나는 행복하면 안 되는 사람입니다
#가위
Discussion by Karina Meng
In this episode, we follow the girls as they sort through their lives. While Eun-jae happily gets together with Jong-yeol, Ye-eun is finding problems within her seemingly happy relationship and Ji-myeong struggles between advancing the social ladder and her true feelings and morals. Additionally, the subplots of Eun-jae and I-na’s childhood past that has been hinted throughout the drama is also being revealed bit by bit. We see their interactions with the men in their lives and how their relationship affects the way they act.
We learned in class that Korean culture is highly based on understanding social cues and helping others maintain face whilst being courteous and knowing your place. One of the important things that relates to this is how one acts when greeting or having a meal with others. The more distant two people are, the more formal they act and the more the lower status person must adjust to the higher status person. In this post I will be discussing Ji-myeong and I-na’s interactions to the higher status men in their lives and how their etiquette changes based on their relationship with them.
In Ji-myeong’s case, we can see that her relationship with her manager is tense as she tries to maintain a work relationship distance while her manager purposefully acts casually around her, wanting her to let down her guard. When greeting him, she makes a formal bow but he touches her shoulder instead to force closeness between them. Greetings are important in South Korean culture and has “certain rules” (Taylor and Williams 2017: 269) surrounding them, such as the “person of lower status…[initiating] the bow” (Ibid.: 269). The way that the manager responded indicates that he is trying to be friendly with her because he wants her to be his person. However, bows are meant to be formal greetings between two people that are not close, his actions hint that he wants them to be closer than their current employer and employee relationship.
We can see that Ji-myeong is conflicted by his treatment towards her based on her body language but keeps her discomfort down until the scene of her decision to not be ‘loyal’ in the way he wants her to be. Both her expression and body language changes as she is no longer bound by his intentions and thus does not need to lower herself in order to win his favour.
On a similar note, we see I-na’s relationship with one of her boyfriends change and become distant when they decide to break up. While previously they are seen being affectionate to one another, once they have broken up they act as though strangers once again and a barrier is brought up. The situation is now clearly seen as higher to lower status instead of lovers, as we can see with I-na following him in what to order.
This is the low profile approach discussed in Paul S. Crane’s article “Some Reflections on Korean Patterns”. The two, in particular I-na takes in the “ebb and flow of signals from one to another” (Crane 1972: 51). I-na recognizes that they are no longer in a relationship where she can express herself freely and thus acts accordingly as the lower status person in the newly established context. The two are now in a distant relationship that differs from their previous and both parties adjust, “digesting [the signals given] before making the next advance” (Ibid.: 51). This falls in line with the Korean standard norm of respecting the senior person to the point of constantly trying to accommodate and predict their movements.
The strict cultural norm of subtle cues and societal understanding is seen in this episode with Ji-myeong and I-na struggling to adjust to the changed relationships in their lives. We see that despite both girls being strong and independent, they are forced to conform to societal norms especially when in the presence of those higher status than them. These interactions are also seen to be highly based on the relationship that is trying to be established between the two parties and the person in ‘power’ in the situation.
Bibliography:
Campbell, David H. “South Korea.” In Etiquette and Taboos around the World: A Geographic Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Customs, edited by Ken Taylor and Victoria Williams, 269-272. Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood, An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2017.
Crane, Paul S. “Some Reflections on Korean Patterns.” In RAS Transactions Volume XLVII, 41-57. Seoul, Korea: Taewon Publishing Company, 1972.
Discussion Questions:
In Korea there is a big emphasis on respect and the difference in age, income, position in society and more determines how you are treated in Korean society. What are the implications that come with this, and do you think that Western culture should adopt some of these specific social norms to the extent of Koreans?
Food and drink etiquette in Korean society may seem intensive and detailed from an outsider’s view, however there is considerable logic behind these ‘rules’. We see this in I-na and her ex-boyfriend’s interaction, the act of I-na ordering the same as him firmly establishes that they are no longer in a romantic and close relationship. Are there any that we spoke about in class that shocked you? Any that you notice did or did not happen in the drama?
