눈치

http://crazyaboutkorea.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/the-korean-personality-relationships-nunji-%EB%88%88%EC%B9%98/

 

APRIL 11, 2011 · 3:10 PM

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The Korean personality: Relationships (Nunji 눈치)

To embark on writing this entry is a tremendous challenge to me. I feel that I would never be able to write about Koreans in the most appropriate way ever for I was only in Korea for 2 weeks and have a small group of Korean friends. So what I know is probably still not representative of the entire Korean population. When one of my friends suggested I write something about the Korean personality. I thought to myself ~ wow this is a really interesting topic but what exactly is the Korean personality? And how am I going to make that even comprehensible for people? This entry is going to be so long even before I realize it.

I thought to myself that I probably need to spend time to understand the history of Korea so that perhaps I can find out what made the Korean personality. Yet when I was attempting to read up on it, I found that many things are interrelated. Therefore it’s difficult to omit one without talking about the other. In the end, I figured that I will attempt to talk about one aspect in one post.

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I found out that Confucianism influences the Korean society in almost every aspect. Therefore to a great extent, the basis of the Korean personality is Confucian values.  And “Confucianism emphasizes human relationships, but it says that human relationship should not be based on self-interests nor on economic considerations”.  (“Korean Traditional Culture” written by Lee Kwang-Kyu). Indeed, the Korean personality places great emphasis on human relationships.

According to the Confucian beliefs, there are 5 types of human relationships (or better known as “五伦” in Chinese). These 5 relationships are as follows:

1) Husband-Wife

2) Parent-Child

3) Elder sibling- Younger sibling

4) Ruler-Subject

5) Friend-Friend

All relationships start with the family unit, the husband and wife to the parent and child, then to siblings, then extend out of the family unit. As you can see the idea of relationships is considered as an extremely important aspect in the Korean society since relationships cover every aspect of the Korean life.

And feeling is a “major factor of Korean culture with human relations” and “the source of the feeling would be traced directly to the kin homogeneity”(Customs and Manners in Korea, Chun Shin-Yong). The idea of feeling comes from the family unit and is then extended to other relationships and then the society. An interesting statement that I came across that talked about this point is from the same book, “Customs and Manners in Korea“, “because of the feeling, we (Koreans) have been able to foster a tenderer society, a more flexible society. As our proverb says, “People who can live without laws” is made possible because of the prevalence of the feeling.” (I managed to find the actual Korean proverb~ “법 없이도 살 사람” *in case any of you is interested in it)

Because of the importance of feelings in relationships, Koreans believe in creating the “right” feeling or atmosphere in their relationships. To do that, they practice nunji (눈치). You might have already realized that it’s common for Koreans buy each other meals or give gifts. When they practice so, they are actually maintaining their relationships, or practicing what is known as nunchi (눈치).

Nunchi (눈치) is a pretty difficult-to-describe term in English context. I’m not even sure if I can even explain this clearly so I’ll be really glad if there’s anyone, especially Koreans who can tell me more about it. I attempted to find out the meaning of this word in Korean, only to find out that the meaning is abstract.

Here’s some explanations of nunchi (눈치) from the various sources :

“Nunchi means that in conversations Koreans will try to say nothing that could be construed as negative; stating the truth, being scrupulously fair, or quickly settling any contractual agreement are all alien to the face-saving that nunchi requires.” (Insight guides: South Korea)

Nunchi refers to a concept in Korean culture, described as “the subtle art of listening and gauging another’s mood”. ~ nunchi also relies on an understanding of one’s status relative to the person with whom they’re interacting. It can be seen as the embodiment of skills necessary to communicate effectively in Korea’s high context culture. (Meaning from Wikipedia)

Anyway, the best definition that I came across is from “Changing Korea: understanding culture and communication” which has a good chapter on what “nunchi (눈치)” is. To summarize the chapter, nunchi (눈치) is the ability to read the speaker’s nonverbal cues, reading between the lines, grasping the situation and reacting appropriately.

So you can see that nunchi (눈치) is extremely important in maintaining relationships with Koreans.

You might have already realized from the above that the self is dependent on others and everyone is interdependent. Because of presence of this belief, it is extremely important to maintain the harmony in the relationships.

Of course, there are others aspect like chemyon (체면) (which I found out after researching on this topic!) which are also important in maintaining the harmony in Korean relationships. However, I won’t be dwelling on chemyon (체면) and the other aspects and hope that I be able to talk about them in another post.

Well, I hope you enjoy this post and that you learn a little about Koreans, just like I did when I went and did my mini study on the Korean personality. I really like to hear from you. Let me know what you think and what you know about the Korean personality, it will really help me out in my future posts!

Till then, take care! And keep the comments coming!