폭죽 필요하세요?

"Do you need a firecracker/sparkler?"

So I've noticed that whenever buying something, I always have an issue with understanding...I still haven't quite gotten down the phrase of "For here or to go?" but I'm trying! Which results in a lot of 네s and 아니요s (yeses and nos). I don't know if it's because it's such routine that it's said really fast or what, but I've noticed there are some key phrases I should figure out...one I did find out recently was "현금 영수증 필요하세요?" I always wondered why when I said no to it I was still given a receipt (영수증 is a receipt). Apparently a 현금 영수증 has something to do with getting cash back on certain purchases or something. The line above refers to an event this weekend that I'll recount in a bit.

It's funny how the simplest things like these lines that you're asked after buying something can be some of the more difficult things to master in a language. Or maybe my listening skills are just bad hehe ^^. But as another example of it, I realize that whenever you're speaking a foreign language, numbers (especially large numbers) take quite a while to figure out how to say (as well as to understand) in the other language, especially considering that Korean works on the 10,000 system and not the 1,000 one (so 100,000 is "ten ten thousands" for example).

I've had a lot of fun with my language partners though ^^. The first one I met particularly takes an interest in the subtleties of English and likes to help me with the subtleties in Korean too. It's pretty tough but is really great for my vocabulary, not to mention explaining English subtleties in Korean helps my explanation and defining skills so much. One thing I've realized is that prepositions in English are a nightmare. Why do we say "Let's meet on Tuesday" but not "Let's meet on next Wednesday?" And why do we "arrive at the post office," but "arrive in Korea" and "arrive home" (with no preposition). Eesh.

My language partner also tried to explain the differences between 아깝다, 아쉽다, and 안타깝다, all words that express regret. The first one implies regret at a loss, the second one regret for having missed a chance, and the third one more like irritation and regret for not having been able to do something that led to a loss. Now, those are what I THINK are the differences. I'm not positive...and not to mention she also explained to me the differences between 미미하다, 미세하다, 세심하다, 근소하다, 미묘하다, and 사소하다, all words explaining smallness in detail. I won't bore you with the differences, but it was pretty fascinating for a linguistics geek like me haha :).
Wednesday night Margaret cooked dinner for Bob, Mirabel, and me. It was chicken breast with this delicious zesty sauce and scallions, mm mm!
Complete with yummy funny shaped cookies too hehe.
Now Friday was a particularly fun day because our class (well most of us) decided to meet up for dinner! And for once I wasn't a 청일점 hahaha, because Akihiro came too! Xiang Yang and Zhang Ming didn't come, but they often don't anyway, shame.
And Keiko (in the middle to the left of that snack wrap ad) brought her son Yosuke along! He was extremely popular with the girls as you'll see soon haha. From left to right: Akihiro, Yuki, Kana, Meng Ju, Keiko, Yosuke, Hiroko, Leng, Muriel, Bai Hua.
We ate at 지글지글, the samgyupsal/kalbi buffet place, mm mm. We were all really stuffed after it haha.
Seeing the grease slide off the pan into the trough is pretty gross...yet we still love it. Why! Hahaha. Also all that garlic, mm mm. Korea has made me fall in love with roasted garlic ^^.
Yosuke kissing Xue Qing. And the following picture showing his super popularity haha.

