I talked about assigning the right type of personnel in a Korean operation.  That’s right, the right type of person.  We all know that to implement and carry out a certain effort, there must be a qualified person who is a perfect fit for such a task.  When it comes to Korean operation, the the same theory applies.  Only that who you think is perfect may later prove you that the person was not only the wrong choice, but also the whole operation became a complete failure because you just assigned a wrong person.

A few years ago, I had an opportunity to represent an American company to locate a Korean manufacturer and pave the way to enter a successful negotiation.  I spent a great deal of time to build up that personal relationship with them and promote the image of this American company and worked hard to have a successful negotiation for every single aspect of their Korean operation.  So, everything was set up and two companies were good to go to run the full operation.  When I learned who the company chose to run the day-to-day Korean operation in Korea, I secretly had concern about this person.  I thought that he probably couldn’t handle the personal aspect of Korean business culture.  Nonetheless, he was a great asset to the company.  He had MBA in International Business, incredibly intelligent, ran his own business for a while before he came on board, and was almost a wizard at numbers and figures—I often refer these types as “excel spread sheet type” as it seems like they view the whole world through a spread sheet.

When I sat down with him to go through all the necessary cultural differences that he had to be aware of, I noticed that he was quite irritated about a few things I was suggesting him to do.  What was I suggesting him to do?  “Go out with them, be careful with your email messages if you are not to have a staff who is fluent in both languages so that he or she can aid you in communication effort, try to learn some phrases in Korean so that you can get by, these are Korean holidays when you may want to send gifts to them and reinforce your personal relationship with them, and many more….”  I expressed my concern in a very passive way as I knew that it was not my place to say something about it.  But they thought that he still was the perfect fit.

When he landed in Korea and started working with them, not only that the Korean business partner felt like they were in a business deal that only seemed great when I was representing and working with them, but also they constantly felt like this American employee was quite condescending to them.  He never wanted to go out with them, he would only communicate with them for necessary business matters, the way he was treating the people around him was not pleasant.  He simply couldn’t handle that personal aspect of Korean business culture.  It was too much for him.  He was not at ease dealing with people in such a way, and he thought it was quite backward.  It simply was his personal preference how he professionally performed, however it was the wrong attitude to have in Korean business world.

And when the company finally learned that the things were not going great at all, in fact, their operation was at the brink of shutting down, they pulled him back and contacted me again.  As I learned what had been happening, it was an eye opening experience to me, and at the same time, I felt greatly responsible for not being clearly expressive about my concern.  One of the reasons I was not clearly expressive was because I didn’t want to cost somebody’s job or damage somebody’s reputation without any proof.  However, their relationship and deal were both mended with a great effort costing both companies huge expenses.

Since then, I carefully observe executive members whom I have to accompany to Korea on a business deal or assignees going to Korea to run an operation, and tell clients what I think without hesitation.  I learned that it is a lot better for them to ridicule my opinion and not trust me and for me to be proven wrong than my clients’ having to find out that their effort is about to be ruined.  Even when I am not in the position to say so, I do it anyway as I learned what it will cost my clients.

There is also one more important lesson I learned from this very experience—email and messenger communication.  But that is to the next post.

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Major Korean Holiday Alert: Chuseok

Korea underwent one of the bloodiest wars in history—the Korean War from 1950 to 1953.  What the people who were chased by communists saw at that time was the red color being used by the communists and blood everywhere.  They started associating the color red with communists.  Furthermore, after the war, when the country adopted an anti-communist national policy, the color used to describe communists was red.  They would appear in text books or anti-communist educational material in color red with all sorts of horrifying figures illustrating communists.  All this created the feeling of fear and deep disapproval toward the color red.   

As more and more of the post-war generation grew up and started becoming the main stream of the society, this red complex started dying out gradually as well.  One can easily see that the red complex is almost gone by now.  In the World Cup 2002, the name of the cheer team for the Korean soccer team was the “Red Devils”.  They wore red shirts as the Korean soccer team wore red colored uniform.  Furthermore, some experts say that the Red Devils actually played a big role in further easing up the leftover red complex. 

There is a personal story of mine related to this red complex.

