"Dung whore"

This is the first in a new series I hope to populate with many funny stories about what my young students say.

One of my favorite little guys has the English name of Adam.  I teach language arts to his class of four-year olds.

He constantly says this phrase 똥구멍 "dong-ku-meong."  I never knew exactly what it meant until a couple days ago.  See, dong, is very close to an English word, "dung."  And as far as I can tell, like "dung" is in English, "dong" is acceptable word for feces.

I've asked a couple Korean teachers what this meant and none could explain exactly what it meant since they were so embarrassed.  Then, Christmas eve, I went out with some people from work.  I asked the Koreans about the phrase.  They were shocked that our little Adam was saying that.  Funny thing is, he says it A LOT.

A conversation with Adam will often consist of, "Dongkumung Joshua, this, donkumeong class, donkumeong candy" you get the idea.

Then, the Korean woman said, "Dongkumeong means Dung Whore!"

Me and the female American teacher started laughing.  We are the two Americans who teach Adam and hear the brunt of donkumeong.  What she had said was funny, but then, we realized what she had meant to say: dunghole!   Even Koreans who are excellent at English will occasionally invert L and R sounds when speaking English.

Dong is of course feces, and "ku-mong" means hole, opening, slit etc.  So, this kid was literally going around saying, "poophole, poophole, poophole."  In practice, it means a**hole.

 

The things kids say....

Driving and Parking: Crosswalks

Crosswalks are almost completely disregarded by drivers in Korea. They don't care if you're in a crosswalk or not, they are going to go forward. I have talked about almost being hit before.

Today, I checked to make sure there was no traffic. When I saw it was clear,I began to cross a crosswalk. Then, a red car turned onto the street and began to cross the crosswalk that I was crossing--in the same place I was walking! So he slams on his brakes and I shout at him. The middle-aged drivers gets the very unique look on his face.

I've seen it before on Koreans, but only on children. Its the look a child gets when they are getting in trouble for something they didn't know was wrong. Its a combination of shame, surprise, and confusion.

I remember very clearly when I made this face. I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. My family had gone to a restaurant and father was paying the bill up at the front register. At the register, they had jars of candy like gummy bears, gummy worms, and stuff like that. Thinking it was free like the mints that many restaurants give out for free, I opened the jar and took out some gummy worms.

We were walking out to the car, when my dad noticed I had a handful of the candy worms.

"Where did you get those?" he asked.
"They had them at the counter," I answered.
"You stole them. They weren't free!" he scolded.

He took the candy from my hands and walked back into the restaurant. He then emerged with a bigger handful of candy.

"These gummy worms are mine. I paid for them." he said.
"Can I have one?"
"No, since you stole."

I then had to watch him eat the worms as we walked to the car. That look I had on my face at that moment is the same look those Korean drivers have when they almost run me over. Every time.

200th Post

I've been crawling toward this milestone for a couple months now. I'm 10 1/2 months into my time in Korea, and I've come to my 200th post. It comes on my last day of school before the summer recess. Above is a map of all of my visitors since August as counted by Google Analytics.

In the previous 199 blog posts, I discussed having:

• endured attacks of culture shock
• dodged the awful Korean drivers
• eaten dog, whale, and a 개불 (gay-bool), a seaworm which literally translates "dog penis"
• gotten involved with a church for foreigners
• dealt with never-ending bureaucracy
  
• accidentally recreated a scene from my favorite comedy show, Arrested Development
  
• given blood, sweat, and tears (not in that order)
  
• traveled to Taiwan and Japan (going again this Sunday)
  
• watched bizarre Korean commercials
• survived the Hwangsa
  
• discovered a new life form

I also wrote in the following blog series:

• Driving and Parking
  
• Product Reviews
• Office Supplies
• Fake Brands
  

I'll be blogging through the summer and into September. In late September I'll be launching Wellbeing Joshua, a site to bring together this personal blog, with a Konglish-a-day blog to help native English speakers learn quirky Korean-style English.

July 4th in Korea

The Fourth of July is just like every other day in Korea. What was I expecting? I've spent two other Fourths outside of America, but both times, I was surrounded by other Americans. We celebrated together, even if we were away from our homeland. This fourth, I didn't even see another American.

