If it's Good for the Seoul: July 2014

1. Konglish misunderstandings

Penis Karaoke Bar?
Some fellow Fulbrighters and I saw a sign today that read "비너스 노래방." This would be pronounces Penis Norebang. "Norebang" is the word for Karaoke Bar Room, which is a VERY popular thing to do in Korea. But, we'd never seen the word 비너스. Often times, Korean signs include English words that are just written in the Korean alphabet. So, we assumed this was called Penis Karaoke Bar. This was plausible given that private karaoke bar rooms are notorious for sexual relations and often times prostitution.

Well, turns out it was actually "Venus Karaoke Bar." Because Korean has no "f" or "v" sound in the language, it converts any loanword with an "f" or a "v" sound to a "p." Jokes on us! So we thought that's what we got for having our minds in the gutter.

But, upon further thinking, we realized that Venus IS the goddess of beauty and sex. So maybe, our Konglish misunderstanding wasn't all that misunderstood. Either way, I'm avoiding that particular Norebang.

Tricky Homonyms
- 년 [nyawn] = has two meanings

· Year

· Bitch

* I tried to ask a friend in Korean who the president of Korea is right now so I could remember how to say her name. But I didn’t know how to say ‘president’ so I ended up asking the question like this: “What is the name of this year’s...person that’s like Obama.” Confusion ensued when what I really was asking was, “What’s that bitch’s name?”

- 싸다 [sada]

· To be cheap/low-price

· To wrap

· To pack (a suitcase)

· To poop or pee

*No exciting story here. Just a word to the wise.

2. Convenience store drinking culture
For a night out on the town with friends, it is quite common in Korea to buy beer/liquor from a convenience store and drink it right outside on plastic chairs/tables.

This is a picture from Google, but it shows the store better than our picture below.

3. Weather in Goesan(괴산)
So a little birdie tells me some of you would like to know what the weather is like here. Well, the early mornings here are magical. And I never would have known if it hadn't been for yoga. But, getting up at 6:30am allows you to enjoy the cool, breezy morning and a soft sunshine.

But then the rest of the day is pretty hot and humid. But the air conditioning at our University is pretty great, so it's not a problem. There's been some rain on and off, but other than that, it's been nice and sunny.

4. Skin Care
Korean is widely known for its beauty industry. Makeup, skin products, hair care, you name it. My town, although it's small, has one of Korea's most popular beauty stores, The Face Shop. Everything they make is organic and natural. At least that's their reputation. Fortunately for me, I stumbled upon it with Rachel, a friend of mine who is somewhat of a skin care guru. By the end of my mini-lecture on skin care, I walked out with an black sugar exfoliator (which I'll be using 3 times a week) and a cleanser (that I'll use every morning and night). Given that I have been having blemishes and acne lately, I decided to put my faith in the Korean system. But my acne actually got worse - but only for a few days while all the impurities were surfacing. So far it seems to be working. I'm going to try to see it through for 2 weeks and update.

Here's the cleanser I'm using.

This is the exfoliator.

I found this lotion at the store. I immediately thought how sad it was that being white was such a strong desire for Koreans at large. I thought about how this must result from an inferiority complex and a need to look more western. But, quickly, i realized we have tanning lotion all over the place in the U.S. I suppose it's a mutual 'grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side' kind of thing. Any thoughts?

5. The Korean Educational System and its effect on Korean society
Our Orientation Coordinator, Andrew Moncada, gave us a speech on this subject. I found it really interesting, so I thought I'd share some more here. Most of this information I gathered from him, so thanks Andrew!

The Korean version of the SAT (수능)
As I mentioned in my first post, a LOT of emphasis is put on the college-entrance exam. There are seven subjects covered on the exam, one of which is English. Take a look at some of the following questions, which were taken from previous exams.

Can't figure out which one is the right answer even though you're a native English speaker? You're not alone. This test is NOT based on how well you speak English. It's actually based on how well you have memorized the dialogues from the English textbooks used in the national Korean educational curriculum.

