EPTAge Hierarchy Power in Asia is too much ? - Page 5
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Meta
United States6225 Posts
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spkim1
Canada286 Posts
On April 10 2012 15:06 shannn wrote: Unfortunately he isn't the only one. Some family members of mine have been treated badly (read: treated as trash) by their parents and elder family members and it's worse than what OP has experienced and they are still standing by their family. It's deeply rooted in the culture of my (Vietnamese) family that most will abide by the elders no matter what (crazy I know). I've actually told my parents that whenever they do something stupid to me I'd cut ties with them and walk out of the door right away. On the other hand if the parents didn't do anything and the child doesn't take care of them then he's like OP and others mentioned cut from family ties or for a simpler word trash (don't know the exact translation from Vietnamese to English). So yes OP does believe what he said and most of my family members as well (I only up till a certain point). Edit: Parents actually expect their children to take care of them as well. So it's not like the children come up with it themselves. My parents have told me a million times to take care of them when they get older. Thank you for supporting my point. I don't see where he came from when he said I didn't believe it myself. I grew up receiving lots of love albeit difficult family situations. And I intend to FULLY support any and all member of my family until the very end. Because I feel grateful for all the love and care and support I receive from them, I will always feel indebted to them. | ||
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Meta
United States6225 Posts
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canikizu
4860 Posts
And about why Asian and Westerners have different view. There were research and essays talk about it. Generally, asian history is about the agriculture society. - Experience in certain fields can be gained by teaching from generation to generation, so most of the time, stuffs you learn are most likely not from google, but from your family, masters, teachers, who happen to have very free time to teach you because, well, they are old and can't work anymore. - A lot of people worship ancestors, so it's naturally that you have to respect your elders, since Confucius said so... - Kings/Emperors also promote the idea to respect the elders to young people so that they can sit their ass on thrones at ease because elders are those who are least rebellious, and if the kids are taught by them, they also have less thoughts about demanding and rebel. - Some other randoms reasons that I don't remember. You sometimes need to put yourself in the elders' perspective. For example in some post above, the Korean woman call somebody's wife a slut because she marries to an American. That was because in her experience, most or all Korean women at her old-day time that marries non-Korean were sluts/money diggers/opportunist. In this case she was wrong, but I can assure you that even now, 7,8 out of 10 cases of Asian girl marrying American, what she said is true. | ||
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MethodSC
United States928 Posts
On April 10 2012 15:48 spkim1 wrote: Thank you for supporting my point. I don't see where he came from when he said I didn't believe it myself. I grew up receiving lots of love albeit difficult family situations. And I intend to FULLY support any and all member of my family until the very end. Because I feel grateful for all the love and care and support I receive from them, I will always feel indebted to them. Do you just not know anyone or know of anyone that had a terrifying childhood that will affect them negatively for the rest of their lives? | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5296 Posts
respct your elders had the premise that older guys are wiser since they've passed through all kinds of life related stuff. evolutionary wise it's sound but since we stopped evolving it lost it's weight (old ppl are not wiser, theyre just old) | ||
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zalz
Netherlands3704 Posts
What kind of an achievement is age? Congratulations, you didn't get run over by a bus, now you are my superior? I don't get this dominate, dominatee, relationship that exists in some cultures. Respect your elders is one of those things that just falls apart right away if you truly begin to question it. What if your grandfather was a war criminal and happy about it? Ooh, but then it is different, then we suddenly begin to judge a person for the content of his character, rather than the wrinkles on his skin. Finally, to actually tolerate violence and allow yourself to be beaten, or allow others to be beaten, is just revolting. I wouldn't respect anyone that raised a hand to me or any other person if it wasn't their job (like riot police), and I certainly wouldn't let myself be beaten by someone for no other reason than that he is old. The fact that these things continue to exist, serve as testimony that many people don't think about the world they live in and the rules they follow. I know people who are older than me, I know people who are younger to me. I don't have the need to dominate or be dominated by any of them. I don't have some twisted need to feel like a mentor to them. If I help them, I help them as their equal. a bitchslap is not an abuse, just saying. offended much? It is both physical and mental abuse. You beat someone, and you humiliate them. | ||
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spkim1
Canada286 Posts