Yesterday, Bob, Sneha, and I slept over at Sneha's friend/mentor Jaeha's home (which is slightly south of Seoul). Sneha and I had a minor fiasco making it to Sadang on time to meet Jaeha and Bob. We first decided to check Crown Bakery for cakes and well, it was torn down--not even closed, torn down. So we're like okay let's go to Paris Baguette. Well, guess what, that was torn down as well. What luck, eh? Haha. Also goes to show how fast buildings are torn down and built in Seoul! We finally went to Tous Les Jours, where we got a pretty butter cake (which was less likely to melt than the ice cream ones). We don't really know what we were saying yes to when the lady asked us some questions, but the last question was whether we wanted a 폭주 pokju. After asking what it was, she made a hand motion of stretching something and she went PONG! Hahaha--we assumed it meant a sparkler or some sort of noisemaker and said we didn't need it. I guess we should have also paid attention to the other questions she asked us, because the cake box read "Congratulations!" For what? Having us over? Hahaha. Clearly, we're incompetent =).
His mom made this delicious delicious mushroom dish and I'm really curious now what kind of mushrooms they are...! Not to mention they had the delicious grapes that a lot of Korean homes appear to have. Hmm, I really should find those grapes, but I'm sure I'd devour them within a day haha.
Of course, being me, I had to find fun Engrish :D.
And in the morning as we left, we saw the really nice courtyard of the apartments.
Phew, I'm so jealous of people who live in places like these ^^.

Hehe, sorry for the rather dry posts lately :). Unlike last summer, I haven't been sightseeing much! But, we'll see what's in store for Chuseok 추석 (the moon festival) next weekend! Then again, with midterms coming up, not much might happen...but, we'll see! I'm also considering a trip to Thailand to see my relatives during the November break we have at the end. We'll see!

청일점

A phrase meaning "the only guy in a group of girls," literally "blue one dot" 清一點.
The counterpart phrase for girls is 홍일점, "red one dot" 紅一點.

And it's in reference to a "phenomenon" I mentioned last post, the fact that I'm always the only guy among all girls at Sogang! This was also the case in when I joined this pseudo-Korean drama class. My friend Meng Ju (who you might remember me mentioning before or seen in River or Heeseung's posts/photos) invited some kids in my class and me to join this 5 day pseudo-Korean drama class that her Korean friend would be conducting. The reason I call it a pseudo-class is that it's more of a "study." Our teacher is writing her thesis for her major on educating foreigners Korean so the first day she interviewed us, giving us situations in which a coworker, friend, or superior asked us a favor and we had to refuse. She had previously interviewed native Korean speakers and wanted to see how we foreigners differed in responding to the situations from natives. After we spend some classes watching Korean dramas, she's going to reassess how we respond to situations at the end of the sessions and write her thesis on it. Pretty neat ^^, considering I always think how interesting it is that language also affects how you react to certain situations and taking into account how indirect of a language Korean can be.

After our first session, our teacher took us to eat at this yummy (and very spicy!) Hong Kong-themed restaurant, Wan Chai. Again, I apologize for blurry photos T_T.
Mm mm 탕수육 tangsuyuk, the Korean version of sweet and sour pork.
Meng Ju and Leng! And Yuki's hand, because she doesn't like pictures haha.
Our teacher and 사과 Zhe Ping (her Korean name is Sagwa, which means "apple," because the Ping in her Chinese name means "apple" haha.

Afterwards, Leng and I hung out in Meng Ju's hasukjip, flipping through channels on her TV, seeing dramas, animes, news, and...English education programs.
I didn't quite understand what she was trying to explain here lol.
I don't know how you're going to learn English from this...but maybe it's a more advanced level? Then again, if it were more advanced, I don't know why she would have to explain it in Korean...I think one of the biggest issues I have with a lot of how Seoul teaches English is with focus on reading and writing. They have to take the Sogang approach and put focus on speaking! One of my language partners' English practice involved translating Korean sentences into English and I told her I didn't quite think she could learn English like that...so we're going to try to take a different approach. You know there's something wrong when you get an English sentence translated as "Let's try opening the dream box!" which sounds completely natural in Korean, but in English?
On the other hand this kids' show was cute haha. Also watching the dramas and animes made me kind of want to get a TV, but I don't know where we would put it and whether it would really be worth the cost. Probably not. I'll probably just get my fill from finding movies and dramas and whatnot online ^^. Also, I've never been much of a TV watcher

