CULTURE & MISUNDERSTANDING

My Venezuelan Friend Asked, “Do Koreans Love With Their Eyes?”

A conversation about K-dramas led to an unexpected question: If Koreans do not always say “I love you” out loud,

how do they know they are loved?

By Yuni · Alcove Notes

Why Do Koreans Sometimes Seem So Reserved?

“I thought Koreans were serious, but you’re actually fun.”

“Sometimes you look so serious, Yuni.”

“Why are Asians so quiet?”

“You seem a little cold.”

“I can’t tell what you’re feeling. Is that a yes or a no?”

I heard comments like these more than once while traveling.

At first, I did not understand them at all.

Cold? Me?

I was talking, laughing, eating, traveling, and joining everyone’s celebrations. I had always thought of myself as outgoing and affectionate.

If anything, I believed Koreans could be almost too considerate of other people.

So where was this impression coming from?

The question stayed with me during my first trip to Mexico.

I had often been told that my personality would fit naturally with Latin American culture. I enjoy meeting people, I love music,

and I am rarely the first person to leave a gathering. I did not expect to experience much of a cultural barrier.

In many ways, I did feel at home.

Still, several people told me that Koreans—or Asians more generally—seemed serious, distant, or difficult to read.

Because it happened repeatedly, I became genuinely curious.

Most of the people I met had never had a Korean friend before. Some had seen Koreans in films or on television, or occasionally passed an Asian person on the street,

but they had never spent enough time with someone from Korea to understand the smaller details of how we communicate.

Perhaps I was encountering their assumptions about Koreans.

But perhaps they were also noticing something real that I could not yet see in myself.

One day, I brought the question to a Mexican friend who taught Spanish and had visited Korea several times. My friend had also taught many Korean students and

was familiar with both cultures.

“People keep telling me that Koreans seem too serious or cold,” I said. “I honestly don’t understand it. Do you feel that way too?”

My friend thought for a moment.

“When I didn’t know many Koreans, I thought that too,” my friend said. “But after spending more time with them, I understood that they weren’t cold. They were warm,

but they expressed that warmth differently.”

Then my friend added something I still remember.

“Mexicans tend to live more in the present. Koreans seem to think more about tomorrow and worry more about the future. Both ways have advantages

and disadvantages, but that may be one of the differences people notice.”

We were sitting in a car when I heard this, and I became quiet.

My first reaction was defensive.

Of course Koreans think about the future, I thought. Planning ahead, working hard, and preparing for difficult times helped our country survive and develop.

And how could anyone live without thinking about tomorrow?

There were so many things to consider. Work the next morning. Responsibilities waiting at home. The consequences of staying out too late, spending too much,

or forgetting something important.

But as I watched the people around me enjoy that particular day—laughing loudly, celebrating wholeheartedly, and allowing themselves to be completely present—

I began to understand what my friend meant.

Perhaps what looked serious from the outside was not simply a personality trait.

It might have been the visible weight of everything we were already carrying into tomorrow.

Still, the word “cold” puzzled me.

That began to make more sense when I thought about language.

Why “How Are You?” Feels Different in Korean

In English-speaking cultures, “How are you?” is one of the most ordinary things people say when they meet.

Korean students traditionally learned a fixed response in school:

“I’m fine, thank you. And you?”

We practiced it so often that many people could answer before they had even considered how they were actually feeling.

But there is no exact Korean equivalent that we use in every casual greeting.

You could translate “How are you?” literally, but it would not always sound natural in everyday conversation. Instead, Koreans are more likely to say:

“Did you get here?”

“Did you sleep well?”

“Have you eaten?”

“Was your day busy?”

“You look tired. Are you okay?”

These questions may sound more practical than emotional. Sometimes they can even sound intrusive to someone from another culture.

Why do you want to know whether I have eaten?

Why are you telling me that I look tired?

But in Korean, those questions can be expressions of care.

“Have you eaten?” may mean:

“I was thinking about you.”

“I hope you’re taking care of yourself.”

“I want to know that you’re all right.”

The concern is not always stated directly. It is hidden inside a practical question.

I was born and raised in Busan, in Korea’s southeastern Gyeongsang region. Busan is famous for its strong dialect and direct way of speaking.

A perfectly ordinary conversation between two people from Busan can sound like an argument to someone from another region.

Our greetings can be especially simple.

“왔나?”

“You’re here?”

That may be the entire greeting.

There may be no enthusiastic “How are you?” and no long exchange of pleasantries. But the brevity does not necessarily mean that we are unhappy to see each other.

Sometimes it means the opposite.

We are comfortable enough not to decorate the moment with extra words.

The Missing Responses

Other languages also have small verbal rituals that do not exist in quite the same form in Korean.

When someone sneezes in English, another person automatically says, “Bless you.”

The person who sneezed responds, “Thank you.”

Korean does not have a standard phrase for that situation. We might simply pause and wait. If someone sneezes repeatedly, we may ask:

“Are you okay?”

“Are you getting sick?”

The care is still present. It simply arrives in a different form.

The same thing happens with “Thank you” and “You’re welcome.”

