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Korean
Business Etiquette
Just as our polite Canadian manners are well-received in other
countries where Canadians do business, so it is in Korea. However, efforts
to learn about Korean customs will not only be well-received, but will
assist in building stronger business relationships.
Confucian influence
Confucianism has had a profound influence on Korean society in shaping
its social ethics, its legal system, its way of life, the relations
between old and young, the pursuit of higher education and family life.
Given the importance that Confucianism places on relationships, Koreans
are loyal to those associated with their own company, alma mater, hometown
and place of worship. Koreans prefer to do business with people to whom
they feel connected. It matters to Koreans who knows you and is willing to
make that important first introduction. Intermediaries are crucial in
establishing business connections. Cold calls are generally not welcome.
Unlike some other cultures, Koreans often ask what to others may seem
like personal questions. They may ask about your education, marital
status, age or religion. Koreans do not consider this as being intrusive.
Rather, given the importance Koreans place on relationships, this is a way
to become better acquainted and to develop rapport.
Business relationships and communication
Many Koreans treat a legal agreement as others do a memorandum of
understanding. It is not uncommon for Korean businesspeople to prefer
contracts that are loosely structured statements of consensus that broadly
define agreement but leave room for flexibility and adjustment as needed.
Koreans view agreements as an acknowledgment of a business relationship
between two parties committed to work with the other for their mutual
benefit. When it is no longer mutually beneficial, the agreement should be
modified or terminated.
While Koreans are usually direct communicators and respond to questions
directly and concisely, there is often a tendency to say yes to save face.
Therefore, it is better to avoid asking questions that require a “yes”
or “no” answer. Instead of “Can you complete the project by June?”
it is preferable to ask: “When do you anticipate completing the
project?”
Koreans are formal in the way they address each other. It is considered
rude to refer to a person by their first name. One addresses another with
the appropriate title and surname unless invited to do otherwise.
Koreans dress conservatively. Dark-coloured suits (black or navy) with
white shirts and ties are preferable for men. Other than a watch and a
wedding ring, men do not wear jewelry.
Gift-giving is common in the Korean business world. The gift should not
be too expensive since upon receiving a gift it is proper to reciprocate.
Exchanging business cards is essential, and your card should always be
presented using both hands.
One should always make direct eye contact. Unlike some other Asian
countries, it is considered rude not to make direct eye contact during
conversation.
Be patient during negotiations. Under even the best circumstances,
negotiations can be long and drawn out primarily because of the importance
Koreans place on building a relationship.
The more important the transaction, the greater the number of people
involved in the negotiation process. Often several meetings are required.
Any sign of impatience during negotiations will be seen as a sign of
weakness or, worse, being untrustworthy.
If at all possible, have a Korean person on your negotiating team who
is not only fluent in the Korean language, but who is familiar with Korean
customs. In addition to facilitating communication, it shows that you
respect your Korean counterparts and value the relationship.
Respect and relationship are fundamental to successfully doing business
in Korea. The proper display of respect and Korean business etiquette will
help achieve a successful long-term relationship with Korean business
counterparts. •
This article from Business in Vancouver May 24-30,
2011; issue 1126
 
>> MORE
Green hats and other ways to blow a
deal in China
Never give a green hat to a Chinese
businessman. Never give him a clock or a pair of scissors, either. Never
wrap any gift in white or black.
At a Chinese banquet, never clean
everything off your plate; always leave at least a morsel of food behind.
Oh, and never, ever leave your chopsticks propped up in your rice bowl.
Doing business in China can be a
minefield. Apart from wrestling with an unfamiliar language, culture and
legal system, visiting Canadians also have to figure out how not to
embarrass themselves by breaking the complex rules of Chinese etiquette.
Arriving in China with a case of jet lag,
often under big pressure from home office to produce something, most
visitors feel they simply don't have the time to master the abstruse customs
of a foreign culture, on top of everything else.
Carla Kearns has some advice for them:
Make time. Her Toronto Chinese-language school runs a thriving sideline
teaching people how to avoid the little misunderstandings and slip-ups that
can sour a business relationship before it starts. "It's like playing a
new sport without knowing the rules," says Ms. Kearns, 36, a native of
Burlington, Ont., who opened her school last summer after years of living in
Taipei, Shanghai, Honolulu and San Francisco.
