Danny ChaiI had a conversation with Kobe this weekend that I’ve been mulling over for days.
I’ve written several times about the difference between NorCal and SoCal Koreans (I’m sure it extends beyond Koreans but it’s Koreans I know for sure). A recent example is here. The part I wrote:
There’s one very specific thing about L.A. Koreans that took me a while to understand. In NorCal, I think it takes a while before you’re chummy with someone. It’s not that you’re unfriendly, but you develop a friendship, then once you’re friends, you can be chummy. SoCal Koreans would universally act buddy-buddy with you almost immediately after meeting you. I didn’t get that, it felt fake. I’ve told this story before, but the 2nd time I ever saw Eddie, it was on the way to our first frosh dorm meeting, and he comes up to me and flicks me affectionately on the shoulder and goes ‘what’s up man!’ And my thought was like, who is this guy? We just met, we’re not friends, why’s he acting so chummy? Church was dominated by L.A. Koreans and everyone was like that and it was bewildering to me, people acting like we’re friends when we’re not (yet). What I eventually came to understand is that it’s just a cultural thing – in NorCal we become friends then act like buds; in SoCal people act like buds as a method of becoming friends. It’s not that it’s fake, it’s that it’s a method of becoming closer. Once I understood that and embraced it, it changed everything, and I made a lot of good friends.”
What Kobe said that I thought was interesting is that when he (a SoCal guy) moved here he found NorCal people less authentic than in SoCal. Not fake per se, just superficial. Like the only thing we talk about is work. Superficial.
Interesting perspective! Totally opposite from my own! Here’s what I think is going on. It’s actually along the same vein of what I wrote before. I think in NorCal, it’s not just that we aren’t chummy until we’re actual friends, it’s that we don’t even broach deeper topics until we’ve reached an appropriate level of friendship. The logical consequence (that I strangely never really thought about until this conversation) is that until we reach that level, we don’t talk about anything deep. I can see how that can come across as superficial. But on the flip side, talking immediately about deeper topics with people you don’t know well feels inauthentic to me. Like, something you’re willing to talk about with just an acquaintance is almost by definition not important – superficial – in my opinion. I get both sides though. What I found interesting is that I had never even considered this, how the NorCal threshold for openness could lead one to see us as not authentic.
The question though: are SoCal people really more open than NorCal people? To be honest I’d never really thought about it because from my perspective NorCal people are less superficial but maybe that’s not true. Another person this weekend (originally from New York) made a comment along the lines of how NorCal people are not open and that also took me by surprise. Are we not open? I personally think I am and that I’m the product of my upbringing but maybe that’s not true. I actually think I’m more open in general than my SoCal friends and I assumed that was indicative of NorCal and SoCal in general.
I suppose sweeping generalities are impossible, we’re all just individuals in the end. But yeah, NorCal people coming across as superficial (from a SoCaler) is something I’ve oddly never considered.