Speaking and Communicating Podcast

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast. I am your host Roberta. If you are looking to improve your communication skills both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. And by the end of this episode, please log on to iTunes and Spotify and leave us a rating and a review. Let's get communicating. My guest today is an old friend of mine hailing from the beautiful country of South Korea where I spent almost a decade teaching English. He is also an English professor at Kookmin University. He grew up in the United States and New Jersey and therefore today's discussion we will be comparing both cultures and helping each of the natives of each country. adapt if they happen to move to the other country. And before I go any further, please help me welcome him to the show. Hi, Peter. Hi, Roberta. It's great to be on your podcast. I'm so happy that you joined us. Finally, we've been having this discussion for a while. Because we used to just talk as friends and like, oh, this is what's happening in Korea. I'm in the States now. Oh, that's true. This is something we should talk about on the podcast. Yeah. Please tell us a little bit about yourself. Sure. I was born in New York City, lived there till about nine years old. Then my family moved to New Jersey, where I grew up. College and graduate school, I lived in Washington, DC. And then also Northern Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC for 10 years before coming back to Korea in 2011. I should preface that by saying after college, I lived in Korea from 1997 to 2001, went back to the US. lived in Virginia for 10 years and then came back to Korea in 2011. I've been teaching mostly English conversation classes at Korean University since the 2012 spring semester. Although I have taught other types of classes. The elective that I created is called Introduction to South Korean US Relations, which I started teaching in the 2014 spring semester. And it is challenging, but I enjoy teaching it because it gives me the opportunity to meet students. not just from different years, but different countries, majors, backgrounds. It's a good class. Unfortunately, one semester is not enough to teach everything, but to give students at least a basic background, foundation, that type of thing. Oh, that's interesting. So it's Korea-US relations. That's the focus of the class. Would you like to tell us, whatever is allowed, by the way, would you like to tell us a little bit more the basics that you cover? What the class focuses on are usually three or four different things. The military component, security aspect, diplomatic relations. And if there's enough time in the semester, usually trade, economic stuff, which of course is increasingly important between the U S and South Korea. But I try to keep it as general as possible, just because most students I've noticed are not political science or international relations majors. I've had students who are. English majors, engineering majors, and other types of majors that are not typical polysci, IR type of majors. But still, most students seem to enjoy it. Some have told me themselves, which I appreciate their feedback, of course. Right. And it's a good type of class for students, whether they're Korean or not, get the exposure and knowledge that they might get from their other class, even though they could conceivably read about it online and through other means as well. That is very interesting, especially as you're saying that one of the main reasons for this episode, we want somebody who's moving to Korea to the US to understand more of the culture and adapt a lot better. You and I met at Toastmasters. How is your Toastmasters journey? Definitely enjoyed Toastmasters. I definitely enjoyed many things, the camaraderie, friendship, and other things that you and I know about Toastmasters, which are very useful. Have you joined any of the virtual ones? Since COVID, obviously a lot of stuff moved virtual. For instance, if I have a guest and she's in a Toastmasters Club, she'll invite me and say, I'll send you the link and we meet at these times. Please join us and I've gone to some virtual ones. It's amazing to create those kinds of- I haven't been to a lot of virtual clubs. I think whether you have a small club or big club, there's nothing like having an in-person offline meeting. That is true, yeah. What would you say are three top things that Toastmasters taught you? More patience. Even though patience isn't necessarily directly related to communication or leadership, if I had to choose between one of those two, maybe more towards leadership because it can be applied in pretty much any kind of situation, whether we're having a simple conversation like you and me, or dealing with difficult coworkers, family members, and others, even having pleasant conversation with someone who might be long-winded. I think that's a good thing. A few other things that come to mind are trying to be empathetic or show others that you care, even if you might not agree with everything they say. Or if you somehow can find something that another person says and you think to yourself, oh, I've been in that kind of situation before, that's something I can definitely relate to, connect with, or whatever. I know that there are two different types of clubs in Korea. You've got purely English ones, and then you've got some Korean, actually three, some Korean ones. And then you have ones where it's bilingual. Correct. If I'm a Korean person and I've started my profession and I want to be proficient in English, would you advise me to just go to the deep end and go to a purely English one or the bilingual one at first? and then the English one later. I would say it depends on how comfortable the person's English