Consider the green hat. The phrase
"wearing a green hat" in Chinese sounds like the word for cuckold,
so a green hat on a Chinese man is said to mean that his wife is cheating on
him. Not a good gift, then.
A clock is a symbol of time running out -
in other words, impending death. The colours white and black are also
associated with death, so better choose a different colour of wrapping
paper. Scissors and knives symbolize the cutting of ties, not exactly the
message to send if you are trying to forge ties with a business partner.
At a banquet, eating everything on your
plate implies that your host didn't serve you enough food, a harsh insult.
Chopsticks left in a rice bowls look like the sticks of incense that Chinese
burn at family graves, another unpleasant reminder of death.
Ms. Kearns says a few hours spent
learning simple dos and don'ts can save Canadian business people a lot of
grief.
As well of running The Mandarin School,
her language-training institute in downtown Toronto, she gives seminars and
speeches.
She also offers one-on-one lessons on
what she calls "cultural intelligence."
In China, she counsels clients, it's not
just the nuts and bolts of the business deal that matter. "It's all
about building relationships and saving face."
Learning a few words and phrases of
Chinese helps. Chinese, she says, will be grateful and impressed that you
bothered.
Mastering simple etiquette counts, too.
Don't just take a person's business card and stuff it in your pocket.
Receive it formally with two hands and study it with interest. It's a sign
of respect.
Be prepared for the ritual of giving and
receiving gifts. A book about Canada or a bottle of ice wine make nice gifts
if you are going to China, for example.
"Chinese value ritual in business
dealings," said Ms. Kearns.
The drug company Roche Canada hired her
when it invited a group from its China arm to visit Toronto. After hearing
her advice, it decided to put on a special greeting. Instead of sending a
single person out to usher the arriving visitors into the office - the usual
Canadian practice - the whole executive committee came down to the lobby to
greet the delegation and introduce themselves. Afterward, there was a group
picture.
Little things like that matter, says Ms.
Kearns, but it's not just understanding manners that makes a difference when
doing business with the Chinese. Understanding their attitudes is important,
too.
Chinese business people, she says, have a
very different idea about time. Canadian executives often travel to China,
strike a deal and then expect to agree on an orderly timetable for making
things happen.
Chinese generally don't work that way.
Things happen when they happen, and Canadians have to learn not to fret when
there is no agreed schedule of events.
They also have to learn how to tell when
Chinese are saying No. Unlike bluff and open Canadians, Chinese don't like
to give a direct negative answer, Ms. Kearns says. They might say
"maybe" or "I'll think about it" instead. The answer is
still No.
Ms. Kearns' client Guy Kieley learned the
hard way about the perils of being too direct. A retired municipal
administrator, he taught English in China, then started up a business
recruiting other English teachers to work at schools there.
He talked to some partners in Shenzhen,
the bustling industrial region next to Hong Kong, and they promised to drum
up business for him. When he didn't hear from them for a while, he got
frustrated. His e-mails were going unanswered. Nothing seemed to be
happening.
So he wrote them a strong message saying
they had to improve communication to make the partnership work. He hasn't
heard from them since.
After taking Ms. Kearns' class, "I
now realize that I've insulted them. I've made them lose face. I didn't
understand the culture."
If he had to do things over, Mr. Kieley
said, he would bring up the communication question more delicately and
obliquely.
Another thing that Ms. Kearns teaches
Canadians is the difference between socializing and doing business. In
China, she says, there isn't one.
One businessman she knows went to China
with high hopes. He spent his days talking deals and his evening in his
hotel room doing desk work and communicating with his office back home. But
nothing was working out in his deal-making and he wondered why.
The problem was that he was missing the
after-hours socializing that is a key to building trust with Chinese
business people.
"If you're not going out and doing
the drinking, they don't feel they have a relationship with you and they
won't tell you what's really going on," Ms. Kearns says.
The casual Chinese attitude about
contracts is another sign of their reliance on relationship instead of
written deals, she says.
"A contract for them is more a
document for discussion. You sign the contract and then you talk."
Ms. Kearns says that for all the cultural
pitfalls of doing business in China, business people should look on it not
as a trial, but as a broadening experience.
