It has been several days since I have been meaning to post this here. It is an observance I have made after having read several different post on here referencing things like racism and the local culture. It was last Wednesday morning in order to get off the bus for my stop at work I needed to push a middle school student to the side. Now I did not push him hard, I just put my hand on his shoulder and gently moved him to the side as I went to the back door or exit. He made no response at all, seeming like it must all be normal.

Now we talk so much about pushing or being pushed and here one of us is pushing someone. So as I was saying this made we think so much about other posts which I have read here. Because I did feel a slight bit of frustration as or after I was pushing the young guy aside, thinking 'he does not know enough to move', which then made me think that perhaps this kind of thing happens to us foreigners maybe because they are frustrated, too, with their own society and it just gets expressed or taken out on us.

Maybe you did not know enough to move him. Every time I bump, squeeze, or nudge a Korean they don't even look in my direction. I'm trying to act the same when it happens to me.

This is the bump and grind society, Turlbo. Real estate, or lack thereof, figures a lot into the equation. So I guess does ingroup/outgroup; if you're a member of the latter you just don't exist. Anyhoo, as for the bump part, my response to such "intrusions" has long been "So what if an 아주마 bumps/pushes me" (coz 9 times out of 10 it's one of these quixotic creatures, especially on a bus!)... so surely you're allowed to reciprocate on occasion?

Jeez, I was a little worried at first when reading your post: I thought it was going to be a kind of LJ report about some oversized, aggressive middle school kid taking exception to your "push" and, you know, things turning a little rough & tumble.

Shredd,
Excuse me, but do I not mention here that I did push him a little to the side?

I read a while back that following confucianism means if a person cannot place you in their social group, then they treat you as if you are a "non-person", whether you are Korean or Western. It explains a lot of things that we perceive as rude in this country.

Yes, I have seen other examples of that here. It is also very interesting to note that it is not just a Westerner considered as a "non-person". Perhaps this explains why people are not introduced. This does go along with one explanation I heard for this is that here once you are introduced to someone you then have a responsibility to that person.

Yes, and you wrote an entire forum thread about your frustration over it.

Well I suppose that you and I are the same then.

I have been knocked into many many many times here in Korea, I found more careless people in Korea, I have never seen people bump, drop, or flop so often back home although most Chinese people are equally indifferent when they get bumped or they bump others.

What happened to me the other night in Kyungkyung was a girl standing behind me pushed me away to the roadside and got on the taxi I stopped......She said something very rude which is about she was waiting for a taxi before I was there. I wanted to kick her ass but she ran so fast......

Haha, well maybe you'll get to kick that rude chick's ass next time

Well CW, you can blame your own country for such a sorry and bumpy state of affairs. After all, your country invented Confucianism, and for some reason or other, when it was imported to Korea, it took root much more deeply here. Korea surpassed her master in that regard, unfortunately. Before that, Shilla Korea was on top of the world.

Definitely, but on the other hand that is part of Korean chicks' charm, I actually dont mind people being naughty at times.



You made good points, Silas, not because I think you are right but that I have the same doubt about Confucianism.
I have been thinking why Chinese and Korean seem so indifferent in public but very humble and keen in front of their aquaintances, can Confucianism explain it all?

Silas, my friend, you know nothing of Confucianism nor do you have any idea what its legacy is in modern Korea, as with 99% of people who shout Confucianism any moment they see something negative in East Asia.