Friends

The word "friend" may at first seem like a universal concept. You can easily find a word corresponding to it in another language: Freund, amigo, 친구, 朋友, 友達...

However, it may not be easy to notice that while these words may all refer to somebody close, somebody one knows and hangs out a lot, they do not cover the same kind of relationships across the cultures. Some cultures are more selective about befriending than others.

I realized it one summer when I went home from college and was telling my mother in Korean about the friends I had made at college. I was telling her about one particular friend, who was a year older than me, and then it hit me: Although I was referring to her as my friend (친구), if we had both been Koreans, I would not have called her one. I would have called her "an upperclasswoman I know (아는 여자 선배)" or "an older girl at my school I know (아는 학교 언니)."

In Korea, people like hierarchy. It would be chaos not to know who's above whom because you can't determine what is the rightful way of addressing others - do I talk in formal or informal mode to them? What if I get slighted by somebody who should be paying more respect to me? How do I make sure I don't offend somebody by using the wrong kind of language?
There are many different ways of determining status difference, and one of the common standards is age, often coupled with seniority.

What this means, is that since the concept of "friend" often implies "peer status," for Koreans, it is often limited to include only people born in the same (lunar calendar) year as them. Somebody older than me can't possibly be my friend, others will see me as a rude, insolent brat! Somebody younger than me can't possibly be my friend, my own status will be undermined!

Of course, you could have a good, close relationship with somebody who wasn't born in your year that is similar to what an American would call friendship. However, you don't want to call it friendship unless both parties talk about it and agree to do so. Usually, it would be the generosity of the older person to grant the "friend" status to the younger one. Without that, if the younger one started to refer to the older one as a "friend," the older one might be offended and may feel the need to put the younger one in his/her place.

Then again, if people are aware of the status difference, the relationship does take up other qualities besides that of usual friendships. For example, if you go out to eat, the older person often feels like he/she should treat the younger person. The younger person always needs to use the right words when addressing the older person. ..I guess I don't know what else there is.. at least not off the top of my head for the moment. I think generally, there is a certain distance that comes with age difference that most people don't bother to cover and stay aloof to each other by default.

I personally prefer to keep my "friend" criteria as open as possible, but when I interact with people from different cultures, I have to remind myself that some may not want to be too chummy chummy with me. Then again, I'm too shy and socially awkward to make friends easily anyway.