As she puts it in a company handout:
"Keep an open mind and an attitude of respect and willingness,"
she writes. After all, this is "an opportunity to learn about a new
culture!" - by
Marcus Gee GLOBE
& MAIL 2007 August 27
Mind your
manners, mainlanders warned
No shouting, no fighting, no extortion. New guidelines for Chinese travelers abroad cover a wide range of dangerous or problematic behavior to help head off trouble.
No
shouting, no fighting, no extortion. New guidelines for Chinese travelers
abroad cover a wide range of dangerous or problematic behavior to help head
off trouble.
Travelers are told to avoid drawing
attention to themselves, respect local customs and keep a wary eye on
strangers.
"Keep peaceful in public places,
don't talk loud and avoid sticking out," say the guidelines, seen on
the Foreign Ministry's website yesterday.
"Don't get involved in other
people's quarrels in public places," it adds - a nod to the Chinese
habit of gathering in large crowds to observe, or even take part in, others'
arguments and fights.
The suggestions also urges Chinese
tourists to respect local laws and not to attempt to cut corners or make
threats.
"When your legal rights are
violated, avoid making things worse and resolve the problem through upright
channels, not through extortion or other illegal methods," the
guidelines say.
Along with the booming economy, Chinese
have become a major presence in international tourism in recent years. While
most are welcomed for the cash they spend, there have been incidents of
Chinese abroad causing offense through obnoxious behavior and being preyed
on by criminals or cheats.
The number of Chinese who travel outside
their homeland each year is expected to nearly triple to 100 million by 2020. - STANDARD
22 Aug 2007
Etiquette for Chinese
The most popular class at the Shanghai Institute
of Foreign Trade does not teach wannabe entrepreneurs the secrets of
accounting or international law. Instead, Professor Li Zhiguo instructs his
1,600 students on a graver subject: manners. A line, he lectures, should be
an orderly procession, not a rowdy scrum. Spitting on the street is not
nice. When eating a Western meal, the diner should cut meat into small
pieces with a fork and knife, although that should never be done to bread.
And remember: if hosting Americans at a restaurant, don't order endangered
species or internal organs. "We think they are delicacies, but
Americans think they are disgusting," he says, as students scribble
down the tips.
China may claim 5,000 years of civilization--as
locals often remind visitors from younger nations--but over the past
half-century most of the country forgot its collective manners. Mao Zedong,
the founder of the People's Republic, considered teeth brushing a Western
affectation and thought nothing of greeting international dignitaries while
wearing patched trousers. Although China has mostly shed Chairman Mao's
class-busting ideology and cities like Shanghai boast skyscrapers and
bustling shopping malls, the deportment of some citizens evokes an era of
subsistence. Even some members of the new bourgeoisie indulge in
conspicuously boorish behavior, like hawking phlegm onto the pavement or
picking their noses at business meetings. "Chinese have gotten rich so
fast, they haven't had time to learn the manners that usually go along with
wealth," says Hedy Lee, a Chinese-American etiquette educator in
Beijing, who recalls a recent sign in her apartment's elevator requesting
residents not to urinate or defecate in it. "If we want to be members
of the global community, we have to break those bad habits."
As China prepares to be host to the Olympics in
2008, officials have begun to acknowledge the need to raise the level of
public civility in order to show the world the country's advances after just
three decades of economic reform. Once the flood of foreign visitors
recedes, bureaucrats hope the manners makeover will stick with Chinese
citizens and help make their cities more livable. "We are quite behind
when it comes to fundamental etiquette," concedes Chen Zhenmin, deputy
director of the Shanghai Spiritual Civilization Office. In Shanghai, China's
most cosmopolitan city, local leaders have unveiled a campaign called
"Be a Lovely Shanghainese" that instructs citizens to give up bus
seats to the elderly, urinate directly into the toilet and refrain from
stealing plants from parks. The campaign has recruited 800,000 volunteers to
help direct Shanghai's chaotic traffic and asks civil servants not to dye
their hair exotic shades like red, green or blue.
