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[WHY] Small talk, big discomfort: Why Koreans don't chat with strangers

Published: 18 Apr. 2026, 07:00 Updated: 13 May. 2026, 15:50

LEE SOO-JUNG
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

People on a bus look at smartphones and do not engage in an undated photo. [GETTY IMAGES PRO]

Nia Cho, a Korean barista and YouTuber based in London who likes to chat with customers, noticed a glaring difference in how Westerners and Koreans respond to a question: "How are you?"

“While working at cafes in London, I casually engaged in small talk with about 80 percent of customers,” Cho told the Korea JoongAng Daily.

“In London, asking ‘How are you?’ worked like a magical conversation starter. In Korea, however, when customers were asked the same question, they replied, ‘Pardon me?’”

Her viewers and subscribers — posting predominantly in Korean in the comments — found her interactions new and refreshing. Some wrote that they felt the need to “learn how to make small talk and practice before going abroad.”

Casual chatting with strangers seems to be a common challenge among Koreans. In Korean society, at large, small talk is absent.

When ordering at cafes and restaurants or checking out in stores, only the necessary questions and answers are tossed back and forth between customers and clerks. Once you place your order and pay, interactions end.

In elevators, on park benches or on the street, people largely refrain from exchanging greetings. Even if they make eye contact, they often pretend not to have seen each other and walk past one another — as if it were an unspoken norm.

This does not, however, necessarily mean that Koreans are not talkative or callously apathetic toward others.

If not antisocial, then why do Koreans avoid small talk with strangers?

Silence speaks for itself

People appear disinterested in engaging in an elevator in an undated photo. [GETTY IMAGE PRO]

Noh Hee-young, a hairdresser with 25 years of experience, still gets hesitant when welcoming customers, especially new clients she has never met.

In the blink of an eye, she scans whether a customer is communicative, which she described as the most stressful part of her job. Quite often, she strategically remains silent.

“Some customers keep their eyes closed throughout the service from the moment they sit in the salon chair,” Noh said. “In these situations, I do not ask questions or initiate conversation.”

Noh also interprets her clients’ short or barely audible replies to her small talk attempts as indirect signals that they prefer silence.

Adults and children appear not to engage while waiting to enter a store on April 17, 2022. [NEWS1]

Koreans’ implicit tendency to avoid small talk can be seen as a mindful gesture to respect others’ boundaries and err on the side of caution to avoid unintentional disrespect, said communication expert Lim Chul-woong.

“It is slightly different from the Western concept of ‘personal space,’” Lim said.

“In the Korean language, maintaining silence or holding back are not meaningless or void actions. They convey thoughtfulness and discretion. Thus, not starting a conversation does not necessarily equate to indifference. It can rather be seen as a gesture meant to prevent a situation causing discomfort to strangers and their counterparts.”

In this context, the ability to read the room through unspoken cues — known as nunchi in Korean — matters.

Kim Sang-kyun, a cognitive scientist and professor at Kyung Hee University’s Graduate School of Business, said Koreans attune themselves to settings and others’ moods through implicit clues.

“While Westerners assess the personalities of strangers or those nearby through small talk, Koreans just gauge them through nunchi in silence,” Kim said, noting that communication in Western culture is more centered on explicit statements.

What makes Koreans remain silent

Older adults sit apart from each other on benches under a bridge in Busan on July 2, 2025. [YONHAP]

Communication experts pointed out that skipping small talk is more than just a Korean way of respecting privacy, but is the combined result of a binary way of thinking about questions and scenarios, along with a hierarchical social stratum.

Prof. Kim attributed the lack of small talk to Koreans’ belief that “everything has a single correct answer.”

“Small talk is supposed to be about minor, casual topics,” Kim said. “However, Koreans cannot constantly get away from thinking about what the most appropriate topic would be. This seals their lips.”

In addition, relationships in Korean society are largely hierarchical, and Koreans are overly attuned to judgment, experts said.

“Koreans decide whether to begin a conversation and finely adjust their tone and range of conversation topics based on their counterpart's job title, social status and age,” Lim said. “In a fast-paced urban lifestyle prioritizing efficiency, goal-oriented conversations have become the norm, leaving less space for light chit-chat with strangers.”

“Koreans, when speaking with such personal details out in the open, tend to be excessively conscious of how they might be perceived for what they said and how those words would affect their reputation,” Prof. Kim said.

The importance of sizing up your conversation partner is perhaps — ironically — most evident in online chat rooms, forums and comment sections, where participants throw around slang in the most informal level of politeness. As long as faces and identities are concealed, Koreans communicate with apparent freedom from the pressure of being judged.

