I Lost My Talk: Poem

After that post last week about Jeju Island's dialect disappearing, here's a lovely, touching poem that my sister sent to me, about Canadian first nations groups losing their languages.

I think the writer is correct that power is inextricably linked to language: the language I choose to speak with you sets the terms for our interaction, especially when one of us speaks the language better than the other.

Put simply: If I argue with my wife in Korean, she wins.

Writ large: the language people speak, or study in school is one of the clearest expressions of which group in a mixed society/world holds (or is believed to hold) the keys to opportunity.

Lost My Talk by Rita Joe

I lost my talk
The talk you took away.
When I was a little girl
At Shubenacadie school.

You snatched it away:
I speak like you
I think like you
I create like you
The scrambled ballad, about my world.

Two ways I talk
Both ways I say,
Your way is more powerful.

So gently I offer my hand and ask,
Let me find my talk
So I can teach you about me.

Canadian Museum of Civilization

First Peoples of Canada Online Exhibit

http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/aborig/fp/fpz4c03e.shtml

Happy New Year! Is Korean Seollal Changing?

Happy new year, readers.

It's a good day, the weather's finally not so bone-chilling, and the wife is away on vacation.

Not that I'm up to any mischief... I wouldn't be here blogging if I were, now, would I?

Since I've come to Korea, one of the things I've noticed is a big change in how the Korean traditional holidays (that is, Seollal/Lunar New Year) and Chuseok (Harvest festival) are practiced.

The typical/normative Korean Traditional Holiday^(tm) experience remains that of going to the grandparents' house, having a ritual for the ancestors that involves big tables full of traditional foods that take a long time to prepare and clean up, the women spending hours in the kitchen, the men playing cards or games in the other room, and the consuming of chapchae, ddeokkuk (new year) and songpyeon (chuseok).  Grandparents give money to the children, and the children bow to the living ancestors (parents, uncles, especially grandparents) and some or all of the family goes up the mountain to trim the grass and perform maintenance on the family gravesite.  And the children wear really cute Hanbok.

Frankly, I'm not the guy to describe all those ceremonies.  The Korean does an admirable job of it.

I'm interested in the way the holiday's changed: my first year in Korea, Seoul was a ghost town during the new year celebration.  The usual complaints were raised: traffic is a pain, it's impossible to get tickets,  the women do all the work, it's boring sitting around at your grandparents' house all day.

Meanwhile, this year Seoul's museums are staying open, and a lot of the palaces and plazas are featuring cultural events, displays and performances this Seollal.  People are traveling overseas instead of visiting the family.  Meanwhile, a recent survey reports that only one in five Koreans consider their grandparents part of their family.

Tonight's topic on TBS eFM is the ways we celebrate Seollal/Lunar New Year: what do you do, and is it different than it used to be?  It's a holiday, so we're picking a happy topic, and I'd love to hear from readers, how do YOU celebrate the new year?  Have travel concerns changed the way you celebrate? Have you spent holidays away from family? Why?  Have you ever attended the cultural events instead?Whether you're Korean or not, we'd love to hear what you get up to on Korea's traditional holidays.

The Evening Show Fun, plus: Korean Soccer

Yes, readers, I finished one week at The Evening Show.  Every night, I do a segment that's about 15 minutes long, and it's called "The Bigger Picture."

It's a call-in show where listeners call and share their opinions.  Last week went really well, but because it's a call-in show, the show's only as good as the callers.  So, readers, follow me on Twitter, and friend me on Facebook (yep, it's a verb now) and follow my tweets and status updates.

Question of the day today: how will Team Korea do now that Park Jisung has retired from international play?  He'll no longer be representing Korea in competitions like the Asia Cup, or World Cup qualifiers...

on the other hand, he's had a pretty good run, with he and Lee Young-pyo being the only remaining players who were part of the 2002 World Cup team that went to the semi-finals.

Are you a soccer fan?  Are you a Team Korea fan?  Who's going to take Park Jisung's place, are there young guns ready to fill his shoes?

Leave a comment, or shoot me an e-mail if you want to call into the show.

Greetings from... BE?

I got a message on Twitter saying "Greetings from BE" but I'm not entirely sure what BE stands for...

The Acronym finder is helping me, but I'm still not sure:

My top prospects are...
British Empire
Belgium
Battlefield Earth
Barium Enema
Bern
Bachelor of Engineering
Blizzard Entertainment (makers of Warcraft and Starcraft... why not name your next game "Awesomecraft" or get meta, and make a videogame design simulator called "Craftcraft")
Breast Expansion
Bachelor of Education
British English
or
Back End

any other suggestions?

funniest one wins.

