Personal Culture

Culture refers to the shared values, traditions, norms, customs, arts, history, folklore and
institutions of a group of people. Meanwhile, cross-cultural involves comparison between two or
more different cultures. Cross-cultural may be a different task to go through, hence, selfreflection is very important in order to adapt to a new environment or a new culture.
I am a Chinese who was born in Malaysian. Buddhist is my religion and Mandarin is my
mother language. Malaysia is well-known as a multi-ethnic, multicultural and multilingual
society because it consists of varies races and cultures of the different people. I speak Mandarin
with my family members but in college, I have friends with different ethnic background, hence,
we communicate by using English. Malay is the national language of Malaysia, every Malaysian
is required to learn Malay since primary school. Thus, I also speak Malay. Malay language is
often used during communicating with local Malays.
Malaysian celebrate several festivals of different ethnic group but as a Malaysian
Chinese, Chinese New Year is the main festival that my family and I celebrate together. Family
reunion dinners are held on the night of Chinese New Year eve and red pockets that consists of
money will be received from the elders during the period. Besides, I also celebrate other cultural
festivals such as Qing Ming festival, Mid Autumn festival, Nine emperor gods festival and so on.
Regarding food cuisines, Malaysian Chinese enjoy eating different types of food. Most of
the time, I have Chinese cuisines at home. However, I may also eat Malay, Indian and cuisines of
other ethnics. Malaysian Chinese take table manners very seriously especially eating with
someone who is elder. The eldest person is usually required to eat first then followed by the
younger. Besides, if you are inviting someone to have meal together, you are assumed to invite
your guest in a certain manner. It is very crucial to consider your guests dignity. If someone fails
to carry out this action, it may results in the cutting off the relations and connections between the
host and the guests. Therefore, invitations have to be made very wisely.

Scenario
South Korea is a country in Asia which consists of quite a number of modern cities, they
combine and become a nation. The cultures in the country are always full of energy and
enthusiasm. Due to this reason, South Korea has become a great place to live, study and work in
recent years.
The education level in South Korea is almost the same with a lot of huge tertiary
education such as in United Kingdom, United States and so on. Koreans emphasize much on
their academic especially higher education. Students are extremely concern about their studies,
hence, the academic environment in the country is very serious and competitive. In Seoul, there
are plenty of well-known universities that successfully attract many international students to
make their decisions on studying in South Korea. Every year in Malaysia, government will
provide Public Service Department (JPA) scholarships to a batch of Malaysian students to further
their tertiary education in South Korea.
The government of South Korea offers a variety fields of study available for international
students. One of the most popular fields includes business-related courses. As a business student
in Malaysia University, I am very lucky to get a chance to do twinning program to Business
School of Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea for 2 years.

Intercultural Communication Problems

Studying in South Korea, for me, is like having a new life, like turning into a baby. I have
to put a lot of efforts in going through everything steps by steps to reach where I was before I
came here. When I first arrived in the country, language barrier is the most overwhelming among
all of the intercultural communication problems especially during the first three months. I was
surrounded by a strange language and alphabets in the city, caused me to lose ability in
communicating. Most of the Koreans speak only Korean language. Unlike Malaysians who
combine two or more languages when communicating with each other, Koreans do not apply
other languages in their daily conversations. Before I become fluent in Korean, the only language
that I could use to speak with them is English. It is not a big deal to communicate within
university areas because university students can actually speak and understand some basics
English, they are just very shy to talk in it. However, when I went out of university areas, it is
tougher for me to carry out a communication especially with the elder generation. Most of the
elder generation in the country speak very little and limited English. Even body language is
applied, they still could not get what I mean. Sometimes, this may be very frustrating for me
because I could not find an alternative way to convey my message.
Besides, cultural differences in behaviors also create obstacles to effective
communication. The community in South Korea is very traditional. They act and behave
respectfully to each other especially to the elders. In South Korea, it will be a serious case if you
are not being respectful to someone older than you. Everyone is required to use different
vocabulary and grammar when speaking with a higher status person. Making eye contact with
someone who is speaking to you or whom you are speaking to is also very crucial in Korea. Eye
contact may be a symbol of disrespect and lead to miscommunications. People may consider you
are unfocused or not interested in the topics that they are discussing. In Malaysia, there is not
much restrictions such as in Korean when a communication is ongoing. Meanwhile for Korean,
both postures and gestures are very important with the purpose of showing your respect to the
person you are talking to.