It was in early 1980’s.  I was still a very young girl, and my youngest uncle who was living with us was in his early 20’s.  One day, he was very busy preparing for his company picnic.  At the very last moment, he asked me if everybody was out of the room and to keep my eyes open if anybody would come into the room.  I complied as he was my favorite uncle who used to play the guitar for me to sing.  He quickly ran to a drawer and took out the red shirt and put it on and stood in front of the mirror appreciating the view of himself.  I was too busy admiring the view of his powerful red shirt as well.  While I was busy looking at him, my grandmother came into the room, and she started scolding him as if he was a little child.  She said, “I did not raise you to become one of those reds.  Your father fought against them.  Your oldest brother (which is my father) had to walk with me miles and miles running away from them.  You don’t know anything about it because you were not even born!  How ungrateful this is!  You like red?  Why don’t I give you one of those armbands of theirs so that you can wear it around your arm and march like them too!”

Of course, bless her soul, my grandmother went through the war with 4 kids barely walking miles and miles to escape from the North Korean soldiers’ ever-watchful eyes since my grandfather was a police chief in South Korea and now fighting in the war against them.  No families wanted to take them in to sleep at night; no families wanted them to be in the same place as that might harm their life greatly.  So, she had the horrifying experience, and she never changed her view about the color red or communists until the day she passed away.  Even my father once said that, more than the communists, the color red always reminds him of all the blood he witnessed during the war as an 8 year old boy.   

The red complex is almost gone.  However our business partners can be in their 60’s or 70’s.  That means this red complex lived throughout their lives at one point.

I have seen one Korean executive member in his 60’s complained about the red carpet in the hotel hallway whereas his subordinate cheerfully said he felt like he was in a red carpet moment.  I painted my bedroom red, and my father never understood the intention of it when he visited me whereas my brother thought it was very bold and cool.  I posted my headshot picture with the red wall background, my father literally asked me to change the picture since he couldn’t stand looking at his daughter’s face on the messenger with the red background.  When I changed it, my friends then complained telling me that they liked that picture a lot better than my current one.   

I think this has been an enough story about red.  Hope you enjoyed it.  Let me know if you did!

Heejeong Haas

www.queenofseoul.com

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Related Articles at Korean Business Blog:

Why You Should Never Write Names in Red When Dealing with Koreans Part 1
The Korean Business Blog is Ready for Posting
The Pitfalls of Telling Jokes to Non-native English Speakers Part 2
Establish a Personal Relationship with Your Korean Business Partner
What to do if Koreans “Fall Asleep” During Your Presentation

What is “that thing”?  The pen they gave me was red!  And every name on that paper was in red.  I laughed at myself yet reluctantly filled out the form suppressing my desire to ask for a different colored pen. While I was driving back home, I thought about a couple of incidents that involved writing down names in red. 

About one year ago, I was in my client’s training session with their Korean engineers.  The trainer handed out red markers to the engineers to write down their names on the tent card so that they could place it before them on the table.  When these engineers picked up the pen, they looked at me as if they didn’t know what to do. 

One engineer said, “Ah, but the pen is red…”

One of them responded, “Dude, just do it, they don’t know.  It’s ok.  We’re in America.”

The previous one said, “But it’s still red.  I don’t want to write down my name in red.”

I walked over to the trainer and explained to him about the meaning of writing names in red in Korea, and the trainer was very amused about the new finding and gladly changed the markers to black markers.  

Another incident I remembered was that when I was helping an American company plan their negotiation strategy and presentation for their Korean business partner.  As we were finalizing our PowerPoint presentation, I noticed that they used the red color to name the Korean team member’s name at some point.  I pointed out that we’d better change the color of the names to black and explained to him why they were not supposed to use red to write down somebody’s name when it comes to Koreans.  The VP of marketing also was very amused about that finding and gladly changed the names into black.   

So, where does this taboo come from in Korea?  There are many stories behind why it became such a taboo.  However one very reliable theory is as follows:During the Japanese occupation in Korea, Japanese adapted a system called the “family census register” which still is in effect in Korea, but computerized nowadays.  Before it was computerized, they used to cross out the names of a dead person in red.  Also, during the Japanese colonization period, they used to cross out the names of those independence fighters, therefore people still mistakenly believe that if a perosn goes to prison, then his name is crossed out in red on the family census registration record.   

Koreans do not write down their names in red, and this is taught to young children from a very early age as well.  It is one of the big social taboos. So, if your business card has your name in red, think before you send it out and localize it.  Change your name to black.  During your presentations, meetings, or in documents, you can use red effectively as follows for your Korean business partners as follows: 

•  Underlining or check marking an important part
•  Inserting important notes within a document 

Hope it helps. 

