Fake Languages

Here's an interesting one:

This guy lays down the challenge: what does fake English sound like? You know when you used to say "Ching chang chong" in grade school, because you didn't know any better, and thought you were speaking Chinese? Well what do Chinese kids say when they think they're speaking English?

This guy speaks a bunch of gibberish that sounds surprisingly like Chinese and several European languages, and asks Youtubers to respond with the sounds of English, from people who can't speak English.


Some interesting responses:
One girl:


One Japanese Kid (my favorite)


Another one:


Another good one.

meanwhile, here is one Korean popstar's hybrid language, called "Hanglish" in the video title. Sounds to me like there's some latino L.A. style slang in there, too. (Warning: some of his non-language really sounds like some real English swears; note also that he's using one of those V-line face massagers during the video intro). Mr. Tyfoon.


Finally, this is what Korean sounds like to a couple of American kids. They're impersonating ajosshis (Korean old men), speaking English with Korean accents, but when they get excited, they swear in non-Korean gibberish. The Korean History Channel. (Language warning)

For your Benefit: a translation

I made comments a while back about the way Korean sportscasters can sometimes go a bit too far in their enthusiasm, and referenced Park TaeHwan's gold medal swim from the Beijing Games.

Well, I'm proud to say, with a friend's help, I've translated the commentary on that video, so that you, my dear readers, can see what they were saying all along. A few of my translations might not be entirely accurate, but I think I got the drift across.

Picture of the Day, and Possibly the Week

Here's another contender: the ricetard snack was sure a good one,



but inspecting my follower's list, I discovered Korea, Books and Calories, and on her blog, Okibum had posted this outrageous, uproarious picture of a t-shirt.

My weiner has a heart on for you. Yep. That's right.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Seriously, I want to have the job of the person who comes up with wacky English T-shirt slogans. I'd even try to market them in North America. I think they'd catch on.

Cripes, I get so TIRED of this.

Korea Times published this opinion piece by Jessica Kim today.

It bothered me. For the usual reasons. Mostly for calling prospective English teachers losers, failures, and stupid.

Here is the letter I sent to her and to the editor of The Korea Times.

Dear Editor

While Jessica Kim's article, "Korea's English Pandemic" raised some valid questions about Korea's obsession with English, I was extremely disappointed both by Jessica's crass generalizations about the character and intelligence of English teachers coming to Korea, and moreover by The Korea Times' willingness to print such material.

The problems she raises are valid: yes, Korea's obsession with English education is expensive for families and stressful for children. However, recruiters for Korean companies trying to expand their global reach would probably take issue with Ms. Kim's assertion that Korea’s English obsession is pointless.

There is also nothing wrong with Ms. Kim being proud of her country's language: she mentions how Korea has a national holiday to celebrate Hangul, but why, in the same sentence, does she need to start making insinuations about the kinds of people who ask about coming to Korea to teach?

Does Ms. Kim know these people well enough to accurately judge their probable SAT scores, or is she guessing wildly about their intelligence? How did she judge that they had no life goals? Is she so sure that their only qualification to teach English is their white skin? Does she even know how many of them are asking about teaching in Korea out of a serious desire to come overseas, and how many are simply exploring possible options, the way desperate people do during a financial crisis, when they feel their options diminishing? And how dare she call these people miserable failures in their own lives, unless she knows their entire life stories?

Finally, as a long-term professional English instructor in Korea, who works hard to improve both my craft as a teacher, and my students' true English capability, I deeply resent Ms. Kim's insinuations that my white looks are my only important qualification to teach English in Korea. By ignoring the fact there are a lot of excellent Native English instructors in Korea, Ms. Kim sounds just as ignorant as the people approaching her, who think white skin is enough to get a teaching job in Korea.

I also resent Ms. Kim’s trotting out the old, ugly stereotype of the “unqualified English teacher," using a broad brush to paint an entire group of people. The English instructors in Korea range from experienced and supremely qualified career educators, to backpackers looking to pay for the next leg of their Asian tour. However, those recruiting teachers are responsible for which teachers come to Korea, and in recruiting, the old saying, “You get what you pay for” applies, for better and for worse.

Finally, I am dismayed that The Korea Times prints articles like this, which ply in stereotypes and lazy thinking, which does not even offer a solution to the problem it presents, though it does take time to slur the reputation of many hard working, enthusiastic and passionate teachers. Such careless media coverage denies native English teachers the respect they deserve for their work, and sometimes makes teaching English in Korea seem like a thankless job. It would be easier for the qualified, committed teachers in Korea to continue investing their talents in Korean society if it seemed to appreciate our hard work.

