| « Gender, Class and Formality in Korean Language | 김치 국물부터 마시지 마라 » |
Throwing Korean Books Across the Room
05/05/10
06:43:53 pm, by admin 
, 875 words 
Categories: ...and Takes On, Korea, Feats and Defeats (Language), Books, Music, Movies, TV, 사랑?, America
Throwing Korean Books Across the Room
Last night I finished Naughty Book (몸, 여균동).
This book caused me to pass some Korean-language thresholds. First, I ended up reading two Korean books at the same time. (I didn't find it appropriate to read a book with suggestive line drawings and a nipple line drawing on the cover in front of my students while they were practice testing for the spring standardized tests, so I read 빨간 머리 앤 instead.) Second, I read a Korean book intended for Korean adults by a Korean author. Finally! A book that wasn't a Western book in translation. Third, I read sentences with words like 성기, 창녀, 젖꼭지 and 변태 in them (proving that an adult vocabulary is actually needed in life, I suppose).
When I finished, however, I was not thinking about any of those things.
After storming around the house about it, I climbed into bed with the book. I wrote "10년5월4일 화가 나! >.<" on the endpaper and threw the book across the room, where it landed in a pile of Korean books on the floor.
In chapter 56, the woman leaves the man. He wakes up and finds her not there. And my heart hurt for the man. I'm not lying. It really did. I wanted the woman to come back.
And then in chapter 57, we find these sentences. "그때 문득 남자에게 이 여자를 죽여버리고 싶다는 생각이 밀려왔다" and "남자는 여자의 목을 두 손으로 감싸안았다" and "-이제 쉬어."
In other words, the man realized (accidentally) that he could kill her. So he strangled the woman. When she was dead, he laid her on the mattress and said "rest now."
And then in chapter 58 she visited him again.
The end.
I was so angry. I raged at Good Man. "What the hell? I learned Korean to an adult novel level so I could read this sexist shit?"
He laughed, "I told you it would be depressing book."
I made Good Man read the last three chapters. And then I drilled him. "Is there some time warp stuff? Did he kill her and then wander around his house looking for her? Is she visiting him only in his own head?"
"I don't know."
I gave him a disbelieving glare.
"No, I really don't. It's avant-garde, I don't know exactly what happened," he said.
"Well then you Google it and tell me!"
Ever a great sport, Good Man Googled it. He found an interview with the author, who said that killing her at the end was a "symbol of literature," because breakups are like a death.
With your bare hands? Pyscho author!
Good Man said, "This is why I don't read Korean books! I never even read this book and I told you it would be depressing and sad and someone would die!"
That's true. Although Good Man hasn't read the book, he knows the author (who is a movie producer or something similar) and he warned me it would probably be dark. And the last fifteen chapters were all about death and suicide (of an opera star).
Good Man said, "All Korean books in the store are Christian, or making money on stock market, or making yourself better in society, or depressing stuff like this, or English books, or hagwon stuff."
"I wanted to read an actual Korean book written by a Korean for Koreans! A book that hasn't been translated into English—and there aren't many Korean books translated into English. I wanted to read Korean literature!"
Good Man laughed, "That is what you read!"
I growled. "Stupid book!"
Diana was online and I ranted at her. She wrote, "This is why Koreans never break up with anyone. This is why they just quit calling. I get it now. Because dumping someone is exactly the same as murder."
I ranted a bit more and Good Man sighed and muttered to himself, "Oh today is a very strange day. My wife is upset about avant-garde Korean novel and she takes it out on me...."
"Oh yeah. So glad I bothered learning Korean to read real Korean literature."
If I had read it in English, it would've been a pretty quick read and I would've heard something through the grapevine about the "controversial ending" or the male character would've been called "disturbed." I would've had a better idea of what to expect.
But 몸 is not in translation. It's modern lit, so it's not some classic that I'd even read a synopsis of. I was going in blind. It's written in poetic prose (not poetry), which took a lot of thought and time. But I was interested. So I was reading along, doing pretty well, and really taking my time to read it and to try and understand it.
I invested a lot of time and energy invested in this book, and that's why I hate(d) the ending so strongly.
However. Good Man found out it's been made into a movie (미인) and I made him find it online.
Why?
I know the story (roughly). Watching it would be good for my listening comprehension.
But I think I'll watch it when I'm less upset with the ending. Or at least calmer about it. I'm not that much of a masochist or sadist (Good Man!) that I'll watch it this month.
The good news is that with finishing this book I'm quickly closing in on the 400,000 mark for my 1,000,000 jaso goal.
385,900
17 comments
Comment from: Jason [Visitor] · http://kimchiicecream.wordpress.com/
Some (many?) foreigners who study Korean language might not like one of the reasons why I never tried to learn much Korean beyond the survival level I have . . . but one of the reasons has to do with why you got upset about the book.
My first year in Korea I taught my 22 classes a week for my contract, plus an extra 12 classes in the after school programs--during all this I also did my online TEFL teaching certificate. The little free time I had was spent in Seoul away from Ganghwa Island getting some contact with English speakers . . . so when it came to learning Korean language I only studied the basics and that was it. When I was on the island I was always with a Korean who insisted on speaking for me to order food or whatever, so there really wasn't much of a survival motivation let alone other reasons to study and use Korean (when would I have used it-I was always teaching or busy).
Anyways, my point is that in my second year in Korea I revisited the idea of learning Korean, and by that point I'd had quite the exposure to Korean culture. I made a decision to not learn and study the language (in spite of apparently having impeccable pronunciation for the stuff I had learned, and a pretty good ear for listening too) because I didn't want to actively participate in the power dynamics and cultural norms that one must practice and use when speaking and interacting socially in Korean. To be more specific, I had issues with the (in my mind) extreme attention to rank and forms of address, the gender imbalances, and other discriminatory communication practices that I'd see on a day to day basis.
This might seem to be a harsh stance to take towards a culture I've lived in for five and a half years, but I felt strongly about my desire to not participate in socio-linguistic practices that I felt contribute to maintaining, for example, gender imbalances.
I think there are native English speakers who learn Korean, and become fluent in Korean, who manage to speak and interact using Korean with other Koreans in ways that do not discriminate, etc, but I have to wonder how often this is possible because I think some/many Koreans would be freaked out (or somehow react negatively) to a foreigner speaking THEIR language and yet using English cultural ways of thinking and socializing . . . basically the inverse of what native speakers of English think when Koreans speak in English but use Korean cultural norms--we really dislike it most of the time, and I didn't want to do that if I learned Korean.
Let me boil that down to this: I didn't want to learn how to communicate in Korean fluently because I felt that if I did that I should also follow the Korean cultural norms and practices of communicating, and I have a strong dislike for many of the entrenched power relationship rules, and gender issues....
When I read this post I was reminded of this, and I have to wonder how you feel, Amanda, when you visited Korea recently when you speak Korean with other Koreans . . . how do you feel about the differences in language and culture practices? Do you THINK and FEEL in Korea too--in the sense of assimilating yourself to the point where you might not be bothered by, for example, having to let the elder male in a group situation make a decision without asking for your input and approval. . . those kinds of things.
Anyways, that's what I thought when I read this post.
J
My first year in Korea I taught my 22 classes a week for my contract, plus an extra 12 classes in the after school programs--during all this I also did my online TEFL teaching certificate. The little free time I had was spent in Seoul away from Ganghwa Island getting some contact with English speakers . . . so when it came to learning Korean language I only studied the basics and that was it. When I was on the island I was always with a Korean who insisted on speaking for me to order food or whatever, so there really wasn't much of a survival motivation let alone other reasons to study and use Korean (when would I have used it-I was always teaching or busy).
Anyways, my point is that in my second year in Korea I revisited the idea of learning Korean, and by that point I'd had quite the exposure to Korean culture. I made a decision to not learn and study the language (in spite of apparently having impeccable pronunciation for the stuff I had learned, and a pretty good ear for listening too) because I didn't want to actively participate in the power dynamics and cultural norms that one must practice and use when speaking and interacting socially in Korean. To be more specific, I had issues with the (in my mind) extreme attention to rank and forms of address, the gender imbalances, and other discriminatory communication practices that I'd see on a day to day basis.
This might seem to be a harsh stance to take towards a culture I've lived in for five and a half years, but I felt strongly about my desire to not participate in socio-linguistic practices that I felt contribute to maintaining, for example, gender imbalances.
I think there are native English speakers who learn Korean, and become fluent in Korean, who manage to speak and interact using Korean with other Koreans in ways that do not discriminate, etc, but I have to wonder how often this is possible because I think some/many Koreans would be freaked out (or somehow react negatively) to a foreigner speaking THEIR language and yet using English cultural ways of thinking and socializing . . . basically the inverse of what native speakers of English think when Koreans speak in English but use Korean cultural norms--we really dislike it most of the time, and I didn't want to do that if I learned Korean.
Let me boil that down to this: I didn't want to learn how to communicate in Korean fluently because I felt that if I did that I should also follow the Korean cultural norms and practices of communicating, and I have a strong dislike for many of the entrenched power relationship rules, and gender issues....
When I read this post I was reminded of this, and I have to wonder how you feel, Amanda, when you visited Korea recently when you speak Korean with other Koreans . . . how do you feel about the differences in language and culture practices? Do you THINK and FEEL in Korea too--in the sense of assimilating yourself to the point where you might not be bothered by, for example, having to let the elder male in a group situation make a decision without asking for your input and approval. . . those kinds of things.
Anyways, that's what I thought when I read this post.
J
05/05/10 @ 23:24
Comment from: admin [Member]
Excellent comment, Jason. Very interesting and something I've heard quite often (usually worded more like, "The more I learned about Koreans, the less I wanted to know about them").
First, I have to go back to why I wanted to study Korean. That brings me back to a post from October 15, 2006. I wanted to learn Korean because I wanted to be coached to competition level in taekwondo by Master. Now, I had no idea what that would mean. I didn't know what my end point would be. I wasn't even sure if I could attend competitions in Korea as a foreigner (I could, I did). But that's what I wanted.
