- How would you qualify or describe different aspects of your target culture? Reflect and your own experiences and expectations of the culture in question. How does your culture reflect various qualitative Hofstede dimensions of culture explored in class, e.g., body language, how people talk about time, etc. Also, have you ever experienced culture shock? If so, describe.
Using the American culture as a basis of comparison, I will discuss the Korean culture in terms of collectivism/individualism, being direct/indirect, and non-verbal communication. Firstly, South Korea is more collectivist, which is defined by an individual's identity coming from the function of a group, usually immediate family. For example, if someone has a very successful son, the society will compliment how the parents raised the child. In contrast, the individualist U.S society will compliment the son on his own hard work and determination. Additionally, Koreans are very aware of how they phrase things. From what I've observed, they are more indirect in their requests. They leave hints instead of directly asking or demanding what they want because the latter is considered rude. In terms of non-verbal communication, Korea is more conservative than the U.S. and much of Europe. Couples will rarely hold hands or show much contact in public, whereas in the U.S. it is very common. Koreans also bow to superiors and avoid eye contact to be polite. Hand shakes are only initiated by someone older than you and they are typically light.
I experienced a bit of a culture shock when I traveled to Europe over the summer. I visited England, Scotland, and Malta. London is very similar to the U.S. but with several tiny things that seem off, such as driving on the left side of the road, paying for water in restaurants, lower tipping, etc. Both England and Scotland were very accepting of the tourists and offered help to us many times without us asking. On the other hand, Malta was a bit different. People are more laid back in terms of time, so the transportation systems were considerably late or early, hardly ever close to the scheduled time. The native people were also fairly rude to us because we carry bad stigmas in their culture being both American and tourists. Near the end of our trip, I was ready to go home mostly because I couldn't handle the public transportation anymore. However, the way that the Maltese perceive time got into my head, which I really appreciate. There was a moment when we were eating at a restaurant and the staff was taking a long time. We were all calculating the time and how much was allotted to us if we were going to be able to do everything we had planned for the day. My family was getting pretty stressed about it and I just interrupted everything. I said that we shouldn't be worrying about this, we are on vacation and we're enjoying this wonderful food in this lovely restaurant. I suggested we just go at our own pace and that will determine what we will do later on. Everyone agreed with me and it made the evening much more enjoyable.
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