For China's entrepreneurial élite, the new
civility push is also a business opportunity. Private etiquette schools are
proliferating to meet demand from yuppies who crave guidance on eating,
dressing and working in an international environment. At Shanghai's June
Yamada Academy, students pay $900 for a multiweek course during which they
dine at a five-star hotel and learn the difference between a fish knife and
a butter knife. Meanwhile, at a Shanghai etiquette workshop for HR managers,
instructor Liu Wei plucks a man out of the crowd and castigates him for his
multihued pink tie. "It's a well-known fact that President Clinton's
good taste in ties won him many votes," says Liu.
Many Chinese etiquette instructors and authors of
best-selling manners manuals are progeny of the high-class aesthetes Mao
tried to eradicate. Professor Li of the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade
is the descendant of a cotton tycoon, and grew up eating Western fare like
rye bread and cheese for breakfast. His brother, a doctor, was killed during
the Cultural Revolution. The fact that Li leads classes on Western etiquette
says something about how far China has come since the days of Mao, but it is
also a reminder of the gaps that still exist between China and the developed
world. "It's only people like us who can teach good manners," says
Li. "Nobody else knows anything." - By Hannah Beech
with reporting by Bu Hua/Shanghai
TIME
6 November 2005
Learning Good Manners
By their thank-you notes you shall know them. By "them," I mean
those people who understand that reciprocity is the ethical glue in
relationships, as opposed to those others in whom a sense of entitlement
reigns supreme.
In the first category are people with good manners. They write thank-you
notes that gladden your heart and make you feel cherished. In the second are
those whose thank-you notes -- when they get around to them at all -- are
rote, impersonal, joyless affairs that make you feel insulted.
There is no mystery to raising children who, as adults, will
automatically acknowledge and respond with real gratitude to the gifts and
privileges that come their way in life. Civil behaviour can be acquired as
easily as a second language. But it must be acquired in earliest childhood,
or it will never seem natural later on.
The advice I would give to new parents (if only they would ask!) is this:
If you are seeking the easiest route to producing considerate adults, teach
your toddlers manners. If they can sing along with Barney, they can also say
"please" and "thank you". Basic good manners blunt the
naked egoism of children and help form the cocoon out of which will
eventually emerge the more beautiful, nuanced and independent conscience.
Consideration for your fellow human is a socially acquired phenomenon.
Values and principles are not the residue of abstruse intellectual inquiry;
they may be inferred from the basic civilities of everyday life. Jane
Austen's entire oeuvre tells us that.
I came to this conclusion long before I had children of my own, largely
by observing the relationship of my mother's friend Frieda (names have been
changed) with her son Spencer. Frieda became my anti-role-model for
motherhood. She believed that children should be "free" to realize
their potential, and that constraints of any kind on their behaviour would
cramp their burgeoning self-esteem. The superficially artificial
"performance" aspect of traditional manners fell into that
category for her. It was no coincidence that Spencer became something of a
terror -- not the Dennis the Menace kind, more the Robespierre sort.
I prudently kept my distance from Spencer when social occasions brought
our families together. One day, however, Frieda asked me if I would like a
job -- a real job. She made an offer no 12-year-old could resist: How would
I like to write Spencer's bar mitzvah thank-you notes for $1 per card? This
was not chump change for a kid in 1954. Knowing Frieda, I never even thought
to ask why Spencer was not being forced to write his own.
Thus it was that I sat in the very beautiful morning room of Frieda's
elegant home in Toronto's Forest Hill Village and, while watching Spencer
disport himself in the garden -- pulling the wings off dragonflies, perhaps
-- composed thank-you notes for a solid four hours. I am proud to say that I
did not repeat myself, which I easily could have done, with no less
gratitude on Frieda's part. But I was so ashamed of my assignment that I
threw myself into the job with near-fanatical conscientiousness.
"Dear Mr. and Mrs. Greenblatt, I am so glad that you could join me
and my family at my Bar Mitzvah celebration. Your very generous gift was
much appreciated. I have always wanted to own a complete set of Shakespeare,
and this will go far in achieving that goal."
That incident was the first great lesson of my youth to teach me the
indissoluble link between basic good manners and the foundations of civil
society. It taught me that adults do not necessarily know that the one is
dependent on the other, even when they are educated, well-meaning and
unconditionally loving. I was very sorry that Spencer's bar mitzvah guests
were being duped (although in retrospect they must have known), but it had a
lasting impact on me personally.
