Korea
Dammit! For a country that is only an hour away on the plane it sure took us forever to get here the other day! About 8 hours all told! It was insane! Adelaide aeroport maybe kind of rural and undeveloped by international standards but thank god it's only 15 or less minutes from the city!
In Seoul now - spent yesterday sightseeing with another woman from America that I met rather randomly who is here with someone else presenting for the conference. The weather has been very wet here but today has seemed ot cleared up somewhat - however, as it is my mum's day for her presentation at 2pm I felt that I should stick around to be some sort of presence at her workshop - just her for an hour and half - and despite the conference language being English most people are not native English speakers . . .I've had some funny exchanges with some of the Korean students who are volunteering here - nice kids - pity we can hardly communicate!
I find that in comparison to the Japanese Koreans care little for personal space - I've been bumped into a ridiculous number of times! Had lunch out yesterday and it was so spicy that I cried!!! I also asked for the tofu dish comfirming it was vego but it came with little clam things in it . . . great pickles that accompanied it though - I think I could definitely get to like it - but ohhh so hot!
The loss of langauge ability freaked me out a whole lot when I first arrived - I've finally got to a point in Japan where signs and the language are familiar and understandable, in the main. I got here and was suddenly reduced to incomprehension once more and I felt useless! I hadn't realised how empowering it feels to become competent at new skills and languages! Korean does seem a very intriguing language - similar to Japan they originally used Chinese and later one of the Emperors - in the 1400s, I think - decided that an easier script needed to be constructed for the lower classes so they could become literate without the years of study required to master Chinese characters (and damn! I know how long that takes!). At many of the palaces they still have signs and everything in Chinese - to emphasise the whole hi-browness of the nobles and royalty . . . it's really interesting - would be even more informative if I actually had some prior knowledge to it all so that I could hang the new pieces of information onto a pre-existing framework. As it is, the National Folk Museum was really interesting (packed with people though) but a little complicated and disjointed without prior knowledge.
I got over the whole language thing though once I could adopt the whole tourist mentality - equipped with maps and some money I didn't really need to be able to communicate all that much. I even got quite a number of opportunities, when buying a copy of things, to use my Japanese! That was fun and funny. I startled one lady by understanding her comments about my necklace to a Japanese girl and speaking back to them in Japanese - ha ha Japan and Korea - I win! So I did have really nice time yesterday - very touristy I suppose but fun none-the-less! Nice to feel the pressure that I should be trying to do everything in a second language . . .
It is weird that Japanese does now seem to me sound quite fluid - I wonder if it always did - It is also a great thrill to hear it in amongst the incomprehensibilty of Korean - it's amazing to me how comfortable it feels and how much I understand. Have enjoyed chatting to some of the Japanese delegates of the conference. Apparently there are about 140 here! Was considering going to some of the papers that are about Japan . . . we'll see - soon they are having a special Korean lunch thing - a massive 1000 person feeding bowl of Bibimbab . . . wonder how that will be . . .
Have met a few of the new students for this semester - two Arizonians and Alex from Wollongong . . . school starts back next week - I wonder how this term will go - I'm doing 20 points worth of classes this time and last semester 16 pts felt like too much! But I didn't want to drop anything and I thought maybe my increased language would allow me to cope . . we'll see!
In Seoul now - spent yesterday sightseeing with another woman from America that I met rather randomly who is here with someone else presenting for the conference. The weather has been very wet here but today has seemed ot cleared up somewhat - however, as it is my mum's day for her presentation at 2pm I felt that I should stick around to be some sort of presence at her workshop - just her for an hour and half - and despite the conference language being English most people are not native English speakers . . .I've had some funny exchanges with some of the Korean students who are volunteering here - nice kids - pity we can hardly communicate!
I find that in comparison to the Japanese Koreans care little for personal space - I've been bumped into a ridiculous number of times! Had lunch out yesterday and it was so spicy that I cried!!! I also asked for the tofu dish comfirming it was vego but it came with little clam things in it . . . great pickles that accompanied it though - I think I could definitely get to like it - but ohhh so hot!
The loss of langauge ability freaked me out a whole lot when I first arrived - I've finally got to a point in Japan where signs and the language are familiar and understandable, in the main. I got here and was suddenly reduced to incomprehension once more and I felt useless! I hadn't realised how empowering it feels to become competent at new skills and languages! Korean does seem a very intriguing language - similar to Japan they originally used Chinese and later one of the Emperors - in the 1400s, I think - decided that an easier script needed to be constructed for the lower classes so they could become literate without the years of study required to master Chinese characters (and damn! I know how long that takes!). At many of the palaces they still have signs and everything in Chinese - to emphasise the whole hi-browness of the nobles and royalty . . . it's really interesting - would be even more informative if I actually had some prior knowledge to it all so that I could hang the new pieces of information onto a pre-existing framework. As it is, the National Folk Museum was really interesting (packed with people though) but a little complicated and disjointed without prior knowledge.
I got over the whole language thing though once I could adopt the whole tourist mentality - equipped with maps and some money I didn't really need to be able to communicate all that much. I even got quite a number of opportunities, when buying a copy of things, to use my Japanese! That was fun and funny. I startled one lady by understanding her comments about my necklace to a Japanese girl and speaking back to them in Japanese - ha ha Japan and Korea - I win! So I did have really nice time yesterday - very touristy I suppose but fun none-the-less! Nice to feel the pressure that I should be trying to do everything in a second language . . .
It is weird that Japanese does now seem to me sound quite fluid - I wonder if it always did - It is also a great thrill to hear it in amongst the incomprehensibilty of Korean - it's amazing to me how comfortable it feels and how much I understand. Have enjoyed chatting to some of the Japanese delegates of the conference. Apparently there are about 140 here! Was considering going to some of the papers that are about Japan . . . we'll see - soon they are having a special Korean lunch thing - a massive 1000 person feeding bowl of Bibimbab . . . wonder how that will be . . .
Have met a few of the new students for this semester - two Arizonians and Alex from Wollongong . . . school starts back next week - I wonder how this term will go - I'm doing 20 points worth of classes this time and last semester 16 pts felt like too much! But I didn't want to drop anything and I thought maybe my increased language would allow me to cope . . we'll see!
posted by Eleanora Martinez at 4:04 AM
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