I'm sold! Boa's Dance Movie Will Have a Plot!

I liked this post from PopSeoul about Boa's upcoming dance movie.

The real kicker: according to reports, this movie will not only have dancing, but also a plot, which will differentiate it from all those other dance movies.

The film directed by “Step Up” Duane Adler hopes to spice up things up, compared to “other” dance moves by focusing on both plot and choreography, instead of a plot that doesn’t end working.

Fair enough...

a plot would also set it apart from other Korean filmmakers' and Korean stars' forays into Hollywood.

Eventually one of Korea's talented people will turn this trend around... there are tons of Koreans doing well in television (unfortunately, other than Kim Yunjin, I couldn't tell you who those are, because I don't watch much TV)...

Though I think it's awesome that one of the top Korean-American actors is John Cho, because the movie that made his name (Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle) was all about weed, which means that, unlike most cases, where Koreans are happy to claim anyone with a tenuous connection to Korea as their own, there's very little talk of John Cho as one of Hollywood's top (Korean) stars, outside of KO-Am circles. I have never heard "Do you know John Cho?" as a conversation opener.

[and as a side note, I love that the one Nobel-Prize-Winning author who wrote about Korea, also has a name that's REALLY hard for Koreans to pronounce. "Teacher? Do you know Fall S. Fuck?" "Huh?" "The Good Earth." "Oh. Do you mean Pearl S. Buck?" "Yes. Fall S. Fuck." that actually happened.]

Also... it's a testament to just how bad a movie Blood: The Last Vampire was, that even in Korea, where some people will even defend The Last Godfather and D-Wars, Blood: The Last Vampire came and went without mention, and nobody will defend it, or talk about it at all.

(By the way: my favorite evisceration of The Last Godfather so far is this one, which, among other things, gives us a new one to add to Brian's list of "Korea's X" equivalents:

Shim Hyung-rae is Korea's Uwe Boll)

... and stop the presses: this old release, from back when The Last Godfather got the greenlight, says that originally, they were planning on digitally re-animating the late Marlon Brando's Don Corleone, to play the Godfather, before Harvey Keitel signed on.  I'm partly relieved they didn't do that... but then, what a lost opportunity to absolutely shatter the scale of unintentional comedy!  If they'd tried it, they might have even topped William Shatner's Rocketman on the "So bad it's awesome" scale.

Is Divorce in Korea finally Socially Acceptable?

Update:  The show went well... apologies to James from The Grand Narrative, who was supposed to be on the show, but who we missed because of a miscommunication.  Fortunately for you, readers, he's written some of what he would have said, over on his blog.  Awesome.  I hope I'll have a chance to invite you on the show later, James.

Also, thanks to Jennifer, facebook pals Hyunsoo, Sun Heo, and twitter pals @aaronnamba @Ben_Kwon and @TWolfejr, Wet Casements and 3Gyupsal, and everybody who listens, calls, or comments.

In my first year in Korea, I met a woman, the mother of one of my students, who lied to her family for two years, rather than admit that she had divorced her abusive husband.

Today, Yonhap News reports the launching of a magazine specifically targeted at divorcees.

So the question we're discussing tonight on "Argue with Roboseyo" or "The Bigger Picture" at TBS eFM radio is whether the launch of this magazine is an indication that divorce has finally become socially acceptable in Korea.

What do you think?  Write your thoughts in the comments, and I'll try to read them on air during the segment, from 7:40-7:55 tonight on 101.3 TBS eFM's evening show.  Or phone in at 02-778-1013.

Questions:

1. What are the gender issues and social issues at play?  In Choseon Korea, men could have concubines, and women had very few rights.  The danger of destitution and discrimination were the main disincentives for divorce in the past.  What about now?  Have women's rights improved enough that divorce no longer guarantees poverty?

2. Is it a sign of social progress, if women feel independent and liberated enough to get a divorce, rather than feeling trapped in a bad marriage?

3. Is this a sign that Korea's vaunted "family values" are disintegrating?  Maybe people just don't care as much as they used to about bringing shame on their family?

4. Other than family pressures, what were the obstacles to getting a divorce in the past?

Put your comments below, and if you have a strong opinion, or if you have experience with divorce in Korea, let drop me a line at roboseyo at gmail: the show's always looking for callers.

Argue with Roboseyo: Jeju Island's Dialect is in Danger... So What?