Culture Shocks and Adaption Problems

After I have decided to do twinning program in South Korea, I expected that there will be
some degree of culture shock and it may be tough for me to cope into a new community
especially for the first few months.
Unlike in Malaysia, we do not have to separate garbage and waste to be recycled, we will
throw all rubbish into a huge black plastic bag and put it into a huge bin. But in South Korea,
every houses are required to separate their waste and food trash so it can be recycled as compost
and so on. Anyone found disobey this rule will be fined. In addition, there are fixed hours every
day which the garbage truck will reach your house to collect the food trash and you have to take
out the food trash by your own and throw them into the garbage truck. This action requires a very
high self-discipline to complete. If you did not do so, no one will help you. However in
Malaysia, the workers from department of health and human services will help you to carry out
these actions.
Apart from that, dignity is very important for most Koreans. They care about how people
look on them and what people think about them very much. Hence, they will dress up very nicely
once they got out from home, even just going to a market nearby to buy a loaf of bread. Due to
the hot weather in Malaysia, Malaysians like wearing slippers but in South Korea, you can rarely
find a pair of slippers on the streets, Koreans only wear slippers at home. It might sound
unreasonable but in downtown of the country, not only women, men will also put on make-up.
This may not happen in Malaysia because Malaysians would think a man who put on make-up is
a weirdo.
After coping into Korean society, I conclude that there are three main stages to culture
shock. I experienced different feelings and emotions at each stage of culture shock. I named the
initial stage as honeymoon stage. At this stage, I found myself was in awe of all I see in the
country. Everything including the people is unfamiliar for me, but I viewed them with a sense of
novelty. I was curious about the differences between the cultures of both countries so I was likely
to put more efforts in getting better understanding about the country. Then it is followed by
negotiation stage. I start to feel pessimistic about the new environment. Cultures differences
caused me to feel left out by the society and homesick kicked in. Fortunately, the stage did not
last long and I managed to go through those hard times. During the final stage, I abled to adjust
my feelings, emotions and lifestyle according to the cultures of the country. Thus, I named it as

adjustment stage. I managed to adapt to the new environment, accept the culture differences, and
generate more positive feelings and views towards the country.
Before completely adapting to the new environment, I have encountered some problems
in dealing with culture differences. My Koreans friends seemed do not interested in getting to
know other cultures. They enjoy living in their own ways and play between themselves. I
assumed this situation to be occurred is because communication barriers. We do not share the
same language at first, it was difficult for us to understand each others message clearly.
Moreover, Koreans students often attend university on scholarships from the government. One of
my Korean friends mentioned that foreign students get easier admission to Korean universities
than them, so they have to work really hard to attend and stay in a good university of the country.
Hence, Korean students are more likely to pay more attention on their academic than
socialization. Regarding the inactive interaction between my Korean friends and I, I could not
rely on them when I was going through the hard times in coping to the new environment.

Adaption to New Culture

Fortunately, I managed to find several effective ways in helping myself adapting to the
new cultures. I understand that the first thing I have to do is to be fluent in Korean language. I
attended an intensive Korean language course in language center three days a week. After I can
speak to Koreans with their native language fluently, I realized that they are actually very helpful
person. They help me to learn the native language in depth and overcome social barriers I have
faced when communicating with locals. In addition, I also make lots of friends who speak my
native language and share the same cultural background. We share similar feelings toward
cultural differences, help each other to pass through all the hard times, unload things that are
bothering us.
When I was alone, I took time to enjoy things that are familiar to me. For instance,
cooking Malaysia cuisine to cure my homesick. Even there are plenty of culture differences that
annoyed me, I always think of something which make me raise the value of the country. Trains
and Rapid Transit in South Korea always being on time which is a rare occurrence in Malaysia.
Koreans are also very serious toward service issues, hence, all shops especially restaurants
provide really good services to customer. Every citizen of the county plays their roles in making
sure the public places to be clean all the time. It is really a great comfort to live in a hygienic
environment. Last but not least, I always encourage myself to stay positive minded. Reminding
myself of the initial motivation that bring me to study abroad in South Korea is really important.
By this way, I am able to get strengths to keep moving on. After quite some times of adjustments,
I managed to go through the tough times from culture shock, control my feelings and emotions
toward culture differences that I have experienced. I rarely feel homesick and have less negative
emotions to the host country.