continuously engage in chae-myun in all of their personal and business relationships. Foreigners in Korea must do the same. Face saving, in fact, remains Korea’s “cultural lubricant,” without which things cannot and will not run smoothly.
Chagun 차군 Chah-guun
Compassion and Mercy
Westerners tend to be both fascinated and repulsed by the contradictions in Asian attitudes and behavior. The stylized etiquette and tranquil harmony that reflects one face of the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and other Asians simply does not fit with their other face of rage and savage brutality. These inconsistencies in character apparently arose from centuries of emotional, intellectual, and physical programming that compelled Asians to repress their natural instincts and desires and conform to an artificial kind of behavior that created contradictory impulses.
As long as the pressure on Asians to conform to this contradictory lifestyle was strong enough and steady enough to maintain a balance of the conflicting impulses, there was peace and tranquillity. But when this pressure weakened or became more than people could endure, their suppressed rage was unleashed, and the only way open to them to express this rage was through violence.
Korea’s pre-modern history is a series of long cycles of peace and tranquillity ending in periods of great violence. The Koreans survived both forms of these cycles because they were tough, resilient, and determined and also because of a cultural element expressed in the word chagun (chah-guun), which can be translated as “compassion and mercy.”
In keeping with the humanistic side of Korea’s multiple philosophies (shamanism, Buddhism, and Confucianism), the harshness of life in Korea has traditionally been tempered by chagun most of the time. Except in rare cases of truly evil men, the officials who administered the authoritarian regimes down to modern times were generally compassionate men who, during times of peace, interpreted and enforced the laws from a humane rather than legalistic viewpoint. During periods of turmoil, however, the dark side of the Asian character inevitably came to the fore, and chagun was frequently replaced by absolute ruthlessness.
Broadly speaking, the cycle of violence and change that began in Korea in the 1870s has not yet ended. But this time there is a good chance the violence will end not because of the imposition of a new authoritarian political regime but because the national will of the people will succeed in bringing about the formation of a truly democratic government.
In the meantime, foreign residents of Korea may benefit from the chagun factor if they are aware of it and learn how to use it. On occasions when people run afoul of the law, whether the situation is minor or major, it is normal for them to get a special measure of leniency—a kind of justice that is applied to Koreans and foreigners alike—if they invoke the chagun element by apologizing and expressing regret.
There is another side to the dispensation of chagun if the situation involves a business matter in which Koreans are pitted against foreigners. In such situations it typically takes on a nationalistic flavor and can be expected to come down on the Korean side. To help prevent this from happening, or at least to mitigate the results, the foreign side is well advised to present its case with as much emotion and “humanism” as possible. Koreans are invariably more receptive to humanistic approaches than they are to hard facts and logic.
The Korean custom of giving precedence to human factors over facts and logic is usually upsetting to most Western businesspeople when they first encounter it—and may continue to upset them for months or years, depending on their own character and attitudes. Those who are perceptive enough to combine the Korean way with the Western way, using a combination of logic, humanism, and personalism, are usually the ones who succeed in Korea.
Chakupjachok 차굽자촉 Chah-kuup-jah-choke
The Self-Sufficiency Syndrome
In the early 1990s, Korean business and political leaders began talking about the importance of internationalizing or globalizing the Korean economy in keeping with the worldwide trend among leading industrial powers—something that is such an extreme departure from traditional Korean thinking that it suggests changes in the Korean mind-set that, in fact, have not occurred. Those who are expressing this viewpoint are few in number and are not speaking for the overwhelming majority of Koreans.
A number of Korean companies have become multinational to the point that they appear to have been internationalized, but that too is misleading because behind the foreign facade of Samsung, the LG Group, and other Korean conglomerates, both the heart and soul are still Korean. True and complete internationalization and globalization are so directly opposed to the traditional Korean mind-set that the whole culture would have to be transformed before either could happen—a circumstance that is, of course, common in some degree to all nationalities.
For all practical purposes Koreans were isolated from the world community until 1965, when diplomatic relations were reestablished with Japan, and although they have since made remarkable progress in catching up with the rest of the world in a material sense, they (like the Chinese and Japanese) are still generations behind most Westerners in viewing themselves as members of the world family—racially as well as culturally.
In addition to their geographic and cultural isolation until recent times, Koreans have traditionally been programmed in the concept of chakupjachok (chah-kuup-jah-choke), or “self-sufficiency.” While this cultural conditioning naturally began as a matter of survival, it was eventually institutionalized in the Korean political, economic, and social systems. Until the first decades of the twentieth century the vast majority of all Koreans were, in fact, virtually self-sufficient, raising their own food and making their own clothing. While there was some exporting and importing in pre-twentieth-century Korea, the volume was so minuscule and limited to such a few items that foreign trade had no impact at all on most people.
Thus the concept of chakupjachok has permeated Korean thinking since ancient times and still is a significant part of the policies and practices of the government and business in general. The larger a Korean enterprise, the more it tries to control all of the factors involved in its operation, from sourcing raw materials to selling and servicing finished goods. Korean companies also have a phobia about coming under the control of foreign firms. On a national scale the Korean government is determined to prevent the country from ever again coming under the political and economic hegemony of any foreign power.
Foreign businesspeople and diplomats dealing with Korea invariably encounter the chakupjachok syndrome at one time or another, and generally it plays some kind of role in all of their relations with Korea. However, well before the end of the 20th century the incredible practical nature and success-drive of Koreans had led them to give the carefully nuanced globalization of their economy the highest priority, with astounding results.
Chamulsong 찰물송 Chah-muhl-song
You Gotta Have Patience!
One of the sights that early foreign visitors to Korea were most impressed with, and invariably described—almost to the point that it appears to have been required of them—was that of elderly Korean men and women seated in calm repose outside their homes, in parks, or along rural walkways. These elderly people, dressed in the national male and female costumes, were generally assumed to be the embodiment of the revered grandmother, grandfather, or wise old Confucian scholar and the famed Korean trait of chamulsong (chah-muhl-song), or “patience”—all of which represented the best of Korean culture in the popular mind.
Contemporary Korean philosophers, psychologists, and other social scientists proclaim that chamulsong, or “patience,” is one of the primary national characteristics of the Korean people. They do not add, however, that this characteristic developed because the people of pre-modern Korea had no choice but to passively endure the abuses of authoritarian and backward-looking
