When You Don’t Use Eye Contact
We recently discussed how when you are conversing with someone, you have to maintain eye contact. If you slip, you are responding as if you’re being scolded. Therefore, when you are in this wrong, this is when you are supposed to refrain from making eye contact and bow your head down.
As a child, you may have had your parents demand that you look at them when they were speaking to you, even when you were being scolded. But in South Korea, looking down when you are being scolded, especially by someone older or more powerful than you, is a sign of respect.