This describes my past relationship with my father quite well, and he’s white and from Texas. Not all Westerners are the same, and some American families may have more in common with the East Asian mindset then what’s become of mainstream American culture.
I’ve known a lot of Koreans and Japanese (and to a lesser extent Filipinos), who struggle with this issue.
The term is Americanized. You’ve become Americanized and the folks back home don’t like it.
You have to realize your folks are very proud to be Korean and that doesn’t mean just Korean nationality. That means the history of Korea, the ways of the Korean people and the customs of the Koreans.
When you go against their wishes you’re not going against THEM, you’re going against thousands of years of tradition and ways of life.
To them it’s like say being a Korean is nothing and being an American is where it is at.
Of course I know that isn’t what you’re saying but this really boils down to a generation gap. The old ways of the world versus the new ways.
Only you can make the right choice for you, but you must not alienate your parents. That does not mean you can’t do what you want, you can. But you do it in a way that shows them your decision is made out of what is best for you. And while you have made that decision you’ve kept in my your background, your nationality, your upbringing and your sense of being Korean.
Assure them that you won’t lose any sense of identity and show them that you will be a better person for your choice.
You can’t force your parents to like it, but you can make them respect you and your decisions.
And take some comfort in knowing you aren’t alone in this. If you have other Koreans friends I bet they would have similar problem with the same sort of generation gap.
They want their kids to become functioning adults…just functioning adults who do whatever they say. It’s not an autonomy thing…it’s the idea that your parents are older, wiser, and you have a moral duty to listen to them and obey them, because they’re your parents. Whether you want to or not is irrelevant.
So, yeah, I’d say if you’re going to do this, lie and hope they don’t find out. All that will happen if you tell them you’re doing it anyway is that they’ll yell at you, call you a disobedient daughter, and as long as you’re with the guy, make your life miserable. Then, if you ever, God forbid, break up, they’ll remind you that they told you not to do it in the first place, and see what happens when you don’t listen?
Aye, they’re all too busy playing Starcraft. 
That’s for the wacky movie adaptation.
Japan is a few years socially ahead of Korea (e.g., closer to America) and I’ve known a lot of Japanese who moved in with their boyfriend or girlfriend without telling the parents.
Very conservative people are extremely difficult to convince.
It’s also hard to to convince many Americans that because they see their culture as “correct” that other options are not standing up for yourself, etc.
Sorry, I can’t tell you which one is right, other than to say that this will not be the first time cultural differences come into play.
Should you eventually marry this guy or another American, there will be differences about that. Should you some day have kids, there will be differences. The success comes from finding out how to best navigate these
TokyoPlayer, An American man, living in Tokyo with a Tawanese wife and two children.
Good luck.
I’m pretty surprised by some of the responses here. I’m sure people intend well, but it’s a little presumptuous to assume that the American way is the only way to do things. Others have pretty much hit it on the head. It’s a combination of generational clash, culture clash, and normal concerns parents have for their children and children have for their parents. Lying may seem cowardly or ridiculous, but as of now it’s really the only feasible way to achieve both goals. Others have already laid out the other options: tell them and deal with the consequences, or don’t move in with him and not upset your family.
Out of curiosity, KoreanGirlInDC, is your boyfriend Korean?
Let me put t another way. I don’t think it’s about your parents. Parents all over the world continue to treat their children like … children. And they attempt to control their lives long past the time when it makes any practical sense.
This is what parents are and what parents do.
Part of becoming an adult is learning to make your own decisions, and if you decide that your parents are wrong, to do what you think is right. Maybe it’s this latter thing that is peculiarly American. We don’t have centuries of history living in a communal village with several generations of our family among us.
And maybe, if your parents were here, they would know more about the circumstances of your life, and be able to make wiser decisions that you could agree with.
But they don’t, and they really can’t make fully informed decisions for you.
Oh never mind.
It’s really no different than having really really conservative parents here in the US, it’s just that appeasing your parents might be a lot more culturally ingrained than it is here, where autonomy and independence from everyone and everything is the dominant mindset. I don’t understand a lot of the harsh accusations that Boyo Jim specifically is throwing around, like it’s impossible for her to be a fully functioning adult if she doesn’t tell her parents exactly where they can shove their opinions about her relationship.
She is obviously dealing with the difficult culture clash of what she would like to do with her relationship in an Americanized context, versus not disappointing her parents wishes in a Korean context. I don’t find anything essentially cowardly about trying to appease both.
KoreanGirlInDC, I think you’ve gotten a lot of good advice from people in similar circumstances regarding how to balance the two goals. Best of luck to you.
I’m saying that lying is the only way to get both sides of what you want, not necessarily what you should do. I know how hard it is to decide what comes first, what you want or what the family wants. What Boyo Jim and HazelNutCoffee said is true. But you know your parents and your relationship with them best. Would they forgive you if they did find out you were living with your boyfriend? If they wouldn’t forgive you, is the risk of that worth it to you?
