South Korean Culture

Got interested into korean culture after watching their famous variety show " Family Outing". It is about different idol(actor, singer, host and even comedian) comes together on a 2 day 1 night trip. They will travels to different parts of South Korea and takes care of the house of an elderly family while that family goes on a vacation. The "Family" then accomplishes the tasks left for them by the house's owners.

Want to find out more of korean culture as I do not want to straight away zoom into BigBang. As it will restricted my search and exploration to other interesting stuff in Korea or in pop culture.

Korea, one of the oldest continuous civilizations in the world, has over 5,000 years of history. Korea's long history as a tributary state to China's has resulted in extensive influences from China, Korea has also developed its own distinctive culture and has influenced other cultures such as Japan.

The industrialization and urbanization of South Korea have brought many changes to the way Korean people live. Changing economics and lifestyles have led to a concentration of population in major cities like Seoul, with multi-generational households separating into nuclear family(consisting of only a father and mother and their children) living arrangements. South Korea is modernizing extremely fast but it still holds on to many traditional values and the old way of life. Where there are not highly populated cities, there are rural area's which are still relatively poor, and still follow traditional ways of life. Their language is very important, it has traditional values of social status and respect built directly into it. Words change depending on who you are speaking with. This will keep traditional values always present.

Korean Family Value

-Family is the most important part of Korean life.

-The eldest son has special duties: first to his parents, then to his brothers from older to younger, then to his sons, then to his wife, and lastly to his daughters.

-Family welfare is much more important than the needs of the individual.

The Concept of Kibun

-Kibun is a word with no literal English translation; the closest terms are pride, face, mood, feelings, or state of mind.

-Hurt someone's kibun you hurt their pride, cause them to lose dignity, and lose face. Korean interpersonal relationships operate on the principle of harmony.

-Nunchi is the ability to determine another person's kibun by using the eye.

-Nunchi is accomplished by watching body language and listening to the tone of voice as well as what is said.

Meeting Etiquette

-Greetings follow strict rules of protocol.

-Many South Koreans shake hands with expatriates after the bow, thereby blending both cultural styles.

-The lower status bows to the person in higher status, yet it is the most senior person who initiates the handshake.

-Wait to be introduced at a social gathering.

-When you leave a social gathering, say good-bye and bow to each person individually.

Food

-Many people eat at a low table while sitting on the ondol floor, using a spoon and chopsticks.

-They mostly will eat a bowl of steamed white rice, a soybean-paste vegetable soup, and a dish of Kimchi.

-Kimchi is the basic dish in their everyday meal.

Language

-the development of language starts with hangul

-their language and words are very different and unique that has a story behind it.

* Long ago,there was a man sitting in his room thinking to create a new language for the newly independent country. He wanted something simple in opposition to the complexity of Hanja (Chinese characters) and the three different alphabets of Japan. He thought but couldn't come up with anything. Hoping to find some consolation from the night sky, he motioned to open the window, but he heard that there was a lot of rain falling outside. He looked at the window. In this window he saw some simple, yet powerful shapes to unify the broken Korea and get rid of illiteracy. Thats how the King Se-Jong invented Korean.

One interesting fact is that the Korean language has had a huge influx of English words, sometimes expressed as Konglish. Almost like our Singlish.

-Eye shopping (ai syopping) refers to 'window shopping'.

-Fighting! (hwaiting!) is a phrase used to 'cheer' someone(in english is 'hang in there').

English alphabet has letters that do not exist in the Korean alphabet other letters are usually substituted for others when reffering to some English words. Letter F is replaced with the letter P and the letter Z replaced with the letter J.