My perspective is as an East Coast American (the D.C. to Boston corridor) where punctuality is highly prized and dealing with South Koreans, who have a different cultural feeling about time.
Among the South Koreans I know some characteristics jump out
- The 빨리빨리 culture (quickly! quickly!). Do every labor activity, no matter how trivial, at the maximum possible tempo. Koreans coming to the U.S. frequently complain about how slow their interactions are with Americans (particularly cashiers). The idea of pacing yourself, running a marathon and not a sprint is a foreign idea.
- Everything stops for food. Fast food of course exists in Korea. But no matter what's going on, how critical it is, or how behind everybody is, my experience is that Koreans will drop everything during meal time and take a remarkably relaxed view of meal-time. This may have something to do with how many soups Koreans eat, but my American sensibility, of just powering through a garbage lunch as quickly as possible because it's getting in the way of my work day, had a hard time adjusting to this for years.
- Koreans tend to be perpetually tardy. On the waiting end, I've noticed that universally Koreans seem to be mildly irritated by the tardiness of their peers. On the tardy-party end the reasons for being tardy are complex, with about as many reasons why it's unavoidable as reasons why it could have been avoided.
- Planning group activities seems to be a group event rather than a leader-focused organizer's role. This means if a bunch of people get together to go do an activity, it means lots of waiting around until group consensus, and lots of questions from everybody if this or that scenario is agreeable to you ("sure", "I don't care", "I don't know", etc. are not acceptable answers, the consensus building requires your input). Then, much later than is necessary, and probably after a few internal rounds of "voting", a plan will suddenly crystallize and everybody will suddenly move into motion and execute. And the downside it seems like there's a lack of organization and planning for your day, on the up side, there's lots of variety.
With Americans it seems like a group will get together, everybody will ask for ideas, most people will say "whatever" or "I don't know", and eventually a leader will emerge who everybody follows for that day's activities. The consensus oriented activity planning Koreans do is a little maddening to me, even many many years later.
Some of this is rather recent. The 빨리빨리 culture in particular. Before the war, Koreans were generally regarded like Southerners in the U.S. are. Leisurely, taking their time, no reason to rush [1]. It seems that some of the characteristics above are from this older cultural attitude, but the quickly! quickly! culture seems to be the result of the reconstruction and industrialization boom.
> Everything stops for food. Fast food of course exists in Korea. But no matter what's going on, how critical it is, or how behind everybody is, my experience is that Koreans will drop everything during meal time and take a remarkably relaxed view of meal-time.
This is actually a very healthy attitude. The best of both worlds would be to take your time with meals - there's really nothing wrong with having lunch and discussions with friends even for two hours - but plan accordingly. Don't schedule anything for two hours after lunch starts, and so on.
I actually agree and it's one of the healthier attitudes I've adopted. It's nice having a break in the middle of the day where all I meditate on is enjoying and savoring my meal rather than seeing how fast I can shove it into my stomach.
Among the South Koreans I know some characteristics jump out
- The 빨리빨리 culture (quickly! quickly!). Do every labor activity, no matter how trivial, at the maximum possible tempo. Koreans coming to the U.S. frequently complain about how slow their interactions are with Americans (particularly cashiers). The idea of pacing yourself, running a marathon and not a sprint is a foreign idea.
- Everything stops for food. Fast food of course exists in Korea. But no matter what's going on, how critical it is, or how behind everybody is, my experience is that Koreans will drop everything during meal time and take a remarkably relaxed view of meal-time. This may have something to do with how many soups Koreans eat, but my American sensibility, of just powering through a garbage lunch as quickly as possible because it's getting in the way of my work day, had a hard time adjusting to this for years.
- Koreans tend to be perpetually tardy. On the waiting end, I've noticed that universally Koreans seem to be mildly irritated by the tardiness of their peers. On the tardy-party end the reasons for being tardy are complex, with about as many reasons why it's unavoidable as reasons why it could have been avoided.
- Planning group activities seems to be a group event rather than a leader-focused organizer's role. This means if a bunch of people get together to go do an activity, it means lots of waiting around until group consensus, and lots of questions from everybody if this or that scenario is agreeable to you ("sure", "I don't care", "I don't know", etc. are not acceptable answers, the consensus building requires your input). Then, much later than is necessary, and probably after a few internal rounds of "voting", a plan will suddenly crystallize and everybody will suddenly move into motion and execute. And the downside it seems like there's a lack of organization and planning for your day, on the up side, there's lots of variety.
With Americans it seems like a group will get together, everybody will ask for ideas, most people will say "whatever" or "I don't know", and eventually a leader will emerge who everybody follows for that day's activities. The consensus oriented activity planning Koreans do is a little maddening to me, even many many years later.
Some of this is rather recent. The 빨리빨리 culture in particular. Before the war, Koreans were generally regarded like Southerners in the U.S. are. Leisurely, taking their time, no reason to rush [1]. It seems that some of the characteristics above are from this older cultural attitude, but the quickly! quickly! culture seems to be the result of the reconstruction and industrialization boom.
1 - http://gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com/2012/06/koreas-bbali-bb...