Adventures in email etiquette

By Chi-Young Kim

People I work with know I love email. Unless forced to do otherwise, I prefer corresponding via email. It’s quick, I can write it any time I want, and if there is an unpleasant subject involved, I can formulate my response strategically.

I even prefer it in my personal life; with many of my friends in different time zones, it is sometimes impossible to find a convenient time to chat. Plus, some of my friends (I won’t name names) talk on the phone while grocery shopping, gardening, or even washing the dishes, which makes it nearly impossible to hear what they are saying.

Sometimes, when a friend tells me to hang on a second while she launches into a conversation with someone she bumped into on the street, I lose my patience and just hang up. (No, dear friend, I don’t really have such bad reception. Now you know. Sorry!) But sometimes email is confounding even to a die-hard fan like me.

Over the last six months or so, I’ve been sending emails to a Korean entity, trying to find out whether my project is eligible for a translation grant. It has been such a frustrating, bureaucratic process that I will probably give up pursuing it and look for another opportunity.

Many times, my inquiries simply disappeared into a void. The one time I received a response, I was told that, although I had submitted the correct documents, the guidelines had changed before they had a chance to approve it. I was informed that I had to resubmit all my documents, in addition to other new ones. I did, but heard nothing. I followed up, then followed up again, and kept trying to get confirmation of receipt.

Of course, they ignored those emails ― was my resubmission not approved, or did it fall through the cracks? I wouldn’t have been so annoyed if I were applying for the first time, but I have maintained a close working relationship with this organization for many years. This isn’t unique to this particular organization; somehow, many Korean businesses seem to believe it’s perfectly acceptable to disregard emails they don’t deem important. I have taken to adding, “Please confirm receipt” at the end, which only rarely works.

This becomes even more irritating when the same people suddenly resurface when they need something. So even though the employees at that Korean entity never responded to my inquiries, they subsequently asked for detailed biographical information including: birthplace, elementary school, middle school, and high school. What this information has to do with my translation skills I’ll never know. I should have used their tactics on them, but it bothered me so much; I just informed them that I would send them a CV with only pertinent information.

I also find it odd when people email me in Korean. Those emails are often studded with emoticons, especially to signify a smile, and they take forever to get to the point. They always include pleasantries, asking about my health, the weather, and my family. At the beginning of my career, unfamiliar to the polite Korean ways of email-crafting, I started out writing very American messages ― straight to the point. It didn’t occur to me that I was projecting a standoffish air.

In fact, I corresponded with one of my authors via email for approximately a year over various editorial changes and questions, and when I finally met her in person at a conference, she expressed surprise. “You’re so nice!” she exclaimed, telling me that my emails had made her think I would be cold and terse.

Since then, I learned to include pleasantries in my emails, but it still feels awkward. I don’t really know them outside of work; it feels inappropriate to ask after their children or spouses. I also can’t think of anything to say, so I always end with something idiotic, like, “I’m sure the weather in Seoul has turned cold/hot/hotter/colder, please take care of your health.”

It’s pretty embarrassing. It reminds me of a hilarious anecdote from a great travel memoir — an American author details his befuddlement at being invited to business meetings in the Middle East and drinking endless little cups of tea as they sit around, mostly talking about the pleasant weather.

It may be that I am just used to American email etiquette. In all the industries I have worked in, you write clear, to-the-point emails that are pleasant but professional, with no emoticons — ever. In fact, I don’t even like inserting emoticons in personal emails, but I might be a dying breed, especially since I value proper punctuation and spelling even in text messages.

But at the very least, in the US you always acknowledge receipt of an email; if someone emails you to say they did something, you write back to say, ``Great! Thanks.” I have noticed that the few European organizations I’ve worked with are not great at following up via email, either, so it may be that the entire world outside of the U.S. operates that way. IDK. (That’s ``I don’t know” for those of you over 25 years old.)

Chi-Young Kim is a literary translator based in Los Angeles. She has translated works by Shin Kyung-sook, Kim Young-ha, and Jo Kyung-ran. Contact her at chiyoung@chiyoungkim.com or via her website, chiyoungkim.com.