A COUPLE of years ago, I had the rare opportunity to fulfill one of my most cherished dreams: to work as a technical communicator for Samsung Electronics, one of the biggest conglomerates in South Korea.
Back then, none of my friends knew about the country, leave alone about Koreans, the cost of living there or their culture. I turned to the Internet as my only saving grace. Not surprisingly, every bit of information I garnered from the web helped me enormously with my decision to relocate.
If you are an expatriate, you can get a firsthand view of how the Japanese occupation and the war with North Korea have left footprints in modern Korea. It took me a week to realise how different the Korean culture is compared to India.
Korea is known for its unique, contemporary culture. The traditional values in Korea stem from the deep-rooted Confucian ideology.
Don't address Koreans by their name!
Confucianism, or The School of the Scholars, revolves around the social, political, philosophical, ethical and religious thoughts that have influenced the culture and history of Korea.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the corporate system. Try addressing a Korean colleague of the same age group and higher designation by his name. You will be asked to prefix a title.
If you do not use a title to address someone higher in the value chain, Koreans will consider you
disrespectful or discourteous.
Koreans lay a lot of emphasis on title; the higher you rise in the value chain, the more likely people expect you to show respect in the organisation. It would be fair to say that nowhere in Asia does the title hold more prominence than in Korea.
Rahul Prabhakar is a senior technical communicator with Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, and is based in South Korea. Rahul writes a theme blog on technical communication titled When the Muse Strikes!
In the picture: Rahul (pink shirt, seated) with his Korean colleagues.
Photographs courtesy Rahul Prabhakar
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