Age of Youth (Hello, My Twenties!) 
I know in Korea and many other countries that careers like doctor, lawyer, and dentist are highly respected by people and have very high social status and incomes. That may explain why Kang Yi-na chose a dentist to be one of her boyfriend or “sugar daddy”. But I think the respect in different ages and income as social norms should not be adopted in western culture because it will negatively impact a society by admiring the rich and contempt the poor. Not that I say such social norm is negative in Korea because its a good tradition to respect and help the older people and people who pursuing careers that aimed to help people. It’s just not that fit to western society if we impose such norms in the extent of Koreans.
I learned in class that Koreans are collective and follows the lead of people older or has a job position. It corresponded with the scenes in the show where Yun Jin-Myeong always has to follow the request of her manager even her manager is harassing her. That’s very shocking consider many other female in real life may experience the same situation. There should be an urgent need to change such situation.
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With regards to the first question, I believe it is important to be respectful to everyone regardless of who they are. The strong emphasis on respect and how you are treated based on your status stems from the shame culture and emphasis on hierarchy. Although the emphasis on the hierarchy is also seen in western culture where one wants to ‘suck up’ to the higher-up as well, the result of this culture and emphasis allows respect to be enforced by everyone. In an ideal world, everyone would be respectful to everyone. However, this idealistic view is broken when one abuses the hierarchy and demand respect from someone lower than them even though they’ve done ‘nothing’ to gain respect other than their position (which is commonly seen in a lot of dramas).
On the other hand, in western culture, respect is taught but is preferentially given based on one’s opinion. I believe this is also where the difference in collectivistic and individualistic culture comes to play. Korea being collectivistic would maintain respect even if they don’t truly respect them to not only prevent being shamed but also stand out because of the shame whereas the opposite is seen for western cultures. Although there would be some situations where it would be better than stand out or blend in, I believe everyone should be respected regardless of their ‘standing’ in society. Thus, the idea that respect should be heavily emphasized in western cultures can be adopted but the idea of respecting everyone, even ones ‘lower’ than you in society can be adopted heavily in Korean cultures as well.
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I think both in Korea and in Western countries, respect is very important but they are different. I think Koreans are more concerned about the collective. Korean society has a very strict hierarchy, which makes people at different levels need to exercise their different ways of respect; In western society, hierarchy is not so obvious, people pay more attention to themselves, so it is individuals respect. Just like what we discussed in class. When a Korean has three candy and he has three friends, he will share the candy with his friends；while when a foreign child has three candy and they have four people, he will put candy into his own pocket.
Talking about the hierarchy in Korea will affect their manners, I am very concerned that whether this difference in the hierarchy will affect their personality? Because the inferior always serve the superior, does it make the inferior submissive or increase their inferiority?
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I strongly agree on everyone should be well treated and respected equally not only based on what they do for living. However, both in Korean society and in Western society, people who have better jobs or with higher social status tend to be treated better and more people respect them. Of course, the ideal world is that everyone should be respectful to others no matter what their positions are, but how many people out there can do that?
In class we talked about being vegetarian sometimes could be really troublesome for others. I think being a vegetarian or not is a person’s choice, we should respect instead of thinking this person is ‘weird’ or he/she is making troubles for others.
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Regarding the first question, I agree with @jasminekan13 that respect should be given to anyone. And, again @jasminekan13 makes a good point in that respect, in South Korea stems from the shame culture and hierarchy that is emphasized in their society. To add to this, some implications that might arise is when someone has a skewed idea of “respect.” There is this ambiguity in the meaning of the word and people can twist it so that what they really mean is respect of authority rather than respect of personhood. They will treat a person with respect only if they are treated with authority. Some people abuse this ambiguity of the definition in order to get others of “lower” status to treat with authority. Respect is a basic human right. One should not need to prove that they deserve respect before any respect is given to them.
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