I met Master my second day in Korea. I started learning Korean seriously my third month in Korea. Throughout my first year, when all that hogwon BS was going on, Master's family was there. Master spoke very little English. We made do with a blend of English and Korean, but now we almost entirely speak in Korean. Since I still respect Master as a teacher, and more as a really wonderful friend, there is always that motivation to learn Korean.
Maybe I just lucked out in meeting one of the younger, more modern families first, but because Master was such a good friend to me, there was reason to learn Korean. Master might be a few months older than me, my instructor, and several ranks higher than me in taekwondo, but outside of the studio we (eventually came to) speak banmal or a respectful mix of banmal and -yo form. And we call each other friends--in Korean, not English. I speak to his wife respectfully since she's older than me and not as close. His children were like my niece and nephew in Korea.
I think that's a cop-out. There are tons of ways that we maintain gender imbalances in English and in America (see Deborah Tannen's body of work, for example). We're just not as aware of them because we grew up in them and/or because we benefit from them.
Anyone in any culture grows up learning that culture's language and that culture's norms. And at some point in your life you decide to accept those norms or to reject them or to deal with them when you want to reject them but can't. You still communicate in that culture.
I don't view Korean any differently.
The short answer is that I felt great when I visited Korea recently--I had kept up my studies despite being away, and I fairly quickly slipped into Korean again. The stress I felt at not understanding big group situations (grandfather's ceremony and grandmother's funeral) only fueled a desire to learn more Korean.
When I'm in Korea and in public, speaking with strangers, I use -yo or -imnida depending on the situation and if I make mistakes, I'm forgiven because I'm a foreigner. Work issues? Let the boss choose the restaurant we're having a wayshik at--he's footing the bill and I'd rather get the dinner started so I can get it over with and go home. When you're interacting on people on a surface level (in taxis, at stores, chit-chatting with strangers), there's not much to bother you.
When I interact with Koreans at a deeper level? Those people are going to be friends and family--Master, Good Man's family. Those people are going to know me better. With those people I am still the really outspoken, brash, Western Amanda--just in a Korean sense.
I used to say, "I'm not coming because I'm sick." I've learned to say, "I feel sick. It seems like maybe I will not be able to come." Those sound different. To a Western's ear, the latter sounds wimpy and unsure. To a Korean's ear, the former sounds harsh and rude.
Over time I've learned to turn a direct English phrase into an indirect Korean phrase like above. They may sound different, but they're not. The former works in one culture, the latter works in another. Either way, I communicate within the cultural norms. That doesn't mean that fundamentally I buy the culture's norms. It means I deal with them--in American culture or Korean culture.
If I didn't speak Korean, the people I care most about in Korea (Master's family, Mother, Father, Sister) would not get to know me. If I didn't speak Korean and always needed a buffer in the form of an interpreter, they would only get to know the me that the interpreter chose to present.
I don't want that. I want to present myself.
To be more specific, I had issues with the (in my mind) extreme attention to rank and forms of address, the gender imbalances, and other discriminatory communication practices that I'd see on a day to day basis.
First, I have to go back to why I wanted to study Korean. That brings me back to a post from October 15, 2006. I wanted to learn Korean because I wanted to be coached to competition level in taekwondo by Master. Now, I had no idea what that would mean. I didn't know what my end point would be. I wasn't even sure if I could attend competitions in Korea as a foreigner (I could, I did). But that's what I wanted.
I met Master my second day in Korea. I started learning Korean seriously my third month in Korea. Throughout my first year, when all that hogwon BS was going on, Master's family was there. Master spoke very little English. We made do with a blend of English and Korean, but now we almost entirely speak in Korean. Since I still respect Master as a teacher, and more as a really wonderful friend, there is always that motivation to learn Korean.
Maybe I just lucked out in meeting one of the younger, more modern families first, but because Master was such a good friend to me, there was reason to learn Korean. Master might be a few months older than me, my instructor, and several ranks higher than me in taekwondo, but outside of the studio we (eventually came to) speak banmal or a respectful mix of banmal and -yo form. And we call each other friends--in Korean, not English. I speak to his wife respectfully since she's older than me and not as close. His children were like my niece and nephew in Korea.
This might seem to be a harsh stance to take towards a culture I've lived in for five and a half years, but I felt strongly about my desire to not participate in socio-linguistic practices that I felt contribute to maintaining, for example, gender imbalances.
I think that's a cop-out. There are tons of ways that we maintain gender imbalances in English and in America (see Deborah Tannen's body of work, for example). We're just not as aware of them because we grew up in them and/or because we benefit from them.
Anyone in any culture grows up learning that culture's language and that culture's norms. And at some point in your life you decide to accept those norms or to reject them or to deal with them when you want to reject them but can't. You still communicate in that culture.
I don't view Korean any differently.
When I read this post I was reminded of this, and I have to wonder how you feel, Amanda, when you visited Korea recently when you speak Korean with other Koreans . . . how do you feel about the differences in language and culture practices? Do you THINK and FEEL in Korea too--in the sense of assimilating yourself to the point where you might not be bothered by, for example, having to let the elder male in a group situation make a decision without asking for your input and approval. . . those kinds of things.
The short answer is that I felt great when I visited Korea recently--I had kept up my studies despite being away, and I fairly quickly slipped into Korean again. The stress I felt at not understanding big group situations (grandfather's ceremony and grandmother's funeral) only fueled a desire to learn more Korean.
When I'm in Korea and in public, speaking with strangers, I use -yo or -imnida depending on the situation and if I make mistakes, I'm forgiven because I'm a foreigner. Work issues? Let the boss choose the restaurant we're having a wayshik at--he's footing the bill and I'd rather get the dinner started so I can get it over with and go home. When you're interacting on people on a surface level (in taxis, at stores, chit-chatting with strangers), there's not much to bother you.
When I interact with Koreans at a deeper level? Those people are going to be friends and family--Master, Good Man's family. Those people are going to know me better. With those people I am still the really outspoken, brash, Western Amanda--just in a Korean sense.
I used to say, "I'm not coming because I'm sick." I've learned to say, "I feel sick. It seems like maybe I will not be able to come." Those sound different. To a Western's ear, the latter sounds wimpy and unsure. To a Korean's ear, the former sounds harsh and rude.
Over time I've learned to turn a direct English phrase into an indirect Korean phrase like above. They may sound different, but they're not. The former works in one culture, the latter works in another. Either way, I communicate within the cultural norms. That doesn't mean that fundamentally I buy the culture's norms. It means I deal with them--in American culture or Korean culture.
If I didn't speak Korean, the people I care most about in Korea (Master's family, Mother, Father, Sister) would not get to know me. If I didn't speak Korean and always needed a buffer in the form of an interpreter, they would only get to know the me that the interpreter chose to present.
I don't want that. I want to present myself.
05/06/10 @ 07:19
Comment from: Jason [Visitor] · http://kimchiicecream.wordpress.com/
Amanda, thanks for replying with so much detail--I really appreciate that.
I think that for myself, in terms having some kind of major motivating force to learn Korean, that it just never really happened for me during my first year in Korea, or for that matter any time after that.
I did not come to Korea to date and look for Korean girls, so in terms of the huge motivation factor that comes with the bar scene and dating scene I just never caught 'Asian fever' (whatever that ridiculous thing is, nobody says they have 'White fever' do they? Seriously....). (Re-reading this, however, I have to wonder what Good Man would say if you ask him if he had "White fever" when he met you--I'm sure he'd have a very insightful and humorous response, lol.)
Learning Korean for situation specific communication needs also never happened. I generally found that my polite and friendly attitude mixed with small pieces of Korean language and gestures helped me to communicate with Koreans in my day to day tasks. I found that when I wasn't teaching students and working with Korean English teachers/Korean teachers that I really didn't have any energy whatsoever to try practicing using the Korean I might have learned (by 'accident' or by picking up my phrasebook) because I was exhausted from my insane teaching schedule.
In my free time I generally would seek out native English speakers (living alone on Ganghwa in a two-street village with the nearest native teacher a 30 minute bus ride away might explain why), and if I was socializing with Koreans (which I did) it'd be with Koreans who already had intermediate or higher level English.
I think one thing that really put me off of trying to study Korean seriously was the inability of so many Koreans I'd meet (which is not necessarily representative in any way of 'all' Koreans or even a majority--rather, just on my very limited number of interactions) to interact with me in a manner that didn't have to follow the rigid rules and models of communication/interactions so heavily dependent on one's social rank and all of the criteria therein. I got tired of the lack of any kind of give and take, negotiation and/or compromise, in my communications with the Koreans I would talk to in my day to day experiences whether in school or on the street in Seoul or wherever. Maybe I just had horrible luck with who I was meeting, but the simple truth of the experiences I had was that I would try to make concessions and be sensitive to the Korean cultural norms and general rules, but rarely felt any sense of reciprocation from the other person.
Another unfortunate personal truth (which may not be true for everyone) I quickly realized was that all too often most of the 'conversations' I'd have if I learned more Korean would follow VERY standardized scripts like the typical introduction conversations one has whether or not they're in English or in Korean when speaking to a Korean: age, marital status, job, etc. I generally dislike having those kinds of conversations even though I have adapted to and will participate in them so that the Korean can be more comfortable with me when we are talking.
You say that "I think that's a cop-out" about my stance towards the embedded socio-linguistic-cultural prejudices and what not in Korean language and why I don't want to learn and study the language, but I don't think it is. I have the same problems in English as I think I would have if I had studied Korean and raised my fluency competence to a high enough level to have 'real' conversations . . . my personal philosophy (which is a mish-mash of feminism, queer theory, post-colonial theory, cultural studies, and other stuff) generally tends to limit who I am friends with in terms of native speakers of English--I think the same thing would be true if I could speak Korean well and was trying to be friends with Koreans; ethnicity and language are kind of irrelevant in a way when it comes to how people react to my personal philosophy . . . so I think this one reason in particular for why I didn't learn Korean isn't a cop-out, in my mind anyways.
I think you ARE right about how I could modify how I speak and use Korean with Korean people I am talking to, but only IF they're the kind of awesome people like you have met in Master's circle of friends and family, and Good Man's circle . . . but in terms of speaking Korean using my own personal preferences for how I want to communicate and express myself--I really don't think many Koreans would generally think that's okay to do.
