A sense of community and togetherness is one of the strongest characteristics underlying Korean culture. It manifests itself in a multitude of forms, but one of the most common and most prevalent is attitudes toward food and dining. In the West, each person dining out orders a personalized meal. While sharing does happen, it isn't a terribly common thing to do. There are plenty of restaurants in Korea that serve personalized meals, but when a group of people all go out together to share a meal it is far more normal to go to a barbeque restaurant and order as one large group. This creates a notion of togetherness and community and helps to serve as a bond between friends, co-workers, or even strangers meeting for the first time.
At the start of the meal, the servers bring out a set of dishes without being asked. These the side dishes, or 반찬 (banchan), are provided by the restaurant at no additional charge (although the cost is usually factored into the cost of the meat). 반찬 is different at all restaurants and is one of the ways people mark the quality of the restaurant. Typically, 반찬 includes various kinds of 김치 (kimchi) such as cabbage kimchi, daikon radish kimchi, or bean sprouts, but more expensive and famous restaurants will usually provide tofu, several kinds of seafood, garlic, salts and seasonings, and sometimes some kind of 김치찌개 ( kimchijjigae - kimchi soup). All of these dishes are shared amongst all that are there. Everyone eats from the same plates and bowls and dishes are passed around freely around the table.
Meat is then ordered collectively and is either cooked by somebody sitting at the table, or in the case of more expensive restaurants, one of the employees stands by your table and cooks it for you. The meat is cooked on a grill in the center of the table where everyone will eat from. Because everyone is eating the same thing from the same place, everyone has the chance to enjoy the same experience together. Whether the food is good or bad, everyone will walk away sharing a common experience that creates another link that binds relationships between people. Compare this with a Western style restaurant. Everyone orders exactly what they want and eats it off a private, personal plate. One's experience of the restaurant is similarly locked into one's personalized experience of the meal. Perhaps a restaurant doesn't prepare a certain dish well, but another dish properly. The person whose meal was satisfactory will have a positive reaction towards a restaurant but will be unable to share this experience with the person whose meal was unsatisfactory. All people's tastes are idiosyncratic and not everybody at a Korean restaurant is going to enjoy the meal, but all reactions towards a meal at a Korean restaurant stem from the same food, cooked from the same plate, and eaten together. For better or worse, everyone present at the restaurant creates their emotional reaction from the same stimulus, and this can be shared and understood by everybody at the table.
Dining etiquette is also structured around groups, sharing, and the relationships between people. It is considered improper to pour a drink for yourself, especially alcoholic drinks. After everybody's ages are established, the youngest person at the table or nearest to the bottles should pour all the drinks for everybody at the table and then serve it to the rest of the diners beginning with the most senior or oldest person and working down from there to the youngest person at the table. This shows respect for the people with higher social standing as well as shows respect towards the group at large. Because everyone is eating and drinking together, practices like this help to create a scene of a temporary family. It is a small gesture, but an important one. With alcohol, another set of rules comes into effect that further reinforce the communal attitude while also giving more respect to each individual at the table. You should never pour your own alcohol. Somebody must do this for you, even for the youngest person at the table. This also extends to refills of alcohol. You should be watching for people to finish their glasses, and if somebody has finished, you should immediately pour for them. For the person who has finished drinking, it is not considered impolite to ask someone to pour for them. A common way to show politeness and friendship with somebody is after finishing your drink and after having poured yourself another, to then top off the drinks of everyone else near you while you still have the pitcher in your hand. In Korea, this doesn't happen. Instead, if somebody wants to refill the drink of another for politeness sake, it is appropriate to tap someone's glass to say "hurry up and finish this so I can pour your another." In the situation of proposing a toast, two things happen. The people at the table must tap their glass under the glass of the person who proposed the toast. In order to show further politeness, the younger members at the table should turn aside while drinking. There is a lot to consider when eating and drinking to comply with drinking in the Korean fashion, but these social codes serve to honor to the community at the table, and build solidarity amongst all present. By complying with Korean etiquette, each person identifies their social standing relative to each other, building a community with elders and youngers that all can partake in, and share together.
No culture exists in a vacuum, and individual participants are free to modify or ignore these codes altogether. Some rules of eating can be done away with in order to further the sense of community and togetherness among people of similar ages, or amongst couples. Turning aside to drink is commonly disregarded amongst people of similar ages. Another truly Korean way to show affection for the people sitting with you is to feed them with your chopsticks. This can be done for both platonic or romantic reasons. It is considered acceptable for men to feed each other. It is also acceptable for someone of higher standing to feed someone of a younger standing. This is a good way for a person of higher standing to lessen the formality at the table with those people who are younger or junior.
All of these codes serve to establish a community at the table. Social standings are reinforced, and a sense of togetherness and family is built. Sharing a meal is one of the most common ways to tie people together in a sense of community around the world. Everyone at the table belongs to each other to some degree. In the Korean style, eating and drinking is critically important to establishing togetherness.
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