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Success eZine – Summer 2004
Korea Business Success eZine – Summer 2004 Welcome to the Summer 2004 issue of the Korea Business Success eZine of Korean Consulting & Translation Service, Inc. We hope you find this information helpful to your business in Korea and with Koreans everywhere. Table of Contents
Recently on CNN it was reported that President Roh of South Korea was annoyed at the State Department repeadedly referring to him as President No instead of President Roh. Who is correct? Interestingly, from the point of view of Korean pronunciation, it is the State Department who has the correct pronunciation and President Roh who has the wrong pronunciation. President Roh's surname should actually be pronounced with an "n" sound and not an "r". Roh as in "row, row, row your boat" does not exist as a Korean surname. However, President Roh and others with the same surname usually pronounce their surname with an "r" sound rather than an "n" sound when speaking to an English-speaker because the words "no" and "know" are English words and would sound funny as a surname.
2. Learning Basic Korean on the Web These days, there are quite good resources available on the web for learning Korean. Most are free but there are also some that you must pay to use. Before you start learning Korean, you need to decide how far you want to go with it. The first level would be to just learn a few useful phrases without learning any grammar or to read and write. The second level would be to learn more phrases but also learn to read the Korean alphabet to help with reading words on restaurant menus, maps, buses and signs, etc. The third level involves learning grammar and vocabulary and starting to understand and speak sentences and can obviously be taken as far as one desires. For those who want to learn just a few useful phrases, a phrase book is probably the best place. Alternatively, try http://www.transparent.com/languagepages/korean/korean.htm Korean has an alphabet, which is totally unlike Chinese characters. There are only 20-something letters, not thousands and thousands of characters to remember. Learning to read and write Korean is something that can be done quickly and easily in a matter of hours and will be very helpful when staying in Korea. http://www.langintro.com/kintro/ is the best site for this. While I enjoyed learning Korean very much and would like others to learn to speak it, I realize that it is not for everyone. As with learning any foreign language, one must invest a lot of time and effort. However, even spending just a few months to learn basic conversational Korean can be very beneficial. (www.interedu.go.kr is probably the best site for those who have decided to devote more time to learning Korean.) For those who prefer to attend classes, the large universities in Seoul and other cities in Korea offer Korean language programs. One, Yonsei University, even offers their program in Los Angeles as well. You can get information on Yonsei University's course at: www.yonsei.ac.kr/~kk
3. Korean Queuing (Getting in Line) Practice When in Korea, you may find yourself having to get in line occasionally and there are a number of things you should know about Korean queuing practice in order to avoid problems. Korea is a small country with a high population density, so the interpersonal distance that Koreans must encounter day to day and have become accustomed to is considerably smaller than that in America. (Take a look at a bus or subway train in rush hour, and you will see what I mean.) In America, on the other hand, it is uncommon to encounter such crowding and people naturally leave a much greater distance between themselves and others. Koreans behind you in a line can interpret the large distance between you and the person ahead of you in the queue to mean that you are not in the line or that you got in the line but are now preoccupied with something else and not going to move forward. A Korean in this situation would feel that they are justified in moving past you because, to them, you are obviously not in the line. To avoid being line-jumped by mistake, be sure to move every time the line does and try to maintain a smaller than normal distance. Take your cue for the appropriate distance (excuse the pun) from the others in the queue. The above paragraph describes line-jumping based on misunderstanding, but deliberate line-jumping does occur in Korea on occasions. In America as in Korea, people will at times willingly allow others to move ahead of them in the line due to the circumstances of the person behind them, however, these Korean line-jumpers sometimes jump ahead on their own initiative and later justify it by saying things like, "I only have a very short transaction to do.", or "I am extremely busy.", or "I am running late for another appointment." You won't encounter this very often in Korea and for a short stay, probably never will. The majority of Koreans who witness such an incident would agree with you as they too hate these line-jumpers and they would take sides with a foreigner over a Korean line-jumper but, at the same time, would probably be reluctant to get involved. If you do ever find yourself in this situation, the best policy is to forget it and avoid making a scene. In the US, if you have multiple service points but no barriers or signage to indicate that a single queue should be formed then the people getting in line often form a single line of their own initiative and the person at the head of the queue moves to the first service point that becomes available. Alternatively, if there are only a small number of people then there may be no line formed but people observe the order in which the others come and then respect that order when the next service point becomes available. Koreans don't generally follow this first-in-first-served principle and follow the "lottery" principle instead. If there are multiple service points then there will be multiple lines and each person who arrives must