Saving face in Korea

Thirteen days in and my New Years resolutions are still going strong! How about you? I did slack on my chores a bit this weekend because my friends were in town, but I'm making up for it with some deep cleaning today. We had a good time doing hoodrat things in Beomgye last night, and Friday night I actually met up with a friend for Korean barbecue a few towns over. She gave me some tips on planning for my parents' visit -- which is a little over a month away! Let the planning begin!

Today, I randomly decided to write about the Korean cultural value foreigners have dubbed "saving face." So, that's what you get! Time to get cultured.

Koreans place great importance on "saving face," which is basically not being embarrassed or challenged in front of others. This is especially applicable in situations where age is a factor. (Korea is very much a hierarchy based first on age, then on merit. This goes for everything from the eldest getting their drink poured first to what you call another person: "oppa" is older brother, so this is what I would call any men close to my age, but older; "oni" is older sister, etc.) ANYWAY -- saving face -- here's an example.

Each class has two Korean teachers; one is technically the head teacher and one is a co-teacher. They both share the same responsibilities, but one is just higher on the ladder than the other. She is also usually older. One time, the lower teacher (much younger, in this case) asked me which book the students needed for class and I told her the phonics books. The head teacher didn't hear this exchange and began passing out the activity books instead. The co-teacher looked so torn, like she was deciding who should control the Gaza Strip, and she ultimately decided not to say anything. By not correcting the head teacher in front of myself and the students, she was allowing her to save face.  Seeing what was happening, I acted like I messed up and then collected all the activity books muttering about "crazy Laura teacher," before passing out the correct phonics books.

Saving face also makes teacher-student relationships difficult in the classroom because students are almost too respectful of their teachers. Now, this isn't quite true in kindergarten, as kids are just learning this stuff, but I've heard it can pose a problem in college and even high school. For instance, my Korean friends have told me they would never ask a question of a professor during class because it implies the teacher is not doing his or her job adequately. In order for the teacher to save face, the students suffer in silence, never voicing their questions. This manifests itself in earlier years with students who will never admit they don't understand something. For Koreans, a teacher asking students "Do you understand?" at the end of the lesson is virtually asking them "Did I do my job well?" They will always say yes; the truth is not important when saving face.

Personally, I would rather a student speak up so I can help him or her understand a different way, but alas, I'm swimming upstream trying to convince my polite* students to step away from the crowd and admit it when they don't understand. I want to yell, "Stop saving my face!" but they definitely wouldn't understand that. Instead, I've taken to doing informal mini-assessments throughout each lesson in order to determine what stuck and what didn't. Most of the time, the kids don't even realize what's happening this way. Everybody wins.

When face saving can be really complicated and messy as hell is in a professional setting with mixed cultures. Whenever someone has to contradict someone else, you can almost feel the tension among the Koreans. This only gets dicier with foreigners because there are so many nuances we just don't understand.

Thankfully, I have never had to directly confront any of my co-workers, but I saw a few cultural skirmishes here in 2009 where there was a lot of face lost. I like to think the Americans in those clashes were just stressed out about the ongoing quarantine, and wouldn't have been so disrespectful if they understood the significance and took a step back from the situation.

I can only hope I've learned from my experiences in 2009 and if I ever have to contradict one of my co-workers, that I can do a little face saving in the process.


*By polite, I don't mean well-behaved. I definitely have some hooligans in my classes, but when it comes to hierarchy and saving face, they know the score. I merely adopted the culture; they were born into it, molded by it.