Page 46 Daily Mail, Monday, August 19, 2019
N
unchi, it’s claimed, is the Korean people’s
superpower. Some even say it’s a way of
reading minds, though there’s nothing super-
natural about it. nunchi is the art of instantly
understanding what people are thinking and
feeling, in order to get ahead.
if you’re thinking: ‘not another Eastern fad — i’ve already thrown
away half my clothes thanks to Marie Kondo,’ know that nunchi isn’t
some quaint custom like taking off your shoes before entering a
house. it’s the currency of life: reading a room, a mood or a social
situation in order to get what you want.
A well-honed and quick nunchi can help you choose the right
partner in life or business; it can help
you shine at work; it can protect you
against those who mean you harm; it
can reduce social anxiety. it can
make people take your side even
when they aren’t sure why.
conversely, a lack of nunchi can
make people dislike you in a way that
is as mysterious to them as it is to
you. Koreans refer to nunchi as ‘the
advantage of the underdog’ because
you don’t have to know the right
people, or be born with a silver spoon
in your mouth to use it.
nunchi is your secret weapon, even
if you’ve got nothing else, and it’s
perfectly possible to train yourself in
its life-enhancing arts...LEARN HOW TO
READ A ROOM’S
‘BOONWIGI’
WhEn it comes to the practical
application of nunchi in daily life, it’s
important to understand that the
unit of nunchi is the room.
The object of your observation
should be the room as a whole and
how the individuals within it are
acting and reacting.
have you ever been in a room when
a famous person walks in? Even if
your back is to the door, and you
can’t see who it is, you know from the
reactions of everyone around you
that something has changed. That is
nunchi in action: an awareness of the
cues we get from others.
You may not think of a room as a
single living, breathing organism, but
it is. it has its own ‘temperature’,
volume, mood — and these are in
constant flux.
Koreans talk of a room as having a
‘boonwigi’ — the room’s atmosphere
or wellness level, so to speak.
Everyone is a contributing member
of this boonwigi just by being there.
When you enter a room, having
good nunchi means observing before
you begin to speak or interact. Who
is standing with whom? Who has
three biscuits on their plate when
everyone else has only taken one?
Who appears to be ‘holding court’
and why might that be?
We have powerful social instincts
that give us strong clues about the
room, but we have to be observant
— more focused on others than on
ourselves — in order to read them.FIVE STEPS
TO AWAKEN
YOUR NUNCHI
TAKE A PAUSE BEFORE
YOU OPEN YOUR MOUTH
WhEn your mind is full of assump-
tions about people and situations, it
is hard to see what is right in front of
you and to behave in the most appro-
priate manner.
Before entering any social situa-
tion, pause for a few seconds on the
threshold of the room and use the
mnemonic hALT, which stands for
hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Are you
any of those things?
if so, ask yourself: ‘how might that
affect the way i go into this room and
what i see there?’ Then enter
deliberately and mindfully.
Measure what is happening in the
room as you arrive. Are people speak-
ing loudly or quietly; are they smiling
or do they seem sombre?
could it be that someone has just
delivered bad news, and you enter-
ing the room with a joke or in anobviously ebullient mood will cause
offence? Even if you did not intend
to upset anyone, accidental offence
is still offence.
Asking others if they’ve lost weight
is pretty much always terrible nunchi,
for example. They may have lost
weight because of stress, illness or
bereavement, and it’s inappropriate
to draw attention to it.GOOD MANNERS ALWAYS
MAKE GOOD NUNCHI
iT MighT be annoying to have to
wait for everyone to be seated, or eat
your soup without splashing it, but
manners exist to make everyone feel
comfortable. They bring a feeling of
calm and stability to the room and
everyone in it.
if you’re not sure what the rules
are, use your nunchi to discern them.
Watch what other people do; observe
their actions. is the bread plate on
the left or the right? But don’t be
superior about it! The story of Queen
Victoria and the finger bowl shows
that she was a master of nunchi, even
if she had never heard the word
At a Buckingham Palace banquet,
a visiting foreign dignitary picked up
the finger bowl intended for washing
his hands, and drank from it.
The guests around him gasped at
his social faux pas, but to save him
from embarrassment the Queen
picked up her own finger bowl and
drank from hers, too, defusing a
potentially awkward situation.
Led by her example, others
followed, also showing swift nunchi:
drinking from a finger bowl isn’t usu-
ally acceptable but in this situation
it was necessary. nunchi in action.LISTEN TO WHAT
THEY’RE NOT SAYING
Don’T take a person’s words as
being an exact reflection of their
thoughts. Study the context and
look for non-verbal cues.
You might think that everyone owes
it to you to say exactly what they’re
thinking, but they don’t. Sometimes
you do have to be a mind-reader and,
with good nunchi, it’s not as hard as
you might imagine.
obviously, life would be so much
simpler if your colleague were to say
‘i’m cold’ instead of ‘Are you cold?’
as a way of feeling out whether it’s
oK to turn up the heating. But they
might have been raised in a homeby Euny Hong
Shh!
Anti-agers no one but
you need know about
by Inge van Lotringen
Is there
anything
that will get
rid of my
peach fuzz?
Q
I’M SO troubled by my
strong white-blonde
facial hair that it’s affect-
ing my confidence. Is it true
that new lasers can remove
white hair?A
SoME clinics claim this,
but sadly, it’s untrue.
Lasers are attracted to
pigment, which absorbs energy,
this then destroys the hair
containing the pigment.
if hair is white, light blonde or
light grey, the treatment is
pointless.
But ‘old-fashioned’ electroly-
sis, which inserts a fine probe
into each follicle and destroys
its bulb with heat, does work.
it’s arduous and not painless
and, depending on how
much hair you want removed,can take up to 20 sessions over
18 months.
it is permanent, but at £30-
£60 per session can cost more
than £1,000. certified therapists
are at electrolysis.co.uk; laser
specialist Debbie Thomas(dthomas.com) says to seek out
those with ‘blend’ technology
machines, which are gentler
and more effective.
A temporary solution (results
last three weeks maximum) is
dermaplaning, where a thera-
pist uses a surgical scalpel to
scrape off the hair and superfi-
cial skin layer.
Skin is left glowing as the treat-
ment acts as a deep exfoliation.
get this done in a clinic or
medispa overseen by a doctor (it
costs from about £60) but stay
clear if your skin is very sensitive
or if you have active acne.O Ingeborg van
LotrIngen is beauty
director at Cosmopolitan.
email questions to inge
@dailymail.co.uk.ONLINE dating has made it com-
monplace to go out with someone
you know next to nothing about.
You can’t rely on their online pro-
file and you can’t always trust what
they tell you about themselves in
person. You have to use nunchi.
If you pay attention to reading the
other person — better yet, the
whole room — your focus moves
away from yourself, which has a
calming effect. Who doesn’t want
to dissipate the nervousness we all
inevitably feel on a first date?
Listen carefully to what he doesn’t
say as much as what he does. Is yourHOW IT