Post 2

Now I'm in Kuching, in Malaysia's largest province, Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. Brunei is also on this island, as is some part of Indonesia. And the world's largest caves and some of the biggest primary (ie never cut) rain forests remaining. Man, I hardly even knew this island existed until a few days ago.

First blog post from the road!

I have safely arrived at the equator. In the Singaporean Region. So muggy and swelterin'! But don't worry, I have my special pants that make you feel like you're not even wearing pants. Which happens to be one of my favorite feelings.

Enjoy your winter, suckers!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Sorry, I am in a bit of a hurry and don't have time to resize the picture properly. Just click on it for a full view! And then chuckle.

The sum of all my korean knowledge

As of yesterday, I completed my final book of Korean studying. In total, in 2 yeas, I went through:

-"Teach Yourself Korean" (purchased in the USA")
-"Korean through English 1"
-"Korean through English 2"(this series was real crap, so I never used 3, though I bought it)
-"Korean for Foreigners: Elementary 2" (Having already finished 3 books, I skipped Elementary 1)
-"Korean for Foreigners: Intermediate 1"
-"Korean for Foreigners: Intermediate 2"
-I've also made good use of my "Korean Grammar for International Learners" book, which has some sweet intensive grammar stuff, but the workbook is pretty boring, so I only use it as a reference.
-I've dabbled in "How Koreans Talk," that book of expressions, less than 10 of which I've set up to randomly generate on top of the blog.
-I've also dabbled in my bilingual versions of Sarte's Nausea and Beckett's Waiting for Godot.
Just some quick calculations lead me to the conclusion that I covered 153 chapters over 100 weeks. Assuming each chapter took an hour (usually they don't take that long), that's 150 hours of studying in 100 weeks, or 90 minutes of studying a week. Once I started the "Korean for Foreigners" series, I started inputting the words and grammar into spreadsheets on my computer, so that I could access them with a flashcard program. The program statistics tell me that I have added over 3000 cards, which I'm guessing are about 90% vocabulary and 10% grammar. That means I have managed to absorb some 300 grammatical formations as well as 2700 or so words. However, that's not counting all the more basic words (personal pronouns, prepositions, foods, fruits, places, items, etc) that I had learned before I started the Korean for Foreigners books, as well as other stuff I've learned since, but which I haven't included in the spreadsheets. So, estimating upwards, maybe I've learned about 375 grammar forms and 4000 words. Over a period of 700 days, that means a new piece of grammar every 2 days and about 6 words every day.

Having done these calculations, next time someone asks me why I wasted my time and put so much effort into studying Korean, I will happily tell them that they probably spend more time watching TV and movies in two months than I have studying Korean in two years.

Other things I can think of that take about 90 minutes a week:
-showering
-cooking and eating breakfast
-walking around the store because you don't know how to ask where the bathroom is and can't bear to ask via charades, or when you want someone to make color copies instead of black and white, or you want your tuna kimbap with no mayo, etc etc etc
-those times when for some reason or other you have to converse with Koreans who can't speak English, so you wind up spending an implausible amount of time just to figure out that they saw you at the grocery store one time a few months back.

Please submit other meaningless or bothersome experiences that take up a similar amount of time. I'm sure all of you exceedingly clever people can think up some other stuff that will help me feel vindicated.

Tall clams and onomatopoeia

I really wish I had brought my camera with me to work today, because I happened to have a pretty good time with some of the adult students after finishing class. Lately we've been going for coffee after class on Thursday nights, but tonight one lady said she really wanted some fried chicken. I, however, had been a fairly successful vegetarian since Saturday - eating only a few bites of chicken and whatever fake meat is found in dumplings and kimbap - so I asked if we could get something else. We wound up going to a 조개구이 (jo-gay gooey, grilled clam) restaurant. I was kind of excited to try something new, and happy to continue my ovo-pescetarian streak, but I wasn't too sure what to expect.

We went to the restaurant - 4 of us, at first - and ordered a 40 dollar helping. They came out with a tray about 2 feet in diameter, covered with different kinds of clams, with one half of the shell torn off. There were some small ones that looked just like I expected, some small ones that were a little more on the odd side, and then some really big "tall clams," the likes of which I had never seen. You set them (in the half shell) on the grill, meat facing up, and let them roast/boil in their own juices. Then you use the tongs and scissors to cut them up, after which you can dip them in red pepper paste or soy sauce and wasabi or just eat them plain. To be honest, I didn't like it as much as I hoped, but I was happy to have a nice night out without eating vile bi/quadriped flesh.

The coolest thing was that one of the huge clams came with a mountain of red pepper bean paste and chives on top, which, when grilled, cooked down to a really awesome sauce, though maybe it was just awesome because it covered and obscured the little appendages and organs that were ligamentally attached to the clam meat. Anyway, I feel a little remiss for not having taken loads of awesome food pictures here - you know, squiggly octopus, chicken feet and anus, sea penis, chicken kalbi, samgyeopsal (korean bacon), etc - and this meal was visually pretty impressive, especially with all the clams sort of shriveling up in their own shell over the fire.

The onomatopoeia comes in because somehow someone mentioned some sound or something. Maybe clams sizzling in their own juice? Anyway, an odd confluence of events occurred over the previous 10 days or so: 1) a conversation with my Korean-speaking WU alum friend Chris about Korean onomatopoeia; 2) a borrowed book from my friend, called "have you ever seen your poop?" which had lots of onomatopoeia and mimetic words about poop sounds and shapes; 3) a section in my study book about such words, though not so foul; and 4) a long-standing interest in such words in Korean, since they almost invariably have the odd habit of repeating the same sound over and over again (whereas, in English, we have a tendency to alter just one vowel, e.g. clickity-clack or pitter-patter). Korean O and M almost always take up 4 syllables, as well. Quite weird. I'm working on a list now, which I may post to the blog in the coming days.

Anyhow, sensing a good segue opportunity, and having mostly finished eating (and having downed a bottle of soju each), I pulled out the poop book, illustrations and all, showed it to the Koreans, and then translated it for George. It starts like this: "I am the poop professor. There's nothing I don't know about poop. Have any of you ever taken a close look at your poop? If you look closely, you'll notice: several smells, several colors, several shapes." The book goes on to describe diarrhea, watery poo, healthy poo, and constipated poo, with lots of nice, colorful, childish illustrations.

Beware, no segue for the next part:

And something interesting about eating the clams: being small creatures, with the organs and the meat all attached, you couldn't really separate them into "clean parts" and "dirty parts." Whereas when eating (pig/cow/chicken) meat I usually can't help but think about farm conditions, animal pain, and environmental effects, while eating the clams, I experienced a much more natural, stress-free feeling. It was almost like awe, looking at the little dudes, seeing their whole little being bubbling away in the shell, how it all fit together, and how nutritious and painless and (hopefully) rather harmless on the environmental-impact scale it all was.

So, despite all the talking about poop, it actually turned out to be a pretty wholesome night. Hurrah!

Just over two weeks left? But I'm having such a good time! ㅠㅠ