On April 10 2012 15:28 white_horse wrote: Guys!!! It's not as bad as you think it might be!! It's not the situation where the oldest guy sits around telling everyone what to do like they are servants or something. That's just an imagination you might think in your head. There are many pros about this kind of culture. It's not necessarily "respect" as in "I respect this guy simply because he's older than me"; it's more like you just fall in line behind them because they are percieved to be the leader or the head. You don't have to personally respect or like a senior simply because he's older. I certainly don't. You just lower yourself a little bit and put on a little air of being submissive to them. It's totally different from the west with the way you subliminally shift the way you act depending on who you are with. But you see, that's the thing. I also thought it was just a skin-deep thing too. I enjoyed acting submissive yet jokingly cheeky and sneaky to the hyungs and noonas, being familiar with them and all, until i heard that "no joke" part from the senior guy. So if this is no joke, then it's serious, right ? And indeed, whacking younger ones in the face doesn't exactly sound like light stuff. You are right. Many people told me I have been hanging around with the bad people. Time to change the pool ~ | ||
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Velocirapture
United States983 Posts
On April 10 2012 14:17 spkim1 wrote: OK, I've been reading the posts so far. One thing that cleared me up is the difference between respecting "willingly" and "forcefully". It is true that in western culture some people abandon their parents when they become self-sustainable. In Korea, such actions are seen as disgusting, and the person is seen as a "garbage child" (후례자식). I believe that, no matter what your parents did to you, at the bottom of the line they fed you, raised you, and loved you, cared and lived for you. Just from this, we are deeply indebted to them and have an obligation to be by their side and support them until the very end, if you have the tiniest dust of gratitude, that is. This is the reason why such aspects of this "respecting the elder" notion is so beautiful and why I want to follow it. There is a social pressure that kind of anchors every person's behaviour in Korea, making it a unified crowd. And within that anchor is the respect for the seniors; people frown at you if you don't. I believe this is the best way of keeping it working without giving too much power to the seniors. If someone defies this law, he or she will just become a social outcast. This means that seniors do not need to inflict any kind of additional punishment (physical, for example). This is not a gang, nor is it the military. Keep military training within barrack confines, for the soldiers. We are citizen. Moreover, respecting the elder should work only as long as the seniors act like they should. If they start acting like shit I believe it is only right to be able to tell them that they being wrong. And some seniors actually believe this too. And I respect them for having a wider perception. This view is fundamentally different from how I feel family relationships should work. As a child it is absolutely true that a certain level of respect and submission is called for due to the chaotic nature of a child's ignorance but as a child develops into an adult man or woman I believe the relationship also has to develop from a hierarchy to a relationship between peers. I dont believe that your parents providing material goods and a whatever type of family life, entitles them to some special status. Instead I feel that the obligation derived from this is to provide for the next generation. You pay your parents back by drawing on your experience and learning from their mistakes in your procreative endeavors and child rearing. Apart from this, I dont feel an adult parent/child relationship should enjoy any privileges beyond any other long term relationships (ie. they are not permanent or unconditional). | ||
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spkim1
Canada286 Posts
On April 10 2012 16:02 MethodSC wrote: Do you just not know anyone or know of anyone that had a terrifying childhood that will affect them negatively for the rest of their lives? You're right, I don't personally. I've heard of horrific stories, though. And I don't want to tell people who experienced such things to support their parents. However, (although I have no rights to say this as I never experienced such situations), I'm positive those peope will live happier if they CAN forgive their parents, and become the bigger person. It's hard, I know, but I've also heard of people doing that. Isn't life more beautiful if everyone is more forgiving ? Besides, that's one trait older persons should do to the young ones, too; if they know more, then they should know that ignorance can lead to mistakes. If a younger person can forgive the older, then that is an achievement in itself. | ||
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Supamang
United States2298 Posts
On April 10 2012 08:55 Ilikestarcraft wrote: You actually acted wrong in this situation. When a senior is setting his juniors straight, usually its done with good intentions. Since you said you're Korean by blood but not nationality and for others reading this thread, who aren't as accustomed to Korean culture might find it outrageous that the senior was slapping his juniors. But for him to do that, they must have really fucked up if hes a good senior. And in that situation right after he was talking to them, you coming in and asking the guy your age, if he was not too drunk and ok gives the impression you're disrespecting him. The other senior let you off easy because I'm sure he knew you meant no disrespect but it wasn't the best thing to do in the situation. Bullshit. I've seen my Korean friends fucked with simply because they were younger. There was no reason other than the fact that the older guy could get away with it. To tell you the truth, I honestly think its only to this extreme in Korean culture. I never saw this shit while I was in Japan, it's never been that emphasized growing up as the youngest son in a Taiwanese family (parents are from Taiwan). And yet I hear about this from Koreans even here in the States. Does anyone have a similar experience? | ||
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spkim1
Canada286 Posts
