Ask A Waeguk - addendum

Those of you who happened to read the comments section of the preceding post will have noticed reference to monkeys and banana flavoured cheetos. Allow me to elaborate.

Relatively soon after my arrival in Korea, I was walking home one night after an evening out with friends. Finding myself somewhat peckish, I stopped at the first convenience store along the way. There, my eye was caught by a bag of what appeared to be Cheetos- at least, that's what the photo on the bag led me to believe. There was also a cute drawing of monkey, but I didn't put too much thought into its significance at that time. It was only later when I happened to open the bag that I realized the "Cheetos" were not cheese-flavoured. Nor, as it happens, were they monkey-flavoured. Or if they were, I am somewhat surprised to learn that monkeys taste suspiciously like artificial banana flavour. Not having sought out this bag since, however, I am unable to say whether a closer attention to the English writing on the package would have provided me with more clues. I feel reasonably confident in saying that nowhere in English was it written, BANANA-Os! Banana-flavoured Cheetos-shaped snack food, but it in Korean it may well have.

Real bananas? Good. Fake banana-flavoured Cheetos? Not so much.

Ask A Waeguk, Vol. 7

The first question of the year comes from Haleigh in Halifax, who wonders:

"In South Korea, does most product packaging have some English on it, or have you often had to guess at the contents based on the picture on the box? If it's the latter case, have you had any amusing misunderstandings?"

The Waeguk responds:

Almost all packaging does in fact have some English on it, but whether this is to assist any wayward anglophones or to promote some abstract idea of sophistication, I have yet to decide. There's a huge emphasis on learning English, though, so it may be that it's a way of encouraging the people to acclimatize themselves to the roman alphabet. This is all idle speculation, of course, but what it means in practice, then, is that most food products have some English on them. Even things like the generic store-brand rameon noodles have the Korean "라면" (rameon) followed by "noodles."

One of the things which has amused me rather consistently since becoming quasi-literate in Korean is that English words are often transliterated rather than translated. As an example, I present the title of a recent Western movie:

P.S. 아이 러브유

To most of you, of course, the above title is illegible, so let's break it down phonetically.

아 - a
이 -ee
러 -luh
브 -buh
유 -yu

Said quickly enough, a ee luhbuh yu becomes I love you. Thus, we know the movie is P.S. I love you. To see a movie poster, please click here.

What's interesting, though, is that if you were to look up these words in a Korean-English dictionary, you would find something completely different. It should come as no shock to anyone, really, that the Korean for "I love you" is not the same as the English. Furthermore, on movie posters the title is often(though not always) written in English as well as in Korean. So a Korean whose English is good enough that she will know what I love you means will in all likelihood be able to read the title in English, but a Korean who is unable to read the Roman alphabet is not likely to be any more enlightened after reading the Korean transliteration.

Another example? Oh, all right.

아메리칸 갱스터

Again, let's break it down.

아-a
메 -meh
리 -ri
칸 -kan
갱 -gang
스 -suh
터 -tuh

Reassembled, we find ourselves with: a meh ri kan gang suh tuh. Say it quickly, and you're saying American Gangster (movie poster: here). Again, the words for American and gangster are quite different, but the titles are transliterated rather than translated. One of my favourite French novels is Le petit prince, but in English it becomes The Little Prince, not Luh Putty Prance.

This transliteration is not restricted to movie titles; incidentally. Even Mountain Dew is turned into ma-aoun-tin du, rather than some Koreanized "Hill Rain beverage" or somesuch.

On a not entirely unrelated note, my Korean lessons proceed with slow but steady progress. They proved their worth last week when I left my cellphone in a cab. As I discovered my loss shortly after exiting the vehicle, I was able to call my phone almost immediately. The cabdriver answered, and in Korean I was able to impose upon him to return to my apartment so that I might procure my telephonic device. It should be noted that what I actually said in Korean was not in the vicinity of eloquence, nor, indeed, in the same area code, yet the fact remains: my cellphone sits on the desk in front of me as I type. A triumph indeed.

Ask A Waeguk, Vol. 6.2

The next question is from AC "Slater" Garskey in Ottawa, who writes:

"Dear Waeguk,

I recently heard that there are somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20 000 anglophones teaching English in Korea at the moment. Is the demand for any other languages strong in Korea, and if so, do you ever run into evidence of the presence of native speakers of those languages? (Note: by “evidence”, I more or less am thinking of observing young speakers of, say, French or Spanish on the subway who appear to be on their way to work or who appear to be somehow less transient than tourists. I’m not thinking along the lines of stool samples or footprints.) "

The Waeguk responds:

English is far and away the dominant second-language in Busan, and Korea as a whole. In terms of foreign-language education, the next most popular would likely be Mandarin, but it doesn't have even a tenth of the presence of English.

