Shim, T. Youn-Ja; Kim, Min-Sun & Martin, Judith N. (2008) Changing Korea: Understanding Culture and Communication. Reviewed by Seokju Yoon, Michigan State University

Shim, T. Youn-Ja; Kim, Min-Sun & Martin, Judith N. (2008) Changing Korea: Understanding Culture and Communication. NY: Peter Lang Publishing Pp. 207         ISBN 1433101939

Reviewed by Seokju Yoon
Michigan State University

April 9, 2009

It is easy to find LG cellular phones in Americans’ pockets and Samsung TVs in their living rooms, but few Americans even know that the brands are made in South Korea. In fact, South Korea is becoming an economic powerhouse—it is the 10^th largest GNP in the world and the largest maker of computer memory chips and flat-panel liquid-crystal-display screens (p.1)—and it is one of the important military partners of the U.S.—South Korea committed the second highest number of troops in the war of Iraq (p.5). Still, many Americans do rarely know about South Korea, and it produces negative effect on the relationship with Korea—especially, it has led to misunderstandings in communications between Koreans and Americans in business, military, educational practices and so on. T. Youn-Ja Shim, Min-Sun Kim, and Judith N. Martin, in the book, “Changing Korea: Understanding culture and communication,” show how Korean traditional cultures have shaped distinctive communicative behaviors contrasting to Americans. This book is intended to help more appropriate communications between Koreans and Americans. In addition, as we notice by the title, “Changing Korea,” this book treats not only how traditional Confucian cultures have shaped the communicative behaviors of Koreans but also how imported Western values affect the way of communication in Koreans’ current daily lives.

Although all three authors have expertise in the field of intercultural communications, a distinctive strength of this book comes from the ethnic and cultural diversity of the authors. Two of them are Koreans who appreciate and understand Korean culture as native Koreans, and at the same time, have experienced American culture. The third author is an American with deep understanding American culture and with experience communicating with Koreans. The authors make a meaningful contribution to the intercultural communication field by focusing on Korea and revealing its distinctive features in cultures and communications. Most research in the field has treated mainly China and Japan and it has often led to misunderstandings as people regard Korean culture as a part of Chinese or Japanese culture (p.53). Further, the book provides a valuable opportunity for both Americans and Koreans to reflect themselves on how cultural backgrounds affect their individual “unique” identities and their “natural” ways of communication.

Based on a review of literature and a series of interviews with twenty Koreans, the authors explore how Korean traditional cultures and Western values differ from each other, how Korean values have shaped the norms and the ways of communication in Korea, how Koreans have negotiated their traditional values and Western values, how Korean traditional values and Western culture promote and challenge the development of advanced digital technologies of South Korea, and then in the last chapter they provide vivid cases that show the intercultural conflicts particularly in business and professional contexts.

In the first part, the authors discuss how traditional Korean cultures differ from Americans. They argue that Korea is a collectivistic culture based on Confucianism while America is an individualistic society. They illustrate these differences by describing family interdependence, status consciousness, hierarchy, and in-group/out-group distinctions in Korean culture. One of the strengths of this book is that the authors use unique Korean terms to describe and explain Korean culture. For example, in order to show that Korea is a collectivistic society, the authors introduce the term, “in-gan” that indicates man in Korean and literally means “between-ness.” As we can notice by the term, “in-gan,” in a collectivistic society like Korea, humans are defined and function in terms of their relationships with others (p.14). The authors also provide vivid examples of the current trends in South Korea. For example, they bring in a unique social phenomenon, “wild geese families” in South Korea in order to show Koreans’ notorious “education fever” and the relationships between parents and children―family interdependence in a collectivistic society. The phrase, “wild geese families” refers to families where mothers often move overseas to support their children’s studying abroad while fathers in Korea stay, work, and send money to support them abroad. Because these families are able to come together only one season, mostly during summer vacations, they are called “wild geese families.” Traditionally, Korea has been a scholarly society, so education is one of the means of achieving high social status. Koreans spend 40% of their income per household on average for education to acquire personal status and wealth (p.18). The Confucian values of scholarly pursuits are still the most important responsibilities for parents. Most Korean parents are willing to sacrifice their own lives for their children.

