Korean Kibun

[Olantern]

I have no idea how much cultural issues played into the decision to cut off CoH because I have no idea how large a hand Korean management took in the decision.  But it certainly can't hurt to know these things.

I do find it troubling that we already have characterizations of people as "evil" in a thread about the nature of harmony, though.

[DrakeGrimm]

I have no idea how much cultural issues played into the decision to cut off CoH because I have no idea how large a hand Korean management took in the decision.  But it certainly can't hurt to know these things.

I do find it troubling that we already have characterizations of people as "evil" in a thread about the nature of harmony, though.

It's human nature. Here, Cracked did a very well put together article on the subject. You can find it here: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-humanity-desperately-wants-monsters-to-be-real/

[Kosmos]

Nice work SR4. I wish I'd had something like this when I dealt with a group of Korean scientists and engineers a few years back.

One issue I ran into then is that Kibun seemed to make them inflexible on cultural matters. Kibun apparently doesn't make much allowance for accommodating the cultural norms of others. The concept of Kibun is simply too deeply ingrained. So you either play by the Korean rules or you are apt to lose Kibun in their eyes or cause them to lose Kibun in their own. And in the former case - as you're info suggests, but which I didn't realize at the time - they consider it polite to avoid those they believe have lost Kibun. Given that most of the Americans (including me) failed to "properly" introduce ourselves, we ended up with one side of the talks actively avoiding the other.

[Atlantea]

I admit - my rage at NCSoft is somewhat tempered by this knowledge. I begin to see that some of their actions make more sense in light of these concepts.

But my rage is still there.

There is a word for what ails NCSoft. That word is provincialism.

I have no idea how much cultural issues played into the decision to cut off CoH because I have no idea how large a hand Korean management took in the decision.  But it certainly can't hurt to know these things.

I would say the cultural issues are HUGE. The hand of the Korean Management has been extremely heavy and heavy-handed.

For an example of what I'm talking about, read the reports and reviews on NCSoft from The Glass Door site:

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/NCsoft-Reviews-E23242.htm

Advice to Senior Management – Stop creating a hostile environment for those that want to bring positive change. Hire better management that are from the game industry. Stop wasting good talent and listen to what people have to say. Take heed of the reviews posted on here.

Advice to Senior Management – To leadership in Korea:

Get your hands out of the darn cookie jar and EMPOWER your employees. You've guaranteed the failure North America and Europe operations because of your bureaucratic, and unnecessary approach to a global business. What works in Korea, doesn't mean it will in other territories. Look at Riot Games for god sake. They empower their Korean HQ to make their own decisions, and they are frequently different than the ones made in America. While they flourish in multiple territories, you're only truly successful in Korea, and even there, you haven't lived up to your potential in years.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop trying to constantly change or micromanage. If you want to do it the HQ way then bring over HQ management. Bringing in washout from other electronic studios makes it much worse.

Advice to Senior Management – If you only listen to the people who tell you what you want to hear you shouldn't be shocked with the general lack of performance and ever increasing turnover.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop think that you are fooling people by holding back information. Everyone knew the layoffs were coming. Everyone knew about the leadership transitions. Have more all-hands meetings like the old days, including P&L.

Obviously these statements are from people who don't understand the Korean thought process and culture. And why should they? They were working here in North America. Not Korea.

The consistency of the complaints and the types of grievances show a pattern.

Obviously we're going to have to turn that pattern to our advantage somehow. I don't know how. And my seething rage at NCSoft is going to prevent me from being much help at this point.

But this knowledge will make me hold off on certain facebook postings on NCsoft's Facebook page until I can be shown a way of wording them that will be more effective in showing that they have VERY MUCH destroyed our "kibun".

[TimtheEnchanter]

I have no idea how much cultural issues played into the decision to cut off CoH because I have no idea how large a hand Korean management took in the decision.  But it certainly can't hurt to know these things.

I do find it troubling that we already have characterizations of people as "evil" in a thread about the nature of harmony, though.

Whether or not these "business people" are evil, business mentality drives humans to do evil things. Business decisions by their very nature are meant to be heartless. Anyone making such decisions, is able to just ignore the human aspect and tell themselves that they are actually thinking morally.

