Already September! Been here for over 3 months, wow!
Saturday I rode my bike around Mok Dong and ended up in a very nice park where ajashis (old men) and ajumas (old women) were having their ritual weekly meeting. There were many families too, kids running around, people exercising (every park in Seoul has workout equipment that everyone can use! It's awesome!), etc.This park is great and pretty big - it has a soccer field and I even found what I assume to be graves. They had Chinese characters on them though.
Anyway, I finally found a quiet spot where I sat for 2 hours, sunbathing and reading about Korea. I learned many things but one in particular impressed me a lot. It's called "nunchi" - which basically means "guessing other people's state of mind"
I actually discussed it with Scott and he said that it is indeed a work of art. It's all about knowing when to ask for something, when to deliver bad news, when to give something, just when it's the right moment. And you know it but observing people, by noticing their mood swings, etc. It seems to me quite wise.
Kibun is just how people feel and Nunchi is knowing when to do what. Nunchi is like having an antenna, a sixth sense to sense another's feelings.
Knowing how to read the Kibun can lead to many abuses though, but overall there are some clever ground rules related to that concept - for instance delivering bad news only at the end of the day so the person has the night to recover. The only problem is that Kibun reduces efficiency, especially at work since one must always wait for the right time.
Koreans also behave in order NOT to disturb social harmony so those two concepts are very important. But as new generations arrive (and my kids are the perfect example of this), people get really tired of this "read between the lines" philosophy. They believe that things would be much easier if people were honnest and direct. Being quite spontaneous myself, I think it would be less frustrating than having to guess all the time (although if you're mastering the nunchi then you're not guessing since you're interpretation is the right one :)
At the beginning, I had a hard time with body language - which I learned to translate later on. For instance when a Korean does something wrong (like breaking an object), they look down. To us Occidentals this is so not okay - they must look at us in the eyes! But for Koreans, looking down is a sign of shame whereas looking in the eyes is just plain arrogance.
Moreover, if you are angry at a student, he/she will smile. At first I thought they didn't take it seriously but as it turns out the smile is a sign of shame too.
