Discussion Post #2

[Elliott Lee]

This week, we were assigned to read Figuring Foreigners Out. I enjoyed this reading because this brought to light an aspect of culture that I never thought about. In this article, cultures are defined as having 5 distinct qualities: Individualist-collectivist, nonverbal communication, monochronic-polychronic, internal-external, and direct-indirect communication. As I was reading this article, I was able to classify both the American and Korean culture since I experienced both. I found that I agree with this article and the points it presents, and the fact that the article states that cultures are usually a mix of both qualities made the arguments more compelling. I find that since the Korean culture is more conservative in comparison to that of the American culture, I noticed that there were a couple of cultural differences. An example of this is the idea of monochronic vs. polychronic. In Korean and most Asian cultures, it is important for students to focus only on their studies in order to live a successful life in the future, while in America, student education highly emphasizes a time to discover oneself and to strive towards their desired profession. Besides this quality, I can see both Korean and American culture going either way for different qualities.