A look into the time-keeping culture in Korea

   
▲ Twelve minutes late for class.
   
▲ Sitting on the steps in front of the Student Union, waiting for a friend.
   
▲ Waiting in front of the Central Library for a sunbae, who promised to lend her his notes.
   
▲ Fourteen minutes late for a group meeting at the Global Lounge glass seminar room.
   
▲ Sprinting down Baikyang-ro because she is 10 minutes late for a dinner appointment in Shinchon with her boyfriend.
   
▲ Makes it on time for a dongahree, but no one else is there yet.
IT'S TWELVE past nine in the morning as Yu-jin rushes into the classroom and reaches out to touch the electronic attendance scanner with her student ID card. "Beep!" goes the machine and the screen shows, "052****, first hour, tardy." Aw, shucks, she's twelve minutes late and she'll be marked tardy. Again!

  After a hectic morning of classes, Yu-jin is sitting on the steps in front of the Student Union, waiting for her friend to arrive for their lunch appointment. She and her friend had agreed to meet in front of the Student Union at 12 o'clock, but her friend called five minutes ago, saying that she was going to be a bit late. It's 12:07 p.m. already, but where on earth is she? Yu-jin is starting to lose her patience...

  It's 2:15 p.m. and this time Yu-jin is standing in front of the Central Library, waiting for a sunbae, who agreed to lend her his notes. She has been waiting 15 whole minutes, and her sunbae is nowhere in sight. He doesn't even answer the phone, nor does he return her text messages. All Yu-jin can do is keep calling her sunbae, glancing impatiently at her watch, and looking around to see if he has arrived yet...
How much time has Yu-jin already wasted waiting for somebody, or keeping someone else waiting because either she or the other person didn't make it on time for his or her appointment? More than 30 minutes - and she's only halfway through her day. Koreans are so horrible at making it to appointments on time that there is actually a name for it - "Korean time."

"Korean time" - its emergence

  "Korean time" is a term referring to the habit of Korean people failing to make it on time for appointments. It is generally believed that the term was first used by U.S. army officers after the Korean War, as Korean people who worked for U.S. armies in the 1950s were often late for appointments. "I first remember hearing the term 'Korean time' in the 1950s when I was an elementary school student," says Lee Jae-il, a  columnist. "It was very popular and widely used all throughout my middle school and high school years in the 1960s. Back then, there was no reason for Koreans to be very precise about time. Nearly 70% of the population were farmers - what reason is there for farmers to rush?" he exclaims.

"Korean time" no more?

  Some people assert that "Korean time" is a thing of the past, something that does not exist anymore. Lee is also one of those people. "Times changed, and people started to find jobs in companies. If people didn't make it on time for work, they could not keep their jobs. How can an untrustworthy person expect to keep his job?" Lee says that these days, "Korean time" means five minutes before the appointment.

Is it really gone?

  People like Lee strongly believe that "Korean time" no longer exists. Taking a cursory glimpse at the results of a survey conducted by The Yonsei Annals on May 17, it may seem that "Korean time" is not prevalent anymore. After all, 62.2% of the total of 111 undergraduate students responded that "they usually made it on time for appointments," and 54.1% of the students said that "they get to the meeting place either before the prearranged time or right on time." Regardless of what individuals think about their own time keeping habits, however, the dominating social atmosphere is that "Korean time" still exists throughout society, as can be seen through the fact that 73% of the students answered in the affirmative to the question Do you feel that "Korean time" exists in Korean society today?

  Other remaining results of the survey clearly show that "Korean time" is still widespread in our society. A total of 79.3% of the respondents said that "they had experienced waiting for somebody who was late for an appointment." Furthermore, 69.4% of the respondents replied that "they themselves or their counterparts are late for an appointment three to five times out of five appointments." In fact, 15.3% of the respondents answered that "five out of five times, they or their counterparts don't make it on time for their appointments." These figures provide enough evidence that "Korean time" does remain today. The reason people are late may not be that there is no need to be precise about time as was the case 50 years ago, but it seems undeniable that people still do not make it on time for appointments.

Cell phones and "Korean time"

  If people of the past were late for appointments merely because they did not perceive that keeping time was a serious matter, it seems that people of the present have their own reasons for being late - one reason involves cell phones.

