Koreans Sometimes Don't Take Friendships Seriously

About 6-7 years ago, I met a Korean American friend at church. I will call him John since I'd rather not use his real name to protect his identity. Through him I met his Korean friend Jack (also a fictional name). I'm very good friends with John and I've hung out with him for many years. We've had lunch together numerous times and gone out for coffee on a lot of occasions. He would move back and forth to Philadelphia and then move back to Seoul. He has done that numerous times (Philly is his hometown yet he loves Seoul and can't decide on where to live permanently).

Two months ago, John came to Seoul and I saw him at church. We also had dinner together one other time. I saw him at least two times during the trip but didn't see Jack despite John hanging out with him a couple of times. When I first met Jack, I asked him if he wanted to hang out with him a couple of times, but he said he was busy, so I never pursued the friendship seriously. In total, I've only hung out with Jack once in the 6-7 years that I've known him. We had been Facebook friends and that was the extent of it. On the other hand, John and I are good friends, hang out often, and even send text messages to each other when he's in Philly and I'm in Seoul.

Three years ago, Jack called me and asked me for help about something. I believe that I helped him, but I can't remember exactly. Since then, Jack might "like" a post here and there on Facebook and I do the same. Just recently I "liked" his profile picture of him, his wife, and his daughter. (Sidenote: I've never met his wife or his daughter).

Two days ago, Jack called me at 3:30pm on a Wednesday, but I was taking a nap between my morning and evening shifts at work. I thought to myself, "He must need help with something. What other reason would he call me?" He called again at 5:30pm. However, I didn't realize it since I was walking to my workplace. When I got to my workplace, I texted him and said "What's up Jack? I was taking a nap and missed your first call and now I'm at work." He responds, "I see. I was thinking that (sic) moving to US to become a UMC pastor. I need to write a cover letter and get a script of 20 min (sic) sermon that is simple and powerful. If I send my resume, can you write a cover letter for me? If you can't, it is okay. But I ask you to pray for that." 

I shook my head in disbelief. I really don't understand people like that. I barely know this guy,  we've hung out once with my friend John, and don't know his wife. How can a very distant acquaintance ask for such a huge favor? He's also going to the US, so I'll probably never ever see him once he leaves. And he had the audacity to call me a second time an hour later after I missed the first call. Am I supposed to just answer just because he's my friend's friend? He can't actually think that we are good friends or does he? What I'm guessing is that because I'm a nice guy, he figured I would be there no matter what.

Then a thought came to my mind. This is common in Korean culture. I have a Korean friend who lives in Australia. The only time he contacts me is when he needs help with his resume or cover letter. Recently he contacted me and I figured that he needed help again. Sure enough. He was worried because an American female friend that we mutually know from church was annoyed with him. Apparently she was ignoring his text messages and he called to find out why. They used to have a language exchange together and we all used to hang out together after church and have coffee. I told him that the reason she is ignoring his texts is that maybe he only contacted her when he needed help. He said it was common in Korean culture to help a friend in need at any time. I said that in Western culture if you don't contact friends just to see how they're doing and only contact them when you need something, it's a fake friendship. He seemed surprised when I told him that.

Yet this is also common in wedding culture in Korea. I remember getting a wedding invitation from a friend that I hadn't heard from in three years. I also recall getting an invitation from a student that I had only taught twice. I've also gotten invitations from Korean friends and then after I attend their wedding, I never hear from them again. The goal of many Korean weddings is to get as many people as you can to your wedding to make up for the cost that you put into the wedding. That's a shallow concept and I don't get how relationships can be taken so lightly in Korean culture. That seems to be fairly common in Korea especially because the work culture is so intense. They don't have time to hang out with their friends and once they get married, friendships are put on the back burner.

Many of my friends aren't Korean for this reason. I'm an introvert, so I only treasure friends that I know are going to be reliable and trustworthy. To add to that, I'm getting older. When I first got a Facebook account, I added many people to my friend's list. Now I'm pretty happy to have weeded out people that I can't even call an acquaintance or people that used to be friends but don't keep in touch with me any more. My goal in 2019 is to send more texts or make more phone calls to my real friends and worry less about people that won't be there for me. 

