Five Distinctions I’ve Noticed Between Korea and China
Hey, did you know that they have ice here?
I’ve been in the Republic of Korea for about two months. That’s clearly not enough time to really understand the culture. On the other hand, I was in the People’s Republic of China for six years, and that’s enough time to get painfully familiar.
China and Korea tend to get mushed together in the Western consciousness, and that’s when we remember Korea exists at all. And while I can’t speak to any deeper distinctions between the two, I can at least talk about the little things I’ve noticed in this brief period. The two countries are actually different in many ways, and what I’ve written below is just a sampler of the more obvious ones.
Korea is more Westernized than China
Speaking strictly from a practical, day-to-day perspective, most Americans would have a far easier time adjusting to life in Korea than in China. Elsewhere, I’ve already written about one small difference that adds up to a lot: Koreans are more accustomed to cold beverages, so someone moving here won’t have to learn to tolerate room temperature drinks.
There are a lot of little similarities like this — everything from the layout of grocery stores to the availability of OTC medicines to the way daily business is transacted.
Of course, this is only part of the equation and certainly doesn’t apply to more abstract or high-level notions of culture. In fact, when it comes to those more subtle aspects of society, things get a lot more complicated.
Korean business culture is much more regimented
Most Occidentals are bound to be a little surprised at how casual Chinese culture can be. There’s a certain free-wheeling approach to day-to-day business, a willingness to sidestep the bureaucracy when it becomes onerous, and a loose approach to time and scheduling. All of this stands in contrast to the famously rigid Japanese culture and is probably the single biggest difference between the two.
I had an assumption that Korea would be somewhere in between China and Japan in this regard, and the only question was which was the closest. As it turns out, it’s Japan. Korean culture — at least when it comes to working life — very much thrives on precision and an adherence to protocol, and this is very difficult to get used to.
On the other hand, these are both high power distance cultures, and that means that the answer to your workplace problems are the same: Kiss up to your superiors. It works back home, too.
Tobacco culture isn’t as pervasive in Korea, but it exists
In the United States, public opinion has turned hard against smoking in recent years. That’s why one of the more bracing aspects of Chinese culture is how pervasive tobacco use still is. While smoking rates have dropped in recent years, a very large proportion of Chinese men are still regular smokers — and it is very much a gendered activity. Bars, restaurants and other social outlets are often filled with a stale pall from the dozens of smokers present.
Now, that last point doesn’t apply to Korea. There isn’t a lot of smoking indoors, which means you can enjoy a night out without having to squint at your companions through the indoor fog. But smoking rates in Korea are still quite high, and like China there is an extreme gender divide.
In China, there are professional reasons for this — they have a decidedly old-school business culture, and a man who doesn’t drink or smoke is cut off from networking opportunities. Judging by the number of times I’ve seen a circle of suit-wearing Korean men smoking on the sidewalk, I suspect that’s true here as well. What I don’t know is if giving gifts of tobacco is accepted practice here as well.
Tea plays a far smaller role in society
This probably won’t matter too much to most of you. Asians tend to assume that Occidentals all drink coffee and aren’t even familiar with tea, and they may well be right most of the time. But when you’re coming from a place where high-quality loose leaf tea is cheap and readily available, Korea can come as a bit of a shock.
Most Korean “tea” contains no actual tea leaves. Rather, the most common commercial products are herbal or grain-based blends. These aren’t necessarily bad — they may even be good if you’re looking to cut down on your caffeine consumption — but they’re certainly not the same thing.
There is at least one place — Jeju — in Korea where real tea is cultivated and you can find it for sale if you hunt around a little bit, but you won’t find it in most stores. Put it this way: You’d have an easier time finding Jack Daniels than genuine green tea.
Traveling across the country is incredibly easy
Americans don’t necessarily think of the United States as a geographically large country, even though it is either the third or fourth largest in the world depending on how you measure it. The People’s Republic of China is also geographically huge, being either slightly larger or smaller than the US. For either country, travel involves a lot of logistics simply because of the distances involved.
The Republic of Korea, by contrast, is half the size of the state in which I was born. One can travel all the way across the country in less than four hours. And while anyone can understand that on an intellectual level, it’s still amusing to see how easy it is to move between population centers.
Want to learn more? Check out The Calm, my video podcast:
