MetaKnigel If the Rule is Broken–Break It.

A Bullet in the Foot

Living here in South Korea, I have encountered an interesting cultural occurrence. It's widespread throughout the country. I'm sure many of you are aware that Koreans are socially obsessed with learning English. Massive amounts of time, money, and energy go into learning English. It's a massive industry. Many of the highest level jobs will not hire someone unless they have a high English score even if English has nothing to do with that job. Now, there is a contrasting phenomenon of being humble and allowing others to save face. What happens when these two cultural motivations run into each other is really interesting to watch. If a fluent English speaking Korean, who usually speaks perfectly, enters a group of other Koreans, the fluent English speaker will actually drop their fluency down into Konglish and a kind of English/Korean fusion. While the fluent speaker has perfect English pronunciation, they instead use the Korean English style of pronunciation. It is hardly recognizable to native English speakers. The consequence of this is that while Koreans are so invested in learning English, they are stuck in a vicious cycle of passing around bad information. If a Korean speaks fluently, they are often scolded by their friends and peers for acting arrogantly instead of actually listening to the proper pronunciation and learning how to speak correctly. Instead of using other people's strengths to their advantage, they sabotage their own goals by letting their ego get in the way.

While I see this in Korean culture, I also have trouble not seeing similar states of affairs within my own culture. I don't know why we dumb ourselves down.