I want a Wayback machine!!

The BBQ Pit
1

OK, I want a Wayback machine!!

So, I went out with Astrofiancee and some of her Korean friends a few weeks ago. We went to Chongno, a fashionable place in Seoul… One of her friends (a nice guy, who I like a lot!) brought along his younger brother, a senior in high school (this being Korea, of course he drank beer with the rest of us. Whatever :rolleyes: ).

I met the younger brother, and greeted him in Korean. “Annyong haseyo! Pan-gap-sumnida!” (Hi! Nice to meet you! [more or less]). Astrofiancee and friends encouraged me to talk to younger brother in Enlish, but all my attempts to do so were met with silence. We sat down, and younger brother and I were facing each other… OK, so younger brother and I proceeded to talk for a while in Korean. My Korean is NOT perfect, but IS good enough to hold a conversation!

We chatted for a while…nothing too deep (as that would, admittedly, go beyond my Korean…), he understood most of what I said, and I understood most of what he was saying…

So, after about 20 mins. or so of small talk, he turns to his older brother, and asks (in Korean, loudly, as if I’m NOT there, wouldn’t understand, and DON’T speak-a the lingo), “Hey! Older brother! If this clown has been in Korea for 5 years, WHY doesn’t he speak Korean perfectly?” (or the equivilant, in Korean…).

Keep in mind that younger brother and I had been chatting IN FRIGGIN KOREAN for about 20 minutes!! Not perfectly, I admit, but communicating!!

At the time, I kinda laughed (I don’t automatically take things like this as personal insults), and said nothing… but the more I think about it, the more it pisses me off!

So, I want a Wayback machine!!!

I wanna go back to that moment, and say "Hey! Jerk! We’ve been speaking IN KOREAN for the last 20 minutes! HELLO! I have been studying Korean for 5 years, and can hold a conversation! YOU, on the other hand, have been studying English for over 7 years, and are NOT CAPABLE of saying “Hi, my name is ______. Nice to meet you!”

And YOU question MY abilities in Korean?? FUCK YOU!!

2

I’m suprised that he didn’t try to encourage you and help you with your Korean grammar. I’ve found that most people will appreciate it when you try to communicate in their native language.

We recently had some visitors from Mexico at our school here in Michigan. I attempted to speak Spanish when I could while they were here and they appreciated my efforts very much.

I agree. This guy was a jerk.

3

EXACTLY!! And thank you for understanding!!!

For the record, however, I think I have a good grasp of Korean grammar… it’s vocab. that I am lacking in…

4

And strangely enough, your English vocab is great, while your English grammar . . . Combine your Korean vocab and your English grammar and you’d get some bastard language child I don’t think I want to see;)

Now, how do you say, in Korean, “All your base are belong to us”?

5

You asked (and this may not be 100% accurate, as I don’t have a dictionary here with me…):

“Da noh su-bi-dae ni-koy-ya!”:smiley:

[sup]now someone is going to come along with a better grasp of Korean than me, and tell me how wrong I am about that![/sup]

6

He sounds like most teenagers these days :slight_smile:

7

Astroboy14, younger brother is a jerk. You know how superior Koreans can act toward foreigners; combine this with snotty teenage attitude, and you get rudeness like that.

I’m curious. You’re older, better educated, and superior to this kid (in the Korean social hierarchical sense), so why didn’t you say, “Pangawoyo,” which is more appropriate to your respective statuses? He should also address you as Astroboy paksa-nim, as befits your professional position.

[For SDMBers who have never lived in Korea:this kid was way out of line by Korean standards. People who are older automatically are deferred to by younger folks. The same goes for people with better jobs, and better education. Even though Astroboy is a foreigner, the kid should have been a hell of a lot more respectful.]

Generally, I found that Koreans always appreciated my speaking the language, especially out in the country. In Seoul, people are just too flippin’ jaded.

[hijack]
<Sigh> I miss going to the MTV music bar near Yonsei, buying makolli at the corner shop next to my apartment, eating mandu and dokbokki at street stands in Shinchon, spending a Sunday afternoon at Kyongbok Palace, and getting trashed at Polly’s Soju Kettle in Itaewon.
[/hijack]

8

s to young people I encountered while offbase, they all seemed nice. I was on a crowded bus once and I was standing next to a group of what looked like junior high school age students in their uniforms. We were packed in so much that when I moved to leave the bus I found my hair had got tangled in the sleeve buttons of the kid next to me. We had a laugh about it.

9

Whoops, I screwed that post up somehow. Only got the second part in. What I was saying in the first part was how goboy made me hungry talking about Korean food. I learned to love it when stationed in Korea from 76-77. Loved mandu(steamed or fried), kimpab, and I actually really like kimchee. I went to a restaurant in Seoul once and seemd to be the only Westerner there. They brought me Western style tableware, but I ordered in Korean and asked for chopsticks as well. A lot of folks seemed to be watching from the kitchen. I must have been a sight.

10

Goboy, I didn’t use “pan-mal” (informal speech) because… frankly, I’m not Korean! Implicit in the use of “pan-mal” when you first meet someone is that this new person in of lower class/status than you are, and big, dumb, goofy me is not comfortable with that. Confusianism is one of the major things (IMHO) holding Korea and much of the rest of Asia back.

I love Korea, despite my occassional Pit-rants about it (I need a place to vent!). This is a good place with wonderful people (for the most part); and it has the potential to be a great country! I think they just really need to detach their lips from Confuscious’s (wow! Try saying THAT out loud!) ass and think for themselves once in a while. Fortunately, things here are changing rapidly. I can’t tell you how much has changed in just the past 5 years! Amazing!

As an aside: They’re opening a Starbucks right in front of Hanyang U. !!

Astroboy does his happy dance!

But you have made me wonder, Goboy if my use of formal language with the highschooler didn’t set the wrong tone, and make him think that he could be rude to me… hmmm… maybe I should re-think my “err on the side of caution and be more polite than necessary” policy.

11

Astroboy14, using the informal polite “-yo” ending is hardly pan-mal. It’s the correct usage for a person of higher status to someone of lower status, or between two equals. Make that Confucian hierarchy nonsense work for you, not against you. It’s bad enough that you are a waegook in Korea, so you have to act according to your status, or else they will run right over you.

Now if you had said, “Seung-Ho ya, orakshil-e kaja, balle hae!”, that would have been pan-mal.

[sub]Boy, writing Korean using Roman characters is hard. I wish I had a Hangul font on this thing.[/sub]