make a judgement as to which will be the fastest line. Sometimes your gamble pays off and sometimes it doesn't. Don't bother hovering around the back or trying to follow the order in which people arrived, choose a line to join and join it. Banks and some other places have a ticket system to facilitate queuing. On entering, the first thing you need to do is locate the ticket machine, which can sometimes be hard to find. Take a number and then find a seat to wait for your number to be called. It is likely that each individual service point will display a number rather than having one central display, so you will have to watch all displays in order to keep track of the current number. Usually, a bell will sound and the display that has just changed will flash for a few seconds to allow people to see which display it is that has changed. It is important to realise that you have a very short time to get from your seat to the counter, so you have to anticipate your number being called and get to the counter quickly when it is. If you don't respond within a few seconds, the person at the counter will skip over to the next number. Three or four numbers can literally pass by in a matter of seconds. If several numbers have passed by in this fashion and your number has passed because you were too slow to respond and no-one has yet reached the counter, you may still go to the counter. Just show your ticket to the person behind the counter and you will be served. If you were too slow and the person with the number ahead of yours has reached the counter, stand a short distance behind this person, wait for him to complete his transaction and then show your ticket to the person behind the counter. You might encounter the situation where the person with the number behind yours has been a little too slow and has got to the counter before you even though their number has passed and your number has been called. As with the above situation, just stand a short distance behind him and wait for him to finish. The person at the counter may motion with his or hand for you to come forward and this can cause some confusion to Americans. In America, to motion for someone to come towards you, you stick out your hand with your palm facing upwards and move your fingers backwards and forwards. This gesture means "come here" in Korea, too, but is only used with animals or infants and is considered very rude when used with adults. To be polite, the palm should face downwards when the gesture is used to adults. The problem is that the polite form of the gesture, with the palm facing downwards, can look remarkably like the gesture for go away that we use in the US. So, when in Korea, remember to use the polite form of the gesture (palm down) if you want to indicate that someone should come towards you and that a person who looks like he is indicating that you should go away is actually indicating that you should come towards him.
4. Korean Language Tip: "I'm ready to order now." You are in a restaurant and want to eat but don't speak Korean. What do you do? If you are with Koreans, they will take care or everything for you, but what if there are no Koreans with you? How can you indicate that you want to be served? There are two ways to call over the waiter/waitress. 1. The first way is to say, "yeoh-gi-yoh!", which means "Look here!". It should probably be avoided in an upmarket establishment, but is perfectly acceptable in most restaurants. 2. The other way is to call out "Miss", "Lady" or "Mr.", depending on the sex and age of the waiter/waitress. For a woman up to the age of about 35, use "Ah-gah-shi". (It is better to err on the side of caution with this one because you can cause offense if you call a woman "Lady" when she expects to be called "Miss".) Use "Ah-joom-mah" for an older woman and "Ah-josh-shi" for a male of any age. Click here to hear a pronunciation:
The Korean War was a major conflict that occurred on the Korean peninsular between 1950 and 1953, a few years after the end of World War II. It is often called the forgotten war because it receives little attention compared to World War II or the Vietnam War, even though many Americans fought and died there. A brief history of the Korean War is as follows: Korea was a colony of Japan from 1910 until the defeat of the Japanese towards the end of World War II. Soviet troops then occupied the northern half of the Korean peninsula and American troops occupied the southern half of it. Koreans had now gained their much-longed-for independence from the Japanese and set up two independent states, one in the North and one in the South with the help of the respective occupying powers. The North Korean regime decided to invade South Korea on June 25, 1950 and advanced to Pusan (also written as Busan) on the southern tip of the peninsular. Unified UN forces (22 countries in all with the majority of troops coming from the US), commanded by General Douglas MacArthur, pushed the North Korean forces back to the border and crossed the border to occupy the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. At this point the Chinese entered the war and the unified UN troops were forced to retreat from Pyongyang. Fierce fighting continued for a further two years with neither side gaining the upper hand. Eventually, an armistice (a cessation of hostilities prior to peace negotiations) was called and the border was established at the 38th parallel (line of latitude 38 degrees North), exactly where it was before the war started. The US had not driven communism completely out of the Korean peninsular but had achieved an important victory in maintaining a democratic South Korea, thus helping to prevent the spread of communism to other countries in the region. It should be noted that the Korean War has not technically ended as an armistice (a cessation of hostilities prior to peace negotiations) agreement has been reached but neither side has actually surrendered. (See www.korean-war.com and www.koreanwar.org for more detailed information on the Korean War.)
