Field Notes

While at a café this past weekend Kat and I could not keep from being distracted. Across the room from us was a table of four or five nicely dressed Korean women, all of whom must have been in their early thirties. The women, who were obviously very close friends, were laughing and gently drinking their milk-heavy coffee drinks...The whole thing screamed of a weekly coffee date with the “besties.” What made this seemingly normal situation unique enough to grab our attention was the odd behavior of the women. Although quite docile at first, the women’s laughter and actions became louder and more intense over time. At one point the noise was so loud that Kat and I turned around only to see the group fully engaged in a raucous game of hand-slapping. As strange as it was to see responsible looking, grown women behaving in such a way, it wasn’t incredibly shocking. The truth is, since being here in Korea, Kat and I have seen many adult aged people acting in ways that can only be described from a Western perspective as “childish.”

It’s a social phenomenon that seems to present itself frequently and in a variety of situations: an otherwise austere school director attempting to tell a juvenile yet crass joke to his employees, professional women acting more like giddy schoolgirls than mothers of families, successful businessmen stumbling drunk through the streets on a Wednesday afternoon …it doesn’t take long before you seriously start to wonder why such “immature” behavior is not only so prevalent in this culture, but so widely accepted. After wondering about this for a while, the two of us have come up with a couple of logical reasons that might help answer this conundrum.

1) Sometimes strange cultural phenomena emerge from the unusual marriage of the traditional and the modern. Since Korea finds itself square in the middle of this marriage, one could say the issue at hand finds its origins here. As we were told recently, it is very common for Korean men and women to continue living at their parents’ house until they are married. The result of this traditional mentality being enforced in a contemporary setting: a lot of twenty or thirty-something professionals living in their parents’ basements. It only takes a quick look around the staff room at lunch to see this truth reaffirmed. Each person’s lunch is still made and packed by their mother---home-made meals elaborately packed in little Tupperware containers that are of the same color scheme. Seeing as so many adults still live off of their parents, it’s not hard to see why they would behave like children….in many ways, they’re still treated like children.

2) Contemporary Korean society squelches childhood. This might be an understatement. From dawn till way beyond dusk, the average Korean kid’s day is filled to the brim with countless class lessons. Even Saturdays, (a day in the West that has long been equated with sleeping in, watching cartoons, and doing whatever a kid wants to do) are reserved for going to school and studying. After each weekend I ask my students what they did, and like the predictability of clockwork the most common response is: “nothing, I studied and now I’m tired.” I’ve actually heard that children here are more excited for the week than they are the weekend. It makes sense actually…whereas during the week the kids are with their friends at school, on the weekend, the kids are at home, by themselves, studying alone. This society’s push for success and trained excellence leaves little room (or time) for simple fun. For this reason, it is likely that many Koreans take advantage of their older years by embracing the carefree mentality and behavior of which they were once robbed.

Of course, not all Korean adults behave immaturely or childishly. We have met and enjoyed the company of many adult Koreans who act in a way that is normal for Western standards. This blog entry is merely a description of an observation; an observation that has recurred enough times to note its regularity. Regardless of what the cause is behind this socio-cultural phenomenon, it is exactly this type of puzzlement that makes living in a foreign culture the exciting, humorous, frustrating, and often enlightening experience that it is.