Why don't we like our neighbors?

Moving into a new office recently reminded me of something that seems to typify life in Seoul.

We're not very neighborly.

It's not that we're unfriendly people once you get to know us. Quite the opposite. It's simply that, with neighbors and strangers alike, we tend to keep our distance, engaging only when necessary.

For the first few days after the move, the foreigner still living within me, even after all these years, was eager to introduce himself to the people in the offices on either side of mine.

It was World Cup season, and I even imagined organizing a little gathering in the two lounge areas on our floor. Admittedly, I was also imagining the occasion — England making the final.

It didn't take long to absorb the building's unwritten rules.

Within a couple of weeks, I found myself doing what everyone else seemed to be doing: avoiding eye contact in the elevator, passing people silently in the corridor and quietly getting on with my day.

What accentuates this culture is that this building doesn't separate offices from residences. Each unit could serve as either. The silence made me wonder what life was like behind those identical doors. How many people, I wondered, were sitting there alone?

At first, I didn't think much of it. I've lived in Korea too long to find this especially surprising.

Then I realized why I'd instinctively wanted to introduce myself in the first place. It was that I had not been seeing this reality.

That was because, for much of my life here, Koreans have treated me warmly simply because I was foreign.

Strangers would strike up conversations out of curiosity or hospitality in ways they wouldn't with one another.

But these days, there are so many foreigners in Seoul that we've become just part of the crowd.

But last week — and this is what prompted this column — I had an experience of the opposite.

I stepped into an elevator in another building, where the only other passenger was another foreigner, and by the time we reached the ground floor, we were chatting. So much so that we stopped outside and continued for another 10 minutes.

I have to admit that he initiated it. When I tell you he was American, that is sufficient explanation. Americans are, on the whole, remarkably friendly and outgoing people.

As a Brit — and we are more polite than actually engaging — I find this so attractive. Who doesn’t love Americans?

What impresses me also is that Americans seem to have forgotten that we burned down the White House in 1814. Living in this part of Northeast Asia, where historical grievances can get stoked for generations, there is the natural impulse to forgive and forget in action.

Which brings me to the question: why do Seoulites — and I hesitate to generalize beyond Seoul — keep their neighbors at such a distance?

I don't really know. Old people say it wasn’t always like this.

Perhaps these habits simply become self-perpetuating. One person avoids eye contact, the next follows suit and before long, an entire city develops an unwritten code of safe detachment.

Or perhaps the explanation lies in Korea's Confucian inheritance. Confucianism excels at defining duties and relationships, but those relationships are traditionally shaped by family, hierarchy and established roles rather than by the idea that strangers might become friends. Christianity introduced the imperative to “love your neighbor,” but that doesn’t seem to mean you actually have to talk to them.

I also wonder whether older patterns of family life cast this particular shadow. Men raised under harsh discipline became emotionally distant fathers themselves. If children don't grow up with enough warmth and encouragement at home, perhaps it's no surprise that they become adults who are cautious about opening themselves to people they don't know.

Of course, these are sweeping generalizations. Reality is always more complicated than a newspaper column allows.

Still, something feels missing.

Perhaps change has to begin with individuals. Maybe I should be the one smiling first, saying hello in the elevator and introducing myself to the people next door.

I should do this, because, I’ve learned from experience that, once that initial contact is done and some effort made to continue it, the people of this city show themselves to be remarkably engaged in life and exceedingly decent in the way they go about it.

Michael Breen (mike.breen@insightcomms.com) is the author of "The New Koreans.” The views expressed here are his own.