When in Korea, it is worthwhile going to the Korean War Memorial and the DMZ if you have some interest in the history. DMZ stands for "demilitarized zone" and is a four-kilometer-wide (2.5 mile) strip of land between North and South Korea created as a neutral buffer zone between the two countries that are technically still at war. When you visit the DMZ, you can use the binoculars provided to look across the border into North Korea, enter one of the tunnels dug under the DMZ by the North in violation of the armistice agreement as well as visit a small museum. The village of Panmunjeom is located within the DMZ and sits right on the North-South border. This village serves as a place for inter-Korean negotiations and prisoner exchange. When you visit the village, you can observe North Korean and South Korean guards facing off against each other. The easiest way to visit the DMZ is to take a guided tour departing from Seoul. No individual tours to Panmunjeom are permitted and you must go with one of four authorized tours (www.ktbonline.com, www.panmunjomtour.com, www.uso.org/korea/ and www.icsc.co.kr) if you want to go. There are several other tour companies that conduct tours of the DMZ without visiting Panmunjeom. (Star Travel: 02-569-8114, Korea Travel Bureau: 02-778-0150, Global Tour: 02-776-3153, Good Morning Tours: 02-757-1232 and others) The Panmunjeom tours seem to visit Panmunjeom only but Panmunjom Tour does offer a combined tour, which would probably be of more interest than visiting Punmunjeom only. Please note that you will need to take your passport with you when you visit the DMZ and that it is advisable to book early. Your passport will not be stamped but your passport number will be recorded for security purposes. If visiting Panmunjeom, no jeans, sandals, shorts, short skirts, sleeveless shirts, T-shirts, or shirts without collars are permitted and hair must not be shaggy or unkempt. To get to the Korean War Memorial, get off at Samgakji Station (Seoul subway lines 4 or 6), go out exit No.12 and walk 5 minutes. (See http://warmemo.co.kr/msindex_e.htm for more information.)
Want to use the Internet, play computer games or do some word processing? Go to a PC room. Want to sing karaoke? Go to a song room. Want to watch a movie? Go to a video room or a DVD room. Want to make an international call? Go to a telephone room. Want to play arcade games? Go to a game room. Tired? How about a sleeping room? The word room ("bahng" in Korean) when attached to another noun suggests a business offering facilities to do that activity and such rooms are both common and diverse. You might be invited to a song room (nor-rae-bahng in Korean) but you will have little reason to visit most of the other rooms, possibly with the exception of the PC room. For around 1,000 won ($1) an hour, you get access to a modern PC and a high-speed cable Internet connection as well as common software applications (Korean versions only). For a small charge, you can also print things out. Use the computer for as long as you want and then pay when you leave based on the amount of time you spent. PC rooms are easy to find because, although the word "room" is written in Korean script, the letters "PC" are in English and should be easy to recognize. [ top ] |
