If Jin weren’t so deliberately excluding himself and his wife from the others, you’d think he’d have learned some English in the month or so they’ve been stranded. And if he did plan to walk away as his father suggested, learning English would be a good idea.
I definitely no longer think that Jin speaks English, I think that was pretty well taken care of this episode. Sun’s confession that she didn’t leave Jin because he had done something sweet and made her love him again also pretty much nixes the pregnancy idea.
And after careful consideration, I have to retract my “Red October” opinion. (Sorry ivylass!) I re-watched that scene last night, and the other camp is right. There’s no reason to make it English unless she’s actually speaking English.
So, where are those s’mores, again?
After much soul searching, praying to various gods of different denominations, and then simply trying to think like a Korean woman stranded on a desert island who had learned a different language in order to escape a marraige she was sure was based on dangerous lies but decided not to leave at the last moment and instead rejoin my husband and watch him get beat up by a large angry black man building a raft that his kid set on fire (after last night, what the hell…), I decided that she spoke English in that scene and that it wasn’t a RedOCt-ing of the scene.
Since I got this info from a fansite, I’ll spoiler it, but it’s not very spoilerish
The decision to have the beach erode away was done so that they wouldn’t have to haul the plane’s fusilage back and forth while filming. The cost of that was putting a huge strain on the budget.
Refresh my memory - what exactly happened between Kate and Sun that made Kate realize that Sun spoke English? I know they were planting things in the garden, but just what transpired? Didn’t Kate say something specific that Sun responded to?
Yes, they were planting, but Kate said something (don’t remember exactly what) that made Sun laugh.
I think it was “be careful what you wish for”, and Sun smiled. Of course, that’s a Chinese saying, not a Korean one, but writers who would title an episode “House of the Rising Sun” about a Korean couple do seem to mix their Asian metaphores freely.
Oh that’s kind of disappointing. But thanks for the info I hadn’t heard that anywhere.
-rainy
If I received such a request of Hurley, I’d pretend I don’t know English either.
I kinda think he did understand, which was why he was yelling “No!” However, I also think that Hurley managed to make his point abundantly clear with sign language, so Jin wouldn’t have to know English to know what Hurley was yelling about.
I think Locke is right in some ways and wrong in some ways when he says that everyone can make a fresh start on the island. Most of them (with the exception of Jin and Sun, Boone and Shannon, and to a limited degree Michael and Walt) are around total strangers, people who know next to nothing about their pasts. They can become whoever they want to be. On the other hand, they still have to deal with the residuals of their past lives, all that they did, and all that was done to them. For some people, that’ll be pretty easy. For others, it’s going to be a lot harder. Yeah, Charlie’s clean now, but he’s still got to come to terms with the thing she did when he was an addict. Jack’s still toting around a lot of baggage about his father. I think Jin falls into the same category. It’s obvious that he did a lot of nasty things when he worked for Sun’s father, and it’s going to take a lot of time for him to get everything sorted out. Should he manage it, he and Sun still have to deal with their history together, which will never really be forgotten by either of them. So as unromantic as it sounds, Jin is absolutely right. They can’t just start over. The past is always going to be with them.
Just because Jin did not pee on Hurley when Hurley had been stung by the sea urchin does not prove that Jin didn’t understand what Hurley was saying. It just proves that Jin is smarter than Hurley because peeing is for jellyfish, it has little to no effect on sea urchin stings. Hot water, elevating the foot and pulling out the spines is better.
A couple things strike me as odd. When Sawyer catches up to Jin, the whole time he’s talking to Jin the camera is focused on his mouth, as if to show us that’s where Jin is looking. Jin often will turn and look at people who are speaking English to him. Is it possible for someone who doesn’t speak a language to read lips in that language? I know this is an even a crazier WAG than “Jin speaks English” but why the camera angle on Sawyer’s mouth and why the bit about letting us hear what Jin hears?
When we got to hear what Jin heard, at first I thought the island was working its magic – giving Jin the ability to hear English translated into Korean. If this were the case, he would have understood what Sun said. However, at this point, I agree with the other posters who said he was hearing gibberish.
All kidding aside, I think it’s a myth that peeing is helpful in any case. You don’t pee on somebody no matter what’s bitten or stung them.
I was going to challenge this statement, but upon googling both jellyfish an sea urchin first aid, several references were made to the use of vinegar to irrigate jellyfish stings, and one place said urine wasn’t useful in treating urchin wounds.
I don’t have a cite here, but y’all can look for youselves.
I had googled it previously, sea urchin stings specifically. I checked several sites, all said to immerse the stung area in non-scalding hot water for about 30 minutes. Removes any spines and elevate the area. They also said for that shaving cream or soap can be applied then the area shaved to remove any stingers, but this depends on the type of urchin. One site specifically said urine or vinegar do nothing for the pain.
I checked a couple sites for jellyfish and they usually recommend flushing the area with salt water (fresh water makes the nematocysts burst, which you don’t want). Applying meat tenderizer if it’s available and using a credit card or something similar to scrape off any remaining nematocysts. They did say that for jellyfish urine or vinegar may help with pain. The effect probably is not very long lasting and then you still have to deal with the nematocysts and you smell like pee.
So urine may not be the best remedy for jellyfish stings but it can be better than nothing, but in the case of sea urchins it’s the same as nothing.
Meat tenderiser works! I’ve had to use it before, as I was quite the surf casting fisherman when I lived on the Gulf Coast. Still hurts, but not near as bad as an untreated sting.
I believe that Sun WAS speaking korean to Jin, and I’ll tell you why:
Note that her korean accent was completely lost in that brief yet emotional burst of english. She spoke PERFECT english, indicating to me, that it was a HfRO trick.
All other instances of her speaking english, while good, was definately colored by her first language.
So Jin understood. She was desparate to make him come back to her, and at that point she thought what harm could the truth do now? Telling him was only a matter of time, anyway.
And for the record, I think this episode made it pretty clear that Jin doesn not speak much english at all.
There actually is a prior precedent for the Red October style language switch. It happened in episode 9 (“Solitary”), with the Sayid flashbacks. He was torturing a prisoner and there were subtitles. Camera close up on his lips – pans past prisoner’s head, and on the other side, now Sayid is speaking English (and flashbacks continue to use English in subsequent scenes, all taking place in Iraq).
That was a clear use of the technique.
This one would not be. I’m with Mauvaise and the others – Sun was speaking English for the “I was going to leave you” lines. Jin didn’t understand that part, but the switch to English as she begged and pleaded with him got his attention. She was back to Korean for “Can’t we start again?” – which was what he responded to.
I agree that the watch business was Jin wanting to complete his final “mission” and deliver the watches. This would also account for why he was so furious when he thought Michael had stolen the watch (he had just found it) in a previous episode.
I did like the Hurley lines, but I thought the best line in the episode was Locke, with “Should I be writing this down?” That was priceless!
By the way, I don’t see any evidence that Jin or Sun actually saw Walt start the fire. Where’s that coming from?
I assume from the link somebody posted on an earlier page to a board with translations of the Korean lines that didn’t have subtitles. And the replies to that OP seem to indicate something major like that, but I only read this thread (and thus that one) today, and that OP has been edited – and I didn’t see anything currently in it about Walt.
(In fact, this shows up on that OP: "***Edited on 2/25: a line was mistranslated the first time around. ")
I don’t think anybody saw Walt, but Locke was smart enough to piece it together.
Jin apparently was near the boat when walt set it on fire. He was there first - he tried to put out the fire and burnt his hands and ran back to the camp.