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Korea Business Success eZine – Summer
2007
Welcome to the Summer 2007 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
- Korean Age Reckoning System
- Korean Culture: Eating Lunch
- Feature Article: The Senior-Junior Relationship
- Theme Parks in Korea
- Korea Launches a New Marketing Campaign
- Korea Discovers Natural Gas Deposit
- A Wedding with a Difference
1. Korean Age Reckoning System
Korea has a way of reckoning age that is quite different from the
way we do it in the West. When Koreans are born, they are considered
to already be one year old and their age advances by one each Lunar
New Year (generally in January or February on the Western calendar).
This means that, depending on when a person's birthday falls, their
age is 1-2 years greater using the Korean system than under the Western
system. The word "sahl" comes after the number to denote
age in the Korean system.
A different convention is commonly used for speaking of the age of
babies and toddlers. Their age is reckoned in either the number of
days or the number of years that have elapsed since they were born.
In this system, the word "il" comes
after the number to denote age in days and the word "dol" comes
after the number to denote the age in years. This system is identical
to the Western system of counting age in that age starts at zero and
advances by one each birthday. The 100th day (pek-il) anniversary and
the 1 year (chot-dol) anniversary are important celebrations for babies.
The Korean system can lead to confusion. The easiest way around this
is to refer to one's year of birth instead of age. Inquiring of a person's
age by asking in which year they were born is a common way to ask about
age in Korea so you will not sound strange. However, just as in Western
culture, asking a Korean woman her age may be a sensitive question.
2. Korean Culture: Eating Lunch
The morning and evening meals are generally eaten outside of the
company domain except for company get-togethers in the evening (which,
depending on the company, can be frequent or infrequent). Lunch is
eaten during business hours and because Korea has a group-oriented
culture rather than an individual-oriented culture, the eating of lunch
generally comes under the company domain.
Eating lunch together could involve going out to a restaurant, getting
food delivered to the workplace or eating in a company restaurant if
one is provided. The company, or possibly the senior manager, generally
pays for the meals of all people in the group for those working at
a company.
It is general practice for Koreans to eat together. Bringing a packed
lunch is a practice which is becoming less and less common. Similarly,
eating out as an individual or small group or taking care of personal
business instead of eating together would be looked down on if done
often. The team, department or whole company will eat together.
Eating together is seen as something that builds up group spirit. Any
acts of individualism when group-behavior is expected will tend to
get a person excluded from the group, which is a serious issue in a
group culture like Korea.
3. Feature Article: The Senior-Junior Relationship
Korean culture could be characterized as group-oriented and hierarchical.
A connection to another person makes one part of a larger group and
this creates reciprocal obligations. Examples of connections that create
a group would be: coming from the same hometown, attending or having
graduated from the same school, university or college, working in the
same company, family ties, common military service, or having the same
occupation or profession.
It is very important to determine which party is the senior and which
is the junior and seniority is generally based on age or job title.
The Korean words to describe the senior and junior parties are "sun-bae" and "hoo-bae".
There is no good translation into English because the concept is not really a
part of Western culture. Koreans will typically say "my senior" and "my
junior" when speaking English even though these expressions sound
awkward to Western ears.
A senior is regarded sort of like an older brother or sister and is
expected to provide support and guidance to juniors. A junior is like
a younger brother or sister and is expected to show respect by speaking
in a more respectful form of Korean.
Juniors and seniors can become close friends but depending on the circumstances,
the heirarchical nature of the relationship can bring about a different
dynamic than ordinary friendships in the West. Socializing is an important
part of building a strong senior-junior relationship.
The senior can expect to spend more money on the relationship than
he gets spent on him by his junior. And in some cases, the junior can
expect to spend considerable time carrying out tasks for his senior
with no or little direct reward. It might appear unfair or unbalanced,
but there is give and take by both parties, and every junior will be
a senior to someone more junior to him and vice versa.
Like any human relationship, there exists the potential for abuse.
Some seniors will take advantage of their juniors and ask them to do
an unreasonably large number of tasks, pressure them into doing things
they really don’t want
to do, or get on a power trip. The senior-junior relationship can be
a great one but unfortunately it sometimes does go wrong.
It is unlikely that a foreigner would be expected to become the senior
to a Korean in Korea but this may be expected outside Korea. This would
just involve providing some assistance, guidance and non-financial
support, which most people would be willing to provide anyway. A Korean
would probably feel obligated to act as a senior towards a younger
foreigner, particularly in Korea. You can feel comfortable about asking
for guidance and non-financial support from a senior Korean and recognizing
this junior-senior relationship can even deepen the friendship by showing
a sensitivity to Korean culture.
