the justification of the reasons we make for culture being an issue are important.  It could very well be that the people in Western countries are too quick to jump to cultural conclusions and they shouldn't (especially in the media), whether it is about themselves, other Western countries or non-Western countries.  This may in fact be true of people from all countries and cultures.

In my last post, I outlined the reasons why I thought we had good reasons to suspect Korean culture as playing a role in potentially catastrophic failures of communication in plane crashes.  I think it was fair enough to speculate that this was part of the reason for the Asiana crash (especially in light of the previous cases), I also think it is perfectly fine to speculate about it on a blog.  A slightly trickier question is whether it is responsible of a major world news corporation to speculate about it in the wake of the crash when it hadn't been fully investigated yet.  The truth is, I am not sure about this.  When it's put like that it doesn't sound good, for sure.

However, without the obvious signs of a mechanical failure and a history of Korean respect culture playing a role in other crashes - according to crash investigators - I do think they were justified in bringing up the subject of the reasons for previous plane crashes of Korean airliners.  After all, if a British Airways plane crashed tomorrow, the news would probably bring up previous crashes of British Airways and other British airplane disasters, especially if circumstances looked similar.  So in Korean airline companies, the history of previous crashes will hint at the same reason applying for the current crash, so I guess drawing the same conclusions is unavoidable.

It is of course quite natural for us to look for cultural explanations for bad things we see happen connected with cultures that are not our own, this is the tribal instinct at work, perhaps.  I understand why TheKorean is against this, just because it is natural doesn't make it right and it is perhaps an urge that we all should fight against.  But I think Western culture does, quite uniquely, fight against this.  While I have written myself about the frustrating levels of prejudice still present in Western culture, institutionally, in politics, and in the media they actually sometimes take positions that are too relative and too "fair" to other cultures, to the point where we even do not apply our own laws for fear of being insensitive to another culture.  We often disregard objectivity, equality, and human rights to the detriment of our own countries and the detriment of vulnerable people who are immigrants from other countries.  Examples can be seen of this in my own country lately with the brouhaha over the allowing of segregation of men and women in universities by Muslim speakers (which has now thankfully been rescinded after an official watchdog and the government voiced objection to Universities UK's decision).

The Issue of Freedom of Speech

The wonderful thing about free speech and expression, is that when you say or do something that is lazy or is motivated by pure prejudice without reason, logic and evidence, it tends to show up.  You look like a dumbass when you're exposed, you feel like an idiot, and after a period of licking one's wounds, hopefully your opinions get changed.  This is why my heckles are raised significantly when the word "racism" is used in these kinds of arguments.

TheKorean did explicitly state he did not equate culturalism with racism (also note he remarks that culturalism is something Americans do to other Americans in this quote, which seems to contradict his 2nd point):

"I am not willing to equate culturalism and racism, because the two terms do not overlap completely. For example, culturalism is evident in the manner in which the rest of America discusses the Deep South, in a way that racism is not. But as I wrote previously, culturalism and racism are related, as they are two streams from the same source--the desire to reduce an identifiable group of people to some kind of indelible essence."

However, he is creating a strong connection between the two and he made pains to make this clear in his original post:

"Like racism, culturalism puts a large group of people beyond rational understanding."

"Like racism, culturalism distracts away from asking more meaningful questions, and obscures pertinent facts."

"like racism, culturalism destroys individual agency"

The problem with doing this is that he should know that as soon as the word "racism" comes up in an argument people from the opposing side tend to back down for fear of being labeled a "racist."  It has been a tactic used by the far-left progressives for some time now.  It is corrosive to free speech and I believe encourages a festering of racism because people's actual racist views or border-line racist views are left unchallenged.  This is the whole debate on the right to offend in freedom of expression in a nutshell and I firmly sit on the side of the right to offend (without going out of our way to offend just for the sake of it).  Of course, TheKorean is perfectly entitled to write what he does, but this is my response to it.  It is an important debate to have because it has not really been settled yet.

Because of all this, then, if he had made point one without bringing-up the subject of racism or indeed culturalism or any prejudice at all, I might have been more inclined to agree with him, but his second point was the biggest problem.  I think he alienated many people who see good reasons for making cultural explanations/opinions/speculations because they simply honestly see that there could be a large dose of truth in them.  Most are not "culturalists", or even have any prejudice at all and they resent being linked to racists. 

