I started a part-time in a café where the owners and most workers were Korean at the beginning of the year. It was not my first time getting in close touch with foreigners as I had lived in France before, but working in an “exotic” environment is another intriguing, unpredictable adventure. Fortunately, cultural conflicts seldom occurred in this café, even though I realised there was a striking contrast between our manners and utterance.
Let’s start with daily greetings. In Taiwan, we tend to say “hi” or “zǎo” (the abbreviation of “good morning” in Mandarin) to everyone we first see in the morning. Nevertheless, it is seen as rude for Koreans when the people they speak to are in superior statuses, such as an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, an employer, a teacher, a customer, a public official, or the like. In their society, a particular form of nouns or verb endings is essential to indicate the subject’s superiority to show their respect, even when respect per se does not necessarily exist. Consequently, such a way of speaking may sometimes be superficial or artificial. With the practice of using honorifics in communication, the social hierarchy has been consolidated and rarely challenged. According to my Korean colleagues, young people nowadays also use honorifics for those they feel psychologically distant. Therefore, despite their fluency in Mandarin, no Koreans in the café have succumbed to a more casual manner of speaking like the Taiwanese.
Confucianism, also known as Ruism, which places high importance on social status and age, has always had great significance in Korean society because that is how their culture has been built. What restricts Koreans is not just a conventional pecking order; more precisely, it is an established hierarchy or even a vast power structure. Although Han Chinese constitute 95% of the total population in Taiwan, for history’s sake, various groups of people have sequentially been living on the island, thus giving rise to cultural tolerance and openness to modern values like equality. As a result, Ruism has less influence on contemporary Taiwanese, while Koreans still tend to be punctilious in their manners. For instance, my Korean colleagues usually evaded talking to the owners unless necessary, which seemed bizarre to us because my Taiwanese colleagues and I felt comfortable chatting with them despite their “superiority.” However, our closeness did not mean that we were friends and that the hierarchy could be challenged.
I have a vivid memory that once, one of the owners called my name, and I replied with “gàn má” (roughly equal to “what’s up” in Mandarin) in a cheerful tone. On the spot, he wiped the smile off his face and said, “you have to say ‘zěn me le’ (with the same meaning but in a respectful tone) instead!” In his view, he is my employer, who is at a higher level than I am, so I am not allowed to speak that way to him. At that very moment, I was astounded, and my Taiwanese colleagues could not relate to him either. That occurrence reminded me of the news story, which is supposedly a rumour, many years ago, revealing that the Korean authority claimed Confucius was originally Korean instead of Chinese. Despite its ridiculousness, the story seemingly explains why the pecking order and a strong family bond still exist in Korean society.
Regardless of the contrast in manners and utterance, we mingle well and know how to respect differences among everyone. I have got to know the words I use when talking with the owners to show the respect they want. Occasionally, as I again got peeved at their outdated ideas and patronising behaviours, I would immediately remind myself that they come from different ethnic, cultural, or even religious backgrounds and adjust my mindset. Overall, I appreciate having them as my new “friends” and learning a new culture via working together.
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