I think foreigners study Korean for the following reasons.
1) dating, relationships, romance, sex
2) friendship
3) general passion for studying languages
4) long term plans to live and stay in Korea, and more than likely marry a Korean
5) job necessity
6) wanting to learn about and study Korean culture and history
For me, the only relevant item in the list above was that I was fairly sure I'd be staying in Korea for a few years, and it would really help me if I was able to use Korean competently in my day to day life. Yet I couldn't get past the fact that I would never use Korean again once I leave Korea, and that my work schedule was extremely stressful and exhausting thereby leaving me very little energy for anything other than exercising, having some fun, and trying to study for future graduate work in English. Adding studying a language that I had no long term reasons to study, and that wouldn't help me with my career and academic goals, to all of the things going on was just not on my radar.
In some ways I am VERY jealous of the kind of people in Korea that you've met, and developed deep and meaningful relationships with. I have met some amazing people in Korea too, but unfortunately when I would move to another part of Korea and to another job they generally would not make the efforts to keep in touch after I would move which led me to doubt their sincerity of friendship and connection. I would make phone calls and send emails, and try to maintain the relationship after moving and seemed to run into what I think is the 'rule of proximity in relationships' that operates in English cultures too: if a person is not inside your daily living spaces then it's highly unlikely you will invest time and energy into maintaining a relationship with them.
One of the many things Korean culture has taught me is also how to phrase things I say in ENGLISH indirectly, and with a far greater degree of diplomacy and tact than I had any ability to do when I first came here. I've blogged about this, and I think it's been extremely good for me to have to learn how to communicate in this manner, and I'm sure that it will help me in the future in many situations no matter where I am living in the world.
While I may not have studied Korean language skills I did read a lot about the history and culture so that even though I'd be speaking in English I would still be able to have some idea of what was going on in each situation.
Perhaps I have lost the chance to meet people who might have become amazing friends by not learning how to speak Korean and studying it seriously and consistently during my time here, and perhaps not.
Anyways, I think I'm rambling now but those are some of the thoughts I had after reading your response.
I think that for myself, in terms having some kind of major motivating force to learn Korean, that it just never really happened for me during my first year in Korea, or for that matter any time after that.
I did not come to Korea to date and look for Korean girls, so in terms of the huge motivation factor that comes with the bar scene and dating scene I just never caught 'Asian fever' (whatever that ridiculous thing is, nobody says they have 'White fever' do they? Seriously....). (Re-reading this, however, I have to wonder what Good Man would say if you ask him if he had "White fever" when he met you--I'm sure he'd have a very insightful and humorous response, lol.)
Learning Korean for situation specific communication needs also never happened. I generally found that my polite and friendly attitude mixed with small pieces of Korean language and gestures helped me to communicate with Koreans in my day to day tasks. I found that when I wasn't teaching students and working with Korean English teachers/Korean teachers that I really didn't have any energy whatsoever to try practicing using the Korean I might have learned (by 'accident' or by picking up my phrasebook) because I was exhausted from my insane teaching schedule.
In my free time I generally would seek out native English speakers (living alone on Ganghwa in a two-street village with the nearest native teacher a 30 minute bus ride away might explain why), and if I was socializing with Koreans (which I did) it'd be with Koreans who already had intermediate or higher level English.
I think one thing that really put me off of trying to study Korean seriously was the inability of so many Koreans I'd meet (which is not necessarily representative in any way of 'all' Koreans or even a majority--rather, just on my very limited number of interactions) to interact with me in a manner that didn't have to follow the rigid rules and models of communication/interactions so heavily dependent on one's social rank and all of the criteria therein. I got tired of the lack of any kind of give and take, negotiation and/or compromise, in my communications with the Koreans I would talk to in my day to day experiences whether in school or on the street in Seoul or wherever. Maybe I just had horrible luck with who I was meeting, but the simple truth of the experiences I had was that I would try to make concessions and be sensitive to the Korean cultural norms and general rules, but rarely felt any sense of reciprocation from the other person.
Another unfortunate personal truth (which may not be true for everyone) I quickly realized was that all too often most of the 'conversations' I'd have if I learned more Korean would follow VERY standardized scripts like the typical introduction conversations one has whether or not they're in English or in Korean when speaking to a Korean: age, marital status, job, etc. I generally dislike having those kinds of conversations even though I have adapted to and will participate in them so that the Korean can be more comfortable with me when we are talking.
You say that "I think that's a cop-out" about my stance towards the embedded socio-linguistic-cultural prejudices and what not in Korean language and why I don't want to learn and study the language, but I don't think it is. I have the same problems in English as I think I would have if I had studied Korean and raised my fluency competence to a high enough level to have 'real' conversations . . . my personal philosophy (which is a mish-mash of feminism, queer theory, post-colonial theory, cultural studies, and other stuff) generally tends to limit who I am friends with in terms of native speakers of English--I think the same thing would be true if I could speak Korean well and was trying to be friends with Koreans; ethnicity and language are kind of irrelevant in a way when it comes to how people react to my personal philosophy . . . so I think this one reason in particular for why I didn't learn Korean isn't a cop-out, in my mind anyways.
I think you ARE right about how I could modify how I speak and use Korean with Korean people I am talking to, but only IF they're the kind of awesome people like you have met in Master's circle of friends and family, and Good Man's circle . . . but in terms of speaking Korean using my own personal preferences for how I want to communicate and express myself--I really don't think many Koreans would generally think that's okay to do.
I think foreigners study Korean for the following reasons.
1) dating, relationships, romance, sex
2) friendship
3) general passion for studying languages
4) long term plans to live and stay in Korea, and more than likely marry a Korean
5) job necessity
6) wanting to learn about and study Korean culture and history
For me, the only relevant item in the list above was that I was fairly sure I'd be staying in Korea for a few years, and it would really help me if I was able to use Korean competently in my day to day life. Yet I couldn't get past the fact that I would never use Korean again once I leave Korea, and that my work schedule was extremely stressful and exhausting thereby leaving me very little energy for anything other than exercising, having some fun, and trying to study for future graduate work in English. Adding studying a language that I had no long term reasons to study, and that wouldn't help me with my career and academic goals, to all of the things going on was just not on my radar.
In some ways I am VERY jealous of the kind of people in Korea that you've met, and developed deep and meaningful relationships with. I have met some amazing people in Korea too, but unfortunately when I would move to another part of Korea and to another job they generally would not make the efforts to keep in touch after I would move which led me to doubt their sincerity of friendship and connection. I would make phone calls and send emails, and try to maintain the relationship after moving and seemed to run into what I think is the 'rule of proximity in relationships' that operates in English cultures too: if a person is not inside your daily living spaces then it's highly unlikely you will invest time and energy into maintaining a relationship with them.
One of the many things Korean culture has taught me is also how to phrase things I say in ENGLISH indirectly, and with a far greater degree of diplomacy and tact than I had any ability to do when I first came here. I've blogged about this, and I think it's been extremely good for me to have to learn how to communicate in this manner, and I'm sure that it will help me in the future in many situations no matter where I am living in the world.
While I may not have studied Korean language skills I did read a lot about the history and culture so that even though I'd be speaking in English I would still be able to have some idea of what was going on in each situation.
Perhaps I have lost the chance to meet people who might have become amazing friends by not learning how to speak Korean and studying it seriously and consistently during my time here, and perhaps not.
Anyways, I think I'm rambling now but those are some of the thoughts I had after reading your response.
05/06/10 @ 08:54
Comment from: Mom [Visitor] · http://roundaboutacres.com
I fear I am not as eloquent as you or Jason. Good comments. But I do have a few thoughts... A sign of a good work of fiction is if it evokes an emotional response. It seems that is what happened with this book!
05/06/10 @ 19:50
Comment from: admin [Member]
Jason, most expats have no reason to learn Korean past a survival level for all the reasons you mentioned. I grant that and agree with it. Expats are expats, not immigrants. Their sojourn is short, temporary. Learn the basics and go.
You have a really clear, reasonable reason for not learning Korea: Yet [you] couldn't get past the fact that [you] would never use Korean again once [you] leave Korea[.] Very, very true for almost anyone. And a good reason to not invest that much time in the language (Spanish? Chinese? Arabic instead?).
But that's part of the reason I think the sexism/social structure thing is a cop-out. If someone (you, say) really wanted to learn Korean, they'd learn Korean, and they'd find a way to deal with the structure of the culture. (Just like you have in English.) So it seems more like an excuse than an actual reason to me. But I guess the difference between an excuse and a reason is in the eye of the beholder.
I think the boring age/marital status/family location Beginning Korean Relationship Of Any Sort conversations are boring, too. But all societies have those sorts of things, and once you become friends with someone, those conversations end. The thing is, it's hard to make friends as adults in the West (in my experience) and even more in Korea. It seems that a lot of Koreans (Good Man says "35% consensus among my generation") believe that true friendships can only be developed in elementary, middle, and high school. (Going by that logic, I have one true friend: Mark.) That can be really frustrating.
I'm not sure HOW I ended up meeting such cool Koreans. To be sure, there were also a lot of "situational friends." With Master, our friendship becomes a chicken/egg thing. Did we become friends because I continued to study Korean, or did I continue to study Korean because we became friends? I honestly don't know. The friendship deepened as the learning did, so who can determine which fed which?
I know that I'm am grateful that I met Master early on, because he (and the studio) kept me grounded when everything was going horribly at that hogwon. If I hadn't've met him and his family, I probably would've formed a very different opinion of Koreans based on my boss, and I certainly wouldn't've dated one!
Speaking of dating, Good Man dated non-Koreans before me. A Japanese girl, a German woman, a chick from California...I suspect more I haven't heard of. ;) He wasn't interested in building a Korean life with a Korean wife--so I suppose he found a way to reject the rigidity of the culture, too. (I always argue that any Korean, male or female, who goes the distance with a non-Korean is an atypical Korean. Because it takes a LOT to buck the system.)
Good Man ignored the rules of Korean society by marrying me, and thus sort of dragged his parents along with him. To be fair, his father had worked abroad most of his adult life, so he wasn't totally shocked. And his mother had traveled abroad...with her church group.
