Korean Subway: Elderly Woman Beats Teenage Girl For Talking Back

• Intex wrote on 2010-10-05 02:39

  Quote from Juno;175714:

  Basically, to translate this into American terms, the girl got mud on the woman and then apologized with something akin to 'sorry [insert swear of your choice here]'. The old woman is rightfully insulted then takes it too far by getting physical. At least, that's the best I can make of it based on the information available.

  
  Yeah that makes a lot more sense.
  Thanks for the translation.
  
  Is it still common for these types of elder-young person fights to occur in Korea?
  
  Currently in China the children only have to say a respectful phrase (that changes depending on age/gender) to greet an elder.
  After that children talk very casually and often goof off in front of all the relatives.
  Chinese relatives actually end up spoiling children a lot in middle/upper class families.
• Taycat wrote on 2010-10-05 02:44
  Had ABC ever clarified what he was saying, the thread would not derail....
• Hiccup wrote on 2010-10-05 03:09
  She's senial
• abc33kr wrote on 2010-10-05 03:12
  o.e thought this thread would be locked by now.
  
  So
  

  Quote from abc33kr;175374:

  Sorry in english =/= sorry in korean
  
  Knowing that she is a foreigner, she probably said something like "ㅈㅅ" or "미안"
  When she was supposed to say "죄송합니다" or "잘못했습니다".
  

  
  
  ㅈㅅ or 미안 is basically a half-assed way of saying sorry. In US, people would have been ok with that. But in korea, people would actually want no sorry than a half-assed sorry.
  
  If someone actually said that to an older person, then the elder would say that the person is "싸가지가 없어", which basically means that they are immature cuz they didn't learn the basics of respect. Except in korean that phrase is more of an insult. (I couldn't hear the video well cuz of the screaming, but I'm sure you could hear a "Ssa Ga zi" in the video)
  
  "죄송합니다" or "잘못했습니다" is the right way of apologizing. (if anyone took spanish in highschool, then this would be the usted form). It is more formal and sincere.
  
  
  Now to how the general korean attitude is like: Korea is on a peninsula just like Rome, they are both impatient because of the feeling that they are squeezed by oceans or just the fact that they have little land. Romans due to that attitude, just went out and conquered the world. But Koreans couldn't do that because of this huge China next to them. So their attitude was shaped into being impatient. Also,they are often really religious in whatever they believe in. The attitude that elders should be really respected came from Confucianism and being the zealots the koreans are, they really made respecting elders, serving ones nation, and being super obedient to the king (government) top priorities in life.
  
  So the old lady was probably filled with all those traditional values and then she sees this "foreign" korean who is totally against all her values. I think there could have been a chance that the teenager said "미안" (informal sorry) just because she forgot her korean. Also I felt that the girl could have offered to wipe off the dirt. Yes, the lady was being too impatient and amounted to conflict. Though she could have been patient, there could have been factors that prevented her from doing so.
  
  1. She could have what koreans call "노망", which old people are so mentally tired that they return to a childish state. Ya, anyone could understand a 5 year old fighting someone because she got upset over a dirty dress.
  2. She could have been mentally damaged during the unstable times of Korea with the red scares and Korean War. Maybe her husband died and that is why she is angry all the time.
  
  To clarify my intentions furthermore, I think this conflict is a case of clash between the older generation that knows about traditions and the younger generation that generally don't give a damn about traditions even though they should be respected.
• Lan wrote on 2010-10-05 03:23
  See Abc? It's better if you clarify first :D
• Andy-Buddy wrote on 2010-10-05 03:35

  Quote from abc33kr;175798:

  Clarification

  
  
  Wordy, but clear. Thank you.
• Mrlucky77 wrote on 2010-10-05 03:35

  Quote from abc33kr;175798:

  Insert wall of text explanation here

  
  
  I'm learning more from you than my pre-school level korean books. x.x
• abc33kr wrote on 2010-10-05 03:39
  e.e i always thought a wordy post would turn off other people so i thought i had to write up a short post even though it doesn't contain my full meaning. I guess i was wrong.
• Lan wrote on 2010-10-05 03:41

  Quote from abc33kr;175856:

  e.e i always thought a wordy post would turn off other people so i thought i had to write up a short post even though it doesn't contain my full meaning. I guess i was wrong.

  
  
  We're not stupid, just lazy.
• Phunkie wrote on 2010-10-05 03:43

  Quote from abc33kr;175856:

  e.e i always thought a wordy post would turn off other people so i thought i had to write up a short post even though it doesn't contain my full meaning. I guess i was wrong.

  
  
  Don't knock it 'til you try it.
• Yogurticecream wrote on 2010-10-05 03:51
  Sometimes text that is too short and simple doesn't bring across the point well when something difficult needs to be understood.
  I think both sides are at fault in this case. However, there might be certain circumstances out of control such as the girl not knowing the culture well enough and the elderly woman not being understanding beyond cultural constrains.
  
  This place is fine for discussion just that you need to understand that everyone has a different view of the world and that needs to be respected before you can bring your view out for others to see your point as well.
• Mentosftw wrote on 2010-10-05 03:57
  ABC forgot to mention the Japanese taking over Korea. But that was probably before that old lady was born.
• abc33kr wrote on 2010-10-05 04:15

  Quote from Mentosftw;175876:

  ABC forgot to mention the Japanese taking over Korea. But that was probably before that old lady was born.

  
  
  xP so funny how I was going to put that there, then I thought I could offend Japanese on mabination and as you said, the lady have to be at least 90 years old to fully experience it since Japan took over Korea on like the decade of 1930s.
• Chillax wrote on 2010-10-05 04:22
  Moral codes were enforced strictly by the Japanese, so maybe that woman's parents passed that way of thinking down to her. The Japanese were sometimes very cruel during their occupation of other countries, but they were very honor-bound.
• Zid wrote on 2010-10-05 16:10
  abc, you forget to mention that the traditionalists (from the times when global communication amongst the average person wasn't too possible) are who they are because they consider such values as the true identity of their (insert Oriental) country. Losing it to the generation who are about change and "changing everybody to this one idea" is actually a counter to a heritage's identity. That's actually scary to the traditionalists, to themselves or others around them; one can see that when they have traditionalist relatives that say "We are a dying group".
  
  Of course not everybody who was raised in Western values would understand this at first, since they're more flexible and "sponge" themselves into the concept that everybody is the same as them (for normalcy) or else something is wrong. I don't think it's too much to ask that one considers how Americans (and Westerners in general) view others not like them, just like how such home-born Koreans would view others not like them.