A Korean poem that I read recently is written by Kim Seung Hee who was born in 1952 and started her career in 1973. She is widely admired as a feminist surrealist and has received several major awards. The following is the original poem.

희망이 외롭다

남들은 절망이 외롭다고 말하지만
나는 희망이 더 외로운 것 같아,
절망은 중력의 평안이라고 할까,
돼지가 삼겹살이 될   때까지
힘을 다 빼고, 그냥 피  웅덩이 속으로 가라앉으면 되는 걸 뭐……
그래도 머리는 연분홍으로 웃고      있잖아, 절망엔
그런       비애의 따스함이 있네

희망은 때로 응급처치를 해주기도 하지만
희망의 응급처치를 싫어하는 인간도 때로 있을 수 있네,
아마 그럴 수 있네,
절망이 더 위안이 된다고 하면서,
바람에 흔들리는 찬란한 햇빛 한 줄기를 따라
약을 구하러 멀리서 왔는데
약이 잘 듣지 않는다는 것을 미리 믿을 정도로
당신은 이제 병이 깊었나,

희망의 토템 폴인 선인장……
사전에서 모든 단어가 다 날아가버린 그 밤에도
나란히 신발을 벗어놓고 의자 앞에 조용히 서 있는
파란 번개 같은 그 순간에도
또 희망이란 말은 간신히 남아
그 희망이란 말 때문에 다 놓아버리지도 못한다,
희망이란 말이 세계의 폐허가 완성되는 것을 가로막는다,
왜 폐허가 되도록 내버려두지 않느냐고
가슴을 두드리기도 하면서
오히려 그 희망 때문에
무섭도록 더 외로운 순간들이 있다

희망의 토템 폴인 선인장……
피가 철철 흐르도록 아직, 더, 벅차게 사랑하라는 명령인데

도망치고 싶고 그만두고 싶어도
이유 없이 나누어주는 저 찬란한 햇빛, 아까워
물에 피가 번지듯……
희망과 나,
희망은 종신형이다
희망이 외롭다

Translation:

Hope is Lonely

Though others say ‘despair is lonely’,
hope is even lonelier to me.
Shall I say that despair is peaceful as gravity?
Until the time the pig becomes pork
all it has to do is sink into
its pooling blood, drained of all strength
the pink head still smiles doesn’t it? In despair
sorrow has that sort of warmth.

Hope at times offers first aid but
sometimes there are people who don’t want hope’s first aid,
could be.
While saying that despair offers more comfort,
pursuing one ray of sunlight trembling in the breeze,
coming from afar to get medicine.
Your sickness having grown deeper,
you already trust it will not work.

Hope’s totem pole is a cactus…

Even on that night when all the words from the dictionary flew away,
even at that moment like blue lightning,
after taking off shoes side-by-side, standing quietly by a chair,
again the word hope barely remained
but because of that word hope, all cannot be discarded.
The word hope prevents the completion of the world’s ruins.
Asking why not let the ruins continue
while beating our breasts -
rather because of that hope
times are fearfully lonely.

Hope’s totem pole is a cactus,
it’s a command to love so fully blood keeps pouring out.

Even though it wants to quit, to run away,
sunlight pointlessly shares itself, what a waste,
like blood spreading in water…
hope and I,
hope is a life sentence,
hope is lonely.

I recently read an article about a lawsuit that has been going on in 3 years in Korea. It caught my attention as I was researching for my cultural presentation. The title of the article contained the name of the main actor of "Train to Busan". He had acted in a drama called the "Guardian". The sponsors of the drama were suing the production of the drama and were fighting in a legal battle for the past three years. The sponsors of the drama claimed that the main character was supposed to eat the soup, but the co-actor ate the food, so they were suing for the return of half the contract agreement. 