This is a game the progressive left have been playing with conservative opinions for some time now, and whilst I actually have mostly liberal opinions, I have great sympathy for those that hold conservative opinions when they are shot down for being racists or bigots, or simply labeled as ignorant and prejudiced.  Some undoubtedly are, like some liberals are, but I know by having known many of them that most probably aren't and they would not discriminate or show any malice against individuals on the basis of race and culture. 

It is not wrong to have an opinion about a culture, it is wrong to apply this opinion to discriminate unfairly against individuals, that is the bottom line.  By speculating that Korean culture might have been a factor in a crash, how did anyone discriminate against an individual or violate their human rights?  If then some airline company chooses to use this speculation to not hire a Korean pilot, for example, then we have a case of discrimination and this is unfair.  However, is that really likely to happen?  Perhaps it does, but that would be exactly the area we would need to clamp down on.  Not the honest musings about how culture effects behaviour, but the treating of individuals as individuals.

People were totally within their rights to challenge the assumption or the evidence that Korean culture was involved in airline crashes, but until TheKorean did so, perhaps the argument simply wasn't out there.  It is pretty difficult to report on a side of an argument that doesn't exist yet.  One should give credit to TheKorean for questioning Gladwell's lack of thoroughness and people's blind acceptance of what he said and giving the other side of the argument, but to call it "culturalism" and an example of prejudice is going too far, perhaps it was simple ignorance.  There is nothing wrong with ignorance as long as it is not willful.  By putting your opinion out there, you invite others to enlighten you and critique your position, the key is having an open mind.  I would also note how well received TheKorean's article was going against Gladwell's previously accepted theory, he certainly wasn't silenced.

Speculating with an open mind is fine, with a closed mind it is wrong.  Speculating and making it seem like fact, that is another problem and which TheKorean took Gladwell to task on.  Sloppy work motivated by culturalism?  That's a step too far, as I said, I'd say simply sloppy work and perhaps he is a 'culturalist', but I think he should be given the benefit of the doubt that he is not and his work should not be marked as motivated by a form of prejudice.  In fact, TheKorean's conclusion about Gladwell and those that accepted his work hints at a fair amount of hypocrisy because he is the one saying we shouldn't jump to cultural conclusions and says it is unfair and insensitive.  Yet at the same time he is jumping to the conclusion of prejudice, which is just as - if not more than - unfair and insensitive itself.

There will always be examples of people with prejudice, or even whole TV stations or newspapers with prejudice, but to accuse it on the whole culture or the journalistic profession in the West is unfair and not true.  And as I have mentioned, I think even the bad ones do it across the board with all cultures, including their own.  Also, defense of other cultures in the Western media is quite vociferous and a popular position to take among liberals these days.

One newspaper or TV network does not speak for the whole of Western culture.  If TheKorean's point is merely to enlighten us when we see individual news reports about their inaccuracies and jumping to cultural conclusions, he must surely know that CNN, for example, have been roundly trashed for doing both by other news networks, newspapers, political commentators and comedians.  Let's face it, sometimes, especially 24-hour news networks are so desperate for something to report, that they will report nearly anything.

The issue TheKorean brings up is not about prejudice, it is about politeness, sensitivity and accuracy in media reporting and writing, and that is something I could be persuaded upon to change my views when it comes to using cultural explanations, of any culture (when it comes to sloppy work in the media generally, I am already sold).  I would still need to be convinced that being overly-sensitive to a reasonable criticism of your culture from other countries is necessary or essentially understandable (logically speaking, I think it is not).  You are not your culture and should not be offended as if a criticism against your culture was a criticism of you personally, one should listen carefully and see if they have a point about the culture you live in, then dismiss it if they are wrong and try to change things if they are right.  Perhaps this is not very realistic (perhaps as realistic as trying to stop jumping to cultural conclusions), but this is how we can truly grow and create a better society with which to live in, and importantly, live together in.

The Asiana Crash - Korean Respect Culture Under the Spotlight and Justifiably so

Even before the Asiana crash, I had been warning of the perils of Korean respect culture.  Then immediately after it, the suspicions about the cause of the crash started to resemble Malcolm Gladwell's cockpit culture theory, which was critical of Korean culture before with other plane crashes.  Ask a Korean then wrote about it on his site, pointing out that Gladwell wasn't as thorough as he should have been.  He was right about that, but he never proved Gladwell wrong and he went a step too far in insisting that talk of Korean culture being a factor in plane crashes was an example of a kind of prejudice called "Culturalism", which he compared regularly (and wrongly) to racism.