On Thursday, continuing my trend of meeting up with friends from last summer, I saw my Taiwanese friend 향진 Xiang Chen!
Blah, super blurry picture >_<, but this is Xiang Chen and her friend. We ate at a really yummy meat place, although I'm not sure I really liked the taste of intestine much. There was a bit of a weird side taste to it that I found rather unpleasant >_<.
Afterwards, as we always do in Korea haha, we went to a café. And mm I think I developed a love for green tea latte! I was turned off it ever since I tried it at Starbucks in the states but maybe other cafés do it better because this one at Paris Baguette made me quite happy :).
And in line with my previous posts, I now provide you with another strange picture. Hmm, I wonder if this is akin to dying your hair. These poodles kind of look like cotton candy in my opinion.

Lastly, some food pictures! Because food pictures are always fun.
Similar to 돌솥, where food is served in a stone pot, this is 무쇠, served in a steel pot. Mm mm, these dishes always make me happy, especially tasting the crunchy rice that sticks to the bottom ^^.
And a (blurry =[) picture of 냉면 naengmyeon (cold buckwheat noodles) that Bob made for us to eat mm mm. I normally am not too big a fan of 냉면 but maybe I'll give it another chance because I sure enjoyed this :).

Sorry for the boring post :(. Unfortunately, nothing much is quite happening. In response to the weekly question that Ann sent out this week, though, part of me is a bit sad that I'm missing out on an entire year at Yale. There's a bit of surrealness to coming back to a "new Yale," where a whole year of new students will have completed their first year, where the year younger than me will now be my equals, and where my grade will move on while I'm in a way frozen in time. It's a strange feeling, but I don't feel too horribly uncomfortable about it, because I know I have friends to return to :).

As for why I chose to come here again, I definitely didn't feel complete staying in Korea only for three months, especially considering I had only finished Level 3 at Sogang. I don't believe that fluency can really be attained in a language without having lived in the country, and I felt that one year (well, really 9 months) would be a good amount of time to spend abroad. I'll be able to complete Level 6, the last level required to graduate (level 7 is a culture class) from Sogang, and I'll be able to experience all four seasons that Seoul has to offer, an experience I think will be very interesting (albeit, probably not horribly different from New York's four seasons considering the similar latitudes). The whole idea of language learning being a staircase process is interesting, and, having felt on a plateau all of last year with Korean and wanting to quit, I think I've reached another increasing slope point, which makes me happy :). Listening to people talk and understanding almost everything as well as being able to express myself in various aspects makes me really happy, although it upsets me that I still have trouble understanding simple things like when I order something and they ask if I want whipped cream or if I'm having it to stay or to go, or if I have point cards and whatnot...T_T.

Regardless, although I may not reach "fluency," a level which I think is hard to define, by the end of this stay, I think I will be able to at least reach proficiency. Not only that, but forming bonds across nations, despite being very sad when you all have to part, I think is a nice feeling, and it's a very unique experience to learn about how different people from different parts of the world view different things...in a language none of us speak fluently, Korean.

Apart from the language learning aspect, I think having this year is also giving me an opportunity to see what I really want to do and to see what's out there (vague sounding, I know). There are still so many classes I want to take and honestly, if I had just continued into junior year, I feel like I might have made bad class decisions, just because I'm still thinking about what I want for my future. So in a way, I'm freezing time, allowing my mind to clear and think about what I will want to do and seeing better the connections between what I am doing.

Also, when else will I be able to spend a year in a country like Korea? And not just that but focusing JUST on learning a language, where hanging out with Korean friends is a form of studying. It's a pretty great opportunity, and appeals very much to my language-loving side :).

Hmm, all that sounded really corny haha. But I guess that's inevitable when answering questions of this sort ^^.

한병더!

"One more bottle!"

Well don't we sound like alcoholics? I'll get back to this line later ;).