I did read a small passage from a English education text for teachers. It made me very homesick:

"Festival in America. It is celebrated as America's birthday. The Declaration of Independce was signed in Philadelphia on July 4th 1776. It is the day Americans celebrate their freedom. It was John Adams who said that July 4th should be celebrtated with parades, shows, games, and good food.

The first official 45th of July party was 1777 in Philadelphia. Warships fired a 13 gun salued in honor of the 13 states. The soldiers paraded through the streets. By the mid 1990's [sic] the annual 4th of July picnic was an American tradition. People grill BBQ or hot dogs, and eat corn on the cob, coleslaw, potato salad, chocolate cake and homemade pies. Some famileis make their own ice cream. There are activities such as watermelon- eating and pie-eating cotests. Celebration ends with fireworks."

Happy Fourth. Watch some fireworks for me!

" Tightrope acts cross the Han solo"

Apparently, the headline wasn't in reference to the Star Wars character Han Solo. Its about a much less exciting stunt across the Han River in Seoul.

Fun with Konglish

Taken at the Hyundai Oil Bank (gas station) near Okpo High School in Goeje.

Why Google isn't big in Korea

I've thought long and hard about Google and why it doesn't have a presence here in Korea. Despite the fact that Google is the biggest search engine in the world, and individually in most countries, Google isn't well-used here. They do have two good home-grown portals in Daum and Naver, but I don't understand why Google isn't making more of an effort here.

One thing I hate about Google in Korea is that is loves to change the display language on its sites based on my IP. This is a real annoyance actually. The biggest problem is when I log into Blogger. Even though I'm using an English OS, English browser, and even though my account has English as its default language, it loads half of the time in Korean. Blogger doesn't include an easy way to change language once you're logged in.

Today, I was trying out the Korean search engines to see what the appeal was. I was overwhelmed by the sites. Flashing pictures, animated ads, and links galore. Compare Google's first page with the Korean search engines:

The image above shows Google and its clean and simple homepage.

Naver, (pronounced nay-ver) is the #1 Korean search engine.

Daum, the #2 Korean portal. In 1994, Daum bought American search company Lycos. The homepage has ads galore. It even does the favor of putting ad ad in the search bar when the page first loads! See a close up below:

Maybe the reason that Google isn't doing so well here in Korea is because maybe the Koreans like all the flashing, bright, clutter.

Koreans say things the strangest way...

This is an example from series of commercials for a loan. These quick loan places are becoming pretty popular so Koreans can get more stuff. The interest rate on them can be ridiculous. In this commercial, its not what they say that's weird its how they say it.

The definition of hope

This week, I saw the following quote used as a theme for a notebook. That means it appeared on the cover and as a watermark as each page.

"What is hope? It the dream of a waking man."

Your guess is as good as mine as to what that means.

Piss Team

My last class with my students before the end of the year, fell on Valentine's Day. So, I did a game where I taught them so Valentine's Day words (romantic, love, kiss, hug, Cupid) and then they had to play an Outburst/charades hybrid game.

Before, my games, I ask the students for a team name. The first team chose "Dirty." Okay, whatever. Then, the next team said, "Team Piss." I got a confused look on my face. What? "Team Piss."

I turned to my co-teacher to see if she understood. She had no weird look on her face. "Team Peace," she said.

For what may be the first time in history, a Korean has used a short "i" sound in a wrong place. The short "i" (big, twig, jig) doesn't exist in Korean. So, short "i" sounds are often pronounced "ee" (beeg, tweeg, jeeg). In this case, the student took long ee sound (tree, peace, neice) inverted it with the short i. So, peace became piss.

I had a fun time explaining the difference between those two words.

Taiwan

I am back from my trip to Taiwan. I've been silent for some time on the blog, but am planning a flurry of updates over the next few days. I will simultaneously be telling of my trip while offering tips to future travelers.

I finished my teacher's seminars and English camps on the 25th and had a week off before starting school again on February 5th. It was great to leave Korea behind for a bit, enjoy the great weather that Taiwan had to offer, and to experience a different culture for a bit.

While away from Korea, there were some things that I missed about Korea:

The Won: The S. Korean won is roughly 1,000 South Korean Won to $1 USD. This makes it easy to convert a Korean sticker price into something my brain understands. In Taiwan, the exchange was roughly 30 New Taiwanese Dollars per $1 USD. So, I had to divide everything by 30 to get a comprehendable price. This made my brain tired.