(for those who care: here's her original piece)

Korea's English Pandemic

By Jessica Kim

``I don't have a job here, but it's okay because my fallback plan is to teach English in Korea,'' they all say, the so-called native speakers.

Everyone in Korea, regardless of age, gender or job, has a massive collective fever. It's almost like the influenza pandemic of 1918.

Sure, it doesn't shoot up the death toll, but if you are a Korean parent, it does shoot up your kid's monthly English lesson fees, and if you are ``that" kid yourself, then it shoots up your stress gauge. This peninsula, at least the southern half of it, is drowning in a large-scale English craze.

Recently, a lot of people have been calling me and emailing me, to the point where I just had to shut down my phone. Some even identify themselves as a friend of a friend of a friend of mine. That's a long social chain.

These random ``friends" who don't have a job or got fired recently have been trying to get in touch with me to ask me about teaching English in Korea. They all say in unison, as if it comes from the Holy Bible, ``I heard all you need is the 'white looks' and you are good to go." I have heard this millions of times already, but every time I hear it I can't help myself from cringing with every single muscle in my forehead. I may need Botox soon even though I'm only in my early 20s.

So why is Korea, the nation that even created a national day to celebrate the beauty and the history of the Korean language, seen as the place to go for those ``native speakers" who have no life goals? The aim of trying to learn English is healthy for the mind and soul ― it's for personal development. However, the situation here is to the point where it's almost an obsession, not to mention an embarrassing one.

Do we really want these ``white-looking" people to just stroll into Korea, who probably scored less than 500 out of 800 on their verbal portion of their SATs or don't even know what they SATs are, to be hailed as kings by Korean parents? This leads to my point: Korean parents need to change their attitudes.

It is the Korean parents' crazy obsession with English that drives up the cram school fees; it is their obsession that creates such trouble for the government's education branch to rationally allocate their already-strained budget; and, finally, it is their obsession that leads Korea to be looked-down-upon as a Plan B by those ``native English speakers" who miserably fail in their own lives. The parents with such wrong attitudes are to be blamed for the pandemic.

Sadly, I do not have a solution and my intention was only to point out my observation of today's society. I do not know if anyone will ever have a solution. Is it even possible?

This mad English fever seems inexorable; it is how it is now, how it will be next year and the year after that. Someone needs to set an alarm clock to wake up the parents who have overdosed on their English fever.

We all need to realize that this English craze is not only pointless, but it burdens the students and their families. It ships Korea's money offshore and it pressures Korean educators to seek unqualified people who only possess the ``white looks." It leads to many indirect social problems that we have in Korea right now.

Rise and shine, it's time to wake up.

The writer is a student majoring in accounting at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. She can be reached at jkimqwerty@gmail.com.

OK, Yeah, they carry michael breen's column, and their friday "Events" page can't be beat in the English dailies in Korea, but CRIPES! Does the Korea Times HAVE to publish every single opinion any old whoever sends in, so long as it mentions English teachers? Seriously? Is this like their way of letting their readers (who are mostly Koreans practicing English anyway) get some vicarious, passive-aggressive revenge on their English teachers, by reading smears on their English teachers in their paper, in order to feel better about the fact they still can't speak English to a foreigner with confidence? (Bitter much, Roboseyo? I'll feel better in the morning. You should've seen the pictures I took today!)

Must-Read Analysis on North Korean Rocket Launch

Hub of Sparkle is down right now, for reasons unexplained, so I'll link it here.

Ask A Korean! has translated the best analysis I've seen so far on the North Korean Rocket Launch.

Other Must-Read North Korean related material:

How to Disarm Kim Jong-il without Bombing Him: From One Free Korea

and, because no mention of Kim Jong-il should be made without some scorn and derision: a bit of mockery -jong-il

Roboseyo's nose never fails

Soundtrack time: hit play and start reading.
Mercy, by Duffy.


First: the random basket truck in Insadong. Like.


Next: two years ago, my favorite sandwich place in Korea, called Jenny's Cafe, rocked my world, and guaranteed my third date with Girlfriendoseyo, because we enjoyed it together so much. A few months after that, I brought some friends to Hongdae to eat at Jenny's with them, and my jaw hit the sidewalk when I saw that it was gone. I thought it was gone forever, I was seriously bummed. The bread they had there was so good, and the mushroom salad was just ridiculous, and I thought I'd never have it again. I was bummed enough that I've actually thought about writing a eulogy for it here at Blogoseyo.

