Q Please analyze the scenario, using a language which is as descriptive (rather than emotional or judgmental) as possible. Which values are shaping the expectations and behaviors? A (Caucasian/Northern European heritage) US-American woman in her late 20s with prior living and working experience in East Asia is engaged to a South Korean man. She moves to South Korea to live. Her fiancee's mother (the mother-in-law-to-be) asks the wife-to-be to sleep in her bed. The location is the parental home, where the Korean spouse-to-be also lives, although he travels quite a bit on business. This bed-sharing request appears to extend to a time period of more than just one or two nights' sleep. From a US-culture perspective, which values make the request by the mother-in-law surprising? Which US values make it very unlikely that a future mother-in-law would behave in this way towards a future daughter-in-law in the US? From a Korean-culture perspective, which values make the request of the mother-in-law appropriate and comprehensible? Within the Korean context, which sense might the son make of his mother's actions.
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