Kimchi: I have tried some crazy foods while here in Korea: dog meat, whale meat, things that were still moving when I ate them. However, nothing could prepare me for some of the smells coming from the street vendors in Taiwan. Lets just say that I missed Korean food greatly.

PC Bangs: PC Bangs (pronounced "bahng") are internet/gaming computer rooms that can be found in just about every block. Makes it very easy to check e-mail or whatever. While in Taiwan, I had to visit three 7-11s to find directions to an internet cafe. These internet cafes just aren't as widespread as they are in Korea.

Some things I did NOT miss about Korea:

Konglish: Frankly, it can be exauhsting listening to broken English all day, and to try to constantly decipher Konglish phrases into meaningful English. I made a couple observations about English in Taiwan.

First, it is not just used for the sake of using English. In Korea, every business and brand likes to have some English along side the Korea. At best, this English is quirky--"Well-being Food"--and at its worst, it's down right nonsense--"Fresh Bank, Fresh Fish." In Taiwan, English was relatively proper in grammar and used only for effective communication--not some attempt at "glam appeal."

Second, I found that English speakers were MUCH better than those I've encountered in Korea. Enough said. Despite, nearly ten years of English education, I have a hard time communicating with most Korean high school graduates. In Taiwan, I found that when I walked into a 7-11, if one clerk didn't know English, the other did.

The Korean Winter: when I left Korea, the high was about 25 F, while in Taiwan, it was 70 F. The temperature was that perfect temperature where it isn't hot at all, and isn't chilly. Absolutely perfect.

The Ugly High-Rise Apartments: Korea's solution to its high population density is to build en mass huge ugly high-rise apartments. These buildings can be found from Seoul down to the smallest farming/fishing village and lack any architectural aesthetics. The apartments in Taiwan seemed to have been designed by someone who actually appreciates the way buildings look.

The Pushy People: Whether its on the Seoul metro or walking down the streets on Geoje, Koreans run into each other and me. All the time. When I go to get off an elevator or a metro train when in Seoul, they crowd the opening making it necessary to push your way through the crowd. I went for days with no one running into me while in Taipei. When exiting the metro, people waited to the side for those exiting to leave before getting on the train. The two times I remember getting shoved aside were waiting in line at Taipei 101 and then at the airport to leave. Both times, it was Koreans doing the shoving.


Despite all the "negatives" about Korea, it is my home for now, and I missed it. I definitely am glad that I am living here and not in Taiwan.

I'll be updating the blog daily for at least the next week about my Taiwan trip. Hope you enjoy and let the comments come!

Sclabbre

A couple days ago, one of my classes was playing Scrabble--or "Sclabbre" as they kept saying it. I got some interesting words:

• ahn (I still have no idea what they thought this meant)
  
• sexyback (thanks Justin Timberlake)
• ET (every single group of students came up wit this one)
• hapy
  

In addition, I found one group in the corner that had abandoned the game and were just putting taboo words down. They had come up with:

• sexysexy
• Marbro (they were going for the cigarette brand I think )
• then, all the four letter words they had vowels for

I have to admit that I was very thankful, that no one had put down well-being, story, or crazy.

Pan's Labyrinth Follow-up

Today, I was talking to one of my classes about what they did over the weekend. A girl said, "I wen to the movies!" Then, I asked which one. She said the name in Korean and I recognized the Korean name for Pan's Labyrinth. Then, in broken English, she explained the movie was in French! I corrected her of course, but if you read the previous entry, you'll recall that this wasn't the first time the language of the movie was misidentified by a Korean.

I began to consider how prior to coming to Asia, most Asian languages looked the same to me. I could sometimes distinguish between Japanese and Chinese, but beyond that I was ignorant. Now of course, I can easily distinguish both written and orally between the three major Northern Asian languages.

I can understand how someone who is not used to the romance languages can get them mixed up. Italian and Spanish are so similar to me that I can't often distinguish when they are both spoken fast. However, the more I think about it, those theater employees yesterday, with their eight years of English education, had no excuse to mistake Spanish for English.

