How does culture affect genetics

I'm Canadian of European descent. My wife is Korean. And according to a new groundbreaking study, the 'difference between European American and Korean customs is so powerful that it shapes the expression of biology: A genetic profile linked to empathy and sociability yields two very different behavioral outcomes, depending on the culture.'

The study was published Aug. 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and it deals primarily with one specific gene that is known for its relationship to the human characteristic of social bonding. Wired has a good breakdown of what the study is all about.

Particularly interesting to me is that the study compares Korea's culture of privacy to the more open societies of North America, where people talk about their problems all the time to anyone that pretends to listen. European Americans with this gene trait were more likely to seek help from friends and family when they were in emotional turmoil. The same gene trait, when found in Koreans, did the opposite. People were less likely to seek help but instead kept their emotions to themselves. Except Korean Americans had similar reactions to European Americans.

The scientists now believe that this gene causes people to be more attuned to their cultural surroundings.

But I don't make that association. From early on in our relationship, my wife has made a clear distinction between Korean's born and raised in Korea and Koreans born and raised abroad, even if they are 100% from Korean ancestry. She, and most of her society, don't consider foreign-born Koreans as 'true Koreans' not because of their biology but because of the way they act, the way they think.

For me, this shows that blood and biology are irrelevant and that culture and the psycho-graphic nature of societies is what makes one's disposition to be more open to their current society. Genes that are expressed more or less in the same way can't be concluded to be the only influence on human behavior. There are reasons why Koreans don't share their private problems with others that go back through thousands of years of war and hardship, customs and formality. And though we are becoming more open in the West about our emotions and talking about our feelings, there are still aspects of our culture that are quite closed. I'm thinking about the Catholic church communities I used to belong to where we were so careful not to be judged. 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the importance of this study and I would welcome any thoughts. I just don't buy it.

Wedding Studio Photos

Since running our wedding blog, I've been really bad to update this one. I don't know if anyone's noticed but in my heart there is sadness...

But one thing that lifts my spirit is the thought that we have finally received our studio photos that we did before the wedding. Please check them out and tell us which ones you like best. In the mean time, I will try to do some more blogging over on this side.

Seoul Mystery Food

Want to know what I'm eating? Check out our latest post on Korean street food over at Rory and my wedding blog, In Yeon.

Famous Koreans marrying on the same day as us!

 

So it turns out that Jang Dong Gun & Ko So Young, two of Korea's most famous actors are getting married. This is big news for their fans and for most Asians around the world who know who these two people are. I personally don't know them and have never even heard of them. However, they have decided to get married on the same date as us so we are now mortal enemies (just kidding). Read about it over on our wedding blog, In Yeon. 

Top 5 things that Jang Dong Gun & Ko So Young have in common with Jamie and Rory:

1) The female in the relationship is Korean

2) We are getting married on the same day in the same city in the same area

3) They are marrying in the hotel where my dad is staying

4) They are a good looking couple ;)

5) They are an extremely, super, rediculously good looking couple!

Feel free to make your own comparisons or debunk some in our Top 5 list. 

Korean Wedding Planning

 

New post on In Yeon - our wedding blog about our recent trip to Korea and some of the wedding planning details. I found it very interesting since I don't know anything about traditional Korean wedding or about wedding planning in general. 

Happy Lunar New Year!

Today is the Korean Lunar New Year so we posted about it over on our wedding blog. It is the year of the white tiger, which only comes around every 60 years. This is extremely good luck and we are so happy that we will be married this year. Feel free to post a comment about what good luck you expect in 2010.

http://www.roryandjamie.com/happy-korean-lunar-new-year/

Search Party: When Google Goes Social!

There is a lot of anticipation for Google's announcement tomorrow of some sort of social media service. Techmeme's money is on a Twitter-Killer type application that will integrate with the GChat interface, as eplained by The Business Insider. The Wall Street Journal pitts them against Facebook. And a good post at Scobleizer explains why Google could outdo all social networks, even the obscure ethnocentric ones that have a lot of innovative features.

But do we really need more? To be honest, I would be happier with some sort of social media integration into the Google search results. The world of search is shifting to the live-stream but isn't there also value in the reverse by allowing people to comment and share search results? Already we have social ranking and comment systems in Google search (see pic) and of course Digg, Stumbleupon and similar but could we not take it a bit further? What if comments made on the post/article could also be expanded into the Google search? I'm sure there are a million other great examples of how search can be improved by social media elements. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

I personally don't need another social network. I have my big, public soap box platforms and a few niche hobbyist ones as well. Any more and I will start to explode. Whatever Google comes out with tomorrow, I will be interested and will try and hopefully it will integrate well with stuff I'm already doing. Maybe it will stick and add value to my life. I just don't think it will be killing Twitter or Facebook anytime soon.

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Meet the parents (Korean version)

Rory and I were recently in Korea to meet her parents, eat lots of strange foods and plan for our wedding in May. It was a great trip and we will be sharing the details over at our wedding blog. We've also uploaded all our photos. Check them out!

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Our New Wedding Blog: In Yeon

In Yeon 인연, means 'fated' or 'destined' in Korean and that's why we've chosen it as the name of our newly designed blog: www.roryandjamie.com. We've moved all of our content over from our Wordpress blog and are in the process of automatically redirecting traffic from that site to our new one.