If you find yourself in a senior-junior relationship, you can expect
that you may be called on from time to time to carry out tasks without
compensation in line with your role as the junior. It will help the
relationship if you carry out these tasks. Tasks for a foreigner would
typically involve helping with English or making use of knowledge or
contacts in the home country. Beware of people seeking to take advantage
of you. Teaching or proofreading English on an ongoing basis for free
or being pressured to take a position is unreasonable and you should
refuse such requests, although doing so with grace is always advisable.
4. Theme Parks in Korea
There are three main theme parks in the Seoul area - SeoulLand, Everland
and Lotte World. In addition, there is a tourist attraction called
the Korean Folk Village that showcases all things traditional for the
benefit of domestic and foreign tourists. It has lots of displays and
performances but does not have theme park style rides.
SeoulLand is a large theme park with five different themed areas covering
models of world famous buildings, outer space, fantasy, thrill and
adventure, and Korea's folk traditions. SeoulLand is close to Seoul
and can be accessed by subway. Take the light blue number 4 subway
line and get off at Seoul Grand Park station (station number 453). www.seoulland.co.kr
Everland is a large theme park with thrill rides, a zoo and petting
zoo, an artificial beach, lagoon and wave pool area. Everland is close
to Seoul and can be accessed by bus but not by subway. www.everland.com
Lotte World is a smaller indoor theme park located in the heart of
Seoul with some rides, a folk museum and an ice rink. Take the green
number 2 subway line and get off at Jamshil station (station number
216). Lotte World can be extremely crowded during peak times of school
holidays and weekends. www.lotteworld.com
The Korean Folk Village ("Min-Sok Chon" in Korean) is located
near Suwon, a satellite city of Seoul. It takes about 1.5 hours to
get there. Take the dark blue number 1 subway line to Suwon station
(station number P154) and then catch the free shuttle bus or the number
37 city bus from the station. The Korean Folk Village is well worth
a visit but you'll get more out of the experience if you go with a
Korean who can translate and explain things. www.koreanfolk.co.kr
5.
Korea Launches a New Marketing Campaign
The Fall 2006 edition of this eZine reported that Korea had embarked
on a campaign to market itself to the world under the brand of "Dynamic
Korea". www.dynamic-korea.com.
Now, a new marketing campaign has the slogan "Korea, Sparkling".
Why the new brand and marketing campaign, and what has happened to
the "Dynamic
Korea" campaign? The "Dynamic Korea" campaign will continue to
run and has not been replaced by the "Korea, Sparkling" brand or campaign.
The "Dynamic Korea" campaign is intended as a trade and investment
campaign while the new "Korea, Sparkling" is a tourism campaign.
According to the "Korea, Sparkling" website, the brand is intended
to convey the vitality of the Korean people and culture that visitors to Korea
will experience. At the time of writing, the "Korea, Sparkling" website
was entirely in Korean. www.koreasparkling.com
6. Korea Discovers Natural Gas Deposit
South Korean scientists have recently discovered a significant methane
hydrate deposit off its east coast within Korea's exclusive economic
zone. Methane (CH4) is the principal component of natural gas.
Methane hydrate is a solid crystal that forms from water and methane
at low temperatures and very high pressure, conditions that exist at
the bottom of deep sections of the ocean. Methane hydrate is predicted
to be a big source of fossil fuel with worldwide reserves estimated
to be sufficient to supply the world's energy needs for thousands of
years.
South Korea has no known oil or uranium deposits and only limited coal.
The Korean methane hydrate deposit is estimated to contain enough methane
to meet South Korea's natural gas requirements for about 30 years.
Extracting methane from methane hydrate is not done commercially anywhere
in the world so the technology is unproven. Heating the methane hydrate
is enough to liberate the methane from the hydrate. The real difficulty
in utilizing methane hydrates is in recovering the methane hydrates
from the bottom of deep sections of oceans.
Natural gas can be transported by pipeline but when that is not an
option, it needs to be transported on ships, trucks or trains. Transporting
natural gas as a gas by sea, road or rail is not economical so natural
gas is liquefied to pack more of it into the available transport volume.
On the other hand, methane hydrates are not as dense as liquefied natural
gas (LNG) but much denser than gaseous natural gas and dense enough
to make sea, road or rail transport economically viable. The fact that
methane hydrates are dense enough to be transported in their natural
state means that liquefaction can be avoided, which is a considerable
cost saving.
7. A Wedding with a Difference
Tired of speeches that go on too long or mistake-prone
celebrants? How about employing a robot to MC the wedding? That is
just what happened recently at the wedding of a robotics engineer in
Daejon, South Korea.
Having a non-human as a celebrant is not a legal problem in South Korea
because ceremonies and celebrants are not actually required to get
married. The only requirement to get married and the only way to have
a marriage legally recognized is to register the marriage at the local
government office. Most people have a ceremony and celebrant or MC
for family, traditional or religious reasons, but the ceremony and
celebrant/MC have no legal recognition.
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