>Companies in English education, tourism, trade or other globally focused industries typically have English nickname policies. They want to accommodate foreign business partners who can’t decipher between Lee Ji-yeong and Lee Ji-yeon. “They’re thoughtful people,” Hong said. “It’s to be kind to foreign people.”
I lived in Korea for about a year and a half and Korean names were near impossible for me to remember en mass. That's because all Koreans have 3 syllable names, and they all use the same few syllables. To make it worse, many of these syllables sound alike!!!
When you have to remember the names of 20 or more people and they're like
"Kim-Yeon Lee"
"Kim-Yeung Ye"
"Kim-Hyun Ji"
I don't know how a non-Korean can keep up with that for any length of time when it involves a large number of Koreans. Many Koreans who speak English have English names they choose for interacting with foreigners and none of them seem to mind. It is very considerate of them because having to remember their Korean names can be painful for non-Koreans. I imagine it's also because my difficulty with Korean names was not something unique. It's probably something they noticed among many foreigners and compensated for.
First, not all western names are "English", come on.
Things are complicated:
- A good chunk of Koreans are Christians (either Catholics or American style Protestants), and get a biblical name at baptism.
- Many employees at those high-profile companies have studied or even lived abroad, and might have used another first name there. Some dual-citizens (which is a fairly new thing in Korea) even have different first names on their respective passports.
- There are many reasons behind using nicknames for correspondence with foreigners, it's not necessarily to make your company look more global than it really is (even though yes, that's also one reason). It isn't specific to Korean, but a lot of "first names" (typically the middle and last character) are not clearly associated to a gender, especially to foreign ears. Also, the romanization of Korean is a pretty confusing mess overall, unlike with Japanese for instance. There have been several systems in use, and names show the biggest inconsistencies (for example Lee, I, Yi, Ri, Rhee are all the same family name). Does "Yuna" mean Yeona like the skater or Yoona like the K-pop singer? You cannot know.
Now back to the policy discussed, I left Korea before it got introduced at my company, but I always found stupid to force people to pick another name. Lots of Koreans really don't want to. I called my VP by his real first name and he was fine with it.
Not every. Actually it's kind of a trend now to give your kids "pure Korean" names with no Chinese character backing. Both of my children are half Korean and live in Korea and their first names bear no Chinese origin. Similarly there's a trend of giving your children a single syllable given name rather than two syllables.
To clarify, the mother of my children and her family are staunchly Korean with one half from 경상도 and the other 전라남도...not particularly raised with extraordinary exposure to foreigners so I was quite surprised when she agreed with the names.
Thanks for pointing it out. Like 2 decades ago I knew a guy with 1 syllable name (like Hoon, Yi) which was quite unique. It had been done for a long time but not as common. I guess it is less rare.
Lol 2 families from 경상도 and 전라남도 joined by marriage...
Or an ethnic minority, for example Mo Farah or Archie Panjabi. As far as I can make out, minorities preferred "British-x" (e.g. British-Asian) as a label rather than English even if they were born in England, although there have been calls for that to change [1].
Right, and calling someone English when they're Welsh or Scottish may rather annoy them.
There's an animosity towards the English from the Welsh. I believe the Scottish generally feel the same way towards them. England are like family that we love, but we don't really like very much.
Northern Ireland is a bit of a tricky one because people from Northern Ireland generally consider themselves "Northern Irish", "British" or "Irish".
I don't know if anyone would take offence at "Northern Irish", but you don't want to incorrectly guess either of the others!
Thanks. I imagine it would be like confusing an Australian and a New Zealander. Or a Canadian and an American. We're just so darn similar that it's so important to us to be considered distinct.
Also makes me think about Quebec. Canada would not be Canada without Quebec. But there's always been some sibling rivalry with the province.
Finally, while this isn't Reddit and I have to learn to be more metered about my silliness, I just can't help but include this, as it's quite relevant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2q0T7QXETs
There's an interesting discussion by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers of how Korean culture of this type may have caused the crash of Korean Air Flight 801.
>Korean Air had more plane crashes than almost any other airline in the world for a period at the end of the 1990s. When we think of airline crashes, we think, Oh, they must have had old planes. They must have had badly trained pilots. No. What they were struggling with was a cultural legacy, that Korean culture is hierarchical. You are obliged to be deferential toward your elders and superiors in a way that would be unimaginable in the U.S.
>But Boeing and Airbus design modern, complex airplanes to be flown by two equals. That works beautifully in low-power-distance cultures [like the U.S., where hierarchies aren't as relevant]. But in cultures that have high power distance, it's very difficult.
The Western aviation culture also had to learn the lesson the hard way. The lessening of (perceived or actual) power differentials and the ability to raise concerns at any time are a part of the new communication paradigm developed in the 70s and 80s after a few disastrous accidents, now commonly known as Crew resource management [1]. Captain Haynes had the following to say after the United Airlines Flight 232 accident: [2]
...the preparation that paid off for the crew was something ... called Cockpit Resource Management.... Up until 1980, we kind of worked on the concept that the captain was THE authority on the aircraft. What he said, goes. And we lost a few airplanes because of that. Sometimes the captain isn't as smart as we thought he was. And we would listen to him, and do what he said, and we wouldn't know what he's talking about.
As an aside, I find that while many (all, I'd hope!) professional pilots recognise their own limits and the necessity of modern CRM, many non-pilots still like to hold on to a romantic notion that on a flight, the captain is as god, even ascribing the captain powers well beyond the job.
The flight in question. Captain was a retired and highly respected airforce pilot. It was determined that the first officer knew that things were going wrong but didn't say anything.
I lived in Korea for about a year and a half and Korean names were near impossible for me to remember en mass. That's because all Koreans have 3 syllable names, and they all use the same few syllables. To make it worse, many of these syllables sound alike!!!
When you have to remember the names of 20 or more people and they're like
"Kim-Yeon Lee" "Kim-Yeung Ye" "Kim-Hyun Ji"
I don't know how a non-Korean can keep up with that for any length of time when it involves a large number of Koreans. Many Koreans who speak English have English names they choose for interacting with foreigners and none of them seem to mind. It is very considerate of them because having to remember their Korean names can be painful for non-Koreans. I imagine it's also because my difficulty with Korean names was not something unique. It's probably something they noticed among many foreigners and compensated for.