Taiwan and Korea: Nice-off

From the Korean blog The Marmot's Hole:

David Watemeyer writes, “I live in Korea and have made the place my home _ yet I definitely find that Taiwan has the advantage in the consideration, friendliness and help it offers foreigners. The question I ask myself is why, given that the two countries have such similar backgrounds. Do the Taiwanese have a more secure sense of identity than the Koreans? Could it have something to do with Taiwan’s longer period of modern development?”

What follows is an interesting discussion in the comments section about the differences between Taiwan and Korea, mostly supporting the idea that Taiwanese people, to generalize 23 million people, are more friendly than Koreans, to generalize another.

I've been interested in this concept, seeing as all of my studies of Korea, both in person and anecdotally, have led me the closest I've ever been to what I would call a general disdain for an entire people. I don't hate Koreans. Some of my best friends are Korean, but I don't particularly like a lot of what I read and hear about Koreans.

I wrote about it here a while back, just as one example:

What I came to see during [our Korean friend] Luna's time here, though, was that in Korea, these sort of feelings may be more rooted in tradition and, to some extent, xenophobia than in practical worries. Before Luna and [her French boyfriend] Julien came, I new quite well that Luna's family [was completely against their relationship], and I knew that part of it was due to a belief that she should find a Korean man. Yet, I didn't expect to hear her praising the Taiwanese the way she did. She was almost awestruck by the way foreigners weren't stared down here, the way it didn't seem to be a big deal to pass a Westerner on the street.

Sure, I've heard instances of people being yelled at by old Taiwanese men about the fact that there's too many foreingers here or something, but not only do I believe that those instances are few and far between, I've never experienced anything close to that myself. Of course, people look at me. I'm tall. I have red hair and, depending on how long it's been since I groomed myself, a full, even redder beard. These looks, though, are never glares. I don't get stared down by people. Little kids, often, are first shocked to see me then almost giddy with interest in me.

...

When I mentioned [stories of my interaction with Taiwanese people] to Luna, she said she couldn't have imagined these sort of things happening to people living in Seoul. The idea of Fanfan's family being not only accepting but supportive of her relationship with me was astounding to her. Fanfan said that when she told her parent's that I was coming to Taiwan and they offered to let me live with them, she asked, "Won't the neighbors start to talk?" Her mom laughed and said, "Fanfan, don't you know? This is the 21st century!"

I have since been to Korea, and while I wasn't accosted on the street by anyone, I rarely felt very welcome. In fact, the night we arrived, after having planned for months to stay with Luna's family, Luna broke into tears, telling us her family just couldn't accept the idea of me, the American, staying in their house. I don't know if it was because I was American, or just that they would have felt awkward with a non-Asian foreigner in their house.

We got a room at a hostel, and we never met anyone in her family. It was the first time, after staying with friends in Sweden, Italy, Ireland, Poland, Taiwan, and France that I haven't been invited (forced even) to come over and meet the folks.