So I've been really bad at taking pictures during the week...mainly because I don't want to carry my large camera bag and schoolbag, which would be super bulky...but then if we do stuff after class I miss the opportunity to take fun pictures with my class! Alas, I'll eventually bring my camera. I just wish I had a simple point and shoot as well :(.

This week was a lot of hanging out with my class friends--yay for bonding! I don't know why, but for some reason, girls outnumber guys by so much when it comes to interest in foreign language learning. I wonder if there's a reason for that--are girls' brains more wired for language? I also notice that especially from Japan, the vast majority are girls--and I think that has to do with a lot of Japanese women being housewives, so I guess if their husbands are out at work in Korea, they have lots of time to spend so they might as well take Korean classes? Maybe? Just a theory. That combined with the fact that my class has only four guys (myself, 아키히로 Akihiro, 장명 Zhang Ming, and 향양 Xiang Yang) means that I often am the only guy in a group of many girls, because Akihiro is much older than most of us and Zhang Ming and Xiang Yang seem to just like to go home right after class. It's a bit awkward, but I'll live XD.

There's this girl in my class 설청 Xue Qing who completely tricked me when we first met lol. I often take people's words at face value when I first meet them, especially if they just seem like a sweet, innocent girl, but after getting to know her I should have realized she was lying to me in the first place...she told me she was born in '83 (the normal way of telling your age in Korea) and despite her looking really young, I just said okay and went ahead with calling her 누나 nuna (older sister in Korean for a guy). This Thursday, when I was hanging out with 렝 Leng and 카나 Kana, they mentioned something about her being a '91 and I was like "wait, wait, wasn't she born in '83?" and they cracked up. Haha, fail on my part -.-! So finally, I'm not the youngest one in my Sogang class (not that I've been at Sogang for many semesters, but we Yale students tend to be the youngest ones in the class).

Okay, just for ease, I'm going to just provide a list here of the people in my class:
Naoko 나오코 (Japan)
Kana 카나 (Japan)
Yukiko 유키코 (Japan)
Yuki 유키 (Japan)
Zhang Ming 장명 (China)
Xiang Yang 향양 (China)
Meng Ju 명주 (Taiwan)
Anastasiya 아나쓰타샤 (Russia)
Leng 렝 (Thailand)
Xue Qing 설청 (China)
Akihiro 아키히로 (Japan)
Muriel 뮈리엘 (Belgium)
Hiroko 히로코 (Japan)
Keiko 케이코 (Japan)
Bai Hua 백화 (China)

Phew, what a big class.

On Friday, we went to this yummy 칼국수 kalguksu (a type of noodle) place that Heeseung (a Light Fellow from the summer) recommended to me and had gone to with Meng Ju. Sadly, I didn't have a camera :(, but hopefully next time--or I'll upload some of Meng Ju's pictures later. There were 9 of us (and I was the only guy of course) but we were lucky because there was no line (apparently there usually is). Mm mm, definitely gotta go there again!

Friday night was spent hanging out with Dong Hwa, who I had met through Bob when we went to Lotte World, Margaret, and Yuna, as well as some of their other friends. After eating, we went to watch this English play that was written by a Korean at Sogang--a very interesting experience. Some of the Korean-accented English was hard for me to understand, and although I didn't enjoy the first play that much (which was about five people riding a train and participating in this lottery that leads them to fight with each other) but the second one (about an interview to get into an imaginary largest corporation in Korea) I thought was extremely well-acted and that the actors' English was much more comprehensible. Very fun experience :).
Unfortunately I only got a picture of the first one (my camera does a pretty loud click so I was worried it would distract people).

Afterward we went to a 노래방--seriously, I can't believe I'd gone a month in Korea without having gone karaokeing! Well, finally, I did.
Margaret and 기철 Ki CheolKi Cheol and Mirabel 정연Mirabel and Dong Hwa

Oh and Mirabel is an AMAZING singer. Like WOW I wish I had a recording or video. Apparently she's aspiring to be in musicals and wants to go to the US to study. I was told by the others that her voice was amazing and even then I was really blown back when I heard her sing Korean songs just like the Korean singers and then proceed to sound like Whitney Houston, Kelly Clarkson, etc. Just, WOW.

