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?