Many of the early visitors to Korea described their hosts as being fairly honest: “it was common to see stalls in the market left unattended; customers would take the items they desired and leave the money on open trays — money and goods unguarded by anything but Korean custom.”
They acknowledged that Koreans had different ideas from their Western peers concerning personal property. One amusing anecdote took place at the start of the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95):
One alarmed Korean told him [the British consul]:
“I fear someone else may come and take my house, for it is a Corean custom that anyone may take an empty house unless some living thing, like a dog or a cat, is left in it. I have not a dog or a cat, so I intend to leave my wife’s mother in the house.”
Then, as an afterthought, he added, “She is an old woman and may die before we come back.”
It is interesting to note that these early British diplomats seem to imply that the Korean thieves they encountered were corrupted by their relationships with foreigners. You can read the rest of the article here.
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Doesn’t this make you wonder where that honesty went?
Exactly. Korean’s lack of trust is not due to some inherent cultural trait – rather it’s a product of colonialism/ authoritarian rule and mass urbanization.
Now that I think about I understand why some of the protest tend to be extremely physical and to an foreign observers downright silly. However it also shows in dealings among Koreans. For some odd reason Koreans when they are abroad at times have a tendency of trying to rip off each other.
Of course – it’s all Japan’s fault!
But you may be onto something. I’ve always found a huge difference in the honesty of the average Korean on the street and that of businessmen and officials. I think every foreigner has a story of leaving their valuables somewhere and going back and finding that they’d been put aside safely to await their return, something that probably happens far less in the west; or the fact that you will get offered a fair price at the market without bargaining, no matter how goofy and clueless you are. In this sort of environment Koreans are unfailingly honest.
Businessmen and government officials are a different story.
I wasn’t aware of this until the other day, when my friends from Korea visited. They’re here in Australia for a working holiday, like 28,000 other young Koreans who come down here every year. And they were determined not to work for other Koreans, so they could better their English, but also so they could avoid getting ripped off. Here’s an interesting documentary about it.
The minimum wage in Australia is close to $20 an hour. I can understand how an older Korean man or woman, having worked themselves in their youth for a fraction of that sort of coin, would be loath to pay it to their countrymen out of their thin margin. Add to that pressures of keeping a store open in a very competitive industry, a local workforce that simply wouldn’t stand for it, and the result is the practice of underpaying young “worholers” fresh off the plane, who can find it difficult getting work elsewhere with limited English.
hoju_saram #4, good points, as usual. Just to add:
1) CCTV. Apparently Koreans know they are being watched. CCTV is everywhere, so it isn’t just the good voice keeping people from stealing. As a friend of mine said and as I posted recently, if your stuff doesn’t get taken by someone then that means it isn’t valuable. Still, I have my story of a friend who dropped 500,000 won in an unmarked envelope at a swing dance club, and a) an honest person gave it to the b) honest person at reception who returned it.
2) Just as a reminder, there is crime in Korea. Koreans will tell me that foreigners aren’t aware of how much crime there is in Seoul. Don’t believe it? Ask TheKorean!!! Now that’s a source even he might believe.
3) I blogged in 2010 about “accidental” crimes committed in Korea.
From the Korea Times: “The NPA’s white paper also reported that police apprehended 2.33 million criminals across the nation in 2009.”
So yes, Koreans are honest, commit crimes at a lower rate than most others around the world, but yes, Korea also has its knuckleheads, morons, criminals.
When I went on a 4-day vacation to Japan last year, I accidentally left the front door of my apartment in Jamsil open.
When I returned to Seoul, the door was still open, but nobody had entered my apartment during the 4 days I was out of the country.
Now, I understand why…. my cat was in the apartment.
I have had my wallet swiped from my bag in a bookstore in Seoul before though, so not all Koreans can resist from taking others money.
If someone actually think any country in this world is a thief-proof, then you don’t deserve to travel to different countries.
Moral of the day: Don’t leave you shit in public places
Don’t leave your shit in public places
damn keyboard…
Most average Koreans are very honest, businesspeople, politicians and some taxi drivers are often the exception to this. The only thing I’ve had stolen in Korea was a rather expensive leather jacket, and it was in a bar where 95% of the customers weren’t Korean. Of course there are some Koreans scoundrels who will steal stuff, but thankfully their numbers seem few compared to many other countries.
Koreans tend not to steal stuff, but they do commit other crimes. Contracts often aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, violent assaults do happen a lot more than many people think (I often go through Hongdae and you can see plenty of fights there), pretty much every woman (and many female students) I’ve met in Korea has experienced some old pervert ajeoshi groping them or flashing his shrivelled old weiner at them! Prostitution is everywhere and that’s still illegal, criminally bad driving is commonplace!
On the whole though Korea is a very safe country.
This reminds me how a lot of foreigners tend not to view Koreans as law abiding. It seems that a fair number of Koreans tend to engage in skirting the law, whether it be piracy, hanging out in entertainment establishments pass the legally mandated closing times.
The British diplomats might have known what human integrities of honesty and civilization really meant in the hearts of Westerners of 19C and early 20C.
Honesty is such a lonely word:
So who are we to believe here Q, the president or a retarded soldier?
History falls squarely on the side if the soldier in this case
Try a more illuminating quote in “justification” from McKinley,
and by Whitelaw Reid representative at the Paris peace treaty,
B asically, they’re uncivilised little brown heathens, so lets force civilty and christianity on them, oh and by the way in the procees we’ll get to own the pacific ocean in a way we can’t in the Atlantic
Sounds like an appeal to authority argument Hoju, he’s the President he surely cannot lie!
Even, if he did get his answer and true motivation from god, it is a pretty poor excuse for embarking on an occupation of a newly declared independent state and killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of phillipinos in the struggles that followed.
“I fear someone else may come and take my house, for it is a Corean custom that [b]anyone may take an empty house unless some living thing, like a dog or a cat, is left in it.[/b] I have not a dog or a cat, so I intend to leave my wife’s mother in the house.”
Then, as an afterthought, he added,[b] “She is an old woman and may die before we come back.”[/b]
Fair trade.
On the other hand, the U.S.A. did promise to build them a functioning democracy and then return their full sovereignty to them within 50 years, and it kept that promise — they attained Independence in peace and friendship just after WWII finished — that’s a record on America’s good side that few other colonial powers could ever boast of.
No the US did not under McKinley, that was a much later change if policy circa 1913, after continued resistance, leading to the Jones Law. This in itself promised democracy only when the US deemed the phillipines was ready, it took approx another twenty years for granting of commonwealth status, and 33 years for full independence. Happy to concede that a laudable transition in relationships took place following 15 years of and Woodrow Wilsons change of policy.
However, your point has no relevance to Hoju’s inference that McKinley’s words should be accepted as more truthful than a seving soldier. Politicians being well known fir always telling the truth! This also having referenced the truth of his statement, not a pissing contest over who was the nicest colonial master.
I am also sure that Wilson’s change of policy is of little consolation to the hundreds of thousands of victims, of the occupation of the phillipines to deprive them of independence in order to later promise to give it back when they’ve grown up! Paternalism at its best
Teddy Roosevelt’s speech, “Expansion of the White Race”:
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