TheKorean's post struck a chord with many people on the left because there is nothing more popular than someone who strikes down an argument against a non-Western culture.  All cultures are equal, don't you know, in all given situations, they just do things differently and there is no such thing as right or wrong (except when it comes to the West, and the US in particular, being wrong) and those poor non-Western cultures always need (our) protection.

I wrote a response to TheKorean, I did so because I was disturbed by three things: 1 - One should not discount all possibilities when investigating a crash, truth is what counts, not cultural sensibilities when it comes to life and death; 2 - I was worried that comparing such thoughts about a culture to racism may dissuade people from honest truth searching for fear of being labeled "Racist"; and 3 - I knew the possibility of Korean hierarchical respect culture playing a role in the crash was a very plausible one.

In his most recent post, I feel TheKorean is doing some serious stretching of his previous arguments in his first (without acknowledging that is what he is doing) and he seems now to think that the first of my concerns above was something he was never arguing against in the first place.  What did he say about entertaining a question like whether Korean culture had anything to do with the crash?

TheKorean - "If entertaining that question seriously wastes time and distracts from asking the more realistic and pertinent questions, the question is not worth thinking about."

So he says all possibilities should be considered, including culture, but ..... it is silly and wastes time to do so. As I said in argument with him at the time, does asking the question really waste time?  Does it really stop a full investigation of all possible avenues?  Does TheKorean think that, when it comes to air crashes, investigators are not going to be as thorough as humanly possible?  It is ridiculous to think that they would turn around and say, " Hey, it was because of Korean culture, right?  Okay, let's just not bother doing any more work and go home."  Anyway, the fact that Korean culture was trotted-out as an explanation clearly annoyed him, if not why did he write what he did?

So why was I still so suspicious that Korean respect culture might have contributed to the crash (even before reading recent findings confirming that it surely did)?

The answer stares everyone in the face everyday, if you are living in Korea.  I suspect even many Koreans themselves know it as well, but like most of the foreign visitors to Korea also, they don't want to see it. Every time a woman automatically makes the coffee, every time an older worker gets away with being lazy simply for being older, every time younger people are forced to attend company dinners and get drunk at them, every time younger workers are given more work than their elders, and even every time when anyone has to "talk up" to anyone else.

Respect culture is unequal and discriminatory by nature, to be frank it is flawed by nature as it is sexist and ageist.  When it comes to children and grandparents it's nice, but when we all grow up it stops being useful. It is not necessary because respect of our elders comes naturally or not at all.  And as we all know in Korea, one person only needs to be a year older than the other to cause a significant difference in how they are spoken to and treated (a kind of fundamentalist ageism, don't you think).

In Korea, many people don't respect their elders - it depends on whether they earn respect or not, just like everywhere else - but they almost always fear their elders, or at least fear to not show their respect to elders. The difference is important because if you respect someone, being honest in disagreement shouldn't be a problem, but if you fear someone, being honest in communicating with them becomes a serious issue.

Some of the situations I mention above seem trivial, but they are not, they are everyday examples that habitualise a way of living and a way of being that is hard to be snapped out of.  The fact is that, in Korea, if you are older or in a higher position at work - and especially a man - you are more likely not to be told of your mistakes, if you are younger you will probably hear about them non-stop (over and above what naturally occurs in other cultures also).  I have no statistics to back up this statement, but it this seems so undeniable that it is a close to an unadulterated fact as you will ever get. Everyone knows this is true and I have never met a Korean who has denied it.

So when TheKorean makes an argument that says why would a pilot risk the lives of everyone on the plane just to be polite to his elders or those of superior rank, he misses the point entirely:

TheKorean - "No sane person would be willing to die for the sake of keeping up with manners"

It is more than likely there is no conscious choice going on inside the head of the pilot, he is simply acting in way he has been conditioned to behave over his entire life.  He would not be playing eeny, meeny, miny, moe with couple of hundred passengers, himself and his co-pilots on the one hand and his concerns with politeness on the other, that would be absurd.  The whole point of the cultural explanation is that it works around logic; it is behaviour that has become ingrained and hard to break out of, even in possibly critical situations.