That's not to say that all the non-Koreans in Busan are anglophones, though. The interestingly-named Texas Street, for example, is home to Busan's Russian community, and many of the signs in the area are in the Cyrillic alphabet. I think the presence of the Russians is due largely to Busan's status as one of the major port cities in this corner of the world; Texas Street also plays host to a number of Indonesian and Philipino restaurants and is, or so rumour would have it, the recommended (and likely only) place to go for a Caucasian (possibly literally, in this case) prostitute.

There are a couple of French people in the Korean class which takes place before mine; I haven't spoken to them much, but I think they likely work for a multinational in the area, as I have seen absolutely no demand whatsoever for French teachers.

It has occurred to me on occasion that it would be amusing to procure myself a position as an English teacher in a rural area where nobody speaks the language, and proceed to teach the children French or Spanish instead, but the odds of my doing this are slim.

Ask A Waeguk, Vol. 5

Our latest question comes from Dave in Ontario, who is impressed at the news of the Waeguk's Korean lessons, and wonders whether they include the alphabet, and the Waeguk's thoughts thereon.

As always, the Waeguk responds:

I'm learning both written and spoken Korean, which is a bit of a challenge, but also something I'm quite enjoying. The Korean is relatively straightforward to learn, and in fact is something I had a decent understanding of even before beginning the lessons, insofar as being able to sound out words, though not necesssarily to understand them.

One of the interesting things about Korean is how poorly it's transliterated into the Roman alphabet. For example, I live in the city of Busan, but until quite recently I would have been living in the city of Pusan. There is no real distinction in Korean between the English p and b, l and r,and j and z. My students are wont to talk about the "Jewkeeper" rather than the "zookeeper," which is not a mistake that will serve them well in most parts of the English-speaking world.

Traditionally, Korean has been transliterated into the Roman alphabet using the McCune-Reischauer system, but over the past decade or so this has been phased out in favour of the Revised Romanization system, and this is the reason for the Pusan/Busan switch. Essentially, this means that there are easier and simpler ways of having one sound in Korean correspond to its partner sound in English, and showing this on paper.

Learning to read Korean has also helped me sympathize somewhat with some of the difficulties facing any learner of a new alphabet. Most frustrating? Fonts! I can read the Korean equivalent of Times New Roman fairly easily, but anything artsy or stylized throws me off immediately. Writing is also a challenge given that my handwriting isn't exemplary at the best of times and in my native tongue, but at least under those circumstances I can extrapolate from my notes with confidence. In Korean? Not so much.

On the other hand, three tenses total does make for one happy language student...

Got a question for the Waeguk? Ask him here.

Kansas, Toto, and all that

After a while, life begins to consist of routines, patterns and habits. Every day in Korea is no longer to the filled to the brim with glorious epiphanies, touching moments of intercultural understanding, and moments of intense revelation. This is not to say that these do not occur, merely that the quotidian living is, perhaps, less exotic than some might imagine it to be.

Having said that, I do often experience many things which remind me, subtly or overtly, that I am no longer living in the shadow of the CN Tower...

On Saturday, one of the secretaries at our school got married, and all the teachers were invited to the wedding.

As I waited for my coworkers before heading over to the wedding, a group of boys aged 12 or 13 passed by. Despite my wearing sunglasses, they were somehow able to deduce my anglophone nature, and called out to me, "very handsome!" with thumbs raised to underline their approval. On the one hand, it's simply a case of kids seizing the chance to practice their English outside of class, but on the other, it's an instance of young males commenting favourably (and without sarcasm, I assure you), on the appearance of another male. It must be said, of course, that I do look damn good in a tie.

Korea is a very conservative and homophobic country- there are very, very few openly out people here, and paradoxically, it may be for this reason that men are much more affectionate towards one another than they would be in Canada. It's not at all uncommon to see teenage boys sitting on each other's laps in the subway, or holding hands as they walk down the street. Being gay is so unheard of that one is able to engage in such affectionate activities without the fear of being called gay because being gay isn't even an option...but back to the wedding.

In many respects, it was a fairly Western affair: the bride wore a white dress, the groom wore a tux, and it was held in a wedding hall not hugely dissimilar from ones one might find in Mississauga or Don Mills. A major difference, though, was evident before the wedding, as the bride sat in a small room off the lobby and guests were invited in to pose for pictures beside her. During the actual ceremony, the parents of the bride and groom sat in big chairs on either side of the happy couple, who bowed to each set of progenitors (I do love me some big words every so often) at the conclusion of the nuptials.