But then on Saturday night, wandering around Hongdae with my buddy Evan, we saw a few things.

We saw these posters...for a band, I think.


Here's my handsome buddy Evan. Pay special attention to the shape of his chin.
Evan was mad that nobody ever puts his picture up on their walls or their blogs. So now I have.

How do you like that, Evan?

We'd planned to eat Okonomiyaki, but my favorite place, Noside, was closed for renovation.

So Evan showed my where Flying Chicken was, which looks really good...but then we decided to try the other Okonomiyaki place, where there was a lineup out the door and down the stairs. Screw that! So instead, I said, "Well, let's walk around and see if a place calls out to us." Evan was cool with that, and I know that generally these days, if I follow my nose, it leads me somewhere cool. Well bum-chin wanted to go a block up and turn left, but I said, "Let's head down this side street here." We did, and what did my wondering eyes see, but...



Holy crap! It's Jenny's Cafe, Redux!

So we went in there, and ate. I would have fought Evan if he hadn't agreed to go in with me. Lucky guy.

and there it was. Back in style.

with more seating than before.
the bread was...some of the best bread I've had in Korea. Different kinds, each one a home run.I was especially fond of the ciabatta and the white rye.

The mushroom salad came out, and it was good enough that I'll remember it two years from now, just like last time.

I had the jenny's spaghettini, which was gentle and well-balancedEvan never stopped raving about his Feta/olive penne.

Neither of us were that hungry, but we totalled those dishes, in about seven minutes, in dead silence, because brothers and sisters, it was that good. Silly. Ridiculous.Here's how to find it. Go to the Hongik university main gate, and turn right, and follow the road. When you come to that little corner with the Ska club, where Route 66 used to be, where Rocky Mountain Tavern is now, turn left down that little alley where Halmoni club, Joker Red, and club FF are. Keep going until you come to that big street with cars parked in the middle of it. Across that intersection is a Joe's Sandwich

And an "On the Grill" -- go down the small street between those two shops. You're on the right track.
About 40 meters past, maybe less, theres a corner like this, where you turn left.
You'll pass a few places that look really cool. As hard as it may be, pass them, and Jenny's will be on your right.
That place is "Jenny's Cafe" where they serve entrees. It's great. If you remember, and miss, Jenny's amazing sandwiches, then you have to go to their OTHER location, Jenny's Bread.

For this one, stand facing Hongik University's main gate, and go left, instead. Walk down the right side of the road, around the bend (where their old location used to be). When you pass ssamzie market, take the nest left, and look for a sidestreet on your right.

Jenny's Bread is down here, and they serve sandwiches. If they're even 80% as good as they used to be, it's worth the trip.
Here's how it looks at 10pm.It's nice.

Here's how to find them:So go there. Eat good bread. You'll realize how much you missed it, and be sad, but realize that you can eat some now, and be happy.

Roboseyo's nose never fails. It's led me to a number of the best places I've eaten over the last three years. Fortunately, friends have led me to the others.

Dang, my life is good.

Oh yeah. I also took these pictures this weekend.

It was hard to understand the meaning of this sign. This was my guess.
Pukaksan, behind the Blue House and Gwanghwamun was great. I got lots of pictures, but some of them might be giving away locations of defense structures on the ultra-secure area, so some aren't going up here. There is an awesome wall behind the Blue House which surrounds downtown Seoul, which honestly deserves to be top three in Seoul's tourist promotional walks and things to do in Seoul, but is de-emphasized. Great views, an amazing look at Korea's history (it's a 600 year old wall), as well as Korea's modern history (ultra-secure, especially given the 1968 attack on the blue-house where the North Korean commandoes ran up this mountain to hide during their assault).

On the way to the entrance to Bukak Mountain



On the way down to Daehangno.


Air quality on Pukaksan was poor.
Then, later, cherry blossoms at night.

Coolest Video I've Posted This Year

K. So there's this thing called flash mobs, where a group of people plan some goofy prank in a public place, and then drop it on an unsuspecting public. Frankly, they're awesome: imagine having a flash mob interrupt your commonplace routine.

