Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.
Korean culture of forced deference
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By Jason Lim
A heated exchange between two female celebrities caught on video “B-roll” was the biggest news story in Korea last week. The incident between Lee Tae-yim and Yewon occurred as Lee was coming out of the cold sea on Jeju Island where they had taped a well-known TV show. The B-roll only shows Yewon sitting on the beach trying to get some sun as Lee approaches her off camera and begins a conversation. Yewon turns to look at Lee, squinting into the sun.
This is my translation of the exchange. I tried to keep it as literal as possible but tweaked it to still convey the nature of the conversation.
Lee: Hello.
Yewon: Are you cold?
Lee: Yeah, it’s freezing. Why don’t you try it out (Go into the water)?
Yewon: Don’t want to.
Lee: You don’t want to? You like watching others do it, but don’t want to do it yourself?
Yewon: No, no. (That’s not what I mean)
Lee: Why are you talking to me disrespectfully?
Yewon: No, no. (I am not)
Lee: Do I look like a pushover?
Yewon: It’s just cold, that’s all. (There is a two-second lapse as she looks up at Lee squinting into the sun). You don’t like me too much, do you?
Lee: (Inaudible but you can hear the staff trying to calm her) You think you are all that, don’t you! (Unidentified staffer asking, “Why are you getting upset, Tae-yim?”)
Lee: Because she’s being disrespectful. How dare you look at me that way? You look at me like that again if you want me to smack you, b-tch! I will never allow you to forget that I am a celebrity for the rest of your life. (Inaudible as the staffer apparently pulls her away).
Yewon: (Mumbling to herself) Seriously, what a crazy b-tch.
On the surface, this dialogue seems to show that Lee got upset for some reason and took it out on Yewon. Both the tone and phrases that Lee used mimic those of someone itching for a fight. Perhaps being forced to dive into a cold sea for a TV show might do that to you. It was just Yewon’s bad luck that she ran into Lee on a bad day. Case closed, right?
Actually no, if you are a Korean. Watching the exchange above, a majority of Korean netizens seemed to take the side of Lee, blaming Yewon for being disrespectful. Two cultural characteristics underlie how Koreans view this exchange.
One, the concept of sunbae vs. hoobae. Normally, this is translated as senior vs. junior. However, this is a concept that doesn’t lend itself to an easy translation. It’s more of a cultural construct that has to be experienced in order to be understood. Basically, it’s an unspoken but ubiquitous norm of behavior that stipulates that anyone younger, anyone who started working for the same company or began attending the same school later, or anyone who entered into a similar industry or profession more recently owes you certain, visible expression of deference. This norm applies whether you know the other person personally or not. In this construct, Lee is a “sunbae” to Yewon since both are celebrities, although Yewon started out as a singer and Lee is an actress. Also, Lee is three years older than Yewon.
Two, the Korean language is constructed specifically to support this hierarchical cultural construct. Along with Japanese, it’s the only language that features an extensive and complex system of honorifics to denote your relative social status relative to the people whom you are interacting with. In fact, Korean language reserves wholly different sets of vocabulary to use when speaking to someone “lower,” “a peer” or “higher” than you, with multiple and constantly shifting variances within each layer, depending on subtle socio-cultural cues that are somehow ambiguous and rigid at the same time. Further, it’s not just the language; tone, body language, positioning and other behavior also reinforce the relative hierarchy.
In this context, Yewon committed a deadly sin for not standing up and greeting Lee with the right tone of voice and facial expression as befits a “sunbae.” Never mind they supposedly have never met each other before this exchange, and Lee was the one to start “talking down” to Yewon in the first place.
This exchange is interesting because it’s symptomatic of the almost pathological need that Korean culture has to locate everyone in a relative hierarchy of cross-cutting (and often mutually conflicting) positions in order to assign them the proper level of nominal deference. Actually, everyday Korean social interaction almost cannot happen without this prior positioning exercise.
This is the main reason that Koreans ask your age, job, title and other key facts in order to address you properly. It’s also the reason that pretty much everyone is called by their respective title, not their name. Did you ever notice that every stranger is either a “sajang-nim (president of a company)” or “sunsaeng-nim (teacher)?”
Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006. He can be reached at jasonlim@msn.com, facebook. com/jasonlimkoreatimes and @jasonlim2012.