I completely agree that Korean has taught me how to be indirect in English. Living and working in Korea also taught me how to let a lot of stuff slide off my back, which has helped IMMENSELY in the workplace!
You have a really clear, reasonable reason for not learning Korea: Yet [you] couldn't get past the fact that [you] would never use Korean again once [you] leave Korea[.] Very, very true for almost anyone. And a good reason to not invest that much time in the language (Spanish? Chinese? Arabic instead?).
But that's part of the reason I think the sexism/social structure thing is a cop-out. If someone (you, say) really wanted to learn Korean, they'd learn Korean, and they'd find a way to deal with the structure of the culture. (Just like you have in English.) So it seems more like an excuse than an actual reason to me. But I guess the difference between an excuse and a reason is in the eye of the beholder.
I think the boring age/marital status/family location Beginning Korean Relationship Of Any Sort conversations are boring, too. But all societies have those sorts of things, and once you become friends with someone, those conversations end. The thing is, it's hard to make friends as adults in the West (in my experience) and even more in Korea. It seems that a lot of Koreans (Good Man says "35% consensus among my generation") believe that true friendships can only be developed in elementary, middle, and high school. (Going by that logic, I have one true friend: Mark.) That can be really frustrating.
I'm not sure HOW I ended up meeting such cool Koreans. To be sure, there were also a lot of "situational friends." With Master, our friendship becomes a chicken/egg thing. Did we become friends because I continued to study Korean, or did I continue to study Korean because we became friends? I honestly don't know. The friendship deepened as the learning did, so who can determine which fed which?
I know that I'm am grateful that I met Master early on, because he (and the studio) kept me grounded when everything was going horribly at that hogwon. If I hadn't've met him and his family, I probably would've formed a very different opinion of Koreans based on my boss, and I certainly wouldn't've dated one!
Speaking of dating, Good Man dated non-Koreans before me. A Japanese girl, a German woman, a chick from California...I suspect more I haven't heard of. ;) He wasn't interested in building a Korean life with a Korean wife--so I suppose he found a way to reject the rigidity of the culture, too. (I always argue that any Korean, male or female, who goes the distance with a non-Korean is an atypical Korean. Because it takes a LOT to buck the system.)
Good Man ignored the rules of Korean society by marrying me, and thus sort of dragged his parents along with him. To be fair, his father had worked abroad most of his adult life, so he wasn't totally shocked. And his mother had traveled abroad...with her church group.
I completely agree that Korean has taught me how to be indirect in English. Living and working in Korea also taught me how to let a lot of stuff slide off my back, which has helped IMMENSELY in the workplace!
05/06/10 @ 20:04
Comment from: Jason [Visitor] · http://kimchiicecream.wordpress.com/
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for emailing me, and for posting my comment and then replying . . .
I don't feel like you're responding as clearly as I'd hoped for (and that's likely due to me not articulating some things clearly enough too) about Korean language and the cultural norms and rules that a Korean as a foreign language learner has to negotiate and figure out what they are willing to conform to and obey versus what they are not okay with.
I've read several ESL/EFL articles written in English about the Korean language and Korean cultural and linguistic practices during the time I've been in Korea, and also had many discussions with co-teachers I taught with, and with Korean teacher trainees in my courses at the gyode where I taught, etc.
Based on what I've been able to figure out, which is nowhere near as clear as it'd be if I was actually studying and learning and practicing and mastering the language itself . . . but based on what I've been able to figure out about the language structure and the cultural rules that come with it I decided that Korean language and cultural rules for speaking and communicating were not for me.
Now this is a minefield of issues that are all interconnected and it's hard to just touch on one of the issues without setting off several others at the same time. But I'm going to try to navigate my way through and get it out as simply as possible.
I really struggle to understand how one can communicate in Korean without, for example, using the honorifics that are so heavily embedded within everyday usage. Use of those honorifics heavily influence the power dynamics and what is permissible to say and do, and what is not, when speaking to another Korean in Korean. Refusing to respect and follow these conventions, in my mind, is rude (according to Korean cultural norms) and I think generally would result in communication breaking down and problems in whatever kind of relationship may have been forming.
Now I think you might respond to this by saying that those things are important during introduction conversations, and the beginnings of developing relationships with Koreans, and I'd agree with you. (Oh yeah, and you point out that this is true in most if not all languages and cultures, fine, but I think in the Korean context there are specific differences and unique aspects that differ from many other languages--take that with a grain of salt, though, as I'm not a linguist.)
But my problem is with how the power dynamics and ways of interacting continue to have a dominant-submissive dynamic (I need to say here that although I'm a feminist I do believe that 'equality' has been overly mythologized in feminist discourses and philosophies, and that I think in human interactions one person is usually dominant, and the other submissive--but it is in the negotiations of power and the processes therein where the 'equality' ideas need to be in play) later after the relationship has been established, and closeness has been achieved (man was it shocking the first time I heard a Korean female teacher tell me in English that she wanted us 'to be close'--I had to do some cross-cultural-linguistic GYMNASTICS to figure out what that really means to avoid thinking she was after me romantically, lol).
I guess another way of trying to explain what I mean is describing how some of my older male co-teachers have wanted to form friendships with me, yet they insist on the traditional and conservative model of senior-junior friendship between two men in Korea . . . and this kind of friendship model does not allow for me to negotiate or try to find compromises in all the different situations I'd find myself in with them, or to express myself in ways that are true to what I'm thinking and feeling . . . and this was when I'm speaking in English with a Korean who has very high level English too--I can't imagine how much harder it would have been if we'd been speaking in Korean...
When it's a Korean who is in the same age bracket, and all the other 'compatibility' markers Koreans generally use to decide who is 'friendship appropriate material' then I think it's possible to speak using the informal way of communicating . . . but all too often in my experiences in Korea the Koreans I've met who are the same age or in the range of 'appropriate' ages who I could be friends with I'd find that due to the culture here and how Koreans spend the first 18 years of their life chained to desks in school and hogwan that the disparity in life experience and maturity was just too great to even try reconciling.
I'd also run into a lot of racist and misogynist attitudes when speaking with Koreans who I would meet in clubs, on the street, in coffee shops, and other places--and there's only so much of that I can take. Sitting in a restaurant and hearing my dinner companion go on about how the server is Chinese, and 'dirty' . . . that pretty much ends things right there. I bring that example up because the majority of Koreans I meet and have spoken to invariably say and/or do something that evokes images of 1930s-1970s North American prejudices in one way or another . . . and I know this comes from the public school curricula they were brainwashed with (I think that's a rather apt term to use considering the use of corporal punishment combined with if you don't get high test scores you almost guarantee you'll be in the lower classes, etc, pretty powerful stuff) . . . I also feel the same way about curricula in western English public schools and the institutionalized homophobia, racism, and neo-colonial/imperialist historical narratives we are taught while growing up in North America--please don't think that I only see Korea as having problems in its public school education and how it shapes and molds the minds and realities of its youth.
Anyways, I'm rambling again (tired, end of the week, blah).
These are some of the things that I don't like...
1) Age taboos in who you can and can't talk to, and be friends with. I've tried to become friends with older and younger Koreans, and there have been some who wanted to too, but the social group conformity pressures that would be put on them by co-workers, students, etc, would sometimes prevent them from pursuing a friendship with me . . .
2) Mixed gender friendships regardless of whether the Korean is single or married. . . not being able to sit and have lunch with a female Korean friend teacher because of the school gossip psycho network going nuclear about us chatting and laughing in the cafeteria . . argh!
I feel like in some ways, Amanda, that you sever the connections between Korean language and the culture it comes from; in my mind it is a symbiotic connection that cannot be severed. It can be modified, and altered *to a degree* based on the personality and what the individual language learner/user prefers--but let's face it the collectivist/group think/conformity culture in Korea limits what is possible for an individual to say and do when speaking in Korean . . . at least based on what I know and have experienced and witnessed.
In my previous comment I touched on how native speakers/teachers of English try to get Korean speakers of English to follow as much of English culture as they can learn, practice, and master when using the English language. I don't think native teachers expect Koreans to 'join the Borg collective' and follow English cultural rules and taboos mindlessly, and for Korean English speakers to ignore their identity and personal desires . . . but I do think that there are certain things that Korean speakers of English have to CHOOSE to assimilate into the English identity that they develop psycho-linguistically . . . and refusing to do so for whatever reasons generally leads to a break down in communications with other English speakers and causes problems in the development and maintenance of cross-cultural relationships . . .
I agree with you, Amanda, that with specific personalities/individuals in Korea (who are Korean) that it would be possible for me to speak in Korean with them in the manner that is true to who I am, and true to my personal values and norms--but I stand by my perception that if I'd studied Korean and attained a high-intermediate to advanced level fluency that the majority of Koreans I might try to talk to in Korean, and while being true to who I am, would not react well to how I would choose to speak in Korean with them, and interact with them.
A specific example would be how I would not exhibit in my speaking and interactions the extreme levels of respect and servitude towards someone who is my 'senior.' I DO try to offer what I feel I can in terms of respect for someone who is older than me, but to be deferential in everything towards them because they're a year older, or whatever the case may be, is just not natural or comfortable for me. This is one of many examples that tell me that even if I'd studied Korean that the social hierarchies, rules for interactions, and ways of speaking that come with them are just too much for a native English speaker to navigate and yet still remain true to who they are and how they want TO BE....yikes, I'm generalizing too much here--each native speaker of English studying Korean language figures out what they can and can't adopt as they develop their psycho-linguistic identity and then communicate from . . . for myself, I couldn't conceptualize how I would form this for myself.
Love, I think, would have a powerful influence on my perceptions of Korean language and the cultural rules for thinking/feeling/speaking/acting with other Koreans . . . and I imagine it would soften my views, and help me be more flexible and adapt in ways I might not even consider . . . but that's the thing, isn't it? I am not in love with a Korean, though I do love many things about Korea....
I think what all of this culminates in is me thinking that you have developed *your own model of social norms and communication norms and taboos* that you will follow when speaking in Korean, and speaking with and interacting with Koreans, but that it is a model that in some ways has major disconnections from what the majority of Koreans think 'speakers of Korean' 'should' use . . . I have no statistics or studies to back this up, it is simply my own perception based on my personal interactions and experiences with Koreans . . .
