Hello again,
So, life in Korea is
a much different than the United States. But in some ways, it is the same. In
Korea they seem to be both monochronic and polychronic. I have seen and
experienced time and time again what it means to my wife to be on time. She is
from Korea. She is not the only one who feels that way. But at the same time, business
seems to be run in a polychronic style. They keep long hours and jump from
priority to priority. It doesn’t seem that order is that important. They also focus
a lot on team building. They often go on retreats together and usually eat
meals and drink together after work. Not as individual friends, but as a company
or a team. So, while they are very formal with each other and value being on
time in their culture their work life seems drastically different. I am not
wanting to put down Korea. It is a beautiful country with an incredibly rich
culture and history. But between its government and its business practices and
the massive stress that people in the country go through daily, Korea is really
struggling. Their birth rate and family size have shrunk which leads to economic
losses and dysfunctional behaviors as violent crime is on the rise. I am not
going to provide statistics or links or anything, go search for it yourself if
you are interested, because that is not my focus today. Being monochronic
minded myself I tend error on the side of logic, Koreans generally don’t follow
that as their emotions tend to guide them more so than logic. It is not a bad
thing, just different.
In my own personal way
of doing things I am not always on time. That is kind a bit of a struggle for
me that deals more with time management. But I feel bad about it and I would
not feel that way if I were polychronic.
Another story is that
when we lived in South western Texas a few years ago I struggled to find work
as I had fallen on hard times. I was not able to find anything no matter where
I applied. The area was about 97% Hispanic and I only knew people in my ward,
but not really well. One day I went to my Bishop as we were moving from there,
we went to say goodbye and everything. We were not there for long due to some
circumstances. But as I told him how hard it had been for me to find a job even
though I was definitely qualified and everything it was near impossible. He
told me plainly it was because I was white and did not know any of the locals
and that I did not have family connections. It was essentially Latin-America
and I was basically a foreigner. I did not speak Spanish and did not have connections.
That is why it was so hard to find work. Even though I was more than qualified.
So, in a polychronic area you need to really be friendly and make all the
connections you can.
I am not the most outgoing
person in the world and so it is something that I am working on daily as I live
here in Korea. I learned about networking and I know it is important, but my personality
is more of wanting to do things on my own, living here and pretty much anywhere
that type of attitude can be good up to a point, so it is good to always have
balance. Don’t try to be too much of anything.
One more note, a law
in Korea states that if you are caught committing a crime, but say you were too
drunk to be thinking clearly or remember, you sentence is either dramatically
reduced or completely thrown out. So, a drunk driver that kills a pedestrian could
potentially walk away free due to a law like this. It just shows the differences
between the two styles, in America whether you were intoxicated or not would
not matter to the judge, you are going to jail. But in Korea they believe that
the person should have no fault if their thinking abilities and mental
faculties were compromised. A link to the video mentioned will be available
below.
Ivers BYUI
Comments
Post a Comment
Make a Comment!