Respect Through Our Own Culture: The Real Mark of an Advanced Nation

We Must Show Respect Through Korean Culture — The Mark of a True Advanced Nation

These days I often find myself thinking.

'What does a truly advanced nation look like?'

Economic power? Technology? Welfare? Of course, all of it matters.

But what I want to talk about is the way we treat people.

Is 'making things easy' really the same as respect?

When we deal with foreigners, we often say things like this:

'They're a foreigner, so just keep it casual.'

'No need to bother with the Korean way of greeting.'

'They'll understand even if we drop the formalities.'

'Choosing from the menu must be hard for them. Do you just want a hamburger?'

Beneath all these words lies a kind of simplification that goes by the name of 'consideration.'

But if you look closely,

it is also a way of 'hiding the very core of our culture.'

That is what I think.

True consideration isn't about giving someone comfort; it's about showing them respect.

And in Korean society, 'respect' is woven into the structure of our words and actions —

in other words, it is deeply embedded in our culture.

We are a nation of etiquette.

When you walk into a restaurant: 'Welcome.'

Before a meal: 'Please, you first.'

Holding a door open: 'Right this way.'

Even to a stranger you've just met: 'Excuse me, are you all right?'

In all these words and gestures lies a heart that puts the other person first.

We call that 'etiquette.'

This etiquette is not merely a formality.

We were raised this way, we kept our relationships this way, we shared our hearts this way.

Korean etiquette is the art of refining emotion and putting consideration into words.

Only when we show respect through our culture does that culture spread.

I believe this.

Treating foreigners through Korean culture is what real respect looks like.

Speaking politely, observing table manners, offering a warm greeting.

Even if it feels unfamiliar to them, we should convey our hearts in our own way.

Only then can they feel what kind of culture we live within.

That is where it begins.

They learn, too.

They follow along, too.

They come to feel respected, too.

And that respect returns to us as a deep understanding of, and affection for, Korea.

Not imperialism, but becoming a nation that 'seeps in'

We know how Western imperialism forced its culture on others,

and how many wounds it left behind as a result.

So we must go the opposite way.

Not to dominate through culture, but to embrace through culture.

And it doesn't begin with grand institutions or overseas PR budgets.

In restaurants, in cafés, on buses —

it comes down to how we treat foreigners.

That is where our dignity reveals itself.

That is where the true face of an 'advanced nation' becomes visible.

In closing: respect should be offered in a familiar form

I do not look down on foreigners.

Nor do I think they are rude simply because they don't know Korean culture.

But with the etiquette and the architecture of heart we have long kept,

we can welcome them.

That is the finest welcome we can offer,

and it is a form of cultural leadership only we can provide.

Our attitude toward migrant workers — where does Korea's true dignity reveal itself?

Korean society has now moved beyond the age of multiculturalism and into the age of multinational labor.

Restaurants, factories, farms, construction sites…

We live within a structure that can hardly run for a single day without migrant workers.

And yet I more often see people who treat them with 'indifference' than with 'gratitude.'

And that indifference often comes from ignorance, prejudice, and sheer inertia.

Before they are 'workers,' they are human beings.

They have families, they have hometowns, they have dreams.

To come to a foreign land, a country where they can barely make themselves understood,

and to work there by the sweat of their brow — that alone is already courage, already dignity.

And yet we sometimes

treat them as nothing more than 'people we can't really talk to,'

or see them as nothing more than 'labor we can hire on the cheap.'

This is not respect.

This is becoming part of a system that uses human beings like disposable parts.

Real Korean culture lives inside a single word

The roots of Korean culture are courtesy and jeong (情) — the warmth of human feeling.

And that is not confined to any particular group.

Toward migrant workers, too, we

'Thank you for your hard work today.'

'Have you eaten?'

'Has the work been hard on you lately?'

— we should be able to say things like this, warmly.

Words like these are what let someone feel the country called Korea.

Words like these convey not merely a 'wage,' but 'respect.'

Where will we show Korea's dignity?

The G7 summit hall matters. K-culture matters.

But the true dignity of Korea lies 'on the ground.'

• On the way home after work, in the moment of waiting for the bus together

• At lunchtime, in the moment of standing in line together to scoop up kimchi stew

• In the moment of running over, anxious, to a coworker who has suddenly been hurt

What we do in those moments

proves 'what kind of country this is.'

The words they leave behind as they depart Korea are 'Korea's true report card'

We often fret over foreign news coverage or national brand rankings.

But the migrant workers who have actually lived, worked, and struggled on Korean soil for years —

isn't what they say as they return home the truest evaluation of all?

'The work in Korea was hard, but the people were warm.'

'My boss always greeted me so kindly.'

'At first I was scared, but later they treated me like a friend.'

A single sentence like that changes the world.

It changes the nation's image, the industrial ecosystem — and ourselves.

In closing: what kind of advanced nation do we want to be?

This is what I believe.

A truly advanced nation begins with the way it treats the weak.

A truly strong country is one that knows how to convey respect quietly.

Migrant workers are the closest neighbors Korean society has.

The way we treat them

tells us the future of our society.