Heejeong Haas

www.queenofseoul.com

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Related Articles at Korean Business Blog:

The Korean Business Blog is Ready for Posting
Why You Should Never Write Names in Red When Dealing with Koreans Part 2
The Pitfalls of Telling Jokes to Non-native English Speakers Part 2
Establish a Personal Relationship with Your Korean Business Partner
What to do if Koreans “Fall Asleep” During Your Presentation

During his speech, the speaker started talking about the wrong idea of punishing people.  To add a little fun and spice, he prepared very good visual aids with his speech.  However when he came to this “the wrong ideas of punishing people”, he showed a picture of the ancient Korean punishment system as an example.  The Korean official was very uncomfortable and embarrassed.  I was also a little bit surprised to see that although I have been in many awkward moments.  And the picture was up there for a long time.  The Korean official said, “Why are they keeping that picture up there?  It feels like they are trying to point out that Korea is not doing well.” 

To Americans, it was a very innocent and harmless gesture.  On the receiving end, especially to a person from the Korean culture, it can be a huge insult.  I still would like to say that depends on a Korean individual, but generally, it will be taken as a bit of an insult.  It is simple.  Using some of the historical and cultural stuff to prove or aid your point why something is wrong can be taken as an insult.  Koreans take their cultural and historical matters very personally and seriously to their heart.  One can say that you can see the essence of nationalism living in every single individual Korean up to this date.  When you live in a collective society with a nationalistic view, a joke as simple as this can be taken as an insult. 

Petty?  Yes, it may seem that way.  However, cultural nuance and the cultural aspect of a country are not there for the rest of the world to judge it as petty or wrong or bad.  Every single cultural aspect is there through out their millions of years of own living experience cumulated and interactions with the rest of the world.  You may come across a funny and exotic picture from other culture, and you are completely entitled to feel whether it is funny or not.  However, when you use this to present your ideas, you should take a caution such as if that won’t insult anyone’s culture, if you can display it in public in a way that you want to, or if you are using the material in the right context.  And I don’t mean the right context from an American’s point of view. So to be safe, do not display pictures or image symbolizing cultural aspects of Korea along in a negative context to just laugh or to show the example.  No matter what your intention is, it won’t be taken kindly. 

Heejeong Haas

www.queenofseoul.com

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Related Articles at Korean Business Blog:

What to do if Koreans “Fall Asleep” During Your Presentation
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Every single official no matter what the nationality could speak at least one phrase or two in many different languages to simply say, “hello”, “thank you” and “nice to meet you”.  Not a big deal?  One could say that.  But now imagine you remember these phrases in about 10 to 15 different languages and especially in one of those very exotic African or Asian languages.  Yes, that takes a certain amount of effort and determination that you would like to get across other person to communicate.  Every time they exchanged a little phrase in each other’s native tongue, they had a smile and automatically built that warm and mutual understanding of why they were there. 

In business meetings, we tend to think that everybody understands and knows how to say “thank you” and “hello” and “nice to meet you” in English as English has become a universal business language.  I have seen only a few executive members making the effort to learn how to say those phrases in Korean for their Korean business partners. Speaking these little phrases in Korean for your Korean business partners can boost your image and earn ultimate respect.  It shows them how much you care and respect them and their culture.  You will also see this pleasantly surprised smile on their face as Koreans generally are under the impression that the Korean language is way too difficult for any foreigners to learn (there is a good reason why they think this way, but I will go on about this one later).  

Business negotiations often get rough and hostile; if you can add something to make the situation a little smoother as simple as this, why not try?  It certainly doesn’t cost you money, but the result is priceless.

So, try practicing these phrases:

• Hello or Hi: “An-nyoung-ha-se-yo.”

• Thank you: “Gam-sa-ham-ni-da.” Or “Go-mab-seum-ni-da”

• Nice to meet you: “Man-na-su-ban-gab-seum-ni-da.” Or simply “Ban-gab-seum-ni-da.”

• You are welcome: “Chun-ma-ne-yo.”

Next time when you talk to your Korean business partner, say these in Korean and see if they are pleasantly surprised or not.
Good luck!

Heejeong Haas

www.queenofseoul.com

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Related Articles at Korean Business Blog:

Establish a Personal Relationship with Your Korean Business Partner
The Importance of Choosing the Right Executives to Send to Korea
The Pitfalls of Telling Jokes to Non-native English Speakers Part 2
The Pitfalls of Telling Jokes to Non-native English Speakers Part 1
Practical Advice for Doing Business with Korea