[Update/Recap:

It was a good show, with a bunch of callers, including a professor from Jeju University, who's studied the Jeju Dialect, and assures us it's a language of its own.

Thank you to Mike Hurt and Rachel for calling, and on Twitter, thanks to @Cocoinkorea, @rjmlee, @DGFEZ, @HJKomo @chrisinseoulsk, and @aaronnamba for their opinions on Twitter, Bora, Charles, Rachel, Danielle and Soyeon for their opinions on Facebook.]

For more information about endangered languages, check out this AMAZING TED Talk by Wade Davis:


And check out the UNESCO "Endangered Languages" map.

Last night, we talked on TBS eFM's evening show about Korea's "Mart Kids" - it was an awesome show, with tons of callers!  (Callers are fun.)

Tonight, we're discussing the Jeju Island Dialect: UNESCO has named the Jeju Island dialect (satturi) a critically endangered language.

If you're a linguist, a heritage lover, or if you have connections to Jeju Island (lived there, taught there, speak the dialect yourself), shoot me an e-mail, because we'd love to talk to you on the show!

These are the issues that come up:

1. When hanok buildings are being bulldozed, and archaeological sites are getting converted into apartment complexes, what's the big deal about a language?  Which aspects of a culture do you think need to be made a priority, in terms of preservation?

2. Why is this dialect disappearing?  

3. With English mania in Korea, should we be concerned that sometime in the future, the Korean language as a whole will be in danger, crowded out by English or some other "global language"? 

4. Is it the cost of progress to lose these kinds of local varieties?  Supermarket culture has led to the disappearance of regional breeds of tomatoes... but if the supermarket variety grows and ships and stores better, 

5. Is it possible to preserve a language?  Languages constantly change, adding new words, ceasing to use old ones -- if the language is falling out of use, that means it is no longer serving a purpose, so why preserve it?

6. Are Korea's other local dialects next?  Everybody's moving to Seoul and watching Seoul-made dramas and movies.  Will the Daegu, Busan or Gwangju dialects be next to go?

7. What steps should be made to preserve it, if it's worth preserving?

Did you learn your parents' mother tongue or not?  (I know I didn't); are regional accents where you're from disappearing?  Write in!

Thanks, Readers, and HiExpat.com: Third in Popular K-blog Poll

I got third place in the "Favorite K-blog" poll that HiExpat just ran, which means I'll be winning a big heaping plate of ribs from memphis bar.  Yaaay!

I'm a fan of Hi Expat: I think it's a really good site that's trying hard to become a more positive and useful place for expats to hang out.  The job board is surprisingly active.  I met Dan, one of the people running the site last year, when I won an iPod touch for a restaurant review contest they had... I'm still using it, more and more.

So Thanks guys.

And seriously, add HiExpat to your bookmarks.  They're pretty good people, trying to add something positive to the Korea internets.

Well done, folks!

Harry Potter 7: More Stupid Wizard Duels

OK.  So I saw the first part of Harry Potter 7 the other day.

Not sure what I think about the increasing trend of filming multiple film/sequels in one shoot... but I'll save that for another day.

I'm also glad this one wasn't in 3D.  I'm not impressed by 3D... but I'll save THAT for another day, too.

Actually, it was a pretty good movie, all told.  I've never believed novels translate well into movies, because there's just too much in a novel.  Short fiction? Yeah. Graphic novel? Heck yeah.  Novel?  It's hard.  And with Harry Potter, especially as the books got longer, it got harder and harder to fit all that junk into a movie, and some of the movies barely tried.  The best Harry Potter movie was the third one, before the books got bloated.  The worst one was movie 5, where they tried to fit almost 900 freaking pages into a two hour movie.  They'd have had to make a miniseries to do all the plot points justice.  Book five was a good read, in my opinion (despite it being the first step into Harry becoming a somewhat unlikeable protagonist: too sulky and Holden Caulfieldy for a fantasy book), but the movie was awful: it was like a rushed series of sketches meant to evoke the story, and had no room to fit in the little bits of color and fun that made the first three movies cool.  The minor characters are part of the charm with HP - people like Neville Longbottom - but with so much plot, him, and Moaning Myrtle, and even Hagrid got short shrift.

That is why I think it was not just a cash grab, but good for the storytelling, to split book 7 into two movies.  The story finally has time to breathe again... and while in the book, I thought it was poor storytelling the way the first two thirds of the book are a bunch of wandering in the woods and re-visiting all JK Rowlings' favorite characters and locations, the movie evokes the frustrated stagnation of that part of the book very well.