I had my first Korean lesson today. It's mightily exciting, after four months in the country, to be finally learning the language in a formal, organized manner. It was even more exciting to learn that Korean verbs have only three tenses, and that there is no conjugation as such- the ending is the same for each person- I am, you am, he am, we am, and so on. Furthermore, Korean is largely a contextual language, so "are you going to Seoul" is written the same way as "you are going to Seoul" would be, with the only difference being the inflection at the end of the sentence to indicate a question.

Apart from the obvious advantages of speaking the language of the country in which I live, I think that learning will also be give me a better grasp of the perspective of my students, a from the general sense of learning a new language, but also of the differences between English and Korean specifically. I look forward to learning more.

As you may be aware, the leaders of North and South Korea have just completed another summit- the second since the end of the Korean War. Unfortunately, my grasp of Korean politics is not much stronger than my grasp of the Korean language. It isn't something which my coworkers discuss at all at work, or at least not in language, and I'm perhaps too careful when asking about it, because the relationship between the Koreas does fascinate me so.

As I touched upon at the beginning of this post, Koreans and non-Koreans may be distinguished from one another by purely physical characteristics, at least 99 times out of one hundred. There is a not inconsiderable number of Westerners in Busan, but I would venture to guess that at least 90% of them are English teachers. This is interesting because, a) it means that almost all white people (and the vast majority of English teachers here are white) in Busan are between the ages of 22 and 3o, and b) there isn't the same level of integration or assimilation as would occur under more conventional immigration patterns. It's not at all rare to be stared on the subway or the street, especially by children. This puzzled me for a little while because the number of Westerners, while only a tiny fraction of the overall population, is still substantial enough that I generally see another waeguk or two every time I go downtown.

But while a small town in Northern Ontario, for example, may be (and here we'll pick some numbers out of a hat), 10% Native Canadian, with the rest of the town being Canadian of European descent except for "that one Chinese family," the point is that even in that small town, the Chinese family is a family. There will be Chinese-Canadian kids in that family, and they will go to school with the other kids, and hang out with them, and so on. There may be racism and suspicion and so on, but there is also a level of interaction that is unusual here. The Western teachers and the Korean teachers may and do hang out, but there are no family picnics or family softball games, for the simple fact that there are almost no Western children here. It isn't rare to see white people (as mentioned, almost always between the ages of 22 and 30), but it's almost unheard of to see white children. A few months ago I was at the beach and hanging with a couple from Oregon who had their two small, blonde children with them. The kids fell asleep under a beach umbrella, and more than one Korean came up and asked to take their photo.

We are migrant workers, though more by choice than by necessity. Most teachers here will leave after a year. Some will stay on for a little while, but the vast majority will return within 3 years to Canada, the U.S., or whatever other corner of Anglophonia from whence they came.

And those are my thoughts for the day.

The waeguk is wondering if he's already answered all the possible questions you could have. If no, feel free to ask.

Ask A Waeguk, Vol.4

Haleigh from Nova Scotia writes: "How much English do your students already know when you (in the general, "someone who goes to teach English in Korea" sense) begin teaching them? And since you don't speak Korean, what tools do you use to make yourself understood, if the comprehension level is not already fairly high?"

The Waeguk Responds

It's interesting that you should ask, Haleigh. I'd been planning for some time to do a blog entry on my fledgling teaching career, and your question has provided the necessary incentive. Khansamneeda.

I teach a number of different age groups, and students of all levels of English-language ability. The teaching ranges from the relatively simple ("Some dinosaurs walk. Some dinosaurs run.") to the more advanced- one of my classes is reading The Wizard of Oz. Regardless of their age or ability, though, all of my students speak a level of English that is light-years ahead of my Korean. Even the kindergarten students understand the essentials needed for their classes:

-stand up

-sit down

-tidy up

-repeat after me

-cut here, then color*

And so on. I can also engage my kinders in conversation, as long as we stick to subjects they've studied (farm animals, feelings, health issues- sore throat, runny nose, et al- and dinosaurs). For those times when I'm in need of vocabulary they don't already know, a combination of mime and whiteboard sketching works wonders.

For the older students, of course, we tend to use more specialized vocabulary (I spent a class on the "present continuous" tense today, for example), but generally speaking they already have a relatively large English word-base, so I can work my way around using synonyms and the like. Failing that, there's always mime and whiteboard sketching. Usually, though, I just need to repeat myself more slowly, or rephrase myself. If I can make myself understood to one student, he or she can translate for the rest. That's not necessary very often, however, as the nature of the lessons is such that they're generally at a level the students can understand.

I teach at a private language academy, of which there are many (hundreds, I'd guess) in Busan alone. This means that my students (with the exception of the kinders) come after their regular school has concluded. Many students also go to an additional math, science or other school. For those whose parents can afford the additional education, it seems to be seen as something of a necessity.