Scott Worden (The L.A./Seoul Guy)

Instagram: l.a.seoulguy

Experiencing the Power and Care-Free Nature of "Ajummas" in South Korea

I have to admit something to you Korean readers. I have a love-hate relationship (mostly strongly dislike) with middle-aged Korean women, also known as "ajummas" or "아줌마" in Korean. Sometimes they can be very nice and accommodating, but I've had mostly negative experiences with them (sometimes the servers are rude and many times ajummas can be selfish on the subway) in my 15 years of living in South Korea. Today was no exception.

Today I went to Haneul Park, which is near World Cup Stadium in Seoul. I climbed the stairs up to the park with many people in line as they made their way up the small mountain that overlooks the Han River. The right side of the stairs was for people going up to the park and the left side was for people going down.

Everyone was following each other in an orderly manner except for one middle-aged woman (an ajumma) that wanted to walk up the left side to get past all of the people. When she saw people coming down, she would quickly go back to the right side and then go back to the left side when the people on the left side passed her going down. She repeated that process at least four times. Then I thought to myself, "Well there are other middle-aged ajummas that are actually going up the stairs the right way. There's always one rude one in every bunch no matter where you go, so I let it go and dismissed it.

Then I got to the top, made my rounds around the park, took a lot of pictures, enjoyed the scenery, and then sat down on a bench to finish watching Game 6 of the Major League Baseball National League Championship Series between the Dodgers and Brewers on my phone. After the game was over, I walked around the park a little more and then realized that I had to use the restroom.

When I got to the public restrooms at the park, there was an extremely long line for the women's restroom, so I checked to see if the line was long for the men's one. As I walk over to the men's restroom, I notice three ajummas standing in line. Yes, they were in line for the MEN's restroom at 2:30pm on a Saturday. In front of them was a father with his daughter. I couldn't believe it. Surprisingly, no one really said anything until one Korean guy said "This is the men's restroom" and I repeated in Korean "right" and that it was the men's restroom. Their response was a weak "yes" (네) in Korean, but in this situation it really meant "Yeah we know but we don't really care."

The kicker was when the cleaning lady walked into the men's restroom with her mop. As she walked in the look on her face showed that she wondered why there were ajummas in line but didn't know what to say. Because of that she just started to clean and just accepted the situation as it was. After she started cleaning, she noticed three vacant urinals and says to me that I could use one of them. I said in Korean "There are women here!" and gave her a look as if to say "Isn't it obvious that I need my privacy?" Then she tells the women that it is indeed the men's restroom, but they ignored her. She gave up telling them and continued to clean. Finally, a couple of older men came in, seemed surprised by the ajummas in line, but eventually didn't care and just did their thing at the urinals. It was my turn and I used the stall. After I got out, an ajumma was right there waiting for me to use my stall....in the men's restroom.

So why do ajummas have such a strong-willed and nonchalant character? I might just have to talk about that in my next blog post. Until next time....


Scott Worden (The L.A./Seoul Guy)

Instagram: laseoulguy

My Perspective of the Group (Herd) Mentality in South Korea

One thing that you will notice in Far East Asia is that individualism is a Western concept and that the Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese are the opposite. They do everything together and if you do things alone, you're considered "unique" to say it politely. This is known as the group or herd mentality. I'm going to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of it.

The ADVANTAGES:

1. When the World Cup opens, EVERYONE watches. Koreans come together, drink together, cheer together, and Seoul comes alive. The farther Korea advances, the better it gets. It's truly an amazing experience. I remember being out with co-workers during the 2010 World Cup watching Korea play Greece in their opening match. When Korea won 2-0, people got excited, went outside and chanted and cheered. I took video of how everyone in red was in jubilation.