In the second part, the authors discuss how these Korean collectivist values that contrast to individualism in Western culture have influenced Koreans’ norms and behaviors in communication. They explore how the different notions of self lead to different forms of communication and they illustrate these differences by contrasting individualist cultures and collectivist cultures. For example, in an individualist culture like America, the meaning of the utterance is contained in the words themselves while in a collectivistic culture such as Korea, meanings are contingent in context, so communicators need to read nonverbal behaviors and understand contexts. The authors argue that individualists tend to low-context, direct, and self-enhancing communication while collectivists prefer to high-context, indirect communication, even silence and self-criticism. In addition, the authors point out different norms in communication. In collective cultures, in-group membership—the family, school-ties, region-ties, and nation as in-group, along with a new virtual in-group, cyber communities matter in social relations and communication. For example, when Koreans meet someone for the first time, they ask the others’ “private” information—age, school, hometown, etc. It makes sense for Koreans because they behave and communicate appropriately according to the norms of hierarchical relationships mostly decided by age and are looking for something in common to make more intimate relationships by exchanging other personal information.

In the third part, the authors discuss how Koreans have negotiated traditional Confucian values and Western values. They argue that the impact of recent industrialization and economic growth represent a value shift towards more Western individualism. More specifically, financial crisis such as the IMF bailout, American style of education, capitalistic democracy and individualism introduced these Western values to South Korea. In contemporary South Korea they are blended and co-exist. In the past fifty years in South Korea, both values and social attitudes have changed, especially in the workplace. For example, salary systems have begun to change from a traditional recognition of tenure or age to a Western recognition of on performance and ability, and the paternalistic values of men have clashed with the more egalitarian values of women’s roles both in and outside of the home.

In the fourth part, the authors describe how a combination of traditional Korean cultures and Western values have enabled South Korea to develop the most advanced digital technology—according to Haley (as cited in this book, p.111), it is said that North American telecom firms go to South Korea to get a glimpse of the future and within the last 20 years, Korea has become the world’s leader in broadland, wireless technology and mobile telephones. The rapid growth of digital technology clashes with Korean traditional values, but at the same time it reinforces them. The authors explain that the fusion of traditional Confucian emphasis on education and success with Western individualism and capitalism led to the successful technological advances. For example, the “na-doo” culture—culture of togetherness in Korean—that comes from collectivistic culture—makes almost all Koreans “early adopters.” Korean consumers are known to buy a new mobile phone as frequently as every three to six months. The “na-doo” culture from a collectivistic culture forces Koreans to catch up with “adopters of new ICT” because the possession of advanced items makes them feel that they are in prestigious groups. Alternately, Koreans’ preference for high-context communication makes them less enthusiastic about communicating through email since contextual and non-behavioral clues can hardly be read by emails and cell phone text messages.

In addition to abundant examples in other chapters, in the last chapter the authors provide vivid case studies about the intercultural conflicts. The case studies are based on interviews with twenty Koreans who had experienced American culture as native Koreans. The participants are business and education professionals who were selected from the 35-55 age groups who are able to represent to the cultural changes going on today in Korea. These cases show how Koreans and Americans, with different cultural backgrounds and their distinctive communication styles, misunderstand each other and then experience conflicts in business and social settings. They offer helpful and practical examples of better communication for all Koreans and Americans who are involved in interaction with each other.

To manage intercultural conflict successfully, the authors argue that it is important to recognize the various levels of intercultural competence—from conscious incompetence, to conscious competence, to unconscious competence (Howell, as sited in this book, p.173). In order to get intercultural competence, the first step is to accept and recognize that we do not know how to successfully communicate in specific complex intercultural interactions. The authors provide three valuable suggestions to Americans for conscious competence in managing intercultural conflicts with Koreans: respect the Korean social hierarchical system; avoid any form of direct criticism; understand the need to build relationships in context. As a Korean graduate student who came to the U.S just three years ago, I found this book especially helpful for understanding the ways of communication of American people in classrooms, and reexamine my own culture and cultural identity. This book adds to a broader literature on east-west differences, and will be especially useful to both Americans and Koreans who find themselves working with each other, whether they are in business, education, or some other endeavor.

About the Reviewer

SeokJu Yoon is a doctoral student in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. She is interested in issues of teacher development, comparative education, and philosophy of education. She holds a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree from Ewha Woman's University in South Korea.