Maybe I can make a lesson out that: distinguishing between the major languages of the Americas and Europe.

Other Links:
My Pan's Labyrinth post.

101th post

I unceremoniously posted my 100th blog posting with no fanfare. No fanfare here, just a note of my 101th post. If you hadn't guessed, I taught a lesson to my students about ordinal numbers.

Will Speak English for Food

Next week will be my three month anniversary in Korea. Over the time, I have benefited greatly from the generosity of Koreans. This evening, I was invited out my one of the teachers at Dong Bu Middle School. The teacher is about the age of my mother, and has a daughter who is also about my age. Her middle daughter recently returned from studying English for nine months in the Philippines. The Philippines are a fairly popular place for Koreans to study English since its much more affordable than going to a western country like the US or Australia.

I went to a plant shop on the way to meet the teacher. I picked a cactus and wanted to pay. They took my money at first, and then gave it back--they insisted that I just take the cactus. I've had some shop owners give me a small package of gum or something since I was a foreigner, but not a $7 plant! Anyway, so I took my free gift for the teacher and went to our meeting place. The original plan was for me to go to her home, but something came up yesterday and she wasn't able to prepare anything. So her family took me out. We went to a really nice traditional Korean restaurant just outside of Gohyeon.

These nice dinners have countless side dishes laid out on the table that you pick at with your own chopsticks. I was even complimented on my chopstick skills. Actually, I'm getting quite used to chopsticks. They're becoming second nature to me. We started out with a pumpkin soup. It was really good. I tried this raw beef dish for the first time, yeokhway (Friel Romanization), a raw jellyfish dish (it was sliced into "noodles" and had the texture of chewing rubber bands--I'm serious), some mystery dish that not even my Korean hosts could identify, and some roasted pork. Those are the dishes I could remember. there were easily twenty different foods on the table before the main dish came. The main dish was a spicy "ugly" fish dish that was even too spicy for my hosts. We also had two other soups.

While we ate, we spoke English. It was nice. The teacher is a home economics teacher (none of the "FACS" here), and is decent with English. Her husband works at DSME (the Daewoo Shipyard that dominates the Okpo economy) and is a good English speaker. Then of course, there was their middle daughter who is studying English and is an English teacher at a Hagwan (Korean after-school academy). All around it was a nice dinner. Not a bad trade off--I help a family polish up their English and in return, I get a great meal.

I think maybe I should make an advertisement: "Will speak English for food."

Seriously, what does this mean?

I bought two glasses at Home Plus tonight. Along with leaf, there is an inscription on both glasses that reads:

"Without love and laugher there is no joy.
Love abounds in honey and poison
Where there is no jealousy there is no love."

What!? Love abounds in honey and poison? I'm sure that there's a deep thought here, I just think that the author of this inscription was insane--insane enough to kill the person he loved?

My Favorite Pupils...

I have to deal with many students throughout the week--of all ages. Of course the ones I get paid for teaching are all middle school aged between 12-14. Today, I was thinking about my favorite students, and I thought I'd share.

Note: in Korea 1st grade~7th grade, 2nd grade~8th grade, 3rd grade~9th grade

At Seong Po, my main school, there is a third grade guy that has become one of my favorites. When handing out English names, I gave him my middle name, Kyle. We sometimes catch the same bus home. He gets off much earlier than I, but we make small talk. He's not that great at English, maybe average for his age, but he tries. I really like that. Then, today, I watched as he lead a group of students for their "beatbox club." I watched off to the side. he was really good with the younger students and very patient. It reminded a little bit of me teaching English. Instead of the students practicing their "th" sounds, they are practicing their "boom, chick" and other unwritable sounds.

There's also a couple of second grade students, also at Seong Po, who are among those few who I have three times a week. Their both good at English, and always have a smiles for me. The girl would always say, "See you tomorrow" to me at the end of the day. I would correct her by saying, "No, I'll see you Wednesday (or Friday)" since I see them every other day. She quickly caught on, and now says the correct goodbye on the appropriate days.