However, there's just one thing... and this is something that, the more I see it, the more I think is just a lame, lazy cliche: 

The superpower battle.  Let me explain. (with apologies to Alice and the Mental Poo blog, where I got the inspiration to use illustrations I drew myself.)

It seems that wizards like nothing more than to give their enemies magic high-fives.  Especially if their magics are different colors.  I think that if your magic is the same color as another wizard's, you have to be friends.

And if you're the opposite (fire and water, for example, or oranges and toothpaste)?  Enemies for sure!

(source)

Also, it's not only hands that can magic up a wizard fight:

It's seen most often in fantasy and science fiction.  Especially anime.  It happens so often I can't even begin to list them.  

From Harry Potter alone (screenshots: these images don't belong to me, but to their respective copyright holders - JK Rowling and Warner Brothers film studio):

Movie 4: Goblet of Fire

Movie 7, part 1: Deathly Hallows

 Movie 5: Order of the Phoenix Harry's magic is the same color (red) as Dumbledore's.  That's why they're friends.  (for the record: AFTER the dumb wizard cliche fight, Dumbly and Moldy do some cool magic-ing.)

I wonder how many superpower/magic duels there will be in movie 7-1.

This is one area where George Lucas went really, really right: his Bright Side Jedi can't shoot magic hand beams, so even though the bad ones can, most Jedi battle is done with lightsaber duels -- the other absolute coolest feature of the Star Wars universe, because sword fighting is the awesomest kind of combat (with the possible exception of really good, Tony Jaa storming the castle/Bruce Lee vs. Chuck Norris level hand combat), and there are no hand-beam battles in the Star Wars movies.

This is as close as they get: (screenshot from a youtube version of the battle between Emporor Palpatine and Mace Windu.  Property of George Lucas: Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith)

Oh yeah.  Superhero and comic book stories also like having their cliche fights.

(X-Men 3: The Last Stand screenshot: property of Stan Lee, Marvel Comics and 20th century Fox.)

These silly cliche battles are everywhere.

So, readers, what's your favorite superpower/magic power-beam duel?  Let me know in the comments.

Also: what are some magic fights/superpower battles that have COOL effects, instead of just lame power-beam showdowns?  Tell me in the comments.

Argue with Roboseyo: Feral Kids/Latch-Key Kids

Update: the show went great!  We had more callers than we knew what to do with, and that's always the way to have the most fun on the radio.  Thanks to everybody who called.

Also, thanks for the awesome comments here; to get your comments read on air (we won't always have time to get to every one of them), following the patterns of Marc Hogi, and Dan, in the comments to this point, is great: concise, specific responses, with concrete experiences or points.  I especially like how Dan did one or two sentence point-by-point comments.  Thanks a lot.  Well done, readers!  See you tomorrow!

Well, folks, I'm hosting a part of The Evening Show on TBS E FM, one of Korea's English radio stations now.  It's a call-in show, where you can phone the station and voice your opinion about different topics, and the more callers we get, the more fun it is.  You'll see previews about the topics here, and any comment you leave here might get read on air, and if you really have something to say, drop your e-mail address in here and I'll write you about calling into the show: it's more fun with callers than with me reading comments on air.

The topic today is "Mart Kids" - this really sad article in the Korea Times looks at kids whose parents are working long hours, who aren't signed up for hagwons (the way most kids fill their hours until mom and dad get home), so they hang out in shopping malls killing time until the folks get home.

Questions that I'd love you to have an opinion about:

1. Is this any different from the latch-key kids of double-income families in North America?

2. Whose responsibility is it to make sure these kids have safe places to pass their time (the government? schools? charities? parents?)

3. What are their parents thinking?  Where's the disconnect, where these kids fall through the gaps?

4. The idea of free-range parenting: giving kids enough freedom to develop a sense of independence - is good, but it should be age-appropriate, right?  What age do you think is an OK age for a kid to hang out alone, or with two or three other classmates, at the mall all afternoon?

5. Is it so bad for kids to have minimal parental supervision?  When I was a kid, my brother biked all around the city, as long as he was home by dark.  Why are people so freaked out now by unsupervised kids?

6. After talking about "Tiger Moms" who fill their kids' entire days with study and lessons, and "Mart Kids" who don't have any structure at all, what do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of the two systems?

7. If you were a latch-key kid, or grew up without much supervision, and turned out really well, or had a rough time, share your experience.  If you knew a kid who grew up without much supervision, share what you saw with them.  If you're a parent, what's your policy, and why?

Write in, folks.  The show's at 7:30: the more opinions we have, the more fun it is!