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As it spreads across the world, Starbucks has come to serve many functions, not least giving the kind of travelers inclined to complain about the global homogenization of place an Exhibit A to point to. Such travelers make those complaints with a special intensity when in Seoul, which in addition to a robust local coffee-shop economy boasts the highest number of Starbucks locations per capita of any city in the world. I take a slightly brighter view of the green mermaid\u2019s ongoing journey from Seattle to omnipresence, and not just because they offer those twin lifebloods of the 21st-century writer, coffee and reliable wi-fi: Starbucks stores, despite and indeed because of their efforts to hold every aspect of their experience steady across cities, countries, and continents, have ended up becoming the places where pure contrast forces the host culture\u2019s deepest-seated characteristics into view.<\/span><\/p>\n
Not that you\u2019d know it at first glance \u2014 nor, sometimes, at a closer second glance, which in a Korean Starbucks might well take in the baristas\u2019 nametags, nearly all of which bear, in bold, chalky, Roman capital letters, names like SALLY or RYAN or ANGIE. You\u2019d expect that in Denver or Syracuse, but in the capital of South Korea, let alone the much smaller towns all over the country, and pinned to the chests of an all-Korean staff serving a mostly Korean clientele, the effect is surreal. It turns out to have come down from corporate: \u201cStarbucks staff are required to have nicknames,\u201d\u00a0writes the\u00a0Korea Times<\/em>\u2018 Kim Young-jin<\/a>. \u201cThe reason, company officials say, is to create a culture in which all \u2018partners\u2019 are equal.\u201d<\/p>\n
That in opposition to Korea\u2019s established corporate culture, \u201cnotorious for long working hours and a rigid chain of command,\u201d where employees, as a rule, address each other not by name but a title that locates them unambiguously in the organizational hierarchy. More than a few Korean companies have followed Starbucks\u2019 suit. \u201cKakao, one of South Korea\u2019s largest Internet companies, decided three years ago that all employees would go by English nicknames,\u201d\u00a0writes Rachel Premack in the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em><\/a>. Additionally, \u201ccompanies in English education, tourism, trade or other globally focused industries typically have English nickname policies. They want to accommodate foreign business partners who can\u2019t decipher between Lee Ji-yeong and Lee Ji-yeon.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n