The Importance Of Cultural Difference Between Korea And South Korea

1436 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Culture of Korean and Asian

There is cultural difference in the world of respect when it comes to the people of the United States than from those of South Korea. Why? Korean society as a whole is based off an entire system of values that are taught from an early age. These ideals have been instilled in Korean culture since the belief in Confucianism spread from China as early as 109 BC. The United States, on the other hand, has a moral system built on the foundation of Christian beliefs. South Korea is second to none when it comes to respect for their fellow man. How could someone make such a claim? The answer is rather simple really, Korean society is based off a social status that commands different levels of respect throughout the entire population. This widespread …show more content…

That answer would be: Confucianism.
Beginning with the smallest, but perhaps most important relationship, is that of a child and a parent. This relationship starts at an early age and prepares a child for the world that they are about to enter. In Korea, this is a world of mutual respect between fellow man and neighbor; on the contrary in the U. S. this is a domain that has transformed into one of insolence and competition among individuals. All the preparations for a child entering these systems start in their upbringing. Children from a Confucian background, differ exceedingly from those of a Christian upbringing. A normal Korean’s childhood is very rigid and structured because they are raised within the teachings of Confucius that instill a certain level of discipline in the household. This self-control is the status structure that is portrayed throughout Samuel Park’s book, This Burns My Heart. Korean children are taught to respect their parents and other adults within their family units. This respect also comes with many different titles in Korean culture. This arrangement not only encompasses children and their parents, but also transpires between children and their siblings and …show more content…

When a Korean meets a new person, there are generally three questions that they inquire from their new acquaintance, such as, how old are you, are you married, and what do you do for a living? Depending on how the contact answers, will determine in what way the relationship develops and what titles will be used. Even today, this is how the vast majority of Korean interaction begins. These sets of questions are directly related to how they were raised in a Confucian household, in which the titles that they will use with one another dominate social interactions. Confucianism is the basis of the above exchange and it is practiced in pretty much every engagement between Koreans and others they meet. While this may seem very intrusive to an outsider, it is very a very common practice in Korea. On the contrary U.S. citizens when meeting a fellow American are not so formal and inquisitive. The above questions would seem very forward to the average person in the U.S. and the person asking them could come off as being rude or impolite. This does however; differ in various regions of the United States, with the South being the most formal and polite by most standards. The South, for these reasons is considered the friendliest region in the U.S. Why is this? It mainly has a lot to do with how southern childhood relationships progress. Most of these relationships are based of the previously mentioned

Show More
Related

  • Heewon Chang Cultural Border Meaning

    866 Words  | 2 Pages

    She clearly and logically illustrates her point of view. She writes, “cultural differences are assumed and expected. But when the cultures of individuals are under scrutiny, it becomes clear that cultural borders do not hold their dividing power.” (98) Combined with her ability to logically expound on her view of cultural borders, she uses several anecdotes to further her point. She identifies four individuals who exemplify multiculturalism. Each of these examples share a Korean heritage but have adopted many other cultural markers from additional sources including non-Korean parents, U.S. society, immigration, and through adoption. Chang poses the question, “Would it be possible for one to become culturally more Korean in the morning, German for lunch, ‘American’ in the afternoon, and back to Korean in the evening? In her conclusion and in answer to that question she states, “Once different standards are embraced by individuals, the differences are incorporated into their individual cultures…the cultural differences are reframed into multiculturalism.”

    Read More

  • Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

    1313 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cultural differences in the United States have always impacted personal relationships, sometimes for the good, but also for the bad. Lenny and Eunice’s cultural variances were no different. Lenny Abramov was a 39-year-old man who worked in Indefinite Life Extension at Post-Human Services, which allowed the wealthy and the healthy—known as High Net Worth Individuals—to become immoral. Lenny is a self-deprecating Russian-American Jewish male, who is self-conscious about his appearance, uselessly well educated, passionate, neither old nor young, and helplessly prone to error. Eunice Park, on the other hand, is a 24-year-old young Korean-American woman who is constantly struggling with materialism and the pressures of her ...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Orphan Master's Son