“On the contrary, Koreans speak more freely on all sorts of topics when they are anonymous in online space,” the professor added.

People dine alone in an eatery in Seoul in 2021. [NEWS1]

Kim added that Koreans’ notion of “us” has evolved differently from that in Western cultures, with the Confucian principles of communal values losing ground in some aspects to a highly competitive societal mentality that seemingly starts as early as childhood.

“While Westerners deem strangers potential neighbors, Koreans are likely to view them as potential competitors, which ultimately undermines the possibility of small talk.”

Koreans are natural-born chatters within their inner groups, but they tend to become stiff and anxious when encountering strangers — no more than outsiders, from their perspectives, according to Prof. Lee Hun-ju of Yonsei University’s Institute of Convergence Science.

“Koreans often question whether starting a conversation might make them appear lame,” Lee said.

Prof. Shin Ji-young from Korea University’s Department of Korean Language and Literature, meanwhile, attributed Koreans' tendency to stay away from small talk to a linguistic factor: Pronouns are avoided out of politeness.

“While calling anyone ‘you’ in Western culture is not offensive, referring to a stranger as neo or dangshin or calling someone by their name during an interaction between people who have never met before in Korea can be deemed impolite,” Shin said, referring to the Korean words "neo" — a casual expression equivalent to "you" — and "dangshin" — fundamentally more polite but packed with colloquial nuance, with even passive-aggresive potential.

“In Korean society, what determines social appellation stems from family-based dynamics, which prioritize age and hierarchy in their pedigree. That’s why Koreans tend to consider age a decisive factor in nearly all social interactions.”

I need to know you first

A person writes a memo while talking with another person in this file photo. [GETTY IMAGES PRO]

While small talk seems like unfamiliar territory for many Koreans, it happens sometimes, albeit with a slightly different pattern compared to other cultures.

Cho said customers at cafes in Korea and Japan were not as active with small talk as those in Britain.

“While I was working as a barista in the two [East Asian] countries, small talk took place with customers I knew who had already visited the place several times,” Cho said.

Kim Ji-woo, a Korean who previously worked at a franchise cafe in Osaka, Japan, spotted a subtle difference in how small talk unfolds even between Koreans and Japanese. Kim said chit-chat with Korean visitors was more personal.

“While Japanese customers usually offered warm encouragement, Korean customers were more interested in my personal background, asking why I was working at a cafe in Japan or whether I was residing in Japan,” Kim said.

Kim recalled that Koreans often engage in conversation only after processing their counterparts’ personal details, such as age, occupation, area of residence and even marital status.

“Asking such personal information in Japan can be deemed impolite,” Kim said. “Thus, small talk in Japan was more about areas of interest that one was willing to share or events that happened on that day.”

Kim’s personal experiences echoed the experts’ analysis that personal details matter even in trivial and mundane interactions among Koreans.

Lim, the communication expert, said Koreans often view striking up a conversation with someone they don't know as risky because they may unknowingly misspeak or use incorrect honorifics.

“Koreans, therefore, generally cannot consider small talk as merely light and casual conversation,” expert Lim said.

Between emotional fatigue and human bonds

Reservation page of a lash-extension salon offers three choices in order, which reads: to receive service in silence without chats; I like to chat; I prefer a quick treatment as lying is difficult. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Some Koreans deliberately distance themselves from small talk opportunities.

A growing number of beauty salons for nail polish, hair and eyelash extensions are offering an option to “receive service in silence.” The option can be selected when making reservations online.

Seasoned hairdresser Noh said she always chooses the option when she visits nail salons as a customer.

“I am an introvert, and I do not want to waste my energy on unnecessary chatting, especially when I am receiving services,” Noh said.

Some experts attribute the phenomenon to fatigue caused by perceived oversharing both on the giving and receiving ends.

Prof. Lee said Korean society tends to view small talk as an unnecessary information dump or a waste of energy, as meaning is already processed and decoded through nonverbal cues.

While small talk appears to be a nonessential factor in Korean social life, experts and those who have exchanged such pleasantries with strangers agreed on its positive aspects — particularly its role in spreading positivity.

“Small talk is a lubricant of social communication and a starting point to bridge the distance between people,” Prof. Lee said. “Without overwhelming others with heavy topics, small talk can make people feel more connected without emotional pressure.”

“My colleagues praised and cheered me on whenever I made small talk with Korean customers at a cafe in Osaka,” Kim said, noting that such chit-chat not only lifted the mood between her and customers but also bolstered camaraderie among co-workers.