Modern capitalism, has told us that our main goal in life is to hoard money and material possessions; the polar opposite of everything philosophy has been saying for thousands of years. To use the word "evil" when discussing such matters, really isn't far off. The individuals themselves may not be evil, but you could easily use the metaphor that they have been 'possessed by the devil', and if that 'devil' did not exist, the world might be radically different.

Even the catchphrase that everyone uses to dismiss these evil acts, "It's just business", screams how hard people have worked in order to give 'business' carte blanche. Just imagine if every time America slaughtered a bunch of civilians overseas, the President was able to call a press conference and say, "It's just war." Just think about that for a moment. Business likes to tell itself that it is somehow better than war. Yet both of them destroy lives. Business kills, maims, causes poverty, homelessness, starvation, etc. All of these things are also negative aspects of war. Business isn't, and in many cases, decisions that result in such destruction, is even called GOOD business.

The pen is mightier than the sword? Perhaps. But only for one reason, that it has the world fooled into thinking that it isn't doing the same job. At least the sword is honest.

Evil indeed.

[Valjean]

From what I can tell, even NCsoft West doesn't quite understand NCsoft Korea and vice versa. This is part of what's making it hard for us. We're trying to behave as westerners, which the smaller subsidiary may get, but the folks who do call the shots in Korea don't get it at all. And if we try to act in an eastern way, NCsoft west won't get it.

[QuantumHero]

I am trying to understand them, the practical, analytical, business side of me kinda does...or at least is starting to, but it needs a lot more data.  And yet apparently like the Koreans I am a being of emotion, very strong emotions...things like betrayal, crushing hope, and lies set me boiling.  I have a very, very long temper and a great dea of self control for the most part...forgiveness is possible, if Ncsofts abhorent behavior toward us and other communities really is caused by a misunderstanding rather then malise and dehumanization...then I want mutual understanding and education..we can all regain face by *learning* together.

I can forgive but not forget... is it remotely possible that they have so little insight into the western world that *forging* a letter was supposed to help save the Kibun of Tabula Rasa's creater an community....the implication is staggering and very sad.

We are trying to understand you, NcSoft...and help you recover face but I can not do that while you have effectively launched every game, every community with letters writeen in RED and striken all Kibun from our very existance.  You have deemed all your propertes and all those who care about them as inherantly lacking in all value...and in so do *you* have lost face without even realizing it. In repeatedly slaughter the Kibun of the western gaming community you have also lost all Kibun for yourselves.  Harmony comes from compromise, open minds, and open hearts.  Understand that much and we can begin to heal this pain on all sides.

Join us, wash the red away from both of us for we are all stained with it...we have all lost face...together this can be repaired through REAL negotiation.

Sit down at the table in earnest that is what we ask

[Segev]

Tim, I think that is not a useful line of thought for this thread or even this sub-forum. It is taking a significant amount of willpower for me not to actively start arguing the morals of capitalism vs. other socio-economic systems with you. If you want to discuss it further, please feel free to PM me, but please do not continue this sort of discussion in this thread. It just is the wrong place.

Thanks.

[Atlantea]

From what I can tell, even NCsoft West doesn't quite understand NCsoft Korea and vice versa. This is part of what's making it hard for us. We're trying to behave as westerners, which the smaller subsidiary may get, but the folks who do call the shots in Korea don't get it at all. And if we try to act in an eastern way, NCsoft west won't get it.

Perhaps that's something we can work on? Give NCWest our observations and then ask them nicely if maybe we could all get back to the negotiating table with this understanding that there was a mis-characterization or cultural misunderstanding?

It seems with kibun being so central to the culture, to miss that one angle is to have no hope of understanding the rest.

Who knows? Maybe we could raise the morale of NCWest a bit by helping them understand their bosses better?

And wouldn't THAT be a feather in our cap? :)

[Kosmos]

Tim, I think that is not a useful line of thought for this thread or even this sub-forum. It is taking a significant amount of willpower for me not to actively start arguing the morals of capitalism vs. other socio-economic systems with you. If you want to discuss it further, please feel free to PM me, but please do not continue this sort of discussion in this thread. It just is the wrong place.

Thanks.

Thanks for that reply Segev.

[TimtheEnchanter]

Tim, I think that is not a useful line of thought for this thread or even this sub-forum. It is taking a significant amount of willpower for me not to actively start arguing the morals of capitalism vs. other socio-economic systems with you. If you want to discuss it further, please feel free to PM me, but please do not continue this sort of discussion in this thread. It just is the wrong place.

