I don’t believe that Koreans are less kind, less rational, or less capable of empathetic thinking than other people, on average. Nevertheless, I do think that as a foreigner in Korea, it’s very easy to come away with the impression that these things are true.
There are two things that conspire to cause this: 1) the deeply communitarian nature of Korean culture means that everyone, including Koreans, suffer from the consequences of finding unkind, irrational or unempathetic people in their social in-group; 2) the fact that foreigners embedded in this culture have the inability to communicate their own feelings and needs clearly (due to linguistic and cultural barriers), and likewise also lack the ability to clearly understand the feelings and needs of others, means that they bear the brunt of the worst behavior of the always present minority of unkind, irrational and unempathetic people.
I suppose all of that is just a very philosophical way to say that I had a depressing day. As many of the “volleyball Wednesdays” tend to be, although there were other events earlier in the day that left me depressed, too.
Actually, if I’m objective, I’d say that my volleyball skills, in and of themselves, have improved, at least slightly. The majority of my serves seem to make it over the net, and once or twice each game I hit the ball in a way that is advantageous to our team.
I hate how competitive they are about it. I hate how unkind they are to people who mess up or do badly. There’s a lot of the sort of ribbing, joking, and teasing that I associate with my darkest days of high school PE class. It’s a culture of competitive, jock-driven unkindness that permeates the feel of the event.
The phrase “우리 편 파이팅!” [u-ri pyeon pa-i-ting = our team, let’s go! (idiomatically)] is heard repeatedly. At one point, early on, the principal and vice principal were forcing all the most reluctant, bad players to play a match before the hard-core competitors got started. Naturally, I fall into the category of “bad player,” so I was participating. They had changed the rules – most of these reluctant, bad players are women, so they’d made a rule that men couldn’t be the ones to send the ball over the net. But I didn’t know that – I hadn’t caught the explanation in Korean – my Korean is really bad, you know? Well, once… twice… three times, I hit the ball over the net. I thought I was doing really good. And then, each time, our team was losing a point. Finally, the new art teacher – a hard-core jock if ever there was one, but not as mean spirited as some of the others – took the time to explain to me what was going on (his English isn’t bad).
I said, “I didn’t know.” He explained my confusion to the everyone else. And their response, to a person (even the other bad players, even the ones so much worse than me): this was hilarious. The poor confused foreigner. Very funny. Only the art teacher bothered to apologize.
I shouldn’t let it affect me so much. But it does. I keep trying. I don’t really express my discomfort, much, on the outside. I carry it around inside.
I think about the fact that this country has a high suicide rate. I think that maybe it’s not so different for inept Koreans, navigating their own competitive, asshole-driven culture. I can see why they just feel so ashamed that they decide to say “fuck it,” and check out.
And yet I’m still here. I’m hoping things will get better when I return to Ilsan.
You know… I’ve stopped studying Korean completely. I thought that’s why I was staying here. When will I start again? I’m like the student at the end of class, watching the clock. I’m ready to check out. I have 3 weeks left at Hongnong. Will teaching at Karma be better? Will I be able to resume my “projects”? My art, my writing, my language study… not feeling very good about any of it.
우리 편 파이팅!