  As much as 63.1% of the 111 respondents to the Annals survey held on May 17 replied that they thought "Korean time" became even worse with the prevalence of cell phones. "In the past, when there were no cell phones, there was no way to contact our friends if we were going to be late," points out Lee Kyu-hee (Soph., Dept. of Econ.). "These days, however, it is so simple to delay or cancel an appointment because almost everyone has a cell phone. Even if I think I am going to be late, I don't hurry out, telling myself that I can still call my friend to tell him or her that I might be a little late."

  Strange to say, this phenomenon seems to be quite unique in Korea. "I've observed that Koreans say, 'See you around 6 near Shinchon Station,' and then they call each other at about 6 o'clock and then decide exactly when and where they're going to meet. They end up meeting at 6:30 or something," says Eric, a student from the U.S. "It's not that cell phones aren't prevalent in the U.S., but we don't use cell phones like that back home."


  It might have become easier to contact one another these days, what with cell phones having become widespread, but one thing to keep in mind is that we should seriously refrain from losing our sense of time, and ultimately, we should put an end to "Korean time" once and for all.

   
▲ 1. Do you think "Korean time" exists today?
   
▲ 2. How many out of five appointments are you or others late?
   
▲ 3. When do you usually arrive at the meeting place?
   
▲ 4. Why are you late for appointments?
   
▲ 5. Do cell phones make "Korean time" get worse?

Classification of respondents

Total 111

Sex
Male 43
Female 67
Unidentified 1

Grade
Freshman 30
Sophomore 29
Junior 22
Senior 30

* The survey was not conducted through random sampling, and therefore may contain statistical errors.

What are the problems?

  No doubt there are many problems due to the widespread phenomenon of "Korean time." The biggest problem with "Korean time," according to 36.9% of the respondents, is the resulting waste of time as well as disruption of everybody else's schedule. "About three out five times, the person I was going to meet is late, and I'm usually 15 to 20 minutes late for appointments. The worst thing about this 'lateness syndrome' is that we take away one another's time," says Son Na-kyoung (Jr., Dept. of Business Admin.). In the survey, 35.1% of the respondents admitted that "they were within ten minutes late for appointments," and 9% of the students replied that "they were within twenty minutes late." Think of how much time was wasted due to these 44.1% of the students who were up to 20 minutes late.

  Other problems with "Korean time" include "affliction inflicted on the person who has to wait (22.5%)," as well as "the concern that 'Korean time' might become accepted as the standard for time in this vicious circle (21.6%)." This problem requires a closer look because it actually seems to be happening. In fact, when asked why they were late for appointments, 22.5% of the students answered that "they set out late from the beginning because they expected other people to be late anyway." We can already see the students falling into the trap of the vicious circle.

  With all these undesirable side-effects of "Korean time," it is quite lamentable that college students, who may later on become influential figures of society or perhaps even prominent leaders on the international stage, have such a lax attitude towards time appointments. It is even more deplorable as these students know perfectly well that they should keep time, but fail to act upon their knowledge. A full 43.3% of the students confessed that the major reason they were late was that "they tried to make it on time, but ended up arriving late because it took them longer to get prepared than they had originally expected."

Overcoming "Korean time"

  As to how the problem should be solved, 48.6% of the respondents replied that "each individual should alter one's awareness about the importance of keeping time." Another 36% of the respondents answered that "the whole social atmosphere has to change for the problem to be resolved." To students, "Korean time" seems to be a relatively trivial matter when compared to other big social issues, so it is natural that the majority of the students believe that "Korean time" is not a problem to be solved through nationwide campaigns or strict regulations. It is plausible that the best way to solve the problem is to find a solution at the individual level, but by the looks of it, it will take quite a long time until the phenomenon vanishes entirely.

Lost time in real life is lost time for good

  Going back to Yu-jin's hectic day, being late for appointments and waiting for others in return, we can see that Yu-jin lost 67 precious minutes throughout her busy day. Soccer players get compensated for lost time (injury time) after they finish each 45 minute half. However, in real life, 24 hours is all you're going to get each day, and even if you spend 67 minutes a day waiting for others, you're not going to be compensated for that time. Time lost once is time lost forever, so why don't we all start out for our next appointment just 10 minutes earlier? It will make all the difference in our lives.

* Photographed by Bang Hyun-duk

저작권자 © The Yonsei Annals 무단전재 및 재배포 금지