This is the lead-up to the next question.

Again, there doesn't seem to be a clear answer. Memorization skills are prioritized over true English abilities.

How is the English portion of the test formulated?
-A group of teachers (native Koreans) of English from the high school and college level are chosen to make the tests. They must gather at a university building in Gangwon-do province for 1 month. They are forbidden from leaving, calling, emailing, or contacting any family or friends. This is for fear of test question-spreading. They ARE, however, allowed to send letters. But staff reads the letters carefully and delivers them personally to the recipient. They get paid 300,000 Won a day, which figures out to $300/day. They write the test a month before it's given. They work 9am-midnight on it.

Korea changed really fast in a really short time.
-Following the Korean War (1945 - 1953), South Korea was in pretty bad shape. Who is usually looked to as the transitioning figure in this time? Whose administration helped Korea to emerge from poverty to become a first world country? Syngman Rhee (이승만). Eliminating illiteracy in the U.S. took approximately 80 years. For Korea, it took 10. This is just one example of how centralized and important the educational reform was.

- Rhee looked to education as a fundamental way to develop the country. His Educational Minister developed a system that was 1) based off of the western educational system - in that it had an elementary school, middle school, and a high school and 2) but focused almost exclusively on hard work, drilling, and rote memorization. At this time, such educational practices really brought positive reform to the people and the country.

How is this educational system working now?
- On average, the return on investment for a college degree is 17%. In Korea, it is a mere 6.9%.

-Studying hard in high school, going to college, and getting a respectable job is imprinted on the minds of Koreans throughout their educational upbringing. This has surely produced hard-working people who are excellent at memorization. However, this education fever means that fewer and fewer people are attracted to the much needed 'lower-level' vocational/agricultural industries. This idea that everyone should go to college and be working a job that requires dress clothes can be seen as a potential threat to the foundational society.

-Korea's unemployment rate is a low 3.1%. That being said, the percentage of Koreans that are able to find employment but only positions below their potential or credentials is a shocking 40%.

-Basically, as Andrew put it, "the system is effective in making education accessible to all, but is not effective in leveraging human resources."

Effects on mental health
-Suicide is the 4th leading cause of death in Korea
-20% of all 20-40yr. olds report some form of depression and/or suicidal thoughts.

If high school is so rigorous, what's college like?
-It's easier and much more lax.
- High school is the hard part. College is easy. This is generally the opposite for U.S. education.
- In Korea, status is all about where you go to college. Your performance in college is extremely unimportant.

6. News from Room 1002

The other night I was too tired to brush my teeth, so I asked Haley to brush them for me. I was kidding of course. But she actually brought me my toothbrush with toothpaste on it - to my bed. <3

7. The Korean Cuteness factorr

Every sign and advertisement is covered in either sweetness, happiness, or cuteness.

Is this still an icream ad?

On a weekend night, a bunch of us Fulbright grantees went out for a night on the town. A Korean friend of mine from the university wasn't able to come out with us because he had work to do. So, instead he just stopped by on his way to the university to say hi and give me four ears of corn. Adorable.

8. Weekend trip to Donghae (동해)
Donghae is a beach town in Eastern Korea. Fulbright splurged on us and let us de-stress with a little seaside retreat.

Assorted Seafood Stew (해물탕) [hey-mool-tang]
When you visit the beach, you have to try this dish. It's a traditional stew that is spicy, yet sweet and packed with an abundance of seafood. Haemultang includes, but is not limited to, blue crabs, octopus, lobster tail, quids, scallops, shrimps, and clams. Beyond the seafood, the soup can contain various vegetables such as peppers, mushrooms, onions, bean sprouts, dropwort, and leaks. What gives it the orange-red color and all the spice is the universal Korean Gochujang (red pepper paste). I give it 5 out of 10. We tried a very traditional version and with that, we got fish intestines and what seemed to be liver or kidney. That was unique to get used to, but man was the crab meat delicious. The side dishes and rice provided some familiarity for the the foreign fish parts we were consuming. I definitely felt healthy and satisfied after eating it.