I'm guessing that you follow the mainstream cultural norms when speaking to other Koreans you are not close to, but that's exactly what I have a problem with--I don't want to have to embody the thoughts/feelings/actions that come with the general day to day communications in Korean with people whether they are strangers or those individuals I might have close personal awesome relationships with. (I do communicate in Korean using the social etiquette norms as much as I can, but only up to a certain point.)
And even when you do have a close relationship, I think that when you speak with, for example, Good Man's mother, that you cannot express what you think and feel honestly because it would be 'rude' and possibly hurt her feelings . . . I think there's a distinction to be made between being compassionate and respectful of one's mother-in-law and general human decency versus some of the Korean cultural communication taboos and conventions that have to be followed if one is to maintain and manage a healthy and positive relationship. In the latter instances, I think then that speaking in Korean 'forces' a self-inhibition for the sake of gibun, and the general harmony and welfare of the senior Korean in the relationship....though re-reading this I think the same thing goes on in English culture...this is beginning to get very murky in what I'm trying to say....hmmm.
Anyways, those are some more of my thoughts on this topic.
J
Thanks for emailing me, and for posting my comment and then replying . . .
I don't feel like you're responding as clearly as I'd hoped for (and that's likely due to me not articulating some things clearly enough too) about Korean language and the cultural norms and rules that a Korean as a foreign language learner has to negotiate and figure out what they are willing to conform to and obey versus what they are not okay with.
I've read several ESL/EFL articles written in English about the Korean language and Korean cultural and linguistic practices during the time I've been in Korea, and also had many discussions with co-teachers I taught with, and with Korean teacher trainees in my courses at the gyode where I taught, etc.
Based on what I've been able to figure out, which is nowhere near as clear as it'd be if I was actually studying and learning and practicing and mastering the language itself . . . but based on what I've been able to figure out about the language structure and the cultural rules that come with it I decided that Korean language and cultural rules for speaking and communicating were not for me.
Now this is a minefield of issues that are all interconnected and it's hard to just touch on one of the issues without setting off several others at the same time. But I'm going to try to navigate my way through and get it out as simply as possible.
I really struggle to understand how one can communicate in Korean without, for example, using the honorifics that are so heavily embedded within everyday usage. Use of those honorifics heavily influence the power dynamics and what is permissible to say and do, and what is not, when speaking to another Korean in Korean. Refusing to respect and follow these conventions, in my mind, is rude (according to Korean cultural norms) and I think generally would result in communication breaking down and problems in whatever kind of relationship may have been forming.
Now I think you might respond to this by saying that those things are important during introduction conversations, and the beginnings of developing relationships with Koreans, and I'd agree with you. (Oh yeah, and you point out that this is true in most if not all languages and cultures, fine, but I think in the Korean context there are specific differences and unique aspects that differ from many other languages--take that with a grain of salt, though, as I'm not a linguist.)
But my problem is with how the power dynamics and ways of interacting continue to have a dominant-submissive dynamic (I need to say here that although I'm a feminist I do believe that 'equality' has been overly mythologized in feminist discourses and philosophies, and that I think in human interactions one person is usually dominant, and the other submissive--but it is in the negotiations of power and the processes therein where the 'equality' ideas need to be in play) later after the relationship has been established, and closeness has been achieved (man was it shocking the first time I heard a Korean female teacher tell me in English that she wanted us 'to be close'--I had to do some cross-cultural-linguistic GYMNASTICS to figure out what that really means to avoid thinking she was after me romantically, lol).
I guess another way of trying to explain what I mean is describing how some of my older male co-teachers have wanted to form friendships with me, yet they insist on the traditional and conservative model of senior-junior friendship between two men in Korea . . . and this kind of friendship model does not allow for me to negotiate or try to find compromises in all the different situations I'd find myself in with them, or to express myself in ways that are true to what I'm thinking and feeling . . . and this was when I'm speaking in English with a Korean who has very high level English too--I can't imagine how much harder it would have been if we'd been speaking in Korean...
When it's a Korean who is in the same age bracket, and all the other 'compatibility' markers Koreans generally use to decide who is 'friendship appropriate material' then I think it's possible to speak using the informal way of communicating . . . but all too often in my experiences in Korea the Koreans I've met who are the same age or in the range of 'appropriate' ages who I could be friends with I'd find that due to the culture here and how Koreans spend the first 18 years of their life chained to desks in school and hogwan that the disparity in life experience and maturity was just too great to even try reconciling.
I'd also run into a lot of racist and misogynist attitudes when speaking with Koreans who I would meet in clubs, on the street, in coffee shops, and other places--and there's only so much of that I can take. Sitting in a restaurant and hearing my dinner companion go on about how the server is Chinese, and 'dirty' . . . that pretty much ends things right there. I bring that example up because the majority of Koreans I meet and have spoken to invariably say and/or do something that evokes images of 1930s-1970s North American prejudices in one way or another . . . and I know this comes from the public school curricula they were brainwashed with (I think that's a rather apt term to use considering the use of corporal punishment combined with if you don't get high test scores you almost guarantee you'll be in the lower classes, etc, pretty powerful stuff) . . . I also feel the same way about curricula in western English public schools and the institutionalized homophobia, racism, and neo-colonial/imperialist historical narratives we are taught while growing up in North America--please don't think that I only see Korea as having problems in its public school education and how it shapes and molds the minds and realities of its youth.
Anyways, I'm rambling again (tired, end of the week, blah).
These are some of the things that I don't like...
1) Age taboos in who you can and can't talk to, and be friends with. I've tried to become friends with older and younger Koreans, and there have been some who wanted to too, but the social group conformity pressures that would be put on them by co-workers, students, etc, would sometimes prevent them from pursuing a friendship with me . . .
2) Mixed gender friendships regardless of whether the Korean is single or married. . . not being able to sit and have lunch with a female Korean friend teacher because of the school gossip psycho network going nuclear about us chatting and laughing in the cafeteria . . argh!
I feel like in some ways, Amanda, that you sever the connections between Korean language and the culture it comes from; in my mind it is a symbiotic connection that cannot be severed. It can be modified, and altered *to a degree* based on the personality and what the individual language learner/user prefers--but let's face it the collectivist/group think/conformity culture in Korea limits what is possible for an individual to say and do when speaking in Korean . . . at least based on what I know and have experienced and witnessed.
In my previous comment I touched on how native speakers/teachers of English try to get Korean speakers of English to follow as much of English culture as they can learn, practice, and master when using the English language. I don't think native teachers expect Koreans to 'join the Borg collective' and follow English cultural rules and taboos mindlessly, and for Korean English speakers to ignore their identity and personal desires . . . but I do think that there are certain things that Korean speakers of English have to CHOOSE to assimilate into the English identity that they develop psycho-linguistically . . . and refusing to do so for whatever reasons generally leads to a break down in communications with other English speakers and causes problems in the development and maintenance of cross-cultural relationships . . .
I agree with you, Amanda, that with specific personalities/individuals in Korea (who are Korean) that it would be possible for me to speak in Korean with them in the manner that is true to who I am, and true to my personal values and norms--but I stand by my perception that if I'd studied Korean and attained a high-intermediate to advanced level fluency that the majority of Koreans I might try to talk to in Korean, and while being true to who I am, would not react well to how I would choose to speak in Korean with them, and interact with them.
A specific example would be how I would not exhibit in my speaking and interactions the extreme levels of respect and servitude towards someone who is my 'senior.' I DO try to offer what I feel I can in terms of respect for someone who is older than me, but to be deferential in everything towards them because they're a year older, or whatever the case may be, is just not natural or comfortable for me. This is one of many examples that tell me that even if I'd studied Korean that the social hierarchies, rules for interactions, and ways of speaking that come with them are just too much for a native English speaker to navigate and yet still remain true to who they are and how they want TO BE....yikes, I'm generalizing too much here--each native speaker of English studying Korean language figures out what they can and can't adopt as they develop their psycho-linguistic identity and then communicate from . . . for myself, I couldn't conceptualize how I would form this for myself.
Love, I think, would have a powerful influence on my perceptions of Korean language and the cultural rules for thinking/feeling/speaking/acting with other Koreans . . . and I imagine it would soften my views, and help me be more flexible and adapt in ways I might not even consider . . . but that's the thing, isn't it? I am not in love with a Korean, though I do love many things about Korea....
I think what all of this culminates in is me thinking that you have developed *your own model of social norms and communication norms and taboos* that you will follow when speaking in Korean, and speaking with and interacting with Koreans, but that it is a model that in some ways has major disconnections from what the majority of Koreans think 'speakers of Korean' 'should' use . . . I have no statistics or studies to back this up, it is simply my own perception based on my personal interactions and experiences with Koreans . . .
I'm guessing that you follow the mainstream cultural norms when speaking to other Koreans you are not close to, but that's exactly what I have a problem with--I don't want to have to embody the thoughts/feelings/actions that come with the general day to day communications in Korean with people whether they are strangers or those individuals I might have close personal awesome relationships with. (I do communicate in Korean using the social etiquette norms as much as I can, but only up to a certain point.)
And even when you do have a close relationship, I think that when you speak with, for example, Good Man's mother, that you cannot express what you think and feel honestly because it would be 'rude' and possibly hurt her feelings . . . I think there's a distinction to be made between being compassionate and respectful of one's mother-in-law and general human decency versus some of the Korean cultural communication taboos and conventions that have to be followed if one is to maintain and manage a healthy and positive relationship. In the latter instances, I think then that speaking in Korean 'forces' a self-inhibition for the sake of gibun, and the general harmony and welfare of the senior Korean in the relationship....though re-reading this I think the same thing goes on in English culture...this is beginning to get very murky in what I'm trying to say....hmmm.
Anyways, those are some more of my thoughts on this topic.
