immutable but could be influenced by emotional factors.
Broadly speaking, since Koreans were traditionally prohibited from basing their personal relationships on chong, or changing their relationships because of ill feelings, their only recourse was to use feelings to influence these set relationships and to try to manipulate the system through chong.
In present-day Korea, feelings still often take precedence over all other considerations, a factor that just as often becomes a major roadblock for rational-minded, fact-oriented Western businesspeople and diplomats. Usually the best way through this cultural quicksand is to address the personal, emotional factors along with the hard facts of the situation at the same setting, intertwining them so that they buttress each other. In some cases, however, the most effective approach may be to lead with the facts and then bring in chong, or vice versa.
Chongbu 총부 Chohng-buu
Big Brother
Centuries ago the Koreans, like their Chinese and Japanese neighbors, perfected the “Big Brother” kind of government made famous by George Orwell in his novel 1984. Until the 1980s chongbu (chohng-buu), or “government,” in Korea was controlled by a tiny elite class of scholar-bureaucrats, or by military authoritarians, who in turn controlled virtually every aspect of life in the country. Common people had no voice in the government. There was no such concept as human rights and only the vaguest concept of civil rights. (The literal meaning of chongbu, a Chinese word, is “big brother,” or “oldest brother.” The native Korean word for the same concept is mat-hyung/maht-hyuung.)
Until the end of the nineteenth century the government of Korea not only prescribed the official religious beliefs and rituals but also prescribed and enforced the etiquette for all personal and public relationships. Only “right thinking” was permitted. People who criticized the government or did not follow the prescribed protocol were either ostracized, exiled, or executed, depending on the nature of their offense.
It was not until the 1970s that demands by the Korean people finally began to result in the powers of the government being curbed and some of the worst government abuses being prohibited by law. It was another two decades, however, before additional reforms by a new generation of leaders actually brought about significant changes in the attitudes and behavior of government officials.
Still today, government bureaucrats and appointees on every level tend to view themselves as Korea’s first line of defense against unwanted intrusions by outsiders and as “big brothers” to the rest of the population. These attitudes are subsumed in a number of key words that have long been associated with the government and continue to play a significant role in business as well as in the private lives of the people. Some of the most important of these words:
Chido (chee-doh), or “guidance”: This term is probably best known for its use in reference to the influence that the Korean government exercises over business. An elaboration on this word is haengjung chido (hang-juung chee-doh), meaning “administrative guidance,” a specific reference to how the government influences business through the power that is inherent in its control of licenses, import and export quotas, taxes, government financing, etc. In addition to the various laws pertaining to these functions, there are numerous nae kyu (nay k’yuu), or “unwritten laws,” that the ministries and agencies of the government utilize in their efforts to control the economy.
One of the “unwritten rules” commonly invoked by government bureaucrats involves a practice known as gara mungeida (gah-rah muun-gay-dah), or “crushing with one’s rear end.” In other words, killing applications or proposals by sitting on them—something that bureaucrats are noted for in almost every country. Government bureaucrats are also noted for subjecting people to a runaround known as jajungga bakwi dolligi (jah-juung-gah bahk-wee dohl-lee-ghee), or “pedaling a stationary bike.”
Government control of mok (moke), or “quotas,” on some categories of imports and exports has traditionally played a key role in the Korean economy. In some product categories annual quotas are based on the previous year’s performance, virtually guaranteeing that certain companies are able to monopolize these import and export categories.
Another method used by the government to influence business in general is the official sponsorship of a large number of hyopoe (h’yahp-poh-eh), or “associations.” There is an association for almost every profession and industry in Korea, all of which are required to operate within guidelines set down by the government. Those pertaining to business are invariably designed to achieve goals that the government approves of or goals that the government itself has set.
Hyopoe that are sponsored directly by the government and designed to promote the export industry (like the Korean Traders’ Association) can be very helpful to foreign businesses wanting to import from Korea. These associations maintain extensive data banks of information on virtually every manufacturing category in the country and provide free staff help in identifying suppliers and setting up appointments with them. Associations sponsored by Korean manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers, on the other hand, have as one of their primary goals controlling foreign access to the Korean market.
Another factor that has long been an integral part of doing business in Korea is putting up with the age-old practice of bringing social, economic, or political leverage against companies to force them to make kibu (kee-buu), or “donations”—a custom that has traditionally involved people in all walks of life but is especially associated with top-level politicians, particularly presidents, because the sums going to them amounted to millions of dollars.
Chonggyo 총교 Chohng-g’yoh
Faces of Korean Religions
Traditional Korean beliefs and day-to-day behavior were an amalgam of four schools of spiritual and philosophical thought, or “religions” if you will—shamanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and, to a lesser degree, Taoism. Early foreign Christian missionaries in Korea (in the last decades of the 1800s) noted that Koreans were Confucian in their social life, Buddhist and Taoist in their philosophical attitudes, and shamanist in their attempts to ward off and deal with life’s calamities—all without apparent conflict.
Korean educator and developmental psychologist Jae Un Kim has surmised that the “success” of so many chonggyo (chohng-g’yoh), or “religions,” in Korea was a direct outgrowth of the people’s need for spiritual comfort in an authoritarian society that oppressed and abused them. Kim also says that Koreans showed little interest in the theological foundations of religions because they were more interested in relieving the hardships of their daily lives than in contemplating abstract notions of a better life in the hereafter.
Kim explains that several religions could coexist in pre-modern Korea because none of them had theological underpinnings that demanded absolute exclusivity. None of the early religions of Korea—shamanism, Buddhism, or Confucianism—has a “jealous” God in the Christian sense. And strictly speaking, they also do not have a Christian-type hell designed to frighten them into worshiping a single deity.
The only conflict between Buddhism and Confucianism in early Korea was over government and royal patronage and political power—not in the religious or philosophical sphere. Confucianism provided the social, political, and educational ideology that determined how Koreans thought and acted in regard to these matters, while Buddhism (along with shamanism) influenced their spiritual beliefs and behavior.
Generally speaking, Korea’s Confucian scholar-philosophers paid no heed to practical social and economic matters until around the fourteenth century, and even then it was only a small group of powerless “outside” scholars who began advocating “practical learning.” When Christianity, a religion that is based on an exact theological premise, was introduced into Korea, Kim adds, most Koreans ignored its theological teachings and saw
