Koreans are very affectionate people.
Obviously the young children hug and hold hands, but adults are very affectionate, too. It reminds me of being on the playground when I was a young girl in elementary school and holding hands with my girlfriends.
At what age does this stop? I don't remember. But in Korea it doesn't really stop. I will walk down the street and see men arm-in-arm or with their arms draped over another's shoulders.
They have a word here, "Skinship." It means the relationship one builds when affection is shown between people. My friends' hogwan directors said "Skinship" is very important in building trusting relationships with children. If a foreign teacher hugs, tickles or strokes a childs hair often, then that child will be more trusting, loving and affectionate in return. It's a very important aspect of Korean culture.
On the flip-side of that is the adversely opposite way Korean men and women view affection between the sexes once they've reached a certain age. I consider myself a very affectionate person, I always hug and touch my friends, both male and female. Koreans see this as a problem. Koreans don't believe men and women can just be friends, there must be a romantic relationship if men and women touch in any way. I have many male friends and I'm constantly asked if the men in my pictures or my male friends in Korea are my boyfriend. I try to explain that in the Western cultures it's very common for men and women to be just friends. This is a concept Koreans don't understand.
I've explained this particular cultural difference until I was blue in the face and it's like communicating with a brick wall. It's just something Korean people can't fathom.
I hugged my male adult students on their last day at the Foreign Language Institute and I could tell that many of them were very uncomfortable with the idea of hugging a female, especially a teacher, but some were much more comfortable with it and gave me bear hugs.
I've seen my adult male students, who are "tough military men," hug, lay their heads on each other's shoulders and otherwise touch often, and then when I talk to Koreans about homosexuality they say the "idea" is something that doesn't occur in Korea. I'm not saying that all men that show affection to each other are gay, but I just find it so interesting that "homosexuality does not exist" in South Korea.
A few of my foreign friends here in Korea are gay and one of the Korean teachers at one of the schools knows one of the foreign teachers is gay. The Korean teacher said he felt so bad for the foreign teacher because "their are no gay people in Korea and he must be so lonely." We made sure to inform the Korean teacher (after we stopped laughing) that this foreign teacher got much more play than most of us in Korea and there are MOST DEFINITELY gay Korean people in Korea. Just because the culture as a whole refuses to acknowledge homosexuality, doesn't mean it doesn't exist and thrive.
Obviously the young children hug and hold hands, but adults are very affectionate, too. It reminds me of being on the playground when I was a young girl in elementary school and holding hands with my girlfriends.
At what age does this stop? I don't remember. But in Korea it doesn't really stop. I will walk down the street and see men arm-in-arm or with their arms draped over another's shoulders.
They have a word here, "Skinship." It means the relationship one builds when affection is shown between people. My friends' hogwan directors said "Skinship" is very important in building trusting relationships with children. If a foreign teacher hugs, tickles or strokes a childs hair often, then that child will be more trusting, loving and affectionate in return. It's a very important aspect of Korean culture.
On the flip-side of that is the adversely opposite way Korean men and women view affection between the sexes once they've reached a certain age. I consider myself a very affectionate person, I always hug and touch my friends, both male and female. Koreans see this as a problem. Koreans don't believe men and women can just be friends, there must be a romantic relationship if men and women touch in any way. I have many male friends and I'm constantly asked if the men in my pictures or my male friends in Korea are my boyfriend. I try to explain that in the Western cultures it's very common for men and women to be just friends. This is a concept Koreans don't understand.
I've explained this particular cultural difference until I was blue in the face and it's like communicating with a brick wall. It's just something Korean people can't fathom.
I hugged my male adult students on their last day at the Foreign Language Institute and I could tell that many of them were very uncomfortable with the idea of hugging a female, especially a teacher, but some were much more comfortable with it and gave me bear hugs.
I've seen my adult male students, who are "tough military men," hug, lay their heads on each other's shoulders and otherwise touch often, and then when I talk to Koreans about homosexuality they say the "idea" is something that doesn't occur in Korea. I'm not saying that all men that show affection to each other are gay, but I just find it so interesting that "homosexuality does not exist" in South Korea.
A few of my foreign friends here in Korea are gay and one of the Korean teachers at one of the schools knows one of the foreign teachers is gay. The Korean teacher said he felt so bad for the foreign teacher because "their are no gay people in Korea and he must be so lonely." We made sure to inform the Korean teacher (after we stopped laughing) that this foreign teacher got much more play than most of us in Korea and there are MOST DEFINITELY gay Korean people in Korea. Just because the culture as a whole refuses to acknowledge homosexuality, doesn't mean it doesn't exist and thrive.
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