Culture shock is when a person gets involved in another culture and comes into contact with their way of life and sees that each culture does things differently and maybe come away with a different mentality after that. experience. Ethnocentrism is when someone takes what is familiar to them in their own culture and uses it to some extent to make judgments about another, particularly negative, culture. Cultural relativism is when someone does not judge another culture but instead tries to understand it. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In this essay, I will discuss South Korean culture – a culture that has always intrigued me personally. In South Korea, people value hard work more than anything and believe that anything can be achieved as long as faith, determination and strength remain within oneself. The country, like others, has developed its own customs and etiquettes over time. Their primary way of greeting someone is by bowing, and this is usually done with the movement of the person's head bowing, acknowledging those in front of them, especially those of high authority. This reverence towards the person is also a form of mutual respect. In this case, I felt a sense of cultural relativism because I didn't understand at first why they were supposed to bow to everyone, and who in particular were they supposed to bow to. Once I understood why they were doing it or who they were bowing to, it made sense to me. This showed me that this is their way of being respectful to everyone. Another particularly interesting custom is that South Koreans are a year ahead of their age. Everyone is automatically one year old on the day they are born. Ethnocentrism applies to my experience of discovering this because I thought it was something quite out of this world. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay I've never heard of something. like this where someone would basically be considered a year older than their Western age, and that would be considered a norm in their culture. It's quite strange how the Korean age system works. Finally, I experienced a culture shock when I discovered that there was a lack of diversity, in this case cultural diversity. South Korea is known for being racially pure, and this is due to a political ideology known as Korean ethnic nationalism. Being from California, I grew up seeing so much diversity and people from all over the world love coming to this particular state. So I'm quite used to the diversity of atmospheres, and seeing that South Koreans have practically no cultural diversity shocked me. Works Cited Chang, T. (2018). Why the Korean work ethic is so strong. The Korean Herald. Chung, Saskatchewan (2011). Understanding cultural relativism in a multicultural world. Journal of Global Initiatives: Politics, Pedagogy, Perspective, 5(1), 25-38.Encyclopædia Britannica. (nd). Ethnocentrism. https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethnocentrism Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior. Pantheon Books. Kim, S.Y. and Oh, K. (2018). Cultural differences in the frequency and duration of greetings between Korean and Japanese. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 42(3), 301-315. Lee, S. (2019). South Korea: racism that we cannot talk about. Al Jazeera..