And now moving on to Saturday, my cousin Sylvia visited me! :D She and her friend Karen are touring Asia and since they were dropping by Korea we decided to meet up. I took them to my oh so favorite sundubu place and we wandered around Sinchon afterwards, wondering why so many random college students were running around in red or blue and yelling, singing songs, parading throughout Sinchon's narrow streets.
Well, we found our answer when Sneha's Yonsei mentor Jaeha recognized me and convinced my cousin, her friend, and me to join him and the rest of the students!
Karen, my cousin Sylvia, and Jaeha.

What an experience for my cousin and her friend to have while just touring Asia haha. Apparently it was the last day of the Yonsei-Korea University games (Yonsei being blue, Korea red) so it's a tradition for them to run through the streets and sing songs and...create trains (which are very much like conga lines) and "beg for food" (consisting of standing in front of restaurants as a large group and yelling set phrases--which I wish I could understand...but it's often hard to understand screaming in unison...). I did get 사장님! (Manager of a business, like a restaurant) and after being given food or more often, beer or soju, 한병더! hence the title of this entry.
So of course, there was drunken debauchery and general tomfoolery haha. After the festivities, Sylvia, Karen, and I met up with Sneha and we went to a (really nice o_o!) cafe to hang out.
The decor was very fancy looking, almost like a Victorian era place (maybe expensive decor would explain why coffee is so expensive in Korea...). Going to the cafe also made me feel like I was hitting another plateau in language learning >.<. When we entered the cafe, I did not have a clue at all what our waiter said, and after asking him to repeat it and not knowing what he said, of course, I just took the all-purpose (well, not really) answer "네" yes. So we were seated on the second floor, and he asked us if we wanted a 제떨이 (ashtray, a word I always remember because it sounds like Jet Li) and looked super confused when I said no. Eventually, we realized he was probably asking us if we wanted to sit in the smoking section. Oh language fails. Yesterday, which was Sunday, I met with my cousin and Karen once more and took them to this yummy Korean barbecue buffet (mind you, despite getting food poisoning last time, I still decided to come here again haha--but mostly because it was probably my fault for not grilling the food enough). Mm mmmmmm. It's funny how we always find the fat that melts off and the oil that evaporates into the air so gross...yet the food so good T_T.
And because Korean cafes are irresistible we went to Caffe Pascucci, a Korean chain, afterwards. Of course, Koreans always make cute little images like this on their coffee ^^. I was sad when I didn't have my camera at this other cafe I went to where they drew a bear face on the coffee!
And more examples of the luxuriousness of cafes.
Bye Sylvia and Karen! See you back in the States :).
Lastly, some more fun Korean stuff. The first picture is an Indian restaurant, with which there are many wrong things...1) Aladdin is misspelled 2) The logo is DEFINITELY exactly the same as Disney's Aladdin and 3) Aladdin is DEFINITELY not Indian...hahahaha. The second picture...well, I don't even need to explain.

And on an unrelated note--RIP to Annie Le :(. Very shocking news to hear, especially from abroad...

저는 중국이랑 태국계 미국 사람이에요

"I'm a Chinese-Thai-American"

I walk into class on the first day and immediately a kid looks at me and asks "Zhongguoren?" That is, "Chinese?" (or "Are you Chinese?" shortened to a single word) I laughed and explained that I was a Chinese American, and that I could speak a little bit of Mandarin but that the Chinese that I spoke with my father was Cantonese.

