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Are we actually as angry as people say we are?

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Hwintokki
Posts: 2
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(@hwintokki)
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Joined: 5 years ago

I've been thinking about it.

I don't spend a lot of time in Korea, so I don't feel qualified to pass judgment on South Korean or North Korean societies as a whole. All I can go by are observations on my family, Korean Americans, and international students. As a whole, I feel the Koreans I met were reasonably nice people and not prone to aggression. This could also be because we're very concerned with "saving face" and not revealing our inner problems to people who (presumably) won't understand. There were some aggressive behavioral traits that I've noticed through experience but I've tended to downplay them as personal characteristics rather than as a cultural trend.

On the internet, I've read about stereotypes on angry Koreans, about the so-called "hwabyung" phenomenon, and Koreans just being aggressive in general. There are also a few interesting cases of Korean Americans that snapped and went on murderous rampages.

Hwabyung
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwabyeong

Asian American crimes
http://www.eastbound88.com/showthrea...-Crime-Archive

From my personal observations, I've noticed the following:
- Older Korean men, and sometimes young Korean men frequently have issues expressing their feelings
- People who have trouble expressing affection and showing weakness -> tsundere tendencies, sometimes to the point of being offensive
- A lot of Korean parents talk a lot of sh!t to their kids, are verbally and emotionally abusive, though not with bad intentions. They think negative reinforcement is necessary to motivate them.
- The age hierarchy (among other hierarchies) and the associated social subtleties are often quite annoying, especially to overseas Koreans who don't have to face them outside their families.
- Insecure people will use the age hierarchy (and other social ranking systems common among Koreans) to compensate for their hurt egos, leaving everybody feeling wronged but with no practical solutions
- We tend to see everybody else as competition and part of a hierarchy. Everybody is implicitly ranked according to achievements, brand name associations, occupation, etc. This makes most people very sad, but again, with no practical solutions.
- A lot of Koreans, especially men, seem to have a swearing problem. They overreact in a lot of situations and swear at people they probably shouldn't be swearing at (e.g. children, students, employees). They also overuse the words "die"/"kill" and also "beat" (as in, beat into submission). e.g. "I'm just going to nap for a minute." (low, gruff male voice) "I'll kill you if you do."
- That one corner outside of the library in every university where Korean dudes gather to talk sh!t and smoke...

As always, these are simply generalizations.

What are your thoughts?

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Hwintokki
Posts: 2
Topic starter
(@hwintokki)
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Joined: 5 years ago

I went home for a few weeks.... and realized all over again how dysfunctional my family is.

The good thing is we're usually there for each other, but we just $%*! on each other's self-esteem and push each other's buttons all the time. For example, when we go on long drives, we try to be pleasant or at least inoffensive in the beginning but then everybody gangs up on person and furiously insults and denigrates that person for the entire day. In the end, they excuse themselves with "it's all out of love, we're a family", or, "you know we don't mean it like that," but it's psychological torture and they know it.

The reason I say "they" is because I'm the anti-social, moralizing one who keeps silent the entire time until I explode. My parents and sister blatantly insult me and each other when they're stressed - which is often. The way I'm cruel to my family is by secretly harboring low opinions of them and then carelessly dropping a condescending remark. It's mostly unintentional but I suppose it's more hurtful than what my parents and sister do in some cases.

My dad and sister are pretty much angry all the time. It's visible on their faces. I think in both cases, it's largely because of harsh parenting and how they process things as a result. My mom raised my sister like a stereotypical tiger mom would - beat her, yelled at her for minor mistakes, controlled and monitored her. Both my dad and sister are impatient, get irrationally angry over small stuff, and have control/power issues.

On the other hand, my parents let me roam around and do my own thing most of the time. The good news is, I'm more tolerant, generally speaking. The bad news is, I'm a loose cannon. There are times when I get stressed that I take it out on others just because, and I don't even realize I'm doing it. My sister can hide the inner beast in public. When I'm mad, I'm mad and I snap at random people anywhere.

FYI, none of us are physically violent. We don't know how to fight and we don't own guns.

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