Please check it out and let us know what you think. There is a new photos section where we will be putting pics from our trips and events. Also, we've updated the hotel information section for those of you who plan to come in May.

Middle East entrepreneurs and royalty representing at LeWeb

I hadn't had time to go through the LeWeb videos until today and I was happy to see a panel on the Middle East moderated by Joi Ito, CEO of Creative Commons with Rabea Ataya, Chairman & CEO of Bayt.com and
Habib Haddad, Founder of Yamli.com. I hope that people who watch it get a better idea of the Middle East and the opportunities in this region for entrepreneurs.



Also attending was Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. I blogged about her before and I think she is a great. She is very active online on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook and she does a great job breaking the stereotypes, not only of Arabs but women in the Arab world.  

Going to Korea

A bit nervous about heading to Korea tomorrow to meet Rory's family. Read more about it on our wedding blog. I'll be updating it regularly with pics from ceremonies, dinners, cool places we explore and hopefully some relaxing downtime as well.

Of superheros and economic pundits

The Wired article actually depict Park in a sort of comic book-esque way

I found this article on Wired Magazine's site really interesting. The Troubles of Korea’s Influential Economic Pundit by Mattathias Schwartz is about a sort of nobody Korean guy, Park Dae-Sung, who took to writing anonymously about South Korea's economy and the recession and all that. His alias, Minerva, became super popular to the point where he was actually having an impact on the economy because people would invest or pull out based on his predictions. In the end he was found out and was tried in court. Now he's a nobody again.

It's a great article and I suggest reading it but what intrigued me wasn't so much the conspiracy or government involvement (Disclaimer: the Korea Government just started following Rory and I on Twitter @koreangov ;). What interested me was the concept of alter-egos.

Maybe it is my fascination with superheroes but when I read the story, I couldn't help but think of Clark Kent. A geeky farm boy disguise for an alien super dude who took to saving humanity. People loved Superman but no one really cared or knew about Clark Kent.  I guess Park was the opposite. He was a nobody who's alter ego was a celebrity. But really, how can people put so much trust in the anonymous predictions of someone who wasn't willing to show their face? Would something like that be possible in Canada I wonder...?

Spiderman on the other hand has always had what I believe is a more truthful depiction of an identity crisis in that the public is split between his heroic deeds and his need for secrecy. There is a lack of understanding and a lack of public trust about whether he truly has good intentions or that he is even qualified to save people. Police see him as a vigilante. JJJ thinks he's a menace. So then why were Koreans so easily trusting of someone who was hiding behind their monitor?

Peter couldn't always handle his superhero side

I think it is an interesting insight into Koreans and maybe even humans. What's your take?
Debate!

*For more information on Korea, feel free to check out a blog I put together with my fiancee for our wedding in Korea. There is some interesting information on Korea there.

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Korean Fan Death

On hot summer days, Korean fans are known to commit murder!

There's a superstition in Korea that fans kill! Now, we're not talking about this kind of fan, though if looks could kill... but click through to our wedding blog to find out what we're talking about. Knowing just might save your life.

Spare change and the future of journalism

When I was 13 I needed 10 dollars to buy a Batman action figure. My dad wanted me to do 2 weeks’ worth of chores for the money so instead I went to the mall and stood near a pay phone booth outside the Walmart. “Excuse me but I really need to call my mom and I don’t have a quarter,” I whimpered to the old ladies shuffling by. I looked sad and cute and in ten minutes made enough to even buy a Robin action figure for my brother. A valuable lesson was learned that day: it can be more profitable to ask a lot of people for a little than to ask one person for a lot.

The more the merrier

With the advent of the internet and social media, this theory holds truer today than ever. Crowdfunding, as it has been termed, is my concept of begging for nickels multiplied by millions and it is how sites like Wikipedia and the Pirate Bay are able to operate without a formal funding model. There are countless crowdfunding projects on the web in nearly every industry and they are all benefitting from the power of a democratized web. For example ActBlue is designed to fundraise for political candidates, giving voice to underserved populations. ArtistShare is a service for musicians to fund their projects outside the normal recording industry. In 2004, Maria Schneider, became the first artist to win a Grammy with an album distributed only through the Internet.

It's like a potluck where everyone adds a little and they all come away with a lot.

Now it seems that crowdfunding may well be the solution for the ailing newspaper industry. According to Mashable, a recent New York Times story was the first piece of completely crowdfunded reporting from Spot.Us, a community-funded journalism site, to be printed in what can be considered the most important news publications in the world. The concept is quite novel, actually. As newspapers become more picky about what goes into their thinning pages, they are unwilling to pay the upfront costs for their staffers to travel and research news stories that, in the end, might not make it. With this new model, journalists receive funding by the public for writing stories that the public want to know about. Newspapers and other media then get to purchase those stories, knowing that they are on topics that people want to read. The journalist wins, the newspaper wins and most importantly, the global community wins.

Mob rule doesn't always have to result in hysteria. It's more likely to produce critical thought

Crowdfunding and crowdsourcing in general are proof that social media is more than a fad but a viable business model based not on capitalist principles but on the odd marriage of social ideals and mob rule. In the case of newspapers and journalists, it’s a win/win/win situation for the industry. As a public relations professional, however, the question I need to ask is, where does PR fit in?

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