2. If a politician such as Park Geun Hye does something wrong, the whole country comes together. Korea did something so successful that will be hard to matched by any other country. Week after week, hundreds of thousands of Koreans in Seoul protested peacefully in Gwanghwamun until the president was impeached and thrown out of office. And the amazing thing about it was that they weren't violent. They came together calmly and even made it into a party. They ate, danced, sang, and set the example of what a true demonstration should be like. Democracy smelled like a rose when Park Geun Hye was officially kicked out of office. Most news outlets were amazed and admired Korea except CNN, which turned its attention on the extremely small contingent of Park Geun Hye supporters. They were the few who couldn't accept Park Geun Hye being officially escorted out of the Blue House. The herd mentality worked to perfection and the rest of the world applauded South Korea. I was extremely proud that South Korea was my second home when I watched beautifully done democracy unfold. The United States can take a lesson from that.

3. Koreans are great at getting together. If I tell my students, "Hey let's all go out for chicken and beer on Friday!", I could easily get 10 students to join a few teachers. And if you're not careful, it could be an all-night affair. It might start innocently with eating chicken, then have some drinks, and then sing for three or four hours. And the amazing thing about it is that it could be on a Tuesday night. Koreans are always up for hanging out with their friends and sharing their life stories over beer and more likely soju.

The DISADVANTAGES:

1.The herd mentality in Korea is all about conformity. When I first came to Korea in 2003, you would never see a Korean woman with dyed hair. A few years ago, it became a trend for women to streak their hair. Now you'll see MANY women with streaks of brown in their hair. Koreans also conform to fashion. When skinny jeans became popular, many young people started wearing them. Business men usually wear black suits or if people work for the same company, they'll all look the same. From fashion we move on to make-up. Young women love to wear a lot of white make-up these days which looks terrible in my humble opinion. And now young men wearing make-up has become popular probably following Japanese culture. Conformity also affects the driving culture in Korea. Koreans usually drive white, black, or gray cars. If you look a little different, you're considered weird.

2. The herd mentality causes people to behave poorly on public transportation. I see a negative phenomena in the subway all the time. If people see that the train is coming soon, 10-20 Koreans might run down the wrong side of the stairs (the left side) to catch the train. This then causes people that got off the train from the other side of the platform to walk up the stairs on the left side. But then you see people coming down the stairs two minutes later that are actually walking down the correct way causing THREE different lines of people: one group of people going down the stairs the correct way on the right side, one group of people originally going up the stairs the wrong way on the left side that are being forced to walk in the middle, and the group of people walking down the stairs the wrong way on the left side. If people consistently followed each other the correct way, the herd mentality works to perfection here. However, if two people break the rule, then the herd mentality makes it a very chaotic situation.

3. The herd mentality causes Koreans to follow trends. When a new store opens up, you'll see Koreans wait in a long line that might wrap around the block. It could be the opening of a New Balance store in the middle of freezing weather, it could be the new Shake Shack burger restaurant that has been open for six months, or it could be the Kakao Store. Koreans love new things and when 10 people are curious, it turns into 50, which then turns into 100. If a Korean TV show promotes a place to travel to, guess what? You'll see many Koreans there within the next two weeks. If a few Koreans promote the next hot place to hang out in Seoul, one month later, that place will be crawling with Koreans on a Friday or Saturday night. Itaewon is the perfect example of this. In 2008, many of my students thought Itaewon was a dangerous area. Now if you go to Itaewon, most of the people you see on the streets are Korean. Yet Apgujeong Rodeo is no longer trendy and dead on a Saturday night even though it's a nice area, has many restaurants, and many shops for women to shop at. Seongsu Station has become a bit popular these days due to Instagram and TV. Outside of TV and social media, it wouldn't be popular at all. I went there and saw two streets that had a few restaurants and a few cafes. Other than that, it was still very industrialized and not that great of an area. Why is it a disadvantage that Koreans are trendy? The trend fade within the next two or three years once something new pops up and takes over.


This is just a short list that I notice on a daily basis. If you want to see one expat's perspective of the herd in Japan, check out this blog posting. You'll see what Japanese people are obsessed with:
Japan: The Herd Mentality.

Scott Worden (The L.A./Seoul Guy)
Instagram: l.a.seoulguy