I have found there to be a significant amount of communication differences between myself and my Korean coworkers besides the language barrier. South Korea is a very high-context culture, meaning that many important things are left implied instead of said, meaning you have to interpret the deeper meaning behind someone’s words often. The culture values harmony and collectivism over explicitly calling people out. Therefore, direct negative feedback is avoided and communicated in a very roundabout way.

One example of this high context communication style in the workplace happened these past two days. I was assigned to translate and format an investor PowerPoint deck. I found this task to be very simple, so I used a Korean to English translator, copy and pasted, then formatted to the best of my ability. I turned in the completed result to my boss after one day. The next morning, he messaged me telling me needed “the sentences to be shorter”. Completely understandable, so I translated it to be a bit shorter and turned it in again. Over the weekend, I got another email from my boss along the lines of “I think it still needs to be shorter to fit. If this is too hard for you, let me know”.

At this point I was a bit confused and had to read the context of the situation. I had already shortened the translation, so I initially was a bit concerned that if I could make the text shorter essential context would be cut out. I had the idea to open up the PPT file from the email I sent. As it turned out, Gmail automatically condenses files over a certain size into a Google Slides, meaning I had essentially sent my boss a completely unreadable and corrupted file twice. At first I was very, very confused about how this was not directly addressed and fixed. However, then I remembered how high-context communication is in Korean society, which made this entire issue make a lot more sense. I think if my boss directly told me the file was corrupted we both would have saved two days of work/waiting for the presentation to be done respectively, though.

There is also a very strong focus on saving face and sparing the other party from embarrassment during many social situations. When my coworkers talk to me, I’ve found that they do not directly correct me whenever I commit a social faux pas. Instead, they tell me things like “maybe this would be better” or “I think that might be good”. It’s up to me to read the room and understand the implicit meaning of what they say. I think I prefer this kind of communication in a lot of ways outside of work settings. It’s polite, avoids any sort of conflict, and we all reach the same conclusion eventually.

I still haven’t fully planned out how I’ll spend the last of my time in Korea. I definitely want to try new foods and buy souvenirs for my friends and family, still. I also really need to go online, make a list of skincare and makeup products I want, then go to Olive Young and buy anything and everything before I leave the country.

I’m also looking forward to traveling to China. I have already decided what cities I will be traveling to and when. I will be going to Beijing, Tai’An, Chongqing, Chengdu, Zhengjiajie, Guilin, Nanjing, and finally Shanghai before returning to Pitt in the Fall. I’m very excited, but there is a lot of planning I still have to do. I’ve spent a lot of time recently searching through hostels and/or hotels, travel itineraries, and figuring out how to book my train tickets.

This week is very light on me work wise. I was told to send some follow up emails to universities, make a list of sites for the boss to check after the English version of the service releases, and make a presentation of everything I’ve done to present to the entire team. Because the team is so small, I feel like I have been able to make a meaningful connection with everyone in the office at least once. Although I haven’t learned as much Korean during this trip as I would’ve hoped, I’m still going to make the most of the final days of my internship.