Self Improvement

plan was to study Korean a few hours a week once I got back to US.

hours of Korean actually studied so far since 2.1.2021:

0

— James (@wetcasements) March 17, 2021

Found In Translation

My life is way too up in the air right now to do something as life-changing as buying a new video game console, but this is kind of cool -- the Hangul-ized logo for Cyberpunk 2077.  (I realize the release has been a shit-show.)

So roughly, we've got "SA-EEE-BUH-PUNG-KU."

Not easy to do, but very cool.

King Sejong Was A Pimp

And a happy Hangul Day to you.

The weather here in Daegu is autumn perfection.  Off to take a long walk around the north part of the city.

An Alphabet For Everyone?

The creation and history of hangul, the Korean alphabet, is fascinating in and of itself ("among the most phonologically faithful writing systems in use today").  It gets better (worse?) when it comes to modern intrigue surrounding existing artifacts of its creation:

"The Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) can finally raid the home of Bae Ik-gi, the man who has held and concealed the nationally treasured document 'Huminjeongeum' for the past 11 years. On July 11, The Supreme Court dismissed Bae’s appeal asking the court to stop the CHA from carrying out a forcible extraction. In short, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the ownership rights of the Haerye segment of the 'Hunminjeongeum,' which Bae has been hiding, belong to the administration, giving the CHA the green light to take the 'Hunminjeongeum' from Bae by force.

But, the organization is pessimistic that Bae will hand over the 'Hunminjeongeum' despite court’s ruling."

It's a priceless artifact, and its authenticity has been verified.  But the story around this copy of the manuscript is straight out of a Nic Cage movie.

It's also worth noting that Koreans are a bit more sensitive to these issues since so many other national treasures were stolen during the Japanese occupation.

"eat that steak"

Korean millenials face many of the same challenges that American ones do -- a sluggish job market (for full time work, at least), increasing costs for education and housing, and more generally a sense that they'll never do as well as their parents did.  So are they overlooked and under appreciated, or just wasteful spenders?  Enter "fuck-it expenses":

"Loosely translated to 'fuck-it expense,' the term is a compound noun combining shibal (a swearword for frustration) and biyong (expense). It first appeared in late 2016, with the earliest tweet about it referring to 'an expense that I would not have spent if I weren’t under stress,' such as 'an impulsive food delivery or a cab ride.' The post caught on, and the term was named “neologism of the year” by several South Korean media outlets.

A shibal biyong is an expense that might seem unnecessary but that helps you get through a bad day. It’s the $20 you splurge for a cab home instead of taking the subway after you’ve been denied a promotion or the comforting but expensive sushi you buy after you’ve been berated by your boss. The term implies that you might as well make yourself happy right now because your prospects in the long term seem bleak. Buy that nice coat, because you’ll never get on the housing ladder. Eat that steak, because you’ll never save up enough to retire."

Meanwhile the Korean demographic crisis continues unabated.

Tears of a Pierrot

Korean language fun fact: one word for "clown" in Korean is "pi-e-ro," as in Pierrot.  There are words for juggler and acrobat that are similar, but if you've got a crazy rainbow wig and big red shoes Koreans will generally use this borrowed word.

Update:  A friend living in Japan on Twitter let me know that Japanese uses the same loan word.

Doolittle

Having a tough time of it?  Don't "correct" yer accent, soften it:

"A broad regional accent might hold you in good stead in some jobs, but can be a drawback in more upwardly mobile careers. 'There may be some kind of expectation that, if you’ve secured a good degree and aced teacher training, then why didn’t you modify your accent as a linguistic means to signal that you are moving up in the world,' says Dr Alex Baratta, a lecturer at the Manchester Institute of Education.

'Accents tell you as much about what we project on to people as anything to do with the actual people,' says Sophie Scott, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London. How you perceive accents can be dependent on your proximity to the location of the accent, she says. She grew up in Blackburn, Lancashire, where the Liverpudlian accent was considered 'metropolitan'. This contrasts with the animus that some Mancunians have towards a scouse accent, and the romanticism some Americans hear in its cadences.

Since I have been in London, I have become conscious of what my accent signals – northerners are often depicted as being louts or simpletons in the southern-centric media. During the first few ice-breakers at university, I was told by a well-spoken southerner that I sounded like Karl Pilkington, of An Idiot Abroad fame.

My adult students explained to me that a Daegu accent doesn't map as "stupid" or "poor" so much as "antagonistic" towards Seoul folks.

Make of that what you will.

"Just Corny"

"Konglish" is the phenomenon of Koreans using English language words, or even whole expressions, in contexts that native English speakers wouldn't understand.  (Wikipedia is a good place to look it up.)  And while crimes against English are nothing new in South Korea, the significance of Konglish for marketing luxury apartments is:

"The situation is the same for an apartment complex in Godeok, eastern Seoul. The apartment complex, which is being reconstructed by a consortium led by Daelim Industrial, is named Arteon, a combination of the words 'art' and 'theon,' or godly in Greek.

Samsung C&T also named the reconstruction of Gaepo Jugong 2 Danji apartment, which will be completed in early 2019, Raemian Blesstiage, a combination of 'bless,' and 'prestige.' The company was especially keen to emphasis the prestige of the complex, and also considered luxtiage, trinitage and forestige as potential names.

'The idea that mixing English words with good meanings makes [the apartment complex] more high-end is just corny,' said a Raemian Blesstiage apartment owner."

A lot of foreigners, and in particular no small number of anal-retentive English teachers, seem to get personally offended by Konglish.  Of course, Konglish isn't for them, it's a marketing strategy to connote something exotic, elegant, or expensive (think of the use of French and Italian in America to signify luxury or fashion) to potential Korean-speaking customers.

Still, it's impossible not to cringe at some of the terrible names Korean marketing gurus are able to come up with.

While not quite Konglish and more of a translation error, the local beauty supply chain "Skin Food" is my favorite example.

The Rest of the World Totally Respects Mighty Trump Now

A round-up of Chinese and Korean play-on-transliterations for "Trump."  What Koreans have done with Orange Hitler's name:

"The nickname is 도람프 or 도람푸 — a play on the Korean word that means to be crazy/insane/mad.

Krista Ryu remarks:

돌다 (dolda) literally means to turn (v)

But when you use it after the word 'head' or directly to a person, it can mean you are crazy or 'nuts'.

So it is a combination of this verb and the name Trump

Trump in Korean transliterated would be Teuleompeu 트럼프

(Some one is crazy) dol-assda 돌았다 ('turned')

–> dolampeu 도람프"

 Approve.