is. For example, if you are Korean and you feel confident, sure enough, about your English to test the waters, dive right in and see how comfortable you feel in all English speaking. But I would say to you, go to any English club that fits your schedule, whichever day of the week. I'm sure you'll find people who want to bring you in. get you up to speed and help you feel welcome at this club. But if you are kind of iffy, uncertain about whether your English is good enough, then I think a club like SBTM, they are filing. I've been to one or two of their meetings. Here's the reason I asked that question. Because Toastmasters at the end of each meeting, there's judging, there's competition, there's winners. And I wouldn't want to ask the specialist for us because I was there. I wouldn't want us to make a Korean person feel like you didn't win this speech contest this time because this English native speaker won because their English is better than yours. The focus should be on the content of your speech and how you delivered it. I agree. What I would say to that person is if they were giving a speech and he or she felt, well, maybe my content delivery or whatever wasn't great. Sure enough that they did their best whether it's a first try or however many speeches they've given. I would say it's that going to Toastmasters meetings it's not just getting ribbons for best speaker, best evaluator, best tabletop speaker, whatever. The important thing is to look at what you did at any given meeting, speech or whatever, and take note of what you did well. It's like doing a self-evaluation basically. Right. Look at the speech that you gave, what did you think were the things that you think could have been improved for your next speech or future speeches. So that should be the focus. That's what I would tell that person, sure. Right. When you compare both education systems, what would be your one takeaway? If you look at the Korean educational system, although I've never gone to schooling in any capacity here, the perception I get is it's too much focused on memorization. whether you're in elementary school, middle school, high school, even college, university, it's not, can I apply this mathematical equation to some sort of scientific experiment? And what I can see, which could be incorrect on my part, it's, how many hours do you spend on the subject, that subject per day? Are you drilling into your head, these facts and figures? And inevitably a lot of it, is geared towards the college entrance exam, which is its own can of worms. I feel like the way the education system is designed in Korea, it's not very conducive to creative thinking and innovation. I know that this is just speaking in general terms, but the way the education system is designed, it doesn't allow students to not only think creatively and innovatively, but also in terms of thinking. more critically, structurally, society, governments, and whoever else can find ways to fundamentally, radically change those types of things. It's got to be the same no matter who's president. Whereas with the American education system, it's more creative, freewheeling, but it's not as structured in terms of math and science. Perhaps some schools do better than that at others in the US. But I feel like American students generally don't have the same types of rigorous education. That's not to say I would want every American kid in elementary school, middle school, high school to spend hours at afterschool academies going late into the night like many Korean kids. But if they want to be more competitive, when I say competitive, what that means is if they take these international tests to see how America ranks in terms of reading, math, science, American schools actually, are also guilty to some degree when it comes to testing because in my own experience in New Jersey, when I was in ninth grade, they have something called New Jersey proficient testers. My point is schools across New Jersey, they would take a few weeks out of every year and focus their students on how to take the reading section, math section. In any case, standardized testing does exist in the US. But it's not. like in Korea where everything you did pretty much from elementary school all the way up to high school is geared towards the college entrance exam. Because you have many types of subjects that you can choose from in the US, when it comes time to take the SAT for example, you don't have to take all these endless amounts of subjects just to take a college entrance exam in the US. Whereas as you know in Korea, you can take Korean language, English, and who knows what other subjects, just to take one test that basically determines your future. I heard you talk about governments and how none of them are changing that system. But I remember when I was there, somebody said it starts from Samsung, LG, saying, I want an employee who graduated from the Sky universities. Is it's whole... Yonsei, what's the K? Korea University. Yes. So I want someone who graduated from the sky. But how from high school do you get admitted to the sky universities, the three top universities? You must do well in this exam. So this chain of here's the only way I'm going to have a bright future is the reason then from elementary school that you now have to just enter this pipeline. So somebody said. Actually, the people who are guilty are the people who run these companies, no? You do bring up a good point in that there is some sort of unofficial pipeline and if you don't follow this expected unofficial path, maybe you don't go to this top-notch elementary school. But if you do well, it could conceivably open the doors to going to better middle schools, even better high schools. The better schools you go to, of course, especially in Korea, the more doors of