This is reasonably well written, except for what I hope is a typo of the word "congratulate":
Whenever they guess a correct answer, I congradulate them
In this sentence, I was interested in your choice of the word "guess," as if they had no reason or justification at all for the answer/s they give. Or perhaps do you only answer "why" when they have no such reason?
Some cultures are concrete cultures; they do not think in abstracts. "Why" generally asks for abstractions. If one reads the Bible in the original languages, one is struck by the cultural fact that Hebrew thinkers are concrete thinkers. For example, they tend not to talk about "joy" per se; rather they say "the mountains skip like lambs," or some other more concrete pictorial way of expressing the abstract idea. Greek thinkers, on the other hand, of whose culture we in the Western world are the inheritors, are abstract thinkers, especially in the scholarly world. To abstractors, the question "why" is very meaningful, and as a result disciplines such as (our particular way of doing) science flourish in the western world. To concrete thinkers, the question "why" is not usually asked; rather it is replaced by the question "when?" An abstractor would say "My toe hurts. Why?" The concretizer thinks "My toe hurts. When?" The answer in both cases sound similar and result in similar future behavior. The abstractor says "because I stubbed my toe. Why? Because the chair is in the way. What to do? Move the chair." The concretizer says "it happened when? After I stubbed my toe. Can it be prevented from happening again? Yes, let me move the chair."
I know that the Japanese are concretizers. It is one reason why (thinking abstractly) they seem to be wonderful perfectors, but not notable innovators. They tend not to ask "why does this happen," and so stumble on a new approach, rather, they ask "when," and so improve what exists. You will discover I think that it is the same with Koreans. Even when using the word "why," it means when or how, and you will tend to get an answer more akin to what we might answer to those questions, and they will tend to be see-hear-touch-taste-able explanations rather than an abstraction. Here is another common illustration. Everyone has heard of the Zen koan "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Occidentals tend to be more mystified by this koan (if they have never heard it before) than Orientals, and more amazed by the simplicity of the accepted answer: to swing one hand forward as if to clap - to show rather than to explain the sound. This is concrete thinking. Therefore your asking "why" in the western sense is mystifying in many ways, because it asks them to think in ways not cultural natural, and that, if you have ever really tried to do it yourself, is VERY difficult. I want to come back to this in a minute.
There is a second reason for what you have discovered, and that is, that Koreans, as many of Oriental culture and also many of our own more driven student types, want always to be right. Even more so in our culture, to be wrong is felt more to be a moral failure that an excusable error. This, I think, has to do with the relative values of shame and guilt. We are a guilt culture (I think we are moving away from that to becoming a blame culture, but that is another issue). We carry moral error with us, and feel guilty, if we have a conscience, even if no one knows about the rror. We also tend not to feel guilty about errors with no moral significance. Orientals culturally tend not to experience guilt at all! Rather, they focus on shame. This means that if your error is public, you are shamed. In some cultures, to shame another, to be the cause of another's shame even by bringing it to light, is to be morally reprehensible. In New Guinea, where I lived for eight years, it was a capital offense in the old days. In Japan, it led to hara kiri for the shamed. So if a Korean student does not wish to risk being shamed, s/he may not answer a why question at all! This also may be part of the reluctance you are experiencing. Combine that with the fact that "why" doesn't mean what Occidentals mean by it in their culture, so that their answers are very likely either to be wrong, or to be shown to be inadequate by your subsequent "why," and you have an explanation of what you are seeing. Even though they may come used to the fact that you just don't act like a Korean and do all sorts of counter-cultural things without realizing it, and discount to some degree your constant shaming them in class simply by doing what any good Occidental teacher would do to promote what we call "thinking" more deeply, that shame is still felt. There is a reason why there may be so relatively many suicidal oriental students in western situations. Orientals are not stupid, even though thought patterns differ, and when they catch on to the differences and can think like a westerner, they often excel beyond native westerners. By combining both ways of thinking, I suspect, they simply see more possibilities.
Coming back as I promised to an earlier reference, the problem of absttract vs. concrete thought is not merely cross-cultural. There are many conrete thinkers in our culture as well. All children, to begin with. They are very literal. If you say the moon is made of green cheese, they want to know what it tastes like. The very notion of symbols is difficult of apprehension int he very young. Most children are unable to think abstractly until they hit puberty, when there must be some kind of brain changes as well as other physical changes. It is not that children don't ask why, why, why in trying to figure out how the world works; it is just that a parent knows that s/he has to answer in concrete ways. A philosophical explanation will be useless, and not at all what is asked for! A significant proportion of the population is NEVER able to think well abstractly. Their lives run from one minute to the next. "Why" is not of interest; they want to know what and when and how. As you have noticed, such things have concrete answers! Even in religion, they want answers, not abstract explanations, and they want their answers to be black and white, as nuance-free and as unchanging as possible. Many adults, even those capable of abstract thought, are not comfortable with it and prefer to see their world very concretely; but a large proportion never really develop the ability to do it well at all!
This creates a real problem, in my opinion, when it comes to religion. With due respect, I think you display a misconception relatively common in our culture about the nature of religious faith, but is one especially common among those who do not think well abstractly. "How"is NOT really religion's concern or interest, nor even is "what" or "when,"except, as it were, as clothespins upon which to have the laundry of meaning and purpose. The clothespins are not what are important, even though you diligently keep them and use them. The important questions center on "why?" Why is the world as it is; what is its meaning and purpose? The concrete answers are grist for the thought mill; they are not the center of religious thought.
It may seem that I have just demonstrated how half the population even in abstract cultures think concretely and wonder how this can be so. Remember, it is not that concrete thinkers have no interest or concern in meaning and purpose, but that they express their concern and think about them in concrete ways. They are more interested in certainty, less able to deal with ambiguity and ambivalence perhaps (although everyone has to learn to deal with those things in a pragmatic way: it just will never happen that you will never again stub your toe or bark your shin if you are still walking!) Genesis, for example, is not giving us a recipe book for making people, for all that some fundamentalists seem to imagine it is. It does not tell us God's methods of creation. Rather it answer the questions of Who and Why the universe exists; not how, but why human beings came to be; not what sin broke the ice, but why the relationship between humanity and God is, shall we say, strained. What the meaning of sin is, not what kind of fruit was on the tree or even that there was a tree with fruit. An abstractor would say, "The world is here because it was created by God, WHo being a loving being needed beings to love and by whom to be loved. Sin came about becuase any being that can love has to be able to choose whether or not to love, which means they must be capable of unlove, of selfishness. The break in relationship comes when humanity decides to set its own will above God, to love one's own ego more than God." But that is all abstract, and lots of people can't follow the idea. The Hebrew wouldn't even have tried to express it that way, rather they tell a story that means the same thing.
Further trouble can come when an excessively literal and conrete mind focuses on the details rather than on the purpose of such stories, which does happen in certain fundamentalist Christian and Muslim (and Hindu and Buddhist) sects, where, for example, faith itself is transferred from God to teachings (doctrines) about God, to sacred books, or sacred acts (rituals), and the details become more important than the meanings, or the meanings are seen to be dependent upon the details, rather than the other way around. Among Christians, this shows up when the focus is upon the Bible rather than upon the Christ to Whom the Bible points. The Bible is thew clothespin; Jesus is the laundry!
This is a rather lengthy review; I hope it is helpful. I would like to add this to my own blog and portfolio, perhaps with your own article as the stimulus, with your permission. |
|
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
