was transformed by geomancers into a folk belief that the topographical features of the Honam region were so negative that they fundamentally affected the mentality of the people, making them unfit for government service and untrust-worthy in any endeavor. Yu notes that “this ridiculous myth” persists today and that regional antagonisms resulting from this factor remain a major influence in the political and economic life of both North and South Korea.
Since 1948 the government in North Korea has been dominated by people from North Hamkyong Province, where the late Il Sung Kim, founder of the North Korean regime, was active as a guerrilla leader during World War II. Since that time people from the North Korean provinces of Hwanghae and Kangwon, which are the closest to South Korea, have been virtually banned from high government offices because they are considered untrustworthy and unfit. In South Korea the government has been controlled mostly by natives from North Kyongsang Province in the Youngnam (formerly Shilla) region.
In South Korea the preference for people from Youngnam can be discerned in the professions and in business as well as in government. According to data compiled by Yu, being from the Honam region was more of a handicap in getting a highly desirable job in Seoul than gender. He found that the majority of both Honam men and women in the capital worked in blue-collar jobs and in lower-end clerical positions. Ongoing competition and conflicts between people from Cholla and Kyongsang Provinces are said to be serious enough that they have significant negative impact on national politics, the economy, and life in general.
Foreign employers in Korea routinely encounter situations involving friction and outright conflicts between managers and workers who are from different regions of the country. Much of this friction results when the foreigners inadvertently put Honam people in managerial positions over employees from Youngnam or other regions whose natives consider themselves superior to Honam residents. The best solution to this problem is to confront the situation from the beginning and make it clearly understood that employees will be treated equally and fairly on the basis of their qualifications and experience—not where they were born. Younger Koreans generally prefer this approach and accept it readily if it is made company policy, and is impartially enforced. Where older employees are concerned, however, foreign managers may have to make a special effort to see that they do not continue using this regional superiority syndrome to lord it over fellow employees.
Chodae 촏애 Choh-day
The Home-Meal Invitation
Among the many things that have traditionally distinguished Koreans from most other Asians (in particular the Japanese, who are their closest racial and cultural relatives) is their custom of not only allowing but welcoming newly made foreign friends as well as casual acquaintances into the inner circle of their lives. Unlike the Japanese, who were traditionally conditioned to distrust and dislike foreigners and to keep them at a distance, Koreans are characteristically much more open in their relationships with foreigners.
In Japan the tradition was for people to entertain friends and guests outside the home, in restaurants, inns, bars, cabarets, and the like. In Korea, on the other hand, it was common for men of means to invite their friends and guests into their homes and to shower them with hospitality. Homes of the upper class generally had a special room in the front where the male members of the family spent most of their free time and entertained their guests.
With the introduction of democratic principles and equal rights for women in Korea, this tradition of entertaining guests in one’s home was extended to women as well. Like Americans and other nationalities outside Asia, Koreans today take both pleasure and pride in extending chodae (choh-day) or “invitations” to friends and associates to come to their homes for meals that are marked by the variety and volume of food served. Part of this tradition no doubt comes from the old Korean custom for affluent families to invite their less fortunate relatives to their homes often for large meals.
The custom has since become one of the defining traits of Koreans. In fact Koreans who have become bilingual and bicultural typically list chodae as one of the key words in Korean culture and one of the terms (and customs) that foreigners must learn to fully understand and appreciate the Korean lifestyle.
Chodae is one of the reasons foreigners are able to establish closer, more intimate relationships with Koreans than are generally possible with other Asians. The custom makes many foreigners feel much more at home among Koreans than among other Asians. Foreign families wanting to create and nurture close relationships with Koreans should take advantage of the highly regarded chodae custom.
Choe 최 Choh-eh
Sin in a Godless Society
I have long believed that the fascination Asian countries have traditionally held for Western men was originally based on the beauty and perceived availability of Asian women and on the fact that a great many of the things that were regarded as sinful in the Western world were looked on as perfectly normal in the East. I don’t think that Marco Polo would have stayed in China so long or that the Portuguese, Dutch, English, and later the Americans would have persevered in their pursuit of trade and conquest if it had not been for Asian women and the very different concept of sin that existed in Asia.
My own personal experience and observations in Asia in the last half century indicate very clearly that at least a significant part of the attraction that Asia has for Western men has not changed since the time of Marco Polo. Both the reality and the promise of “sin” are for many still a major attraction. Of course, Koreans have traditionally had a very clear concept of choe (cho-eh), which is usually translated as “sin,” but choe is primarily a Confucian concept, and sin is a Christian thing. Choe is concerned mostly with outward appearances and Christian sin with internal thoughts as well as external behavior.
Choe in the eyes of Neo-Confucianism, which was adopted as the state ideology and national religion of Korea by the Choson dynasty (1392-1910), was concerned primarily with the failure of inferiors to behave in a respectful manner toward superiors and to obey them without question; the failure of children and especially sons to honor and obey their parents, especially their father; the failure of family members, particularly eldest sons, to revere their ancestors; and the failure to protect the “face” or reputation of the family.
A secondary level of choe in Korea involved breaking any of the rules of etiquette involving “proper” behavior between the sexes, husbands and wives, the young and the old. This included not using the prescribed form of speech, not bowing at the right time in the right way, not responding properly to the prescribed behavior of others, and so on.
In other words, sin in the traditional Korean context was any kind of behavior that upset the carefully balanced hierarchical relationship between people that was designed to maintain absolute social harmony in a minutely structured system of etiquette. Morality in this context was more of a physical thing than an intellectual standard of behavior based on a universal concept of right and wrong. In Korean society morality and sin were circumstantial things. What was perfectly moral for some people was a capital sin for others.
When Westerners began arriving in Korea in the late 1800s, they found the Korean concept of sin deplorable or delightful, depending on their own moral viewpoints and habits. Foreign missionaries were shocked by much of the traditional behavior of Koreans. But most foreign sailors, traders, and fortune hunters generally found the inferior position of women, uninhibited drinking by men, unrestrained pursuit of sexual pleasures by those of means, authoritarian rule by officials, and might-makes-right mentality of those in power very much to their liking.
When this latter category of foreigners in Korea ran afoul of the law, it was generally because they did not understand the circumstantial nature of Korean etiquette and ethics and assumed that they could get by with virtually anything at any time.
There have been significant changes in the Korean concept of sin since the
