110 Cultural Post #7

[David Lee]

The general idea of family in Korea is much more based on close ties and dependencies. An article I found states the following: "Koreans incorporate the fact of biological continuity into their family life according to ancient ideas of birth and conception. Mothers traditionally were thought to produce the flesh of their children, and fathers to provide the bones. As bone endures longer than flesh, kinship through males was thought more binding than through females.Even today men pass on membership in their clan to their children, while women do not" (Asia Society). Although this is just a personal and broad opinion, I've always noticed that Korean relatives seemed much more close and comfortable with each other than the western families. The article also states that American families do not like to depend one each other or cling on to each other, while in Korea, family members are encouraged to depend on one another and help each other out in any way. The tendency and attitude towards dependency might be a factor in why I notice the differences between the two.