Everywhere I Go, It's the Same

English, I mean. It's the same, I suppose, in the global sense: it's the language that people use when they can't communicate with each other in their native tongues. Or is that linguistic? Different homes and different dialects but the same lovably idiosyncratic syntax.

Actually, what I mean is that English is just as funky and fresh in Japan as in Korea. Here are a few exhibits from my recent trip. Later posts and pictures will explore deeper things - this post is cheap thrills only.



Exhibit 1: Japanese Product
Ah yes, Kirin Lemon. Nothing explicitly wrong with the English here, it's just the hype of the advertisement proudly affixed to the label. It's a long-time favorite! Maybe it's the vagueness of "many people" that I get a kick out of. Or the fact that Kirin is more famous for its beer.


Exhibit 2: Korean restaurant
The Korean on this plaque, which I found in a quite tasty restaurant next to the dock where I boarded the ship for Japan, says nothing about taxpayers. In fact, it reads "A Sincere Model Restaurant." Presumably the message (only noticeable, of course, to those familiar with both English and Korean) is that taxpayers are sincere. Or that sincere restaurants pay their taxes. Or that taxpayers eat at sincere restaurants. I'm still working on the exegesis of this one.


Your cross-cultural sleuth will return with more scintillating cultural commentary soon!

The Weather Outside Is Frightful

It's about 7 AM here, just before sunrise, and I'm getting ready for my last day of work this Christmas break.

Watching the weather report on TV in Korean - and understanding it - I feel a sense of accomplishment and pride.

Watching the weather report on TV - and understanding it - I feel a sense of gloom descend as I prepare to step out into a wind chill of 14 F (-10 C).

Saving the Best for Last, or on the Seventh Day, God Made Korean Food

Today's Sunday, and I did the usual thing that people in the south do. Went to church. As I predicted last Sunday, I went to the local Korean service.

Once there, the usual things happened. I guess that might not mean much to those who haven't been to a Korean service before, so here's the rundown:

1) Singing in Korean

2) Praying in Korean
This goes on for quite some time. On this occasion, the woman praying was so emotional that I didn't really need to understand what she was saying to detect how deeply she felt about it. Which is a little fortunate, since I didn't understand most of what she was saying anyway.

3) Preaching in Korean
It was about the greatest commandment. I got that much of it at least. Of course, I also had a Korean-English Bible to refer to.

4) Giving tithes and offerings
Since they weren't using Korean currency, I don't really feel honest adding "in Korean" here.

5) Stretching
No, not horizons, or credibility. Just stretching arms. Left, right, forward... Seriously, this was part of the service. I thought it was rather considerate, actually.

6) Ku ku pal pal i sam sa (definitely in Korean)
This is the 9988234 chant I described on my other blog.

7) Eating Korean food
Including:
steamed spinach
turnip kimchi
And lots of this

Best of all, I got to take a heaping plate of leftovers home! Three weeks from now, I won't have to depend upon church potlucks for my Korean fix. I'll be having it three meals a day. And that's some food for thought.

I Have My Reasons

I really do, as much as you may wonder why in the world David is off to another country - and not Europe, mind you, or Canada or some other reasonable place - teaching English, learning Korean, leaving his friends and family behind and dealing with numerous inconveniences. There were the two months with no hot water, and diplomas submitted and not returned, and taxis that wouldn't pick up foreigners. Why put up with it all? Why stumble into law offices where hardly a word of English is spoken and try to get a document notarized that costs 50 dollars extra simply because - it's in English?

You might look at it a different way, though. Why live out your life in the ordinary way, continuing after a relatively uneventful, mostly successful cruise through college to the obvious grad program? Why idle away at home or in an easy career, thinking the same ideas and repeating the same words until the groove they wear in the mind is smooth and too deep to scramble out of?

Korea is, for me, another way to explore myself. It offers a history influenced by but distinct from the West, a people receptive of Western ways but uncertain of Westerners. It offers a language more challenging than those studied in American high schools because it is unrelated to English, a language bewildering because it reflects the intricate system of formality and courtesy ingrained in Korean society.

To learn it well, I have to try hard, and to keep on trying longer than I've ever done. I am a meddler and a dabbler, a prince of dilettantes, and no sooner have I started a new project than I've set it down again. This time, though I'm going to find my follow through. I'm going round the world again, and - this time - I'm not coming back until I've finished what I started.

More Soon

I've just gotten this blog going, but as you can see it's mostly skeletal. A bunch of scaffolding around the mere frame of a work, hardly begun.

See: Title.

Later, you'll be able to learn all about my continuing efforts to learn Korean, as well as miscellaneous observations about life, literature, culture. I.e. what you no doubt expect from blogs. But here language comes first.

Hope you'll keep me company as I learn.

David