It started with universities, and a few guerilla videos from a group called Improv Everywhere,

Including food court musical.

the first really famous one was the New York Central Station freeze.

another one I liked was worshiping the purdue engineering fountain

This awesome game show prank in Japan made me smile.

A very clever "where's Waldo" flash mob in San Francisco

But the coolest thing I've ever seen, flash-mob-wise, has got to be this one.

Think about the preparation this would have taken, look at the numbers, and watch as it keeps topping itself.

Un. real.

Antwerp, Central Station.

Just watch it.

(HT Robin, on Facebook)

Requestoseyo: Female K-Bloggers

See, as I look at the sidebar here at Roboseyo, I notice that the female bloggers listed are a tiny minority. On several of the comment boards of well-known K-blogs, as well, feminine voices very rarely assert themselves, and it is with great sadness that I acknowledge that the great-idea-too-bad-this-happened Naked In The Sauna is now largely defunct.

With Amanda Takes Off, Lao Ocean Girl, and Expat Jane repatriating...

who ARE the female K-bloggers you like to read, my dear readers?

I'm already a regular reader of Foreign/er Joy, Expatriate Games, Annalog, both the male and female halves of Eat Your Kimchi, Chubbo Chubbington, A Long Time Ago When The Tiger Smoked a Cigarette..., and the also largely defunct Gomushin Girl, but that's only seven out of the fifty on my RSS feed, so it stands to reason (given the approximate 50/50 percentage of males to females in the world) that I must be missing some.

Now, not because I write this blog to pick up girls or anything: with girlfriendoseyo I'm covered on that front...but I'm worried that I might be letting down any guys who might be reading my blog to pick up girls. (We had an interesting talk in my conversation class about What's the best way to meet your soulmate, and reading strangers' blogs was third on the list, you know.) K. In all seriousness, though, I DO feel like I'm letting down any female readers who didn't give up on me completely with that last lame joke, in providing a place where they can find out about, and hopefully connect with, other female K-bloggers, and see that side of things here.

Fill me in, readers! Who else should I be reading?

And... A couple of reminders:

Why not to hand in your article late after the native speaking proofreader has gone home. Flag-waving aside (see the second half), what horrible writing.

Why TO do prewriting (I'm teaching that right now) and planning before you write, and why to ALWAYS have a thesis before you start writing. Choi Yong-hearn, Korea's Dokdo poet, writing an editorial where it seems like somebody said "You have a Ph.D. Just write whatever and we'll print it." And he did.

And you thought Rap Ballads were bad in your own language...

It's debatable which would be worse: a rap ballad in a language you CAN understand, and have to deal with lyrics like "Girl I feel so sad, like I did something bad, don't be mad 'cause I'm sad... Now you're gone, can't get along, is our love really done, 'cause I thought you were the one"

or a rap ballad in a language you CAN'T understand, so that all attention is drawn to the awful music.

Last time we saw Jo Gwon, we at Roboseyo thought he was a girl at first, until we saw sixpack proof he was a dude.

Now, you can hear him singing the girl parts in this song.



It must be a pretty good song, because the person who posted it wrote:

OMG JINWOON RAPPING IS HELLA HOT. Seul Ong's voice is awesome. Changmin's adlib is TO DIE FOR and Kwon as usual is hella amazing kdjhdfkhkfj 2AM YOU STEAL MY BREATH AWAY.

(ps: hat tip to here)

(PS: wouldn't it be awesome is Rolling Stone wrote reviews like that about the singers they loved? Those crusty music writers who still give five stars to anything Bruce Springsteen or Mick Jagger produces, because it reminds them of their twenties, saying "OMG! Thisz is The GR8EST Almum EVARRRR! The EAGLES are soooooooohotttt! I kan't beleeive tehy'r doin a reunion tour! I SOOOOOOO wanna goooooooooo!")

Personally, I have a special "Love to Hate" corner of my black, black heart for rap ballads that steal lines from the most beautiful pieces of classical music. "Everything's Gonna Be Alright" by Sweetbox in particular, because the interestingly titled, "Air on the G String" by JS Bach has a special place in my heart, too.


My other greatest "Love to Hate" song?

Eagles' Reunion Tour: Hotel California, the overwrought version of one of the most overplayed songs ever. Every single Korean bar with a projector screen owns the Eagles reunion tour DVD. Every. Single. One.

My other love to hate song, also because it was a great song ruined by overplay: Brown Eyed Girl, by Van Morrison