Anyway, life in Korea continues much the same, just as busy, just a little colder as autumn arrives. Learning a language that evolved seperately from the Romance languages results in a lot of interesting terms that can't be translated or just simply don't exist in English. For instance, there is a common term in Korean for the time during a change of seasons and for days in which the temperature can fluctuate a great deal from the morning to the night. Both terms are regularly blamed for flu/cold symptoms during this time of year, bringing up the interesting question of whether more people get sick here than they do in America, just because English lacks those notions.
Sometimes the vast language differences can be bridged in fun ways. Tonight, I had dinner with a group of Korean friends at a tak kalbi restaurant. I would post pictures from Google, but it wouldn't do the food justice. Essentially, tak kalbi is spicy chicken mixed with rice and roodles, cooked over a central burner on the table and shared between a group of people. Over our meal I was introduced to some new comers and set about meeting people. As the youngest member of the group, I was obligated to speak in honorific terms to the people around me and make sure their glasses were always full. Mistakenly speaking in more informal language may sound like an obvious mistake, but with Korean, the word structure is very similar. When I would speak to a woman two years older than me as if she were my same age, she would give out an aggrieved cry of dismay. Being a foreigner excuses a lot of social faux pas, so they were just enjoying giving me a hard time, but I am learning, slowly.
Incidentally, the language difference based on age is the reason why Korean people will ask someone's age within minutes of meeting them for the first time. Just being a year older can make a great deal of difference. This age-finding imperative also comes up when people get into fights. The equivalent of saying "let's take this outside" is "how old are you," the implied message is "you're younger than me, so watch yourself."
Like I said before, there are times when learning the intricacies of the language can be fun, there are then times when it is anything bit enjoyable. There are three ways to say "good night" in Korean, all meaning exactly the same thing. The only difference is when they should be used, "anhyunghi jumunuseyo" to a mother, father, grandparent, "jal jalleyo" to an older sibling, business contact, and "jal ja" to a close friend or younger sibling. The same levels of greeting are used for "good day." I am a person who really likes saying hello, at all times of day and to strangers, if possible. Since coming to Korea, I really just got tired of being criticized for speaking too formally or too informally. When you are about to go to sleep and instead get a lecture on jondemal, the intricacies of honorific vocabulary, it can be less the pleasant.
While I said that there are ways to translate "good day" into Korean, it is actually the same expression as "hello" and "goodbye" meaning literally, "please have peace." The English fixation on having time-appropriate greetings doesn't show up in Korean. Conversely, Korean has a wide range of ways to say "my stomach is full." Seoul isn't a very gluttonous place, but for some reason, I will never hear my friends or host family end a meal without a sigh and a cry of "peh buloh." The are other ways, meaning, "I'm so full I could die" or, "I can't eat more," mroe varied than show up in English. Speaking with French friends here, I was interested to hear that "I'm full" is much less common/colloquial in their language, implying a. that eating to the point of fullness is less common or b. that announcing one's fullness is less important/accepted. All of the lessons from Anthropology 101 are coming back to me.
I apologize again for the lack of my own pictures, but I can't have a post of solid text.
Here are my host mother and brother at the jeongyejeong, (Seoul City Canal/Stream) last winter
My host brother looks mildly surprised, this is a common emotion for him.
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