J
05/07/10 @ 10:44
Comment from: admin [Member]
Ah. Well. My answer to this is going to be fairly short, not because I think your post deserves a short answer, but because your assumptions at the end are mostly correct. I think that may disappoint you. :)
First, if I had a wider variety of experiences cultivating friendships, I'd probably find it frustrating like you do. However, I found that many of my relationships arose out of natural situations where we did keep mostly in Korean order. I wouldn't call the students at my studio my friends, because they were teens, but I did come to think of them as younger brothers and sisters. My language exchange partners were always close to my age. I had one female partner and one male partner. They asked if I wanted to switch to banmal, but at the time, I wanted to practice the -요 form, because that's what I needed. As I learned banmal, I applied it to the kids at the studio. As I learned honorifics, I applied them as needed.
I do wonder if there isn't a difference between female-female friendships and male-male friendships in Korea. While women can adhere to the strict order too, I suspect men REALLY adhere to it. I have no proof of this, but I think friendship-wise, there might be a little more leniency. (In the kitchen at Grandmother's house, of hell yes, the pecking order was strict.) I also think it depends on where you met.
As for the racism, I usually ran into utter shock and surprise over the fact that I knew non-white people. The fact that I taught in a black school in Atlanta? Hoo-boy. But I found it was usually more curiosity than anything else.
Like you, I don't hang out with jerks--in any culture or country or language!
You're right on both accounts, I think. Speaking to the latter point, I do mostly use honorifics when appropriate. Actually, when I was living in Korea, I mostly used -요 with everyone because I was still learning. My use of honorifics was limited to what I memorized from dialogues in the Sogang series. I would try really hard to use honorifics and the correct speech level with really old people but usually only achieved the higher speech level.
Since I no longer live in Korea, the times I use honorifics and different speech levels are with grandparents and sometimes parents. I try really hard to remember -시다 form when needed, but I am VERY inconsistent when using it to refer to parents (my parents or my in-laws). I tend to be better at the grandparent level.
Mother and Father have been telling me to take it down bit by bit. I go at their pace, and I'm comfortable with that.
I'm also comfortable using different speech levels to talk about parents/grandparents because I speak to my parents/grandparents differently in English, too. To me, it's being respectful.
Speaking for the former point... I think I have developed my own model of speaking and subscribing to norms. I do NOT speak Korean like a Korean. But I'm not sure how native Koreans think non-native speakers should speak. I think it would depend on the specific Korean. I'm sure some thing I'm not polite enough. Others are shocked I can say hello. (Eyes rolling.) The thing is, I do what's comfortable to me. If they don't like it...oh well.
If that means speaking banmal to everyone, or not using honorifics, I'd agree that they would not react well.
I suppose I view speaking Korean as a form of code-switching.
I speak one way when using English with friends. Another with parents (and the ways I speak to Mom, George, and Dad are different). Another way at work (and different with students, close coworkers, distant coworkers, parents). When I worked at a black school, I used Ebonics as necessary to get the students to listen to me (and it worked). Similarly, I view using honorifics, or the different speech levels, as a form of code switching in Korea/n. Code-switching in English OR Korean makes me understood depending on the context.
Well, now we're getting into the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, aren't we?
When I feel like I can't communicate in Korean it's usually a case where I couldn't in English either (cursing at a boss) or because I don't know the vocabulary or grammar pattern I need to use.
But when I do communicate the way I want to, how do I know if the Korean on the other end has taken it the way I meant it? I don't know. I have no way of knowing. Heck, if I decided to drop all honorifics and only use banmal, there's probably at least one Korean out there who would dismiss it, "Oh, she just hasn't learned better yet." Yet another Korean (of the same age and gender) would take it as an affront.
We run into problems with misunderstandings when speaking with a native speaker in our own culture, of course. But when speaking across cultures and across languages? The problem is magnified. And Western culture and Korean culture? Talk about a difference!
This whole blog-comment conversation reminds me of something else, actually. Two related things.
First, last night Good Man and I were talking about the dual-citizenship law. It came up that when Good Man is an American, he will be an American. An American with an accent, but an American. If I became a Korean, it would ONLY be a legal status thing in Korea. No Koreans would view me as a Korean. (Who's that French woman who became a Korean citizen? She talks about that, how she's learned Korean fluently, was married to a Korean, raised kids in Korea, etc, but was still never Korean to Koreans.)
Second, thinking of our family wedding, I really wanted to do the traditional Korean pyebaek. Mother said we didn't have to, but I wanted to. I didn't want to to make my in-laws happy (although, check, because that worked), I wanted to because I was marrying a Korean and we met in Korea.
I talked to my dad about this and I told him that since I will never be Korean and I will never be treated like a Korean, I can adopt and adapt aspects of Korean culture without the Korean cultural baggage than an actual Korean woman would have. (Is that fair or right? Possibly not, but I'm not giving up the things I like about Korea!)
When I was at Grandmother's funeral I was ticked that the elder aunt (the one I don't like and Good Man's family doesn't like) wouldn't let me serve food (the horrors). Now, I'm not sure if a Korean woman would've been offended or relieved that she didn't have to participate in that. But either way, I was coming at it from a very different perspective than a Korean daughter-in-law would have.
Probably. But it would depend on her parents, wouldn't it? If they didn't accept you, you probably wouldn't soften much! ^^
Hmm, I guess I had more to say than I thought!
First, if I had a wider variety of experiences cultivating friendships, I'd probably find it frustrating like you do. However, I found that many of my relationships arose out of natural situations where we did keep mostly in Korean order. I wouldn't call the students at my studio my friends, because they were teens, but I did come to think of them as younger brothers and sisters. My language exchange partners were always close to my age. I had one female partner and one male partner. They asked if I wanted to switch to banmal, but at the time, I wanted to practice the -요 form, because that's what I needed. As I learned banmal, I applied it to the kids at the studio. As I learned honorifics, I applied them as needed.
I do wonder if there isn't a difference between female-female friendships and male-male friendships in Korea. While women can adhere to the strict order too, I suspect men REALLY adhere to it. I have no proof of this, but I think friendship-wise, there might be a little more leniency. (In the kitchen at Grandmother's house, of hell yes, the pecking order was strict.) I also think it depends on where you met.
As for the racism, I usually ran into utter shock and surprise over the fact that I knew non-white people. The fact that I taught in a black school in Atlanta? Hoo-boy. But I found it was usually more curiosity than anything else.
Like you, I don't hang out with jerks--in any culture or country or language!
I think what all of this culminates in is me thinking that you have developed *your own model of social norms and communication norms and taboos* that you will follow when speaking in Korean, and speaking with and interacting with Koreans, but that it is a model that in some ways has major disconnections from what the majority of Koreans think 'speakers of Korean' 'should' use . . .
I'm guessing that you follow the mainstream cultural norms when speaking to other Koreans you are not close to, but that's exactly what I have a problem with--I don't want to have to embody the thoughts/feelings/actions that come with the general day to day communications in Korean with people whether they are strangers or those individuals I might have close personal awesome relationships with. (I do communicate in Korean using the social etiquette norms as much as I can, but only up to a certain point.)
You're right on both accounts, I think. Speaking to the latter point, I do mostly use honorifics when appropriate. Actually, when I was living in Korea, I mostly used -요 with everyone because I was still learning. My use of honorifics was limited to what I memorized from dialogues in the Sogang series. I would try really hard to use honorifics and the correct speech level with really old people but usually only achieved the higher speech level.
Since I no longer live in Korea, the times I use honorifics and different speech levels are with grandparents and sometimes parents. I try really hard to remember -시다 form when needed, but I am VERY inconsistent when using it to refer to parents (my parents or my in-laws). I tend to be better at the grandparent level.
Mother and Father have been telling me to take it down bit by bit. I go at their pace, and I'm comfortable with that.
I'm also comfortable using different speech levels to talk about parents/grandparents because I speak to my parents/grandparents differently in English, too. To me, it's being respectful.
Speaking for the former point... I think I have developed my own model of speaking and subscribing to norms. I do NOT speak Korean like a Korean. But I'm not sure how native Koreans think non-native speakers should speak. I think it would depend on the specific Korean. I'm sure some thing I'm not polite enough. Others are shocked I can say hello. (Eyes rolling.) The thing is, I do what's comfortable to me. If they don't like it...oh well.
I agree with you, Amanda, that with specific personalities/individuals in Korea (who are Korean) that it would be possible for me to speak in Korean with them in the manner that is true to who I am, and true to my personal values and norms--but I stand by my perception that if I'd studied Korean and attained a high-intermediate to advanced level fluency that the majority of Koreans I might try to talk to in Korean, and while being true to who I am, would not react well to how I would choose to speak in Korean with them, and interact with them.
If that means speaking banmal to everyone, or not using honorifics, I'd agree that they would not react well.
I suppose I view speaking Korean as a form of code-switching.
I speak one way when using English with friends. Another with parents (and the ways I speak to Mom, George, and Dad are different). Another way at work (and different with students, close coworkers, distant coworkers, parents). When I worked at a black school, I used Ebonics as necessary to get the students to listen to me (and it worked). Similarly, I view using honorifics, or the different speech levels, as a form of code switching in Korea/n. Code-switching in English OR Korean makes me understood depending on the context.
I feel like in some ways, Amanda, that you sever the connections between Korean language and the culture it comes from; in my mind it is a symbiotic connection that cannot be severed. It can be modified, and altered *to a degree* based on the personality and what the individual language learner/user prefers--but let's face it the collectivist/group think/conformity culture in Korea limits what is possible for an individual to say and do when speaking in Korean . . . at least based on what I know and have experienced and witnessed.
Well, now we're getting into the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, aren't we?
When I feel like I can't communicate in Korean it's usually a case where I couldn't in English either (cursing at a boss) or because I don't know the vocabulary or grammar pattern I need to use.
But when I do communicate the way I want to, how do I know if the Korean on the other end has taken it the way I meant it? I don't know. I have no way of knowing. Heck, if I decided to drop all honorifics and only use banmal, there's probably at least one Korean out there who would dismiss it, "Oh, she just hasn't learned better yet." Yet another Korean (of the same age and gender) would take it as an affront.
We run into problems with misunderstandings when speaking with a native speaker in our own culture, of course. But when speaking across cultures and across languages? The problem is magnified. And Western culture and Korean culture? Talk about a difference!
This whole blog-comment conversation reminds me of something else, actually. Two related things.