This is, of course, the crux of the issue. There is a potential conflict with the OP between what she wants and what her parents want. And filial piety is the way that it seems that Korean culture resolves it. The parents win. And that’s that. It’s not terribly difficult to see the advantages of this approach to conflict resolution, especially with an assumption that the parents are reasonable.
But, then, filial piety only really matters if the OP seeks to avoid conflict with her parents. And it seems that this is what she wants to do and to avoid, both at the same time. That makes things a bit trickier, and she has to ask herself if the conflict is worth it. This is the judgment call: Do I want to assert my autonomy? or do I wish to avoid conflict? I know which would be more important to me, but I do admit I am from another culture and that I know that my parents still love me even if I disagree with them on a great many things.
So, as has been pointed out, there are essentially two “overt” options, move in with the guy or don’t. And there is essentially one “covert” option, move in and lie. I don’t, personally, like the covert option since for me it would imply that there is shame in being who I am, and I seek to avoid that since this sort of shame has plagued me, in relatively innocuous concerns, for a large part of my life. All this is just a long way to say that your choice would not be for me if I were in your shoes. If you don’t have these sorts of issues, that is clearly a game changer.
Anyway, the point of this is mostly to offer to the OP a sort of example of the types of things to think about when making her decision what to do: How comfortable am I in fulfilling filial piety when it is against my interest? How important is my relationship with my parents as compared to my partner? How important is my autonomy compared to my parents’ expectations? And things like that.
Another aspect of the cultural thing here is this (I think naive) horror over “lying.” I’m not sure about Korea, but in Taiwan there can be circumstances where it’s well understood that what’s being said publicly may not be quite the same as what’s going on privately, and so what? If the OP decides to maintain a separate fictional address for her parents’ sake, while actually living most of the time with her boyfriend, I’ll bet the parents will sooner or later figure out what’s really going on – and further I’ll bet they won’t say boo about it. As long as you maintain some pretense for them to grasp – and to allow them to maintain it in front of the neighbors – this may turn out to be a tempest in a teacup after all.
I didn’t say anything even approaching this and I suggest you improve your reading comprehension.
Tell me, what specifically did I say that led you to this conclusion?
Pretty much all of this.
ETA: My reading comprehension is fine, thanks. I wasn’t trying to make you look like a jackass, just saying that the general attitude that she’s still a child unless she stands up to them is a little insensitive.
I would disagree that I’m not autonomous. There’s a different between blindly obeying your parents and trying to maintain a good relationship with them.
I am very grateful to my parents in many ways. They sacrificed a lot for my education and have brought me up to be a decent human being (I think). I love them and I have a lot of respect for them, even though we disagree on a lot of things.
What would I gain (or the OP gain) by being honest with them about my current situation with my boyfriend?
Pros: I don’t have to feel guilty about lying to them. I can say that I am an “independent” adult (by Western standards) and that I know how to stand up to my parents and show them that I am no longer a child and can make my own decisions regardless of how they feel.
Cons: My parents feel betrayed. They feel that they did something terribly wrong in raising me, since I turned out to be a woman with no sense of propriety. They turn against my boyfriend because they feel he has corrupted me. They feel ashamed of me and ashamed for themselves.
To me, the cons far outweigh the pros. I would rather have a lie on my conscience than irreparably damage my relationship with my parents, and give them heartache on an issue that we will never see eye to eye on.
A very interesting point.
Not one of those comments said she should tell her parents to “shove” their ideas anywhere. Not one of those comments said she wouldn’t be a functional adult unless she ignored her parents advice.
I did say that in order to be an adult she has to make her own decisions. I also said, more than once, that she should listen to her parents’ advice.
Well, we can drop it, because I only specifically named you as you had posted multiple statements that indicated the type of attitude I was referring to. I sort of mentally lumped in a lot of the other attitudes and should have been more clear in my objection to the others as well.
I am Korean American. My Korean girlfriend defied her parent’s wishes and dated me while we lived in Korea. When I moved back to the US my girlfriend accompanied me against her father’s wishes. We eventually got married and subsequently we all get along swimmingly.
That being said, I don’t condone this progression. It’s rough on everyone. Plus your potential husband’s relationship with your parents starts as an uphill battle.
If you’re as serious as you say you are, wait it out. Unless there is a distinct necessity to moving in together (eg: one of you can’t afford to live alone and not moving in would mean being separated by a considerable distance) then you can wait. I’m a huge proponent of co-habitation before marriage. But don’t do it against your parent’s wishes.
You are Korean. You understand all the formalities (from the perspective of a parent) that must happen before marriage/living together (they are the same in the mind of a Korean parent). You can’t just forgo hundreds of years of culture for just to save some money on rent.
The answer is clear. Wait.