People from countries without respect culture are also prone to not speaking out against their superiors and this is the argument for, "cockpit culture", generally and that this is just a fact of life across all cultures. Sure, it can happen in anywhere, but what kind of cultures are more likely to have a problem with questioning their superiors?  Honesty and common sense points you towards the Far Eastern respect cultures. Korea's hierarchical respect culture is still so rigid that it will be prime suspect when it comes to possibly life and death breakdowns of communication and should always be investigated.  Forget offending another culture, this is about moral responsibility to discover the truth, which is far more important.

Bobby McGill over at BusanHaps gave a good summary of some of the recent information from the interviews by crash investigators of the pilots.  Now, I'm not going to be all smug and say, "I told you so", just yet but things aren't looking good for those who think, not only that Korean culture had nothing to do with it, but that it was wrong to even think of it as one of the leading contributory factors.

Before the Asiana crash my wife had signaled a number of warning signs to me when she talked about her job as a nurse in Korea.  This is when I became convinced that cultural etiquette in the form of too much "respect" (I would call this fear) could be life threatening.  She recanted a story which I shared in the post I mentioned earlier, "The Perils of Respect Culture", of nurses fearful of speaking out to their superiors as they witnessed a patient's blood pressure dropping precipitously, failed to act with enough urgency to then tell the doctors for fear of being scolded, and finally - after the lucky escape of the patient - younger nurses were not listened to regarding the possible cause of the patient's near death, despite one of them having witnessed a similar case in another hospital, while the others were generally flummoxed.  Other stories of patient care compromised by a failure of honest communication were also forthcoming on a regular basis.

So in a situation with any chain of command, any natural hierarchy of rank or age, I think we are right to be a little suspicious of Korean culture.  In my time here, there have been too many times people have not proved consistently able to handle these kind of circumstances in a satisfactory manner.  There are often too many crossed-wires and too many unfair, and illogical decisions going on from those of high rank and in my experience they are rarely, if ever, questioned by younger or lower ranking individuals.  Until Korean culture can sort itself out in this regard, the culture brings the suspicion upon itself.

This is not an attack on Korean culture as a whole, just one specific aspect of it.  Much like when there is a group of football fans causing trouble or violence in a city holding an international football tournament, many people from other countries might think of English supporters first, sometimes countries or cultures can deserve some of the judgments made about them.  This isn't to say you should look at a random English football supporter and discriminate against them or automatically think they are trouble, but I don't think I'd blame a bar owner being a bit worried about of a group of rowdy English supporters coming through their doors after England lose an important match, for example. 

In a more recent example, the PISA results for student performance in different countries has given many Western countries great cause for self-reflection about their own culture of education and that they might be doing something wrong and some of the Far Eastern countries are doing something right.

To sum things up, I think I will just use the words of another because they are so damn good.  A comment was left on TheKorean's recent post (posted by "Michael") that hit the nail so squarely on the head as to close the matter entirely, especially the last paragraph:

TheKorean - "CNN will continue running stories about Korean culture whenever a Korean plane crashes, while never raising questions about American culture when an American plane crashes. That is the discrepancy that I want you to think about."

Michael - "CNN (and most other news sources) usually discuss American gun culture whenever a mass shooting happens. Yet I don't recall any discussion of Korean culture playing a role in the Virginia Tech shooting. Is this unfair to American culture? No, because we have no reason to believe that any aspect of Korean culture was relevant to the Virginia Tech shooting. 

With American plane crashes, we've never had reason to believe that culture played a role. With some Korean plane crashes, we DO have reason to believe that culture was involved. That is why it gets discussed. 

If you suspect that an aspect of American culture played a role in an American plane crash, please discuss it on your blog. I would probably find it interesting. And I certainly wouldn't get offended or upset if someone were to investigate whether my culture played a role in an airline accident."

Note: Also read Michael's other comments (here and here) don't mean to be overly complementary (which is not usually my style), but he is now my new hero and makes perfect sense.

I hope I have explained well enough why we do have reason to believe Korean culture could very well have played a role in some of these plane crashes and are justified in suspecting so.  One can't help but also think that if there was no reason to suspect Korean culture as a cause, why did the theory ever come up in the first place?  It all seems a clear case of cultural relativism to me.  We have a right to point out the cultural theory and Koreans need to listen carefully and decide whether we have a point and whether they need to change this aspect of their culture or at least work extra hard on making it disappear in the cockpit.

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