So Polite, Yet Why Don’t Koreans Hold the Door? The Korean Manners Paradox

Koreans are taught manners from childhood. So why do so many of us let the door close on the person right behind us?

A foreign reader asked me almost exactly that yesterday.

And the question immediately reminded me of something that had happened just a few hours earlier.

Yesterday Morning at a Convenience Store

Yesterday morning, I stopped by a convenience store to buy coffee.

As I was walking out, an older man was coming in. I held the door for a moment and waited for him to pass.

“Thank you,” he said.

That was it.

Nothing unusual. I walked away without thinking much about it.

Later that day, I posted on Threads asking foreign readers if they had any questions about Korea.

One reader wrote that Korea seemed to care a lot about manners, but she could not understand why people often let a door close even when they knew someone was only a couple of steps behind them.

Another foreign reader replied underneath:

“Saaaaaame.”

That question made me think back to the convenience store that morning.

And then something occurred to me.

I Don’t Remember Being Taught to Hold the Door

I grew up in Korea hearing a lot about manners.

I was taught to use polite speech (존댓말, jondaetmal) with older people.

I was taught not to start eating before an older person.

I learned how I was supposed to behave when drinking with elders.

And I was told countless times to greet adults properly.

But no matter how hard I think about it, I do not remember anyone ever telling me:

“If someone is behind you, hold the door for them.”

Later, after spending a lot of time around Americans, I noticed how naturally people held the door for the person behind them.

I remember thinking:

“Oh. This is considered good manners too.”

Korean Manners Were Traditionally More About Relationships

Traditional Korean ideas of etiquette (예의, yeui) were strongly connected to relationships.

Age mattered.

Family relationships mattered.

Seniority mattered.

At work, rank could matter too.

A lot of Korean etiquette was about questions like:

How should I speak to someone older?

Who should begin eating first?

How should I behave when drinking with a senior?

In other words, many rules were about how to treat someone according to your relationship with them.

Holding a door is different.

You probably do not know the person behind you.

You may never see them again.

Waiting for passengers to get off a subway before boarding is similar.

These are less about personal relationships and more about how strangers share public space.

That is closer to public manners (공공예절, gonggong yejeol).

So to a foreign visitor, it can look contradictory:

“If Koreans care so much about manners, why don’t they hold the door?”

But for many Koreans, these two things were not traditionally seen as the same kind of etiquette.

The Reverse Can Happen Too

Cultural rules can look strange in the opposite direction as well.

In Korea, it can be completely normal for an adult son or daughter to drink alcohol with their father.

Smoking is different.

Traditionally, openly smoking in front of someone from your father’s or grandfather’s generation could be seen as very disrespectful, especially within the family.

There is even a Korean expression for smoking face-to-face as equals: smoking together as equals (맞담배, mat-dambae).

In some other cultures, however, two adults — even a parent and an adult child — may smoke together without anyone considering it particularly disrespectful.

A Korean seeing that for the first time might think:

“How can they smoke like that in front of their father?”

But that person is not necessarily disrespecting their parent.

They simply did not grow up learning that the behavior was rude.

Holding a door can work in much the same way.

Those Standards Are Starting to Mix

From my own experience, younger Koreans seem more familiar with things like holding doors for the person behind them or waiting for passengers to get off the subway before boarding.

That does not mean younger people are simply more polite and older people are less polite.

Different generations grew up learning different standards.

Today, Koreans have far more exposure to other cultures through travel, foreign friends, movies, YouTube, social media, and everyday international contact.

As those habits mix, ideas about public courtesy can change too.

Yesterday morning, I held the convenience-store door, and the man simply said, “Thank you.”

There was nothing unusual about the moment.

Maybe that is part of the change.

I was taught not to start eating before an older person.

I was taught many ways to show respect to elders.

But I do not remember anyone teaching me to hold the door for the person behind me.

That may be the simplest answer to the reader’s question.

It is not that Koreans do not care about manners.
We were simply taught to recognize different things as manners.