On April 10 2012 16:26 Velocirapture wrote: This view is fundamentally different from how I feel family relationships should work. As a child it is absolutely true that a certain level of respect and submission is called for due to the chaotic nature of a child's ignorance but as a child develops into an adult man or woman I believe the relationship also has to develop from a hierarchy to a relationship between peers. I dont believe that your parents providing material goods and a whatever type of family life, entitles them to some special status. Instead I feel that the obligation derived from this is to provide for the next generation. You pay your parents back by drawing on your experience and learning from their mistakes in your procreative endeavors and child rearing. Apart from this, I dont feel an adult parent/child relationship should enjoy any privileges beyond any other long term relationships (ie. they are not permanent or unconditional). Your parents are humans too, and they love you as their child. I would be surprised if they do not get disappointed if they did not see reciprocated feelings from you to them. And if you love them, frankly, you don't just leave them. You keep the contact alive and do nice things for them. That is my belief anyway. Maybe love burrowed deep inside can be felt too, but I like to express myself, and usually people catch it better and appreciate it. | ||
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khaydarin9
Australia423 Posts
On April 10 2012 15:55 canikizu wrote: I think people take "respect the elder" too literally. Respect is different to obeying command. It just means that you show your good mannerism to the elder. For example, when you talk to your friend, you can talk and listen to music at the same time, but when the elder talks to you, you should turn the *@#$ music down/off and listen to what he is saying. You give it a thought, but it doesn't mean you need to do what he says. When you disagree with them, you deny/decline in respectful manner, not shout to their faces that they are wrong. Also depending on the culture, walking away/ignoring may or may not be seen as disrespectful, but a manner to show your disagreement in peaceful way. And about why Asian and Westerners have different view. There were research and essays talk about it. Generally, asian history is about the agriculture society. - Experience in certain fields can be gained by teaching from generation to generation, so most of the time, stuffs you learn are most likely not from google, but from your family, masters, teachers, who happen to have very free time to teach you because, well, they are old and can't work anymore. - A lot of people worship ancestors, so it's naturally that you have to respect your elders, since Confucius said so... - Kings/Emperors also promote the idea to respect the elders to young people so that they can sit their ass on thrones at ease because elders are those who are least rebellious, and if the kids are taught by them, they also have less thoughts about demanding and rebel. - Some other randoms reasons that I don't remember. You sometimes need to put yourself in the elders' perspective. For example in some post above, the Korean woman call somebody's wife a slut because she marries to an American. That was because in her experience, most or all Korean women at her old-day time that marries non-Korean were sluts/money diggers/opportunist. In this case she was wrong, but I can assure you that even now, 7,8 out of 10 cases of Asian girl marrying American, what she said is true. I think, particularly in the case of Korean women, the "slut" thing isn't about money, it's about not marrying within the race, which muddies bloodlines. Historically, women from many different cultures were encouraged to marry, or simply married off specifically to rich people because it meant that they would be able to better provide wealth and status for their families, including their parents. I don't even know what to make of your comment about Asian girls marrying Americans for their money. Judging from past threads on TL, there seems to be this pervasive attitude that all women are golddiggers, whether they do it consciously or not, which seems a tad ... narrowminded ... and when you consider the fact that there is a significant population of "Asian" men who are richer than white men, it doesn't really make sense. If anything, I would say it would be to get a visa/residency, because living in America or another Western country, with its capitalist liberties, is attractive, or because Western culture treats women differently (generally, more liberally) than Asian cultures traditionally have, so it would be advantage to be accepted into that culture via marriage. | ||
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MethodSC
United States928 Posts
On April 10 2012 16:28 spkim1 wrote: You're right, I don't personally. I've heard of horrific stories, though. And I don't want to tell people who experienced such things to support their parents. However, (although I have no rights to say this as I never experienced such situations), I'm positive those peope will live happier if they CAN forgive their parents, and become the bigger person. It's hard, I know, but I've also heard of people doing that. Isn't life more beautiful if everyone is more forgiving ? Besides, that's one trait older persons should do to the young ones, too; if they know more, then they should know that ignorance can lead to mistakes. If a younger person can forgive the older, then that is an achievement in itself. The only people that deserve forgiveness are those that know they did something wrong. If your parents were raised horribly and they raised you horribly they probably think nothing is wrong with the way things were handled, leading them to not even acknowledging the fact that they need to show you how wrong they were. So no, I would never forgive someone that didn't even have the intelligence to realize their mistakes and try to make up for them. I certainly wouldn't forgive someone too bullheaded to admit their mistakes either. And if I was in the position where my parents did that to me, I wouldn't care less to forgive them, because they would mean nothing to me. People are people. Live equal. | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10823 Posts