It's a pretty interesting experience learning Korean in Korea as neither a Chinese or Japanese person (as most Sogang students are) or even another type of Asian, and not as a 재미 교포 chaemi kyopo (a Korean American) but as "another type of Asian American." Being in Sogang class, people will assume I'm an Asian learning Korean. Once they learn that I'm American, they will assume that I'm a kyopo. On the streets, when they hear that I don't speak Korean fluently, they will think I'm a kyopo. So these days, I've adopted explaining to people from the first time I meet them that I am American but not Korean-American.

Not to mention, people are much more impressed by your Korean if you're not Asian. I was eating samgyupsal with my friend Greg, who is white, and also from New York. After the ajumma brought us our food, she sat down and said to my friend "Wow, you speak Korean really well!" After a bit of conversation with her, he pointed to me and said to her "You know he's not Korean either?" and I said "Yeah, I'm Chinese American." The ajumma gave a dismissive "uh huh" and turned back to him to continue talking. I've gotten used to it so I'm not really offended, but I think it's interesting how the coolness factor of knowing a certain language varies not really by ethnicity, but rather by race.

I also had my first experience at a 찜질방 jjimjilbang (Korean sauna) the other day with Sneha and two of her friends Janelle and Tessa. Amusingly, as we were walking to the 찜질방, we passed a bar called
That would be "Osama" haha. I think it was a Japanese bar since there were Japanese words above the sign, but it was amusing haha. As with many Korean facilities, there are separate floors for males and females to go to first, in order to change and bathe in the 목욕탕. I haven't quite and I don't know if I will work up the courage to bathe naked with random Koreans (let alone with friends)--maybe it's because I'm American that I'm not so comfortable with being naked in front of everyone haha. Regardless, after changing I went to the sauna area to meet up with Sneha and co. and we sat in several sauna rooms. I don't know how much I actually like sitting in a sauna and sweating profusely, but it's a nice bonding experience to just relax with other people in an environment that's made for relaxing and release. I was considering taking pictures but worried how my camera would react to extreme temperature changes ^^.

Yesterday I met my first language partner yay! Apparently it's not sketchy here in Korea to meet people through the internet so I've been using www.hanlingo.com , a language exchange website to meet language partners. Her name was 문정 Moon Jeong and she was very sweet ^^, very eager to help me with my Korean. She's currently attending an English hagwon (schools designed to teach specific subjects, such as English) and is a beginning English speaker, so it'll be interesting helping her with her English :).

So my teachers seem pretty fun and sweet. 신효원 Shin Hyo Won 선생님 is my writing teacher--she seems nice, although I'm not fully sure what to make of her yet. 구은미 Ku Eun Mi 선생님 is my listening and speaking teacher--she's very fun. Sarcastic and has the flair of a young teacher and has a great sense of humor. My reading teacher is 최연재 Choe Yeon Jae 선생님 who seems very sweet and motherly. I'm a little upset at the class size though, which is 16. It'd be nice if the number were lower so that there'd be some focus ㅠ_ㅠ. As usual, most of the class is Chinese or Japanese, but there is one woman from Russia, one from Belgium, a girl from Taiwan, and a girl from Thailand. If our class were smaller it'd be make for easier bonding...but hopefully that'll develop over time.

Okay and now some picture time ^^. Last week Bob and I (mostly Bob) attempted some cooking! 순두부, a silken tofu stew and 계란찜, a steamed egg dish. They turned out pretty well :), though the 순두부 was lacking a bit of flavor. Someone once told me that the reason 순두부 tastes good is MSG...maybe that's what we were missing hahaha. But the next time we'll probably experiment with other things (maybe using gochujang--spicy pepper paste instead of chili powder), for example.
The ingredients!
Bob minces the garlic and scallions.
The ingredients after being prepared.
Added the chili powder, tofu, clams, and some seaweed-flavored water.
Mmm check that steam as more ingredients were added.
And the final product!
Here's the 반찬 banchan (side dishes) that we put next to it, like a real Korean meal :D.
And the whole setup!
And that was 계란찜 from the next morning with two yummy oranges next to it. I realize that I really don't have much fruit here T_T.