opportunity could happen. the better you do academically, especially with high schools. The reason I focus on high schools in Korea is because there are different types of high schools. Not far from where I live, there's a foreign language high school. That's their focus. Now, back to the college entrance exams. You know how the rest of the world has this thing, and I'm sorry to be stereotypical here, where they say, oh, Asian kids are only in advanced math classes. And when I saw how rigorous a kids. schedule is when you finish regular school, then you start going to the extra school academies. We always say if you spend 10,000 hours on something, you're going to be an expert in it. Isn't that Korean kids putting their 10,000 hours and that's why they become qualified for advanced math classes and they fly through there. I wouldn't be surprised if it's true, but you bring up a good point with this 10,000 hours figure because it's one thing to succeed, improve in. whatever topic area or whatever, but I feel like there's too much emphasis and focus on quantity and not quality. What I mean by that is some parents say, oh, you've got to study like X amount of hours every day. Otherwise you're going to fall behind in school. Do you want that to happen? That type of thing. And the problem in itself with two reasons. One is there's too much focus, as I mentioned on quantities, but then the other problem lies in guilting. putting pressure on your kid. For people who feel a lot of pressure to meet up to whosoever expectations, I can totally understand. Now let's talk about the workplace cultures. Have you ever worked in the US or you only studied here? Your entire career has been working in Korea. I did work for about 10 years in Virginia, in government and other types of jobs, but it is a lot different than the typical Korean work environment Although you do have hierarchy in the US, it's not heavily Confucius based like in Korea. In other words, I might have a super-place, but it's not because that person is more senior, older, whatever. They've just been doing the job for longer or have more experience back. But in Korea, I feel that many people, whether they work in government jobs, other private sector jobs, oftentimes get their jobs because they might know someone. They have certain seniority or the typical newcomer employee might not have. And one other difference I've noticed is many people have lunch together or sometimes they'll have dinner meetings, after dinner drinking parties or whatever. Actually happy hour is not terribly common in Korea. I've noticed. If the boss says it's happy hour and you want your job to not be jeopardized, you're going to go, no? Those types of priorities. be tough to juggle because as much as someone might want to go to a family thing, if the company says hey you got to do this or that or even if they don't outright say the implications are there that if you don't go along then you're not going to be able to move up get more money or whatever else the case might be. Which does affect your career and you don't want that after working so hard. It's true. What I don't know if you're familiar with, we have to stand as cultural Some countries gravitate towards this workplace culture. Some countries gravitate towards a different one. When it comes to comparing the Korean versus the US culture, what is the top cultural dimension where you see major differences? A few things that come to mind are, if I'm working at a Korean company, there's less freedom, from my understanding, to pick out, stand out, and tell someone, here's what I think. The general... impression or perception I get is even if I have a factually accurate opinion, whether I tell a colleague, supervisor, they might not accept it even if everything checks out just because a typical company environment isn't really flexible or allowing for that. But if you look at the American company, let's say you're my supervisor boss, and if I were to say to you, Roberta, you know, this is what I think, here's what we should do. You might not agree with everything, but at least you're keeping an open ear in mind. Oftentimes in Korea, I blame that in part on Confucianism. Obviously you have a lot of friends who are coming from other countries, come to work in Korea. Do they find it hard to adjust to that culture in general? From what I can tell, not huge amounts of difficulty or struggle. I think it's easier for foreigners if they're not Korean. I have friends at Toastmaster Church, other places, and generally they don't have as much difficult because they're not Korean. But for Koreans like me, even though I'm not a native Korean, the expectations are different. I'm supposed to think a certain way, act a certain way, and oftentimes criticize and push back against those things because, number one, I don't want it forced on me. what I've known. I don't want to be narrow-minded or flat out reject something just because it's American, but if I have to choose between what I'm used to versus what is accepted just because it's, oh, this is the way it's always been, you're older. I don't really like those types of ideals because just blindly following Pied Piper, figuratively speaking, is I think not only a bad thing, but a good thing. but could it conceivably be a recipe for disaster? Just because doing what somebody says, no questions asked. Well, that doesn't leave any room for a little negotiation, discussion, depending on what type of situation might be. But if I am able to at least express a few things and the other side says, okay, let's keep, then I think it's fair to say that things are more open that way, but at least in the US context. In Korea though... Obviously this is general speaking. Sorry, go ahead. Sure. In Korea, I feel like if I wasn't