First, last night Good Man and I were talking about the dual-citizenship law. It came up that when Good Man is an American, he will be an American. An American with an accent, but an American. If I became a Korean, it would ONLY be a legal status thing in Korea. No Koreans would view me as a Korean. (Who's that French woman who became a Korean citizen? She talks about that, how she's learned Korean fluently, was married to a Korean, raised kids in Korea, etc, but was still never Korean to Koreans.)
Second, thinking of our family wedding, I really wanted to do the traditional Korean pyebaek. Mother said we didn't have to, but I wanted to. I didn't want to to make my in-laws happy (although, check, because that worked), I wanted to because I was marrying a Korean and we met in Korea.
I talked to my dad about this and I told him that since I will never be Korean and I will never be treated like a Korean, I can adopt and adapt aspects of Korean culture without the Korean cultural baggage than an actual Korean woman would have. (Is that fair or right? Possibly not, but I'm not giving up the things I like about Korea!)
When I was at Grandmother's funeral I was ticked that the elder aunt (the one I don't like and Good Man's family doesn't like) wouldn't let me serve food (the horrors). Now, I'm not sure if a Korean woman would've been offended or relieved that she didn't have to participate in that. But either way, I was coming at it from a very different perspective than a Korean daughter-in-law would have.
Love, I think, would have a powerful influence on my perceptions of Korean language and the cultural rules for thinking/feeling/speaking/acting with other Koreans . . . and I imagine it would soften my views, and help me be more flexible and adapt in ways I might not even consider . . . but that's the thing, isn't it? I am not in love with a Korean, though I do love many things about Korea....
Probably. But it would depend on her parents, wouldn't it? If they didn't accept you, you probably wouldn't soften much! ^^
Hmm, I guess I had more to say than I thought!
05/07/10 @ 19:06
Comment from: Jason [Visitor] · http://kimchiicecream.wordpress.com/
"My answer to this is going to be fairly short"--FUNNY!
Okay, I'm actually going to keep my response SHORT too, lol.
I think that it is possible to discuss general cultural patterns in a careful way, with generalizations, as long as there are qualifications and exceptions pointed out too. It's very difficult to discuss something as complex as the relationship between language and culture, and how a language learner develops their own personal set of rules, in a blog comment section, lol. (Though we seem to be doing fairly well.)
While I don't think I'd want to use banmal all the time when speaking in Korea, I do tend to be a very informal and open conversationalist. I like talking about topics that are controversial, taboo, and 'fun' (think dinner with gay and insanely liberal friends, and the kinds of discussions that take place in that kind of situation, lol). When speaking with people in general, I am very sensitive to trying not to offend people ('too much,' but come on, how much fun is it to tell a Korean co-teacher that you have a gay Korean friend and watch their face contort as they bite their tongue to keep from saying "There are no gay Koreans" because they know I'll disagree with them? LOL!) when talking to them but at the same time get tired of having to expend energy towards respecting another's sensibilities when my own all too often are not respected.
I had an Irish Catholic priest friend for nearly four years in Korea, but ended that friendship when a situation came up where he refused to respect something I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. One of several things that ended the friendship was that one time I wanted to bring my girlfriend to meet him, and he wouldn't help me find out if a nearby hotel had rooms because it would be a kind of 'aiding and abetting' of me 'living in sin' with her if we stayed together in the same room for the night and had pre-marital 'relations'--my choice of words, but that was the gist of it.
The real clincher was that when I'd talk about my sister and her partner he'd become very uncomfortable and generally disengage from the discussion until I was done relating whatever the story was....for example, he'd ask me how my family is doing, and I'd bring up how my mother still wasn't doing well with my sister coming out.
***I will not allow other peoples' religion/personal values to restrict my personal life, and actually my friendship with the priest is a great example. When having discussions about a wide variety of topics I'd always have to have a censor turned on slightly in order to respect his sensibilities, but in terms of his own censor being on and sensitive to what I think and feel it rarely if ever happened....anyways, I think that that is what also is a part of my issue with Korean language and culture, but in a different way, of course. Whether it's with a native speaker of English priest, or a Korean while speaking in Korean, I no longer want to have to censor and edit myself, my life, and the people in it who are important to me when I'm having a conversation...
Another things that bothers me, and why I haven't studied Korean, comes from when you talked about while you have married a Korean, and are almost at fluency level speaking ability (hehe, maybe?), and even if you got citizenship here that you'd never be a 'real Korean' in the eyes of the vast majority of Koreans. I think my language training in English literature and literary theory makes it too easy for me to see how I'd be referred to as one of the following things: alien, other, strange, outsider, etc. I get that enough in my own language and culture, and while I now wear it as a badge of how unique and special I am, I really don't need to experience that in, to my mind anyways, the extreme ways I see and hear it enacted by some/many (depending on the day and situation) Koreans in my day to day working and living conditions.
You raise something very interesting to me from my gender and feminist studies and the readings I've done when you say, "since I will never be Korean and I will never be treated like a Korean, I can adopt and adapt aspects of Korean culture without the Korean cultural baggage than *an actual Korean woman would have*." This is something that bothers me a great deal that there are still such powerful race-gender-sex barriers in the cultural imaginary of the Korean language that even when someone who jumps through pretty much every hoop Koreans generally say foreigners should do while their living in Korea (learn the language and culture and 'follow it' whatever that means), and yet they still won't modify the perception of that foreigner who jumps through all the hoops both internally and linguistically--the sad truth, for now anyways, is that we will always be 'waygook' or 'miguk' ....
Well, it's Saturday morning here, and Julianne and I are going to head to Chungmuro area to check out the used camera equipment stores...so I'm going to end this now.
I think I understand what you're saying, and really appreciate you taking the time and effort to write me.
By the way, have you asked Good Man if he had 'white fever' when he met you--I'm seriously dying to hear what his response would be because I'm pretty sure it'd be a great way of disrupting the usage of that ridiculous racial idiom ("Asian fever") and the manner in which it constructs Asian people as objects of exotic desire that may possibly infect the person's subjectivity/body through contact, etc etc blah blah blah....
Plus Good Man's responses are just awesome!
Hope you have a good weekend.
J
Okay, I'm actually going to keep my response SHORT too, lol.
I think that it is possible to discuss general cultural patterns in a careful way, with generalizations, as long as there are qualifications and exceptions pointed out too. It's very difficult to discuss something as complex as the relationship between language and culture, and how a language learner develops their own personal set of rules, in a blog comment section, lol. (Though we seem to be doing fairly well.)
While I don't think I'd want to use banmal all the time when speaking in Korea, I do tend to be a very informal and open conversationalist. I like talking about topics that are controversial, taboo, and 'fun' (think dinner with gay and insanely liberal friends, and the kinds of discussions that take place in that kind of situation, lol). When speaking with people in general, I am very sensitive to trying not to offend people ('too much,' but come on, how much fun is it to tell a Korean co-teacher that you have a gay Korean friend and watch their face contort as they bite their tongue to keep from saying "There are no gay Koreans" because they know I'll disagree with them? LOL!) when talking to them but at the same time get tired of having to expend energy towards respecting another's sensibilities when my own all too often are not respected.
I had an Irish Catholic priest friend for nearly four years in Korea, but ended that friendship when a situation came up where he refused to respect something I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. One of several things that ended the friendship was that one time I wanted to bring my girlfriend to meet him, and he wouldn't help me find out if a nearby hotel had rooms because it would be a kind of 'aiding and abetting' of me 'living in sin' with her if we stayed together in the same room for the night and had pre-marital 'relations'--my choice of words, but that was the gist of it.
The real clincher was that when I'd talk about my sister and her partner he'd become very uncomfortable and generally disengage from the discussion until I was done relating whatever the story was....for example, he'd ask me how my family is doing, and I'd bring up how my mother still wasn't doing well with my sister coming out.
***I will not allow other peoples' religion/personal values to restrict my personal life, and actually my friendship with the priest is a great example. When having discussions about a wide variety of topics I'd always have to have a censor turned on slightly in order to respect his sensibilities, but in terms of his own censor being on and sensitive to what I think and feel it rarely if ever happened....anyways, I think that that is what also is a part of my issue with Korean language and culture, but in a different way, of course. Whether it's with a native speaker of English priest, or a Korean while speaking in Korean, I no longer want to have to censor and edit myself, my life, and the people in it who are important to me when I'm having a conversation...
Another things that bothers me, and why I haven't studied Korean, comes from when you talked about while you have married a Korean, and are almost at fluency level speaking ability (hehe, maybe?), and even if you got citizenship here that you'd never be a 'real Korean' in the eyes of the vast majority of Koreans. I think my language training in English literature and literary theory makes it too easy for me to see how I'd be referred to as one of the following things: alien, other, strange, outsider, etc. I get that enough in my own language and culture, and while I now wear it as a badge of how unique and special I am, I really don't need to experience that in, to my mind anyways, the extreme ways I see and hear it enacted by some/many (depending on the day and situation) Koreans in my day to day working and living conditions.
You raise something very interesting to me from my gender and feminist studies and the readings I've done when you say, "since I will never be Korean and I will never be treated like a Korean, I can adopt and adapt aspects of Korean culture without the Korean cultural baggage than *an actual Korean woman would have*." This is something that bothers me a great deal that there are still such powerful race-gender-sex barriers in the cultural imaginary of the Korean language that even when someone who jumps through pretty much every hoop Koreans generally say foreigners should do while their living in Korea (learn the language and culture and 'follow it' whatever that means), and yet they still won't modify the perception of that foreigner who jumps through all the hoops both internally and linguistically--the sad truth, for now anyways, is that we will always be 'waygook' or 'miguk' ....
Well, it's Saturday morning here, and Julianne and I are going to head to Chungmuro area to check out the used camera equipment stores...so I'm going to end this now.
I think I understand what you're saying, and really appreciate you taking the time and effort to write me.
By the way, have you asked Good Man if he had 'white fever' when he met you--I'm seriously dying to hear what his response would be because I'm pretty sure it'd be a great way of disrupting the usage of that ridiculous racial idiom ("Asian fever") and the manner in which it constructs Asian people as objects of exotic desire that may possibly infect the person's subjectivity/body through contact, etc etc blah blah blah....