As with any job, teaching has its ups and downs, though I suspect these may be more pronounced than in some careers. There are days when I walk out of class glowing with the satisfaction of a well-taught lesson, pleased by how well the students responded to my pedagogical brilliance, and there are days when I stagger out of class relieved the students haven't received a first-hand definition of defenestration.

The courses are very syllabus-oriented, meaning that I generally know which page of the textbook I'm teaching on any given day. This is useful in that relieves me of much of the burden of lesson-planning, but on the other hand it often forces me to figure out how to fill 40 minutes on something that I would otherwise try to teach in ten. Games are useful - a dull question and answer period is livened substantially if the students are allowed to play tic-tac-toe, wherein a correct answer gives them the chance to mark their square.

I'm able to keep the students relatively enthusiastic in most of my classes, but for those where I struggle (one class is notorious throughout the school for their lack of interest and manners) I try to remind myself not to take it personally. I taught the devil-class today, though, and it went fairly well, so maybe things are improving on that front. Keep your fingers crossed.

On a different note, I'm off to Mud Festival this weekend...Expect a dispatch early next week.

*My school teaches American English, or at least the spelling thereof. Thus, we talk about our favorite colors, and not our favourite colours.

Ask A Waeguk, Vol. 1

Today's question comes from Dave in Georgina, who wants to know how waeguk is spelled. He's also interested in learning more about written Korean in general.

The Waeguk Responds

I'm glad you asked, Dave. As you are no doubt aware, the word waeguk as you see it before you here is a rendering of the Korean alphabet known as hangeul. According to legend (and my Lonely Planet guide), hangeul was invented in the 15th century under the reign of King Sejong. It's a phonetic alphabet, and is widely admired for the simplicity and elegance of its system.

Unlike the Roman alphabet, which uses a strictly linear left-to-right placing of characters, hangeul characters are generally arranged in syllabic groupings, with up to three characters grouped together to be read in a clockwise fashion. For further information on how to read Korean, I suggest you to turn to Google and search for websites written by people who are far more apt at describing it than I am. I recommend Radio Korea's guide to learning the language. For the Korean spelling of waeguk, however, you've come to the right place...

외 국 There, isn't that cool?

The first grouping forms the "wae" sound, while the second composes the "guk."

The system really is very straightforward, and I need to sit down at some point and devote a couple of hours to it.

At this point I'm largely illiterate in hangeul, but I am slowly improving. I'm able to pick out certain menu items, and I can recognize a few other words as well. I'm slowed down considerably, however, by my inability to self-correct when reading. If I'm reading in one of the languages I do speak, for example, even if I come across an unfamiliar word I can be reasonably confident in my ability to read it correctly, be it in French, Spanish, English or even German. If it sounds strange when I read it I can reread it and ascertain whether I've made a mistake or whether the word is incorrectly or unusually spelled. Given the modicum of Korean under my belt, however, I have no way of checking whether I'm even ascribing the proper phonetics to the characters as I read them.

Many of my students are at the level where they mix up "chicken" and "kitchen." I'm still at the level where I mix up "chicken" and "hydrangea."

On Language and Groceries

When one's entire knowledge of a language can be counted on two hands, communication becomes interesting. A smile seems to help a lot, but can only go so far. A typical exchange at the grocery store, then, may be summed up thusly:

Jeff: "Anheong heseyo (hello)!" + big smile
Cashier: "Anheong heseyo," +"koreankoreankoreankorean?"
At this point, I pull out the big smile again and shake my head, on the guess that she's asking if I want a plastic bag. I do know how to say no, but I don't want to commit myself in case she's actually asking me something completely different, like if brown is my natural hair colour. So far, the smile + head-shake has worked fairly well, and leads to the next bit, as follows.
Cashier: "koreankoreankorean?"
Jeff: Head-shake + smile. Please note that I don't use the big smile this time, for the simple reason I want to come across as a reasonably sane and intelligent foreigner who simply doesn't speak any korean, rather than as a foreigner of dubious sanity and intelligence for whom a trip to the grocery store is equivalent to a trip to LotteWorld, the Korean equivalent of DisneyWorld.
This second head-shake is based on my presumption that she's asking me if I have a customer loyalty card, which I do not.

(In the interests of full disclosure, it should be noted that my ability to decode even these two simple questions rests in my fortunate circumstances of once having a cashier who spoke some English, and was therefore able to communicate with me more fully.)

Finally, our transaction concludes with me looking at the digital display to see how much I owe, and taking out the appropriate amount. I finish with a hearty "khamsa hamneeda (goodbye)" and stroll off into the distance, impressed to no end by my ability to relate to people of all cultures.

안 녕 히 치 서ㅣ요!