Korean, Koreans might be more open relatively speaking. And understand that you're a foreigner, so you do things differently where you come from. Right, exactly. Yeah. It's funny you say that because I remember the first time I had an opinion or something and my co-teacher, you usually assign the Korean co-teacher is going to guide you. And she said... I'm sorry, Roberta, in Korea we don't do that. And I had to take a step back and say, oh, OK, I must remember, I'm not in South Africa anymore. I've come to Rome and I must do what the Romans do. And me realizing, wait a minute, this is in South Africa, where I'm going to have an opinion on everything. I only say to people, because sometimes you have people who do what they call a midnight run, meaning I'm going to run away, not even tell my school, I'm quitting because I can't stand this. In the US, I have an opinion here. That's their personality. Let's just make that clear. It doesn't mean that it's as bad as it sounds, but just some people's personalities, they can't adapt. And so what I have found is people who live in Korea for 10, 20, 30 years, teaching and having a great time. I had a great time. It's because if you have the personality to be adaptable. and learn to work in a different environment than the one you are used to. No matter where you go in the world, it just makes life a little easier. No, it does. I agree with that. Korea didn't ask me, Oh, please come in from South Africa and teach us. Oh, we're in desperate need of your teaching skills. I'm the one who said I wanted to come here. So when I get here, read the room, see how things are done, and then be adaptable and flexible enough to say, I'm in this environment now. Respect people. It's like coming to somebody's house. You have rules in your house with your wife on how you conduct business in your house. And if visitors come there, they need to stick to that. Right. Maybe. Because I always find that a lot of the time when people don't agree with how things are done in Korea, they went there to teach and they suddenly go back home and they say, Oh, in the US, we have this, we have that. And it's so different. And I couldn't. You wanted to be there. You went to their house. True. My job, it's pretty relaxed because I don't deal with a lot of Korean colleagues or in fact in my department there are a few Koreans but they teach various English classes and because two of them have lived in the US they have at least a pretty open mind compared to your typical Korean colleague. I feel like my experience might not be the best example in terms of how I deal with Koreans but my guess is for other Koreans there's more of a hierarchy because you might have a department head, dean, or for those who work in administration, you might be working for the chancellor, president, provost, or some other administration official. In those types of scenarios, I could see how there might be more tension, structure, conflict, because the responsibilities and demands are different. Right. We were speaking earlier about how if you have situations where the post says, you listen to what I say. In Western cultures, there's a lot of leadership executive coaching. Are Korean companies open to that? Do they do it or they think we are fine the way we've been doing things all these years? Honestly, I don't know, but I'm willing to bet that if there's a CEO, senior VP or some other high ranking company official, government official, or other type of official, and he or she says something I'm doing is not working. For example, let's say I am a company executive working in public relations advertising. And I'm thinking, all right, something is not right. I feel like after repeated attempts, my approach strategy is just not working. It's time to call in help. That would be me if I was doing it by myself, but I think if other people were in a similar situation, they might try to be stubborn and not ask for help. Just because accepting help might be seen to them or others as helpless. weak, incompetent, I don't know my job, sure, the Confucius system. I think a lot of Western democracies tend to think it's only bad, you know, it's too everybody together, collective, you know, I'd rather live the American dream where I'm just going after it, casualties along the way, I'm reaching my American dream. Let's look at the advantages of such a system compared to being What would you say is the one advantage of that system? If there's one advantage to the Confucian system, I would say there's a certain sense of orderliness that democracies, capitalism might not have. In other words, in Confucius countries like Korea and other Asian-specific countries, of course you have someone who's a president and other types of leaders, but more than that, there are expectations, focuses on taking care of family, especially if they're elderly, which is not as common in the US and other Western countries. Yeah, South Africa does the same. We don't have old age homes for our grandmas and grandpas. I mean, they do have them in Korea. I mean, I can't speak to how good or bad they are, but they do have those types. However, unlike the US, Korea doesn't really rely on nursing homes and similar types of facilities as much Many people, though maybe not as much as in years past, want to take care of their parents for as long as they can before their father, mother might pass away. I think that's good because it would be good if the US could take a page out of that and try to see how they can better take care of loved ones, relatives, or whoever the case might be. That would be my answer to that question. After the Korean War. And if Koreans were as individualistic as most Western cultures are, do you think that they would have rebuilt at the pace and the rate at which they built the