It was interesting because these "TMZ" moments happen in Hollywood, but not this dramatically. The sponsor's products were featured and it was obvious. However, I wondered what would happen if this kind of event happened. After I thought about it, the Korean culture places great emphasis on a specific celebrity. If a celebrity wears something, it's sold out the next day often. Therefore, it's understandable that the sponsors would even sue over this. I thought it was a really interesting story. 

How to count 1-100 in Korean

How to order a drink or food in Korean? 

1. food
가) 여기 메뉴판 좀 주세요. Would you bring a menu, please?
나) 뭐가 제일 맛있어요? what is the best dish here?
다) 추천 좀 해주세요. Please recommend something to me. 
라) 뭐가 제일 인기있어요? What is the most famous dish?
마) 제일 빨리 되는 게 뭐예요? what is the fastest dish to cook for?
바) 안 맵게(짜게, 달게) 해주세요. Please cook this not spicy(salty, too sweet)
사) 채식 메뉴 있나요? Is there a vegetarian menu?
아) 바짝 익혀주세요. Please cook well-done. 
자) 땅콩 알러지가 있는데, 땅콩 좀 빼주세요. I am allergic to peanut, please do not put peanut in my dish. 
차) 물수건 좀 주세요. (very Korean culture, when you go to Korean traditional restaurant, especially for meat restaurant, they give u a (hot) towel, just like aeroplane service). Please give me a wet hand towel.

2) drinks
가) 커피(홍차, 차, 물) 주세요. Please give me a cup of coffee(red tea, tea, water)
나) 맥주(소주, 양주, 쏘맥, 칵테일) 한 병(잔) 주세요. plz give me a bit(glass) of beer(soju, spirits, soju-beer cocktail, cocktail)
다) 인기있는 안주가 뭐에요? what is a popular side dish for drinks?
라) 버드(카스, 하이트) 한 병에 얼마에요? how much is a bit of bud(cars)?
마) 코로나에 레몬(라임) 조각 넣어주세요. plz give me a bit of corona with lemon(lime)
바) 잭콕 한 잔 계산해주세요. how much is for Jack Coke?

Myeong-dong

Bustling Myeong-dong is a shopping area packed with international fashion brands, luxury department stores and homegrown cosmetics shops. Casual eateries offer Korean dumplings and ginseng chicken soup, while street vendors sell Japanese and Thai snacks. Shows mixing folk music and drama are staged at Myeongdong Nanta Theatre. Nearby 19th-century Myeong-dong Cathedral features a Gothic-style bell tower.

Blackpink

Blackpink is a South Korean girl group formed by YG Entertainment, consisting of members Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa. Blackpink is making a comeback with an EP album titled "Kill This Love." The group's name was conceived to contrast with the perception of femininity commonly associated with the color pink. When Blackpink debuted, their label YG Entertainment said the name intends to convey that the group embodies more than beauty.

Reply 1988

Reply 1988 (Hangul: 응답하라 1988) is a South Korean television series. Set in the year 1988, it revolves around five friends and their families living in the same neighbourhood of Ssangmun-dong, Dobong District, Northern Seoul. The plot of the drama is very good and you will never get bored. The ending is touching and it's worth watching.

Bibimbap

Bibimbap (비빔밥) is a Korean rice dish. The term “bibim” means mixing various ingredients, while the “bap” noun refers to rice. Bibimbap is served as a bowl of warm white rice topped with namul and gochujang, soy sauce, or doenjang. More traditional and authentic versions of Bibimbap are made with raw beef and raw egg yolk along with other vegetables while people can change the recipe according to their preferences.

https://urcapture.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=4163d74d-8714-46ef-89c7-aa380140c8b5

LanguageLearningReflection%232.docx

One of the last things we will be doing this semester is reading part of a Greek book called Σταυροδρόμι των Ψυχών. This book is a romantic novel, which normally wouldn’t be my choice of genre, but since Smaragda had it on hand, it became my genre. We have only read through about half a page, and I have already filled up a page of notes on new vocabulary. However, I know enough now to understand that it begins with a serene old monk, who had been painting a picture of the front of his monastery, but was interrupted by a storm which had begun to whip up. While most of the churches in Greece are in crowded areas, the monasteries tend to be on rocky cliffs by the sea, as far away from the population as they can be. We discussed how in these few paragraphs, we could see hints of how monasteries are named, and the epithets which are attributed to the Virgin Mary for miracles which have taken place at different places.