When I married, I laboured to make every wedding present thank-you note
an individual and interesting bijou. For months afterward my parents'
friends called to express their delight and appreciation for the trouble I
had taken. This was expiation of a sort for my complicity in Frieda's moral
delinquency.
With each milestone in the life cycle where gifts were involved, my
children learned to compose ever more graceful and appropriate thank-you
notes. After their bar and bat mitzvahs, I supervised their writing, and
vetted every single one. That was fortunate: I was able to intercept my
son's letter to his beloved and adoring grandparents, which began,
"Dear Mr. and Mrs. Richmond."
My adult children are now successful in the usual ways, and unfailingly
agreeable company to boot. It isn't just me who says so, either. Part of it
may be luck, but I like to think that it is also because they learned very
early in life that consideration for others -- good manners -- would be
rewarded and bad manners punished. Their instinct to behave responsibly
always dominates their sense of entitlement. I am convinced that it is
partly because they learned that no one was going to write their thank-you
notes for them in life, and that each one they wrote -- even though no one
else would know -- had to be as unique as the recipient, a metaphor for the
respect we owe our fellow man. -By Barbara
Kay National
Post 2 May 2002
Etiquette for Executive
Assistants
"Let's face it, we've all been one, haven't
we? A cocktail weenie, that is."
The women in the packed room at the Administrative
Professionals Conference in Toronto nod their heads in agreement as Karen
Mallett begins the session that promises to deliver them all from the depths
of a particularly crippling form of social dysfunction: successfully mixing
business and pleasure.
Mallett, who is one half of the duo known as
Canada's Etiquette Ladies, is here to tell the women how they can do better
at parties. She is here to explain how they can extricate themselves from an
interminable conversation with a smile and a handshake.
But perhaps the most important advice she will
deliver is this little secret on how to adeptly juggle a cocktail glass
without losing the ability to shake hands or hand over a business card:
"Hold your drink in your left hand ... Your name tag goes on your
right-hand side. Business cards go in your right-hand pocket.
"This way, you're not switching hands. You
see people struggling when they're out trying to juggle everything or
switching sides all the time. This way is so much simpler."
This is invaluable information for the women --
and they are almost exclusively women -- who are attending Mallett's
workshop. They are called administrative assistants and executive assistants
and, only rarely now, secretaries, and they are increasingly being pushed to
attend social functions on behalf of their bosses and as their company's
representative.
Forget the image of the secretary of old, locked
away in an office tower taking dictation or filing reports. The new breed of
secretary is just as likely to be dispatched to a fundraising reception or a
client appreciation banquet to socialize on her company's behalf. They are
often the public face of the company in a social setting where the business
stakes are high and the possibility of failure all too real.
In a recent survey of administrative professionals
across North America, the American Management Association found these
workers were spending almost 60% more time on the manager's non-traditional
business than they were a year ago. The same survey indicated that although
the main responsibilities continued to be tasks such as correspondence,
managing appointments and organizing meetings and events, handling
non-traditional business accounted for about 11% of their workload.
"The image has lagged behind the
reality," says Diane Kelk, spokeswoman for the Canadian Management
Centre, which organized the three-day conference. "These are dynamic,
interesting people in these jobs. They are not just filing anymore."
It is perhaps a testament to how valuable they
have become that the employers of more than 450 administrative professionals
from across the country paid about $1,500 each just to sign them up for the
conference, and then covered the costs of airfare and hotel bills on top of
that.
Toni Daguerre, a 45-year-old secretary with a
National Institute of Health laboratory in Montana, is here because she says
social skills are the key to her advancement. "Our lab is growing and
there's going to be a lot of opportunity for promotion. Those jobs are going
to go to the people they've seen acting with poise at parties."
 
"You know that the minute
you take a bite out of something it's going to end up all over
you. And then who's going to come along and talk to you -- the
big client or the boss."
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Mallett's workshop, "How to Avoid Being a
Cocktail Weenie," was packaged as part of what was called a learning
track on career development, which put it in the same category as workshops
on "Marketing Your Image," "Learning the Tools to Play the
Game" and "Finding a Voice in the Global Economy."
The modern concept of business being conducted
everywhere has made learning how to finesse social skills as critical as
mastering a new computer program. - by Ann Marie
Owens National
Post 24 April 2002
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