Plus Good Man's responses are just awesome!
Hope you have a good weekend.
J
05/07/10 @ 21:07
Comment from: admin [Member]
Jason, have a good weekend with Julianne. :)
"[Good Man], have you ever had white fever?"
Big sigh. "No. I did not want to date Koreans, but that does not mean I had a white fever. The world has a lot of non-white people. So...answer is no."
"Why didn't you want to date Koreans?"
Big sigh. "They don't seem to be much open-minded."
"What if you met an open-minded Korean women?"
"Well...there is no if question in your life. You cannot turn the time back and you cannot answer hypothetical question."
"[Good Man], have you ever had white fever?"
Big sigh. "No. I did not want to date Koreans, but that does not mean I had a white fever. The world has a lot of non-white people. So...answer is no."
"Why didn't you want to date Koreans?"
Big sigh. "They don't seem to be much open-minded."
"What if you met an open-minded Korean women?"
"Well...there is no if question in your life. You cannot turn the time back and you cannot answer hypothetical question."
05/07/10 @ 21:29
Comment from: Diana [Visitor] · http://www.going-places-blog.com/
Ok, I will admit that I respect both of you greatly, but that since you are both a bit long-winded, I haven't read every word so forgive me if I'm saying something you two actually resolved.
Jason, I know you don't buy this (from your arguments to Amanda), but individuals from a particular culture are only defined by that culture to the extent they want to be. Your assumptions about "all Koreans" and power structure stem from a lack of deep interactions with many different Koreans (including some who do not buy into the main cultural assumptions here)--and that lack of depth of interaction is in part because you are limited in the language. Your generalizations work for the culture in general (duh! this is what generalizations are), but you would find that as you learned the language (and thus were better able to express yourself in it), it is not as married to the culture as you might think.
And as for relationships with others... are we not limited in all of those by how the other chooses to communicate and what they expect from you? My relationship with my own mother is limited by a severe mental health condition. Do I want a deeper connection with her? Sure! But we can't do that. Has nothing to do with our culture OR our language (which are the same).
Just some things to think about.
Jason, I know you don't buy this (from your arguments to Amanda), but individuals from a particular culture are only defined by that culture to the extent they want to be. Your assumptions about "all Koreans" and power structure stem from a lack of deep interactions with many different Koreans (including some who do not buy into the main cultural assumptions here)--and that lack of depth of interaction is in part because you are limited in the language. Your generalizations work for the culture in general (duh! this is what generalizations are), but you would find that as you learned the language (and thus were better able to express yourself in it), it is not as married to the culture as you might think.
And as for relationships with others... are we not limited in all of those by how the other chooses to communicate and what they expect from you? My relationship with my own mother is limited by a severe mental health condition. Do I want a deeper connection with her? Sure! But we can't do that. Has nothing to do with our culture OR our language (which are the same).
Just some things to think about.
05/07/10 @ 21:48
Comment from: Helena [Visitor] · http://wedoitthehardway.blogspot.com/
It occurred to me recently that the 시 honorific particle can be useful in clarifying that the verb refers to the person you're talking to and not yourself, since you so often leave the subject of the sentence off.
05/08/10 @ 01:48
Comment from: Gavin [Visitor] · http://languageandlife.wordpress.com
Hi Amanda and Jason,
Some interesting posts.I actually read it all ^^.
Jason, I respect your principled approach to languages, however, I believe you are viewing language from a limited and somewhat abstract perspective. One of the dimensions of Korean that I feel you neglect is the practical element of expressing desires and needs. If you were sick and had to go to the doctor you would not be able to explain what is wrong... of course you could take a bilingual to translate, however, doesn't this make you feel rather dependent?
I like to be independent, such reliance on others irks me. I would not want to live in a country where I was unable to express myself adequately (I have done it once and it stressed me out).
Language then is like a tool, a tool may be uncomfortable or awkward to use, but as long as the desired result is achieved, it has performed it's function.
Some interesting posts.I actually read it all ^^.
Jason, I respect your principled approach to languages, however, I believe you are viewing language from a limited and somewhat abstract perspective. One of the dimensions of Korean that I feel you neglect is the practical element of expressing desires and needs. If you were sick and had to go to the doctor you would not be able to explain what is wrong... of course you could take a bilingual to translate, however, doesn't this make you feel rather dependent?
I like to be independent, such reliance on others irks me. I would not want to live in a country where I was unable to express myself adequately (I have done it once and it stressed me out).
Language then is like a tool, a tool may be uncomfortable or awkward to use, but as long as the desired result is achieved, it has performed it's function.
05/12/10 @ 03:44
Comment from: admin [Member]
Mom, thanks for popping by. And you're right about interesting books sparking a strong response. I do feel a bit validated, however, by someone over at Lang-8, who said she also read and hated the book.
Helena, I hadn't considered that. But you're right. It can clarify that you're talking to someone OR about someone (if I'm talking to a friend about my mother-in-law, for example).
Diana, thanks for your comment.
Gavin, you make an interesting point about independence. One of the odd things about getting to know a Korean so well at the beginning (Master) is that I think it actually made me MORE independent. If I really needed help with something, he could help, but he didn't speak English fluently--or even well. And since we got along fine in Korean, he always figured I'd get along fine in Korean without him. So when I needed to find a doctor, he found one near my house--one that only spoke Korean. And he set me up to meet Korean friends of his who only spoke...Korean.
I was single for my first year in Korea and I am SO glad I didn't fall into dating a Korean right away, because dating someone who speaks the language really gives you a buffer from the language.
Finally, Jason. When you write, "I no longer want to have to censor and edit myself, my life, and the people in it who are important to me when I'm having a conversation..." it means that you're cutting a lot of people out of your life no matter which language you speak. That's fine, but it's not only limited to Korean (obviously).
Also, you wrote, "[H]e refused to respect something I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it." But couldn't you also write, "I refused to respect his beliefs"? Because it's two sides of the same coin.
Finally, I disagree with this statement: [A]nd yet they still won't modify the perception of that foreigner who jumps through all the hoops both internally and linguistically--the sad truth, for now anyways, is that we will always be 'waygook' or 'miguk' ....
Oh, I truly believe that the Koreans I've met and come to know have modified their perceptions of me as a foreigner. I will always be white or American or foreign, but I will not always be the white American who doesn't speak Korean. Or the white American who doesn't understand han. Or the white American who...
It's not THAT different in America. Good Man will become American eventually. But he'll ALWAYS be seen as a naturalized American with a Korean accent. He'll be seen as an American who came here, not one who was born here. And he'll never be seen as plain old American--he'll be Korean-American.
The fact is, skin color in Korea matters. Just like skin color in America matters. It might matter in different ways and to different degrees and with different histories, but it matters.
Helena, I hadn't considered that. But you're right. It can clarify that you're talking to someone OR about someone (if I'm talking to a friend about my mother-in-law, for example).
Diana, thanks for your comment.
Gavin, you make an interesting point about independence. One of the odd things about getting to know a Korean so well at the beginning (Master) is that I think it actually made me MORE independent. If I really needed help with something, he could help, but he didn't speak English fluently--or even well. And since we got along fine in Korean, he always figured I'd get along fine in Korean without him. So when I needed to find a doctor, he found one near my house--one that only spoke Korean. And he set me up to meet Korean friends of his who only spoke...Korean.
I was single for my first year in Korea and I am SO glad I didn't fall into dating a Korean right away, because dating someone who speaks the language really gives you a buffer from the language.
Finally, Jason. When you write, "I no longer want to have to censor and edit myself, my life, and the people in it who are important to me when I'm having a conversation..." it means that you're cutting a lot of people out of your life no matter which language you speak. That's fine, but it's not only limited to Korean (obviously).
Also, you wrote, "[H]e refused to respect something I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it." But couldn't you also write, "I refused to respect his beliefs"? Because it's two sides of the same coin.
Finally, I disagree with this statement: [A]nd yet they still won't modify the perception of that foreigner who jumps through all the hoops both internally and linguistically--the sad truth, for now anyways, is that we will always be 'waygook' or 'miguk' ....
Oh, I truly believe that the Koreans I've met and come to know have modified their perceptions of me as a foreigner. I will always be white or American or foreign, but I will not always be the white American who doesn't speak Korean. Or the white American who doesn't understand han. Or the white American who...
It's not THAT different in America. Good Man will become American eventually. But he'll ALWAYS be seen as a naturalized American with a Korean accent. He'll be seen as an American who came here, not one who was born here. And he'll never be seen as plain old American--he'll be Korean-American.
The fact is, skin color in Korea matters. Just like skin color in America matters. It might matter in different ways and to different degrees and with different histories, but it matters.
05/14/10 @ 07:50
Comment from: HL [Visitor]
Wow! Super-long comments, and like Diana, I haven't read them all. Is there any chance I'd be able to borrow some of those Korean books from you, or are there bookstores with Korean books in the DC area? I'm moving to College Park next month and I need to re-start my Korean studies...
05/18/10 @ 16:57
Comment from: admin [Member]
HL, have you commented before? I'm leery of loaning books to people I don't know! ;)
There are several Korean bookstores around here, although most are specifically Christian bookstores. Also, several of the local libraries (at least in the Fairfax system) carry Korean books!
There are several Korean bookstores around here, although most are specifically Christian bookstores. Also, several of the local libraries (at least in the Fairfax system) carry Korean books!
05/18/10 @ 17:00
Comment from: HL [Visitor]
I may have commented once or twice before, but I'm mostly a lurker because I usually have nothing worthwhile to contribute. I understand your wariness about lending out books to strangers. Thanks for the heads up on the books; I'll try to find some bookstores. I'm currently working on a poetry book, which as you can imagine is not going well. :)
05/19/10 @ 15:15
Comment from: admin [Member]
HL, I have some poetry books but just refuse to even read them right now. I know they'd be too hard.
Shoot me an email when you get here. Maybe we can meet and I can show you some Korean areas of town!
Shoot me an email when you get here. Maybe we can meet and I can show you some Korean areas of town!
05/19/10 @ 21:30
Comment feed for this post
