Cultural Differences of America and Korea I Felt-Part 1
All about Korea
Long time no see! It took a long time to return as I couldn’t find the Write button in an updated Medium app. Koreopatra is back with a new post on the cultural difference between America and South Korea I felt. If you have ever felt cultural differences with your Korean neighbor, you may be able to empathize with this post.
Please make sure not to generalize what I wrote here, because it is based on my personal experience.
1. When you invite someone to your house
When I and my twin sister were planning a trip to California for the first time, my boyfriend’s sister said we can stay with them at her house if we want. As my boyfriend, Brady said she and her husband are travelling somewhere in the middle of my trip, I told her we will stay in her house while they went on a trip. And she got upset because of it.
I thought this is very interesting as it was totally about cultural differences. In Korea, if you are invited to stay in other people’s houses for a few days, you usually try to stay quietly with less contact with the house owners. That is because of our culture. We tend to cherish our guests so much as if we are their servants. We use all our energy for the guests, even sacrificing our personal time. So we normally think spending too much time with the house owners makes them feel uncomfortable.
On the other hand, I thought American culture is somewhat different. According to what I felt, Americans serve their guests carefully as well, but more in an intimate way. We were surprised that my boyfriend’s sister and her husband suggested we stay in their house since it was the first time meeting each other, and we thought they would feel uncomfortable staying with us. So we said we’ll just stay in their house while they went on a trip for a few days. And then, she got upset as she invited us to get close, but it seemed like we were refusing it.
Another impressive thing was when Brady and his friend Wesley came to my house for the first time. They both were wearing nice shirts and pants. I thought my boyfriend might have wanted to get scored from my family, but I didn’t know why Wesley dressed nicely as well. But later, I found that it is an American thing. In America, you dress nicely when you are invited to another person’s house. This was interesting as in Korea, you don’t do that much unless you are meeting your boyfriend/girlfriend’s parents-especially the one to whom you want to get married to.
2. The reason why my boyfriend is upset
I wouldn’t say this is a ‘cultural difference’, but I’d like to write about this.
It was around when Brady and I started dating when Brady got upset with me because of the way I talk. Sometimes, I used to tell him “You’d better do this” when I recommend him to do something. He got upset at me because of it as he thought I’m forcing him, which was a misunderstanding.
In English class in South Korea, they teach you ‘should’ means ‘have to’ or ‘must’, and ‘had better’ means ‘should’, which is actually vice versa. I heard many Koreans are misunderstood when they go to the countries that use English, thanks to this error.
If you see any Korean using ‘had better’, please do not get upset. We are just trying to recommend something to you, lol.
3. Interaction with your friend’s parents
I think the best thing about American culture is that you call their names when you call other people. Because I feel like you can be friends with anyone regardless of age. This works when you talk to your friends’ parents too-at first, you should call them Mr or Ms, but once you get close to them, you call their names. And then you talk to them with ease!
I’ve rarely seen active interaction with friends’ parents like this until I went to America. Koreans usually don’t talk much to their friends’ parents unless you’ve known each other for a long time. Even I’ve never seen the ones of some of my friends so far, lol.
I think this is because we have a strict hierarchy based on age — the older you are, the first and the better served. On that hierarchy, you are on the same level with your friends, but not with their parents. So you normally feel awkward hanging out with those who are around your parents’ age.
For this reason, it was fascinating to see Wesley talking to my mom with ease as I worried he might be uncomfortable. And even after their leaving, he said he misses my mom!
To be continued in the next post:
If you want to share your story or idea on cultural differences, leave a comment!
Originally published at https://ariellelim.substack.com on May 1, 2022.