In a similar vein as one of my previous cultural posts, Greece celebrates its independence from Turkey on March 25^th. On this day, children are out of school, adults also have the day off, and everything shuts down except for restaurants. The children parade through the streets with their schools, in strict order by class, academic grades, gender, and height. The children all wear matching outfits consisting of a dark blue pants or skirts, and a white shirt, with black dress shoes. They carry flags and school signs, and march in this rigid order until the end of the parade, when the parents swoop up their children and all go out to eat as a family. There is a traditional food for the day, cod served with a paste made from garlic, lemon, and potatoes, which everyone eats.

Τάβλι might as well be the national game of Greece. This is a collection of three different board games, which are played in sequence with the same board and pieces. The first of these games is common in America as backgammon, while the other two have similar rules, but capturing pieces has different meanings between the three. The games are played in groups of three over and over between two people until one of them has accumulated 10 total wins.

Τάβλι is especially popular with the old men in Greece, but pretty anyone can whip out a board the moment you ask: Να παίξοθμε τάβλι;

Adding to the list of things I didn’t think about in the past which seem fairly obvious now is that in Greece, they play different sports than we do I America. While children here play basketball and football, and some of the adventurous ones shoot and go mountain biking, in Greece they mostly swim and play soccer, volleyball, and a little basketball. They do not seem to particularly enjoy expensive sports or those that are full-contact or dangerous. It seems that Americans might prefer to have fun with the thrill of danger while the Greeks are more conservative in their play.

In one of my conversations with Smaragda, we talked about how Greek and Americans perceive coffee. I had never put much thought into this topic before, but she asked me why Americans would think that there could be such a thing as “regular coffee.” She contends that there cannot be such a thing, since espressos, cappuccinos, lattes, filter coffee, Greek coffee, and other variations are all just parts of a subset in a category called “coffee.” In Greece, such an idea is unthinkable, and someone who asks for “regular” coffee would be treated with a blank stare or a restated question. We did our research, and learned that while many different countries influenced Greece’s coffee habits, America’s came only from England or France in 1773, and those countries produced filter coffee. Most of the others didn’t come along and become recognized until centuries later, when the idea of what coffee is had been firmly fixed in the American mind. I continue to be amazed at how differently two cultures can perceive something so simple as coffee. I still have a lot to learn, even when I thought I had a pretty good handle on Greek culture.

Greeks are some of the most strong-willed people the world  probably has when it comes to their culture. I find this somewhat ironic, that they will stiffly resist anything from Turkey, but many of their words, recipes, coffee, and place names are of Turkish origin. Most of these influences come from Constantinople, while Greeks adamantly refuse to call the city Istanbul as the Turks do. Theirs is not necessarily flag-waving patriotism so much as an insistence on the integrity of their culture. This comes as no surprise, since Greece has a holiday on the 28^th of October sometimes called Όχι Day, literally “No!” Day, celebrating the Greek Prime Minister in 1940 refusing to be coerced into a compromising agreement with Italy, which then started their role in World War 2.

To my ears, Greek music largely sounds the same. To help train my ears differently, Smaragda and I studied songs for a week or two. One of the hallmarks of Greek folk music is the        Μπουζούκι. This is an instrument which resembles and sounds like a mandolin, but it has a neck as long as a guitar. We studied several songs, but spent special times analyzing the lyrics of one called “Αγγελέ Μου”, and a song called “Το Κορίτσι”, a pop song and an alternative song, respectively, to compare the different genres in Greek music. Maybe all Greek music doesn’t sound the same, but it is much harder to hear differences when I can’t understand the lyrics.