Friday, December 12, 2008

People of Korea

A few basic facts about Korean people. They are generally known for their darker complexion and high cheek bones. As a race, they can be extremely nice as long as you treat them with respect. However, just keep in mind that some cultural differences are involved so you may consider what they do as rude but they do not mean anything personally by it, it is simply thousands of years of tradition. One example of this may be with the older Koreans. Everywhere older people are respected, but in Korea they are highly respected. Sometimes they may appear to be pushy or rude to you, but it really is nothing personal :) Just a different place. The people truly are nice and helpful. If you need help and understand little Korean, they will help you. They love when you want to learn the language and will help you with that as well.
Some Koreans may still be stubborn and independent (I mean no disrespect!). Some are still very grouped (independent, but grouped.) What I mean is it hasn't been long since Korean's came out of the whole dynasty deal. You may find a lot of generalizations about each 'dynasty', such as the Lee Dynasty, Park, Kim, etc...and most of them are true! There are distinct characteristics that hold true, so older Koreans will ask a lot of questions about family backround.
If you travel there, you may get looks and feel awkward sometimes, but this is only natural because most people there are Koreans and asians, so any other race may stand out. That is nothing personal either :) I promise! You really should go sometime and enjoy it! It will definitely be worth the visit.

One common fact that many people never understand properly deals with birthdays. If you speak to an Asian online, you may get confused when discussing ages and what grade in school and everything. This is because birthdays are a little different. Korean people will generally have an age of 1-2 years older than someone elsewhere who was born in the same year. When a Korean is born, they are automatically considered one year old. Many Koreans then consider themselves one year older on January 1st.

Information provided by: learnkoreanlanguage.com

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