In English, “You’re welcome” completes a familiar exchange. Korean textbooks sometimes translate it as cheonmaneyo, but people rarely use that expression

in ordinary conversation.

When someone thanks us, we are more likely to smile or say:

“It’s okay.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“It was nothing.”

Or sometimes we do not say much at all.

To an English speaker, that silence might feel incomplete.

Did they hear me?

Are they annoyed?

Did I say something wrong?

But to a Korean speaker, an elaborate response can sometimes feel unnecessarily formal—or even slightly self-important. A smile may already communicate:

“I heard your thanks. I’m glad I could help.”

Neither person is trying to be rude. They are simply expecting different parts of the exchange.

When “No” Does Not Really Mean No

Compliments offer another example.

When I was growing up, if someone said, “You’re so pretty,” the polite response was not necessarily “Thank you.”

Many people, especially women, were taught to say:

“No, I’m not.”

“Oh, not at all.”

Receiving the compliment too confidently could sound as though you were saying:

“Yes, I know I’m beautiful.”

So we learned to reject the compliment as a way of appearing humble.

The words said “no,” but the meaning was closer to:

“Thank you. I’m pleased, but I don’t want to appear full of myself.”

Of course, this is changing.

Many Koreans now accept compliments more openly, and I am glad that people—especially younger generations—feel freer to say thank you without apologizing

for themselves.

Still, older habits remain in the language.

Imagine what this sounds like to someone from a culture where accepting a compliment is considered natural and gracious.

They say something kind.

We deny it.

They try again.

We become even more embarrassed.

From their perspective, we may seem uncomfortable, unreceptive, or impossible to read.

From ours, we are simply trying to be polite.

The Warmth Hidden Inside Restraint

Language and culture cannot be separated easily.

The words we learn teach us more than how to communicate. They teach us when to speak, what not to say, how much emotion to reveal, and what politeness is

supposed to sound like.

In Korean culture, consideration is often expressed indirectly.

We pay attention to what another person might need before they ask.

We bring fruit to someone’s house.

We quietly place more food in their bowl.

We insist on walking them to the station.

We remember that they mentioned being tired, cold, or hungry.

We may not say, “I care about you,” but we behave as though their well-being is our responsibility.

To someone who recognizes this language, the affection is obvious.

To someone who does not, it can be nearly invisible.

Indirectness, however, is not always kindness. Silence can genuinely hurt people. Expecting others to understand feelings that we never communicate can

create distance and misunderstanding.

Sometimes we need to say what we feel.

Sometimes “Have you eaten?” is not enough.

But direct expression is not the only meaningful kind of expression, either.

A person who uses fewer affectionate words may still be paying close attention. A person who seems reserved may be choosing their words carefully because they care about how those words will affect you.

What looks like emotional distance may sometimes be consideration in an unfamiliar form.

Learning to Read One Another

Travel forces us to notice these differences.

It allows us to see how easily we mistake what is familiar for what is universal.

Before Mexico, I had never seriously questioned the way I greeted people or responded to compliments. I had never wondered why I sometimes became quieter as

I grew closer to someone.

Those habits simply felt natural.

But when people told me that I seemed serious or difficult to read, I had to look at myself through their eyes.

They were not necessarily criticizing me.

They were trying to understand me with the cultural vocabulary available to them.

I was doing the same thing to them.

At times, the openness I encountered in Mexico surprised me. People could express affection, joy, and excitement with their voices, faces, gestures, and entire bodies.

From my perspective, it sometimes seemed almost too immediate.

How could someone express so much emotion so quickly?

How could people celebrate so completely without worrying about what might happen tomorrow?

But perhaps that reaction revealed as much about me as their questions revealed about them.

What I interpreted as excessive, they experienced as warmth.

What they interpreted as coldness, I experienced as restraint, familiarity, or care.

Neither interpretation told the whole story.

We were simply reading each other with different dictionaries.

That may be one of the most valuable things travel gives us: not only the chance to learn about another culture, but also the chance to rediscover our own.

We begin asking questions we never thought to ask.

Why do I speak this way?

Why does this gesture feel polite to me?

Why do I become uncomfortable when someone expresses emotion differently?

What might I be misunderstanding simply because I have never learned how to read it?

The Korean word annyeong, which we use for both “hello” and “goodbye,” carries the idea of peace and well-being.

We do not consciously consider its deeper meaning every time we say it. But at its heart, the greeting asks whether the other person is at peace.

Are you safe?

Are you well?

Is your heart at ease?

Perhaps Korean affection is often like that.

It does not always announce itself.

Sometimes it appears as a short question, a quiet gesture, or food placed in front of you without explanation.

Sometimes it is simply someone noticing that you look tired.

And sometimes, as my Venezuelan friend would later ask me, it may even be expressed through the way someone looks at you.

So why do Koreans sometimes seem reserved?

Some of us are reserved.

Some are shy, serious, or uncomfortable expressing emotion.

But sometimes what appears to be coldness is simply warmth spoken in an unfamiliar language.

Understanding it requires time.

It requires curiosity.

And most of all, it requires us to

look beyond the response we expected and

notice the care that may already be there.

A QUESTION FOR YOU

Have you ever been misunderstood simply because your culture expresses warmth differently?