9. The Korean alphabet
The answer is no. Korean does not have symbols like Chinese. It has an alphabet! True confession: I actually never learned the Korean alphabet order until yesterday. I learned the letters and their respective sounds, but I never took the time to learn the order of the alphabet. But I recently found that it helps to know the order of the alphabet when using a dictionary. Who woulda thought? A Korean dictionary is much like and English one. However, the languages are very fundamentally different. So, how is it that the dictionary can take a similar design? The simple answer is that they both have alphabets. But the way words are formed and written is very different from that of English. How so, exactly?

Well, Korean is a syllabic language. That means that rather than writing each letter in a row like we do in English, they write them in syllabic blocks.

But if they write in syllables, why isn't their dictionary arranged by syllables instead of letters?

(If you're in a rush, go ahead and skip to the answer in purple further down.)

Well, there are 24 basic letters in the Korean language (as shown in the picture below): 14 consonants and 10 vowels. However, it gets more complicated when you count the additional 5 tense consonants (which are stronger, harder versions of 5 of the basic consonants. These are the hardest sounds to learn for foreigners because no other known language uses these 5 phonemes) and the 11 diphthong vowels (which occur when 2 basic vowels combine into one sound). So when you total it up, 19 consonants + 21 vowels = 40 letters.

Number of basic Korean letters
= 24 (10 vowels + 14 consonants)

Total number of existing
Korean consonants = 19

Total number of existing Korean vowels
and vowel combinations = 21

On average a Korean syllable will contain 2-3 letters (very rarely do they contain 4, and only can they contain 1 if it is a vowel).

Math is not my field of expertise, but I've heard that the theoretical number of Korean syllables is 11, 172. However, many of those syllables represent combinations that do not actually exist in the Korean language. So, in the end, somewhere around 2,350 syllables are actually possible.

So, if we were to arrange Korean dictionaries by the whole first syllable (instead of just the first letter), we'd have to have to divide them into 2,350 categories. Obviously, it's much easier to just arrange each division by initial consonant and from there, follow the alphabetical order that proceeds.

So then, to sum it up, what does a Korean dictionary look like?

You might notice that none of the vowels are there. There are only consonants! At first glance, yes. But, there are surely vowel-initial words, so how exactly are those incorporated? Well, while the ㅇ letter is really a consonant, it also serves a purpose for vowel-initial words. At the end of a syllable, it's a consonant that's pronounced "ng." But, it's also used at the beginning of a syllable whose initial sound is a vowel. In this initial position, it's null. So, all the vowel-initial words can be found in the ㅇsection of the dictionary. And that's how it works!

10. Jungwon University

They made a banner for us! Note that it says "Wellcome."

Entrance to the University

11. Exploring the rural town of Goesan a bit more

Rice cakes (떡) For me, rice cakes don't have much of a taste, but they mix well with other food's flavors. Additionally, they can be beautifully decorated.

This famous Korean dessert is known as 팥빙수 [pat-bing-soo]. In it's most basic form, it's made of red beans, shaved ice, and condensed milk. But over the years, fun add-ons and toppings have been introduced. This particular dessert has rice cakes, mango chunks, ice cream, and some kind of strawberry syrup.

I took this picture over the wall enclosing someone's yard. May be a breach of privacy but it seemed so special to have a patch of greenery like this hidden away. Also, such abundant self gardening reminded me of our neighbor from home, Dan, who is a gardening king.

My friend and I were wandering around the town when we stumbled across this beautiful hanok-style house. The rest of Goesan is pretty run-down and quaint (it resembles the kind of community I lived in in Ecuador) but this house just seemed so well kept and respectfully protected. I'm not sure what it is, but it seems to be some kind of local landmark.