The other second grader is a boy who is very good at understanding directions and following what I'm saying. Even though he may not get every word, he goes for comprehension, and I can carry on a decent conversation with him. A couple weeks ago, I had to ask him three times to be quiet and to work while the others were working. The third time, I came over and was noticeably frustrated. I opened his book and pointed at the part that he was supposed to be practicing. His smile changed and he said, "Are you upset?" "Yes, you are not being a very good student today." That's the only problem I had with him. The fact that he responded to my emotion was important. Most of the students who are giving me problems don't seem to care if I'm getting upset or not.

My other really favorite student is an adult. She's not a formal student. She works at the education office, and has me over for dinner with her family every now and then. She speaks broken English, but it is bold broken English. She is very blunt and it comes across in her English. She asks me a word, I tell her and she remembers. Again, she's not that great at English right now, but she tries really hard. She also doesn't back down when I can't understand her. She keeps going until I get it.

So, as someone who's been on both sides of a foreign language, the two most important pieces of advice I can give to language learners is to not be afraid to make mistakes, and to be persistent.

English: lingua franca

I've been looking for a church in South Korea, but found it hard to find one with English services. It took me 2 1/2 months, but I found it. Yesterday, I everything synced up and I was able to make plans with the Korean sponsor, get a ride, and get there.

The church is in a transition stage from being an English service of a Korean Presbyterian church and being its own independent community. For practical purposes, it is independent and has little connection with the rest of the Korean church. The church serves mainly the English-speaking expatriates who are working on Geoje with one of the shipyards (Samsung or Daewoo). The people are from all over, and are usually only assigned to Geoje for six months to a year at a time.

These rotation cycles sometimes leave few English-speakers at the church. This past sundry, there were about fifteen people, including myself. Talking afterwards, I realized that although we were united by our language and our faith, we were all from different countries. The attendees came from Sweden, Nigeria, Canada, Sweden, Malaysia, Korea, and the US.

I began to think about English and how it really is the international lingua franca. While there are plenty of languages that have more native speakers, the wide reach of the former British Empire, combined with the US's superpower status has cemented English as the most practical second language.

A few Konglish examples

This is the wrapper of a microwaveable sandwich. "Enjoy your sweet dream and life?" What, is this sandwich going to kill me?

This is the packaging from a gift luxury towel. Hey, who says I have a simple mind?

Finally, are a couple examples with no picture. They both come from notebook covers--they are printed on every one of these notebooks! Warning, these may cause internal brain hemorrhaging!

• "Hamster baby. For the sang to my heart. Oh look at my, look at my [sic]"
• "Dreaming with true friends happy."

Culture Shock: Chopsticks

On the issue of chopsticks, I must first begin with saying that I have my good days and I have my bad days. Today was a good day.

For me, any day where I don't drop food out of my chopsticks is a good day. At first, I had more bad days than good days. However, two months into my life in Korea, I think the good days are wining out. I'm having victory over this thing.

In the States, eating with chopsticks was a novelty. I'd do it with Chinese food or Vietnamese food, or the occasional sushi treat. I always had those wooden chopsticks and I was never very good at it.

In Korea, chopsticks are standard, and they are slick stainless steel. I was amazed at how difficult eating with smooth chopsticks could be. Wooden chopsticks provide grip which keeps food from slipping away. For the first couple weeks, I struggled with my grip, my hands hurt from the increased demand on the muscles, and i dropped a lot of food. A lot of food.

After a couple weeks of using chopsticks daily, I found it much easier--although I still dropped a lot of food. My fellow teachers would actually compliment me on my chopsticks skills! I thought they were just placating me until I watched one of the Korean teachers. She's probably in her early fifties. She leaned over and said, "I think you use chopsticks better than I do." I smiled, and watched her eat. I was better than she was! I was surprised at how many thing she would stab with her chopsticks, how many things she dropped, and how many times she had to adjust her grip. It felt good.

While my chopstick skills are improving, there have been a couple things that have made life here easier.

1. It is okay to "stab" some things with your chopsticks
2. Not only is it okay to eat rice with a spoon, up until about twenty years ago, it was considered rude not to eat rice with a spoon
3. If you drop something, pretend you meant to do it. This is much easier if the food lands on your plate. Pretend you are experimenting. I have seen many Korean put random side dishes in their soup.
4. If you are having a "bad day" say this phrase with a big smile, a tilt of the head, and shrug of the shoulders, "Waygook saram ahyeahyo" (Friel Romanization). It means "I'm a foreigner."