Overview

Some say we are all living in a “global village.” This expression was popular in the Western world before 11 September 2001. But if proof need still be given, this chapter will make it clear that our global village has many disparate quarters. It shows how intercultural encounters can generate misunderstandings or worse. The chapter consists of stories and exercises for either individual or group work.

The following story illustrates that misunderstandings between people from different countries can both be sudden and have far-reaching consequences.

Since the end of World War II, Korea has been split in two parts. North Korea has become the devastatingly poor communist Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. South Korea has become a comparatively rich capitalist state and has a U.S. military presence. Until the year 2000, these twin countries waged a fierce ideological battle against one another. The government of the United States sided with South Korea and had North Korea on its list of seven terrorist nations, the so-called “rogue states,” because of incidents that had happened in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2000 the two Koreas started to talk about reconciliation or even reunification. This, then, is the background for the following incident.

 

The Frankfurt Incident

On the fourth of September 2000, in the last year of the Clinton administration, a North Korean delegation heads from Europe toward the United Nations millennium summit in New York. The delegation includes the country’s vice leader, Kim Yong Nam. In New York the delegation is supposed to have a reconciliatory meeting with the president of South Korea.

Changing their prior travel plans, they choose an American airline at Frankfurt Airport. While the North Koreans are waiting for the plane, the airline’s security personnel notice them. Following their instructions for members of rogue states who do not have diplomatic immunity, they call out these people and thoroughly search them. The North Koreans are very, very angry and fly home instead of going to the U.N. summit. The incident immediately hits the world press.

The North Korean ambassador, Mr. Li, recounts his version of the story: U.S. aviation security officials came up to the delegation and performed hooligan acts: questioning them and checking their luggage and stripping them to do a body search. They justified this conduct by saying that North Korea was listed as a rogue state and that they had instructions from home to act as they did. Mr. Li concludes that the incident was purposely and insidiously created by the United States to hinder the reconciliation of the two Koreas, demonstrating that the U.S. is a rogue state itself.

A White House spokesman explains that because the delegation had changed its travel plans, the American airline personnel at Frankfurt Airport did not know who they were. They had done no more than follow the U.S. rules for rogue states, and the U.S. government had not been involved in the incident at all. The airline immediately apologizes and takes responsibility.

Various U.S. diplomats express regret about the incident. Four days later U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sends a formal letter of apology to the Northern Korean foreign minister and receives a reply that could be called conciliatory. In this reply North Korea says it has noted the American apology and shall watch the future deeds of the Americans but also states that its sovereignty has been injured and that “the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea values its sovereignty like its life and soul.”

The two Koreas resume their talks.

What happened at the airport was a very clear case of culture clash. Experienced travelers know that U.S. security personnel at airports tend to be heavy-handed regardless of whom they deal with. That fits with the American culture. They may not have been particularly polite to the North Korean delegation. In addition Americans hold the view that everybody is his or her own person, and one cannot hold the government responsible for the behavior of employees of some company as long as they stick to the rules. The North Koreans, on the other hand, come from a country where respect for authority is very important. Moreover, an insult to one North Korean is an insult to all. Looked at from this vantage point, the beleaguered security officials didn’t just search a few strangers, they insulted a whole nation! This is evident in the emotional and nationalistic overtones of the North Korean reaction.

So you see that it is possible to explain the behavior of both sides in terms of their own way of thinking and come up with two widely different interpretations. Do you think either the American airline’s officials or the North Korean delegation members learned anything from the incident? The Americans probably feel that the North Koreans are blowing this thing up ridiculously, while the North Koreans are now quite certain that Americans are savages. The media on both sides are likely not to have corrected this image.

Fortunately, in this case highly placed politicians on both sides were anxious to put the incident behind them. In many other cases an incident such as this one might have been the beginning of armed combat.