    1985 Words  | 4 Pages

    Adams Johnson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Orphan Master’s Son, amazingly depicts the disturbing lives of North Koreans and government horrors through its simplistic language with relatable characters. The Orphan Master’s Son takes place in North Korea and revolves around Jun Do, who is the son of an orphan master, but who receives the shame that Koreans place on orphans. Then he enters the military where he learns different fighting tactics and becomes a professional kidnapper for the North Koreans. For his reward, the government assigns Jun Do to a listening position on a fishing boat where he becomes a hero for fighting the Americans with a story that the fishing crew and he invented to keep from getting placed in a prison camp after to one of their crewmates defects. Jun Do then goes to Texas as a translator, where he learns about freedom and other cultures. When the mission fails the government sends him to a camp where Jun Do’s name and identity die.

    Read More

  • What We Missed About the 1950s

    1060 Words  | 3 Pages

    Technology weeds out the week families and leaves destruction in the eyes of the children who were exposed to family destruction. When a kid gets stuck in a bad family he acquires a different kind of family- not of blood relation but of respect and love relation, but the wounds are supposed to heal from previous experiences of a bad family, but if a ...

    Read More

  • Struggles of a Vietnamese American Adolescent

    2961 Words  | 6 Pages

    At the same time, peer pressure further exacerbates family and personal conflict. Adolescent within America culture seek self-reliance, subsequently they desire more control making decisions about their lives (Young, 1991). In addition, exposed to external subcultures and peer world, adolescents begin to feel separate themselves from their parents (Grosskopf, 2007). However, Vietnamese adolescents during this period are expected to assume adult responsibilities such as providing, sharing, and working for the family (Yang & Han 2007). All the while, their peers are exploring, questioning, and forming their own self-identity. They become entangle in a web of no end.

    Read More

  • Pa Chin's Family

    1380 Words  | 3 Pages

    All through time, successive generations have rebelled against the values and traditions of their elders. In all countries, including China, new generations have sought to find a different path than that of their past leaders. Traditional values become outdated and are replaced with what the younger society deems as significant. Family concentrates on this very subject. In the novel, three brothers struggle against the outdated Confucian values of their elders. Alike in their dislike of the traditional Confucian system of their grandfather, yet very different in their interactions with him and others, begin to reach beyond the ancient values of Confucianism and strive for a breath of freedom. Their struggles against the old values lead to pain, suffering and eventually achievement for the three of them, however at a harsh price for two brothers.

    Read More

  • Korea's Twentieth-Century Odyssey Summary

    502 Words  | 2 Pages

    This response will focus on the key issue of fragmentation. In his book Korea’s Twentieth-Century Odyssey, Michael E. Robinson wrote “Multiple interest groups resided within the bureaucracy and even divided the royal house” (p. 16). Arguably, Korea’s sovereignty was lost in large part, due to the lack of unity among different groups and faction. It was clear from the readings that some Korean individuals and groups prioritized their self-interests above their own country’s benefit. Nowhere was this most evident then the issue of national security.

    Read More

  • Responsibility In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

    562 Words  | 2 Pages

    The boy comprehends the severity of the situations he is faced with, such as lack of food or water, and treats his father with the same respect and equality that the man gives him. He insists on sharing his portions with his father when they are uneven, and he remains cautious at all times, even when his father is not. The boy’s fire is fueled by his love for his father, which is shown by the boy’s priority on caring for his father’s wellbeing, just as the man does for him. This love and responsibility, manifesting in the form of self-sacrifice and compassion, lies in direct juxtaposition to the rest of the world, where selfishness and indifference reigns

    Read More

  • Pa Chin's Family

    1479 Words  | 3 Pages

    The family's personal encounters with the destructive nature of the traditional family have forced them to think in modern ways so they will not follow the same destructive path that they've seen so many before them get lost on. In this new age struggle for happiness within the Kao family a cultural barrier is constructed between the modern youth and the traditional adults with Chueh-hsin teeter tottering on the edge, lost between them both. While the traditional family seems to be cracking and falling apart much like an iceberg in warm ocean waters, the bond between Chueh-min, Chueh-hui, Chin and their friends becomes as strong as the ocean itself.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Korean Law And American Law