I met some Korean girls my flatmate knew from a langauge school in Australia on my Korea trip. First question one of them asked: "How old are you?". That felt really weird to me because it was totally off topic at that time. Well, I guess she needed to know if I'm older/how much to feel more comfortable... But alone the question felt really weird to me because Age here is probably the last thing you ask someone directly (well, it's ok for men... I wouldn't recommend it when trying to make contact with woman  ).I get respecting "Elders"... When they are like 20-30 years older and not obvious idiots ^^. I don't get the respecting "olders".. When they are only like 1-10 years older/same agerange if they don't deserve it... | ||
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Velocirapture
United States983 Posts
On April 10 2012 16:31 spkim1 wrote: Your parents are humans too, and they love you as their child. I would be surprised if they do not get disappointed if they did not see reciprocated feelings from you to them. And if you love them, frankly, you don't just leave them. You keep the contact alive and do nice things for them. That is my belief anyway. Maybe love burrowed deep inside can be felt too, but I like to express myself, and usually people catch it better and appreciate it. This shows a complete misunderstanding of what I wrote. I absolutely believe that when you love somebody you express it and live accordingly. That is how people should treat ALL of their relationships. The only thing I argue against is the notion that an adult has to afford his/her parents some sort of special privilege. That their decision to have a child and take responsibility for that decision somehow exempts them from the standards we hold every other relationship to. | ||
white_horse
1019 Posts
On April 10 2012 16:28 Supamang wrote: Bullshit. I've seen my Korean friends fucked with simply because they were younger. There was no reason other than the fact that the older guy could get away with it. To tell you the truth, I honestly think its only to this extreme in Korean culture. I never saw this shit while I was in Japan, it's never been that emphasized growing up as the youngest son in a Taiwanese family (parents are from Taiwan). And yet I hear about this from Koreans even here in the States. Does anyone have a similar experience? Like I said, its probably a case of hanging out with a certain segment of people (usually guys) who have been heavily influenced by korean gangster culture or korean army culture, which often operate similarly to the idea of "getting screwed simply because you are younger". People usually don't go around abusing their juniors or taking advantage of them in korean society. It definitely exists to a certain extent but usually not in such extreme ways (getting bullied, taken advantage of, etc). You guys are giving westerners in this thread the wrong impression of korean culture. Also, to everyone else talking about whether to respect parents who are abusive or whatever, the OP subject is something totally different. When we're talking about "seniors" and "juniors" here, we're not talking about a 17 year old kid and a 53 year old man. We're looking at the relationships between people of similar ages - age seniority applies to people of every age in korean society and in this case it is between I assume people in their 20s. Theres absolutely no doubt that in all cultures (western or asian) that respect is generally given to old people and senior citizens (unless they are fucking douchebags of course). | ||
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Sephy90
United States1785 Posts
On April 10 2012 16:40 Velr wrote: I met some Korean girls my flatmate knew from a langauge school in Australia on my Korea trip. First question one of them asked: "How old are you?". That felt really weird to me because it was totally off topic at that time. Well, I guess she needed to know if I'm older/how much to feel more comfortable... But alone the question felt really weird to me because Age here is probably the last thing you ask someone directly (well, it's ok for men... I wouldn't recommend it when trying to make contact with woman ).I get respecting "Elders"... When they are like 20-30 years older and not obvious idiots ^^. I don't get the respecting "olders".. When they are only like 1-10 years older/same agerange if they don't deserve it... I'm pretty sure they ask that first to know if they should (if they're younger) be more respectful to you or (if they're older) for them to relax and speak normally since they're older. Either way I think it's a mixture between that and curiosity. | ||
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AlecPyron
United States131 Posts
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Kater
72 Posts
On April 10 2012 08:58 firehand101 wrote: I think the korean culture got it right. I think its only fair the older you are the more respect you gain. I do agree that sometimes its abused but on the whole i think its very efficient at maintaining a respectful and emotive society I think death penalty got it right. I think its only fair the more murderous you are the less right of living you got. I do agree that sometimes accidently innocent people are killed but on the whole i think its very efficient at maintaining a righteous and emotive society. I think the western countries got it right. I think its only fair the more exploitation of third world countries the more wealth for us. I do agree that sometimes it sucks when african children die but on the whole i think its very efficient at maintaining an profitable and working economy. I admit..made up out of thin air...but u get my point (tbh i somehow even agree with u, but i feel like its wrong) | ||
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