Thanks.

If it's inappropriate, then whatever. I clearly have no point.

[JaguarX]

Business likes to tell itself that it is somehow better than war. Yet both of them destroy lives. Business kills, maims, causes poverty, homelessness, starvation, etc. All of these things are also negative aspects of war. Business isn't, and in many cases, decisions that result in such destruction, is even called GOOD business.

Sad part is is when anyone brings up doing something about that, the view is immediately viewed as "socialist", anti-buisness, wanting to destroy the economy, and used to be labeled "communist" for those old enough to remember those times.

[Atlantea]

Oh - should mention in regards to my above post and elsewhere - I still think we should be making NOISE and warning other gamers off NCSoft products for now.

But we can also "kill them with kindness" at the same time.

Play good cop, bad cop.

Or moral "rope-a-dope" as it were.

[TimtheEnchanter]

Sad part is is when anyone brings up doing something about that, the view is immediately viewed as "socialist", anti-buisness, wanting to destroy the economy, and used to be labeled "communist" for those old enough to remember those times.

Which is probably why it shouldn't be discussed further.

But no, I'm not anti-capitalist. Only the current popular version of it, if that makes sense.

If more businessmen/women had a moral conscience in their work that extended beyond concern for the size of their wallets, nobody would feel the need to complain. That moral conscience has slowly been getting phased out of existence. So while it's true that often customers are getting dehumanized, the folks with the power are doing the same thing to themselves. It's a very sad and vicious circle, and there's a good chance that it's the reason NC is "unable to find a solution." Too much greed for even the chance of a compromise.

On the topic of Kibun, am I right in interpreting it as being similar to good/bad Karma? It all seems to boil down to telling NC, in Western terminology, "What you are doing is immoral/honorless." Are we sure that Kibun factors into the business world over there? It could be just as irrelevant when it comes to business, as social morality is on this side of the pond.

[JaguarX]

A stockbroker once told me "Greed is not a word in the world of buisness."


But you make sense.

It all depends on which morality I would assume. Buisness people usualy dont view themselves as immoral, or in fact most people dont regardless of their action. Most feel they are following the moral code of their environment. It might be a mixture of both. Just like some buisness will contribute to various charities and sponsor things then  turn around and fire people to cover the money they just gave out and consider that morally just.

[unladenswallow]

Tim, I think that is not a useful line of thought for this thread or even this sub-forum. It is taking a significant amount of willpower for me not to actively start arguing the morals of capitalism vs. other socio-economic systems with you. If you want to discuss it further, please feel free to PM me, but please do not continue this sort of discussion in this thread. It just is the wrong place.

Thanks.

It was my post that brought this subject up and I am sorry that it has evoked such a strong response from you. It was not my intent to make this a point of contention but to address an international aspect of the issue that this thread addressed and how it relates to how we address NC Soft. I have strong opinions about similar issues as you apparently do but I unlike you have absolutely no urge to start arguing the morals of any socioeconomic models or systems with any one in this thread. Except of course Anarcho-syndicalism with Tim the Enchanter since he obviously represents the "violence inherent in the system" with his threatening explosive gestures.

I want to comment more but I am currently pressed for time. I will expand on this if needed or requested later.

I leave you with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvKIWjnEPNY

[Atlantea]

On the topic of Kibun, am I right in interpreting it as being similar to good/bad Karma? It all seems to boil down to telling NC, in Western terminology, "What you are doing is immoral/honorless." Are we sure that Kibun factors into the business world over there? It could be just as irrelevant when it comes to business, as social morality is on this side of the pond.

Hmm... No... I don't read it as good/bad karma myself. It's more like... A very codified and rigid code of consideration for others face/feelings.

Or to put it another way - a very powerfully Asian version of "don't rock the social boat".

I think good/bad karma could be -part- of it.

Honor as well.

But as the OP article said, it's a concept that doesn't really have a direct translation. It means many things all at once.

[Fansy]

I had two kibuns for breakfast, and a bowl of nunchi for lunch!

[dwturducken]

I had two kibuns for breakfast, and a bowl of nunchi for lunch!

It is SO hard to fin a good nunchi place in the Midwest!

[WanderingAries]

My brain got lost on the wall of text, but this came to mind:
"That was a waste of a perfectly good explaination."

Code for:
"Shut up and tell us what to do!"
:-p