Comment by Leftium
4 days ago
Koreans have some "hacks" to get around this (age-based) social hierarchy:
1. Some workplaces use English names (and even English language) so co-workers can speak/refer to each other without using the social hierarchy constructs built into the Korean language.
2. Social (partnered) dance clubs go by nicknames for the same reason. Even though I dance with them on a regular basis, I don't know most of my dance friends' real names. I'm not aware of any other country where dancers do this.
> Some workplaces use English names (and even English language) so co-workers can speak/refer to each other without using the social hierarchy constructs built into the Korean language.
That's so interesting. It reminds me very vaguely of Indians escaping the caste hierarchy by converting to Islam or Buddhism. Sometimes the easiest way out of a restrictive system in your culture is just to switch cultural contexts entirely.
Kakao ended the English names a year or so ago due to inevitable confusion, but now people are supposed to add the "nim" (dear) suffix to each other's Korean names instead, which sounds creepy.
The funny part of the Kakao CEO asking to be called Brian is that there was a K-drama (Search WWW) with a fictional tech company, but they also made the CEO name Brian. I suspect if this idea had gone on every CEO would be called Brian.
Never heard someone saying 님 sounds creepy, it's very commonplace in tech companies, Kakao was far from the first to introduce this. I've worked at a place where everyone was ..님 and no one cared.
yeah i agree with being even with coworkers but calling them with english name sounds seriously cringe. I do not prefer.
> 1. Some workplaces use English names (and even English language) so co-workers can speak/refer to each other without using the social hierarchy constructs built into the Korean language.
This is intended but didn't work as such, because wording only constitutes a small part of the whole social hierarchy.