    812 Words  | 2 Pages

    Despite there may be some commonalities between Korean Law and American Law in perspective of protecting individual’s rights, there still exist lots of differences, and one of the main cause for the disparity is based on their fundamental gaps in history. Looking into America’s history, freedom was not free. Obviously, the United States was built in objection of the Great Britain’s despotic monarchy, holding freedom, equality, and pursuit of happiness, which became the cornerstone of civil rights. As time passed by, America also went through the Civil War, and all those Civil Rights Movements by African Americans, paving the way for cultural and legal changes toward protecting more individual rights. On the other hand, Korea had a comparatively

    Read More

  • Colonial Times in Korea and Japan's Lasting Effects on the Nation

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the book, the author goes from a Korean education to a Japanese schooling style. The Japanese required all students, no matter their nationality, to wear the same uniforms and speak only Japanese. This is even despite the fact that Japanese students and Korean students are taught separately. Speaking Korean would surely result in punishment; the author of the book learned that lesson the hard way. The overall education style of the Japanese was used, which aimed to assimilate Koreans into Japanese culture and strip them of all things Korean. No Korean history was taught during this period of time. In the book, the author was lucky enough to learn about Korean history from his father.

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative: My Personal Cultural Identity

    693 Words  | 2 Pages

    My culture respects the people and the things that deserve it, but with that said, we also don’t give respect to the people who don’t deserve it. We don’t just respect anyone or anything neither, they have to earn that valuable thing that most people don’t have nor give anymore. This is probably one of the biggest differences between my culture and my society because in my society people don’t know the first thing about respect. The way i see it is that it really is a shame of how my society and these people that live in it can’t show even a little bit of respect for someone or something, big or small. Respect is one of the dying characteristics in this world and my culture has the last of it.

    Read More

  • The History and Transformation of Korea

    1940 Words  | 4 Pages

    Korea has undergone many conflicts that brought political and social upheavals which greatly affected their quest towards modernization and unification. During the mid-7th centuries when Korea is just starting to shape its own national identity, there is already a series of events that caused several changes in the livelihood of the early settlers of the Korean peninsula. These events including the wars between the three kingdoms Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla, the spread of the Chinese influence (Sinicization), and the formation of alliances between the East Asian nations such as the Tang dynasty of China allied with Silla, and the Yamato kingdom of Japan allied with Baekje changed the people’s perception of Korea as a nation because of the influence of different emerging cultures. Religion is also one of the main contributors that made Korea a subject for change because it allowed the acceptance or assimilation of different cultures from the East and the West. These changes continued up to modern times when Korea is struggling to achieve modernization and reunification brought by the plight of war and political conflicts. The vast history of Korea is the key in understanding their transitions throughout the ages.

    Read More

  • Comparing the cultures of the United States and Japan

    690 Words  | 2 Pages

    Americans try to avoid miscommunication by being very clear and direct about what they are trying to say (Western Washington University, 2011). In typical day-to-day social interactions, people in the U.S. tend to be less formal and polite and are more physical than the Japanese (AngloINFO, 2014).

    Read More

  • Women In Korea Essay

    1089 Words  | 3 Pages

    Confucianism has always been influential towards education between gender inequalities in traditional Korean society. At the time, education was more concentrated to males as females had to follow the patriarchal social system. According to Gelb and Palley (1994), the confucian image of women authorizing education was limited as it was believed that women did not profit in domestic matters. Since the independence of Korea established in 1945, the pathway in relation to education equality balanced. Education was no longer limited to men, but also women. As a result, more women were able to be educated due to an increasing acceptance of gender equality (Gelb & Palley, 1994). Due to this development, more traditional women wanting their child to be educated in order to modernize equality and improve females’ individualism (Choi, 1999). This is because they were unable to access education in the past, causing them in a low status. They know that education can lead to a better future. Therefore, the reading “Mother Stake 1” purposely display Omma strategies to provide education for her daughter. Omma provided educational access for her daughter for success in future.This is because education is believed to be the way of gaining equality and employment that would lead to honourable

    Read More

More about The Importance Of Cultural Difference Between Korea And South Korea

Open Document