As I was growing up in America, I thought I learned perfectly how to ¡°respect my elders¡±. My parents taught me that all children (those in kindergarten through high school) must pay particular attention to adults (those out of high school to old age). They also taught me that the older a person gets, the more respect that person should receive. These two notions sum up my American education in regard to ¡°respect your elders¡±.
Wow, was I in for a re-education when I arrived in Korea! In a Confucian society like Korea, I was able to ignore the first courtesy ¡°subjects, respect your king¡±. That wasn¡¯t too difficult in daily life, because I never met a king. I also ignored the second courtesy ¡°children, respect your parents¡±, because my parents were still living in America. However, the third Confucian courtesy, ¡°Youngsters, respect your elders¡± caused me hours of confusion and moments of amusement.
I was first confused when I was learning conversational Korean. Someone asked the teacher ¡°How does one member of a family greet another member of the family?¡±. I thought the answer would be simple. After much discussion I discovered that it depends on three things. First, is it a boy or girl doing the speaking? Second, is the boy or girl speaking to a brother or a sister? And third, is the brother or sister older or younger than the brother or sister that is doing the speaking? I thought ¡°How odd¡±. A word like ¡°uh-nee¡± is spoken only from a younger sister to an older sister, but never from a younger brother to an older sister, or older sister to a younger sister¡±. I also learned that age is more critical than gender. Any younger brother or sister could just be addressed as ¡°dong-seng¡±. How complicated the Korean language is-- how subtle.

Later, I was sitting in a tea room in Seoul. I remember that it smelled of tear gas from a university demonstration. My Korean friend was just introduced to a stranger of about the same age. I saw her go through three steps:

Step one: Is it obvious by appearance that one person is older? This works most of the time and the older just addresses the younger as ¡°younger person¡±. However, there was no obvious age difference, so on to step two.

Step two: Ask for the year that the person graduated from college. It turned out to be same year. So the next strategy was to casually ask for the Chinese sign they were born under. My friend asked ¡°I am a rabbit, how about you?¡± If the stranger was a different sign, then you can tell who is older. This is because a rabbit only comes around once every 12 years. However, they were both rabbits.

Step three: As the conversation grew intense and the relationship grew closer, my friend finally had ask ¡°And when is your birthday¡±. This is