Let´s talk about South Korea culture!
With the emerging Korean Wave, it’s interesting to inquire about the South Korea culture. To begin, we are facing a mostly reactive culture. This means that koreans are characterized by courtesy, kindness, respect and, above all, being good listeners. Also, unlike other countries, they are more expressive in their body language rather than verbal. In this blog we will venture into two aspects of their culture: notions of beauty and notions of time.
NOTIONS OF BEAUTY
South Korea is a country with very strict beauty standards. When it was a poor country on 60’s, Koreans lived from the rice harvest, worked long hours under the sun, since it was the only way to generate income. And, in this way, his skin burned and turned brown. Consequently, they tended to associate this skin color with poverty and people always tried to avoid being like that. Today that custom is preserved. Koreans take great care of their skin from the sun: they carry umbrellas, hats and sunscreen is never missing, even when it’s night. In addition, they are constantly moisturizing their skin with masks or products with moisturizers. Sometimes, they seek to be whiter through make-up.
Speaking of makeup, with the emergence of the country’s development, South Korea tries to be perfect at all times, and for that, its habitants must be. Women are expected to always be made up, at least in a basic way. If you don’t put on makeup, people assume that you are in poor health. Furthermore, it’s also common for men to wear makeup, mostly BB creams (moisturizing bases) and eyebrow liner.
Another curious fact is that Koreans prefer tender personalities over sexy ones. The highest level of tenderness is called «aegyo», and consists in extremely softening the voice accompanying it with tender gestures.
Its perfection also has measures. South Korea is one of the best countries in cosmetic surgery. The concept of «beauty» is also very influenced in how thin you are, how big your eyes are, how small and sharp your nose is, among others, and it’s common to people operate some part of their bodies. There is a lot of social pressure, mostly on women, to reach these standards.
«South Korea tries to be perfect at all times, and for that, its habitants must be»
NOTIONS OF TIME
The Pali-Pali culture. This term means fast-fast. Some people said that thanks to this accelerated pace of life, Korea managed to become the third largest economy in Asia, when after the postwar period it was one of the poorest in the world. It all starts with their collectivism, Koreans have a great sense of belonging to their nation, and therefore work hard to be competitive. In this sense, far from being complacent with what has been achieved, Koreans permanently discuss and execute actions to continue improving. The world is constantly changing, and they must be prepared. Therefore, it can be said that long-term thinking continues to prevail.It
It’s common that this culture is always moving and doing everything in a hurry, as well as that its services are equally fast. It is even said that if an order takes more than 15 minutes, it’s an offense to the customer.In this sense, South Korea is a bit linear, as planning is very important in its actions.
What do you think about that notions? Are you agree? Thanks for reading!
