Korean kids tackle tricky Western table manners
Instead of smart-suited businessmen or uniformed pilots between flights, the Hyatt Regency Incheon on Sunday evening was filled with 45 kids aged seven to 12 fumbling with forks and knives at a dinner table.
The children were learning the correct way to eat Western-style meals.
The table manners class began at 5 p.m. with a challenging announcement by the hotel’s restaurant manager: The children were to imagine they had been invited to a banquet at Buckingham Palace.
The instructor ran through the basic protocols for the table at the Queen’s banquet:
Place the napkin on your lap;
Don’t rest your elbows on the table;
Never wave your hands to call the waiters;
And for men, adjust the pace of eating so you don’t finish your meal before the women present.
A boy from across the room raised his hand and asked, “But what if you are really hungry and the girl eats too slowly?”
After a brief silence, the instructor gave his best shot. “If you are really hungry, ask the girl to excuse you.”
After the class, the children had a chance to try out their new skills when they were served a decadent four-course meal at a table adorned with lush yellow tulips and a red tablecloth. Dish followed dish, including seared beef carpaccio, chocolate and strawberry platters.
“I’ve seen many Koreans having difficulty making conversation with Westerners at formal dinners when they travel outside Korea,” says Clint Park, the banquet manager at Hyatt. “Their mind is too preoccupied with the right etiquette for table manners at formal settings. It’s a crucial factor in global situations. If you haven’t been trained in the proper manners from a young age, those two or three hours of eating and sitting at the same table as Westerners could turn into a nightmare.”
Kids take a class on Western table manners at the Hyatt Regency in Incheon last Sunday. By Park Soo-mee
The schools reflect the rising demand to learn “global standards” as Koreans get more opportunities to travel abroad and work with international partners.
The phenomenon is a notable shift from the once popular summer programs in Korean mountain villages where elderly teachers lectured local schoolchildren from the city about Confucian values and traditional etiquette.
Aside from the class at Hyatt, local career management services and community centers also offer classes for children on how to eat and talk in international situations.
Starting March, Lotte Mart’s cultural center in Ansan, Gyeonggi, is offering a children’s manners school based on a program titled “Raising My Kids as CEOs,” which is run by Fine Service Academy, an institute that teaches social etiquette to adults and children.
Western restaurant chains and cooking schools run similar classes, which are run by food experts. Table manners are one area of their courses.
Because Korean food is served all at once, rather than as separate courses, experts note that more emphasis is put on eating than talking in Korea.
But that aside, many parents and child experts say Korean children have plain bad manners in restaurants.
Oh Gyeong-ah, the vice-director of Seoul Culinary College, says the recent phenomenon of Korean couples having fewer children has resulted in a slide in disciplining kids.
On top of that, she says the dining culture in Korea has changed so dramatically over the past decade that kids are confused.
“We dine out more and eat meals like spaghetti more than before,” she says. “We have fewer occasions to eat with elders than we used to. As a result, you see all kinds of eating patterns among kids today. They hold chopsticks and spoons in both hands when they eat Korean food like the way they hold a fork and knife to eat steak. Very few Korean kids nowadays know how to use chopsticks properly, because parents let the kids figure it out their own way.”
Adult diners and parents agree.
Choi Jin, the mother of an 11-year old boy attending the Hyatt’s manners course, signed up for the class earlier this month shortly after a family trip to Sydney where she saw her son eating a piece of fruit with a knife in a fancy restaurant.
“I warn him about proper table manners whenever I can, like eating with your mouth closed or sitting up straight at the table, but these tips don’t get taught in Korean schools. So there is a limit to what a parent can do,” Choi says.
“It concerns me because Korean society will be more globalized when he [her son] grows up, and people will judge you on these things,” she adds.
Parents are also increasingly keen on putting their offspring through programs on general social etiquette.
In a society where exposure to Western culture is considered a career asset, more parents are eager to send their children abroad to learn English and get familiar with Western styles of thinking and behaving.
Lotte Mart’s manners school aims at achieving such goals. The school teaches children tips for exchanging civilities, polite gestures and facial expressions for social occasions, including online situations.
“The kids today have numb facial expressions because they spend so much time playing video games,” says Kim Mi-kyung, an instructor at a manners school run by Lotte Mart. “That dampens the kids’ personalities. It’s unfortunate because so many Korean parents are teaching English to their kids when they are still so young, but even if they graduate from Harvard, these kids need team-building and social skills as well.”
Oh of Seoul Culinary College has made similar observations about kids’ selfish social behavior.
“It’s not just the way they eat,” she says. “They don’t appreciate what they have anymore. Increasingly they are losing a sense of developing social relationships through food. That’s an ominous sign.”
By Park Soo-mee Staff Reporter [myfeast@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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