Help writing South Korean character/culture ✨

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Hi! I’m currently working on a story in which the main LI is Korean-American and I’d like to know what could be some interesting traditions or cultural things that I could incorporate into the story. Also if anyone has any tips on what to avoid doing or stereotypes to stay away from, any help is welcome and I’m always eager to learn!

Here’s some background on him so you guys can understand better what could be appropriate:

  • He’s half Korean and half white.
  • He lived in South Korea until he was 10, then his parents moved to the United States where his mom is from.
  • I want to write his father as a very conservative person as this will be a part of the plot, so any tips about that would be great!
  • While he didn’t live in South Korea for his adult life, his father always wanted him to keep in touch with his culture, so while he’s more used to American culture he’d still know/follow plenty of traditions and customs.
  • I’d like to incorporate his culture into some romance scenes, so if there are any traditions or behaviors that I could write into my story I’m happy to hear about that too.
  • At first I wanted to write him speaking some Korean into the story, but I don’t think that’s a good idea since I’m not fluent (trying to learn tho lol). The idea would be that MC speaks multiple languages and one of them is Korean, so sometimes they’d speak with each other in that language. But I don’t think it’s viable because things like Google Translate aren’t very accurate, so…What do you guys think?

Any advice is welcome and I can go into more detail about him if necessary. Thank you so much!

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Bump!

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You could write the English in another color to represent Korean being spoken. I’ve seen this done in one other story.

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I think I saw that in a story somewhere too! It’s a good idea… Thank you :blush:

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For having him speak different languages I would have the Korean in regular speechbubble but the English in readerMessages.

I have a story based in Korea as well and that’s what I do for when they speak Korean

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@Almond you’re Korean, right?

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I wanted to do exactly that, but I’m worried about the translation being incorrect since I don’t speak fluent Korean (i’m like veryyyy basic rn lol). How did you manage that on your story?

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I lived in Japan for 8 years and studied Korean. I also used google translate on things I wasn’t 100% sure on

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Ohhh I see, that’s so cool! Thank you for the reply :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Google translate doesn’t always translate right either tho.

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I rarely use it since I know Korean. It’s up to you personally in what you use.

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True.

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