country afterwards? I don't actually, because at the time of the Korean War, if you had a lot of free thinking, freewheeling people doing whatever the heck they wanted to, it might not have resulted in what Korea experienced. when its economy soared, boomed in the 60s, 70s and 80s. I understand how people might say, well then you're saying dictatorship takes priority over democracy, human rights. But I feel like given how poor Korea was in the 50s and 60s, there really was little choice. I don't condone what dictators did during those periods, restriction of people's freedoms, torture and the myriad of other types of things. But... I have to grudgingly accept and admit that economic growth did help Korea rise from ashes of poverty to what it is today. But going forward, whether you have dictatorship, authoritarianism, some combination of the above, it's no recipe for growth because in recent years, the economy has stalled, COVID didn't help. Something has to change though, if Korea is going to regain anything close to what it did in its heyday. Okay, first, let's have you conclude on the education system. What would be the one piece of advice you'd give a parent who maybe they get a job in Korea and then the kids are going to go to a school there? What's the one piece of advice you think they need to hear today? I would tell them first access the internet. There's tons of information on there, whether it's joining Facebook groups that deal with expats, foreigners across Seoul or whichever part of Korea explore, even if you don't speak much, if any Korean, because if you're not Korean, that's actually to someone's advantage because whether someone is going to a local market or other types of store, the fact that you're trying to engage, learn, absorb the Korean environment, I think that is a good step. If someone wants to learn language, plenty of websites. I told a few foreign friends, if you want to improve your Korean speaking skills. understanding skills, whatever, then there's a website called EBS durian like the fruits, which is free you can just Log in and learn Korean by watching videos or other types of online activities The other thing I would say is travel drive Get out of Seoul if you're in Seoul that is There's so many festivals across different Korean cities celebrating There's so much to do. Yeah. Yeah tons of stuff So be open-minded. And then what about if you are being employed by a Korean company and you are used to this democratized work culture, what piece of advice would you give somebody who then comes to Korea to work there? One piece of advice I would say is if you're used to being very direct, outspoken, there's nothing wrong with it, but don't be a little less because it's not as accepted as in more Western democratic societies. Especially in corporate settings, for example. I think if I were to talk to a workplace senior colleague, supervisor, whoever, if we're on good enough terms, I would say any grievances, complaints privately, not in a group meeting or other group environment, because if there are too many people and someone raises his or her hand says, Oh, I've got a problem with this, rumors could spread. And if someone's reputation is ruined, destroyed in the process, that could hinder or prevent someone from getting a raise, promotion, other professional opportunities and make their employment, depending on how long they're at that company or organization, difficult to endure. And what would you tell a Korean person who's coming to work in the US? What I would say is don't hold on to the Korean crutch, figuratively speaking, because if you want to improve your spoken English, get more acclimated to an American society, you whatever. One of the best ways to do that, similar to the example I gave of an American coming to Korea, put yourself out there. Join a local activity, whether you find it on meetup.com or other similar websites. Reach out. If you're nice to someone, more often than not, they'll be nice to you, even if you've never done whatever activity that you've found online. For both Americans and Koreans, openness and willingness is a key. a Korean or American come to Korea and let's say I'm hold up or decide to keep myself isolated. Right. I'm not gonna get anything out of it. And similarly, if a Korean were to go to the US and he or she is watching TV or doing very little to help themselves make more friends, be less lonely and whatever else the case might be, then they would only lose in that game. So be adaptable, open-minded, put yourself out there and mix with the locals. That's right. Words of wisdom from Peter Kim, the English professor at Cookman University, a New Jersey native and a friend of mine for over a decade. Peter, thank you so much for being here. I know in Korea it's approaching midnight, so I'm not gonna keep you any longer. Thank you for being on our show today. I'm so happy to talk. It's always great to see you, Roberta. Thank you so much. My pleasure. And before you go, quick question. Would you like anybody listening to this episode, tag you on Instagram or befriend you on Facebook or whatever it is? Happy to do it. Details on the show? Absolutely. Sure. They want to friend you on both platforms. You're giving out your email too. Sure. Awesome. Thank you so much, Peter. Thank you. It's been great. I've loved it. All the best to you and your podcast. Thank you so much. And I know this is not the last discussion we're having. There's so much that's gonna keep happening in both countries and maybe in the next episode, you'll talk to us more about the course that you're delivering at Kookmin University. Always happy to share, Roberta, thanks. Excellent, thank you, Peter, my pleasure. Don't forget to subscribe, give a rating and a review, and we'll be with you next time.