Lovin' that door

The river in Goesan

Same view, but with my friends Rachel and Ashley. Korean peace signs up!

A local store or family washing off what seems to be snails.

Those white symbols on the blue sign at the top (the ones that alternate between the yellow letters) are not Korean. They're Chinese characters, or otherwise known as Hanja (한자). Korean students study 100-1,000 of them in their education as they are used on signs, newspapers, and other media in Korean. Imagine if our store marquees just randomly threw in a Chinese symbol between all our English words. I guess we do that a bit with Spanish, but at least Spanish and English both use an alphabet - and also, they use a very similar alphabet.

Haley in front of the outdoor market.

This little corridor leads off from the street - probably into a home space. I still want to take a peak inside, but this picture will have to suffice for now.

A pretty house in the wealthier area of Goesan

Cultural history of Goesan. Probably interesting, but entirely in Korean...:/

What typical local housing looks like in Goesan

The slightly wealthier residential area

House gardens! I'm guessing they have a shop in the town center if they have a garden of this size.

This is the explanation for the following picture. Essentially, there's a housing complex in downtown Goesan that demonstrates the residential buildings of the late Joeson Dynasty. It was the living place of a proud Korean nationalist who killed himself when the Japanese occupation began. He says that he would rather choose to sacrifice his life than to collaborate with Japan.

You can actually buy a ticket and enter this local tourist site. Its backstory and its existence are important to understand, but I don't necessarily see myself doing so because you can see inside it from the hill. Besides, I've seen hanok houses before and I'm on a budget.

Here's a map of the town. The pictures feature landmarks and trademarks of the town. For those who know it exists, Goesan is known for its peppers and corn.

The following are pictures of a temple that overlooks the town. It's kind of the Mount Washington of Goesan, I'd say.

It's so colorful.

The view of our town, Goesan, from the temple on the hill.

12. Little victories

Our Orientation Counselors cheering us on for our first Korean language quiz. They waited outside the elevator to our classroom floor and bombarded us with cheers and posters.

I understood this sign without consulting a dictionary!

Also, I've been voted class president for the intermediate Korean language class! It's been fun so far. I'm the liaison between teachers and students. Whenever the teacher needs to communicate a message with the students outside of regular class hours, it's my job to get in touch with the rest of the class. I also organize little surprises for the teachers from us students. It's a tiny little responsibility but fun!

13. An important lesson learned

While at Orientation, I’ve learned to be a better listener. Our Orientaiton Coordinators held an interesting workshop called Real Talk. We did an exercise in which we asked our partner one question and let them answer it for a whole 2 minutes without saying anything. We were forbidden from giving advice, interrupting, asking for clarification, giving affirmative “yes/sure/uh uh”s or even nodding. We learned that silence is okay. It’s really helped me become a better friend and person. Thanks Orientation Counselors!

14. Taekwondo

I have Taekwondo 2 times a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. And the best part (pictures forthcoming) is that we get our own UNIFORMS! But it gets even better.Our instructor ordered black belts for us because he decided we'd want to look badass regardless of our actual talent level.

Also, the international Taekwondo organization is called the World Taekwondo Federation. Despite being a native Korean speaker, our teacher knew to clear up any confusion with its acronym, WTF.

15. The biggest struggle by far

So far, my biggest challenge has been working out the communication with my family and Bryan. My schedule is pretty busy and always changing at the last minute. And time zones are certainly not in our favor. I'm realizing that I'll start having to use more 'creative communication.' Maybe that means Whatsapp messaging, emails, sending pictures and video messages, playing Words with Friends, using Draw Something, and waking up at odd hours to Skype. I'll figure it out, but I think there's a learning curve here.

Last weekend, I was able to Skype with my mom and Bryan for a while. And it felt really good. It was a total battery recharge. I hope to be able to Skype with all of you sometime soon.

In this section, I've just included a few of my favorite photos that remind me of home. Thanks to you all for all your support and love. Missing you! <3