Differences in Manners

When I was a student at Utah State University over 20 years ago, I got a job on campus as an aide in the ESL department.  It was there I met the Kim family from South Korea.  They offered me a job tutoring their children in English.  I would go over to their home a few evenings every week.  I was particularly excited about the job because the young man I was dating had served his LDS mission in Seoul.  These two relationships led to a lot of interesting conversations.  I would talk with him about experiences with the family and I would tell the family stories he had from his time in Korea. One evening, they invited me to dinner.  I told my boyfriend this and he told me some things to prepare.  For one, the meal is served "family style" and everyone eats off the same plate.  You have a small bowl of rice that is your own, but everything else is shared.  Luckily, on our first date, he had taken me to eat Korean food, so I had some experience in this area.  He also told me that bodily functions associated with digestion (such as burping and passing gas) are totally acceptable while eating a meal.  In fact, he said that it is even a sign that you are enjoying the food.  At first, I did not believe him.  However, as I kneeled down at the Kim family's table that night and ate with them, I witnessed that what he was saying was true.  Even though it was completely different than how I had grown up, I really enjoyed observing this family.  Often they had seemed very proper to me.  It was nice to see them almost more casual and I was touched that they had allowed me to be a part of it.  The only thing I did not like was using metal chopsticks.  It is really difficult!  

As a teacher in a TESOL classroom in the United States, I think teaching manners and appropriate actions in my country would benefit my students.  I would never want them to feel like they need to give up their own culture, however, I think it is important to help them avoid any potentially embarrassing situations.  Take the story above.  What if it had been flip-flopped and a Korean college student had eaten in an American household, unaware that these types of actions are not culturally accepted at the dinner table?  Teaching some of the basic manners within the culture where the learning is taking place will give students an important edge in social situations.  Giving them some helpful knowledge is much better than simply allowing them to learn everything from experience.  Ultimately, it will be up to them what they do with that knowledge, but I will do whatever I can to help.  In the process, I think it would be really interesting in a multi-cultural classroom to teach manners by learning from each other.  This could be a really fun discussion where we get to know one another!

Lastly, for those who are wondering, I ended up marrying that young man.  We will celebrate 20 years of marriage in September.   We still eat Korean food often, although I continue to stick with the cultural norms I grew up with while eating.  And although I can use wooden chopsticks very well, I am still terrible with metal ones!


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