Several weeks ago, my roommates and I had a party with our Korean friends. Since some of us didn't know each other before, we had a self-introduction part at the beginning of the party. The introduction began with those Korean friends. They told us their names, majors, their home universities and their age. When the introduction came to our turn, we just simply followed their pattern of introduction except telling them our age. However, after we finished, they asked about our age. We felt somehow strange to tell somebody whom we met for the first time about our age, but holding the opinion that not to embarrassed others, we told them our age.
After the party, all of us Chinese thought it was quite impolite to ask about people’s age, who you don’t know well. So we all felt uncomfortable when they asked about our age.
In our Chinese culture, age is privacy. Therefore, you can’t ask others age, especially female age. But in Korean culture, they have an extremely strict hierarchy according to one’s age. Age decides the salutation and status. When they meet someone for the first time, they will make sure their age. In this way, they won’t offend the elders.
Although Korean culture was deeply affected by Chinese culture in a sense, they could be very different in some detail parts. So being aware of the differences, we can avoid lots of embarrassments and offensive behaviors. Culture can affect what a group of people think of the world and how they treat everything around them. It is always inherited from the previous generations, rooted in their history and changes according to the growing environment. Even though many Korean cultural rules are the same as traditional Chinese rules, Korea and China have different developing environment for many years, which resulted in different cultural behaviors nowadays.
But I don’t know if we should follow Korean rules based on age hierarchy? Since we are younger than our Korean friends, need we call them brother or sister according to their culture? Any opinions?
