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One thing I love about Korea that I hope globalization won't destroy: eating manners. You can slurp your food without feeling like a barbarian. The most common response I have heard from Koreans I have eaten with: "You are more Korean than Koreans!"
Korean hosts are delighted if you eat half of the food in the home, and will invite you again. Side dishes fill up the tables at Korean restaurants, plus free refills. Can it get any better than that? In the U.S., you can expect extra charges per French Fry.
But in the U.S., eating with a Korean friend slurping down his food, I wondered ― should I politely tell him that Americans might think he is uncivilized? Or is it that Americans are too uptight? My plate my way, your plate your way, it would be a bland world if we were all the same.
I have given speeches around the world ― there is nothing quite like speaking before a black audience in the U.S. When I give speeches without strict time limits, I encourage predominately white audiences to interrupt me at any moment with questions (most patiently wait for Q&A time). With black audiences, Q&A time starts when the audience is ready, the signal usually being people interrupting with "Uh-huh, that's right" or "What? That's crazy!" Last year after I gave a speech at a fund-raiser at a bar in Seoul, a Korean friend was amazed that I was able to quiet the raucous crowd. I said: "I gave a speech at a black church years ago. Drunk people at a bar are easier to handle." After presidential candidates Al Gore and Bill Bradley debated in Harlem a number of years ago, many whites said they were disgusted by the audience. I am the type to shout at movie screens, even during the opening credits, that's why I only go to the matinee (with other talkers).
Years ago, I saw a Korean man politely lecture a drunken Korean man. My Korean is far from perfect, but if I heard correctly, he was telling him to stop being foolish because there was a foreigner nearby. What is this world coming to if a tipsy guy must pretend to be sober before someone who doesn't care?
I guess there was a time I was concerned what others thought. As a college student, I remember attending a high level networking reception. I was talkative and hungry. The main dish: fried chicken. The main dessert: watermelon. Because of historical stereotypes, some blacks will avoid eating fried chicken and watermelon when whites are around.
A friend of mine, a Jewish woman who worked on the school paper with me, noticed I wasn't eating. I mentioned feeling uncomfortable with stereotypes. Her response: "If you want to eat the goddamn food, then eat. You're dumb if you're not going to eat some good food because of what someone may think." In a movie she would have been munching on chicken with one hand with watermelon in the other hand.
Talking to a friend of mine who has lived overseas I mentioned to him one big difference after living abroad: Short of libel or slander, I don't care about criticism. He said he had a similar feeling. I then asked: Do you eat watermelon when white people are around? He thought about it, then said no, he still couldn't do that. He is fearless, Harvard-educated, lived on Wall Street, spends more in a month than what I make in a year. At a grocery store together another day to buy food for a cookout, we saw a white guy walked by, lugging two watermelons, one on each shoulder. That, I said, is true white privilege. Black people often must worry about fulfilling stereotypes or destroying the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
Oscar Wilde said, "Be yourself, everyone else is taken." I take that to an extreme, and love it when others do the same.
I occasionally get emails from friends abroad asking me to explain something they have heard or learned about Korea. A friend recently asked why there were photos of Korean singers poking each other's (fully-clothed) butts with their fingers.
As I've been told by Koreans, this is a playful thing done by Korean kids (apparently even targeting some of their startled foreign-born teachers). How do I explain something I don't understand to someone who doesn't live here? Nobody is getting hurt, so I chalk it up to Koreans being Koreans, hoping they won't stop because of what others think. But those Korean kids ― or singers ― who playfully poke others in the butt with their fingers don't want to test me about that. I will never be that Korean.
The writer is the director for International Relations at Freedom Factory Co. in Seoul and the Asia Outreach Fellow with the Atlas Network in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at: CJL@post.harvard.edu.
