I have decided, after about 10 minutes of deep thought, to discontinue Dana in Soko (v.2) at this domain. I've been getting increasingly frustrated with Blogger.com for being an unresponsive and horrifically slow beast. Seriously, I can only access my blog (and other blogspot sites) about 30-40% of the time; for some unnamed reason, it keeps "timing out" the rest of the time. WHY DO YOU DO THIS, BLOGGER? I have things that need saying!
I know, I know. This is kind of inopportune timing, given the new batch of Fellow babies and all, but it's a new (lunar) year and it was time for a change, anyway.
Don't despair, though - just because I'm no longer using Blogger doesn't mean that I am no longer blogging. I've set myself up a new account at http://danainsoko.wordpress.com/ (I know, REALLY CREATIVE NAME, RIGHT?). This site at Blogger will remain up as an archive. Please visit me at WordPress to keep up with my really awesome and exciting life.
I am touched and honored to have had such increased readership over the past few months. Thank you all, and please consider subscribing to the WordPress version!
Love,
D.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
설날*
* = lunar new year
One bowl of 떡국 (ddeokguk, rice cake soup) later, and I'm now [officially] 24 years old in Korean age. Even I am still unclear as to why, exactly, Korea forces me to be closer to age 30 than I physically am, but measuring age according to the lunar calendar is kind of bizarre in and of itself. Take a person like me, born in October - the minute I was born, I was considered one year old. Upon the [lunar] new year, everyone in the population - myself included - gains another year. So as a 3-4 month old baby, I was technically 2 years old in Korea. As it happens, if your birthday is later in the year (Sept - Dec), you will spend a grand part of the year being two Korean years older than you actually are - in 2010, I was 23 in Korea, but spent most of the actual year being 21. The really fascinating thing about this system of age-numbering is that it very neatly categorizes age differences between people - for example, if you ask me how many years there are between me and JM, I'll say, "3 and a half." If you ask her, she'll say "3." Because no matter how physically old we are, every New Year, she will always gain one year and so will I. This year, all people born in 1985 are 27, and all people born in 1988 are 24. Three years' difference, always - no less, no more. This also has the fantastic effect of creating barriers between people according to age: as mentioned before, older Koreans are never to be addressed by name by those younger than them, and the Lunar New Year stands as a marker of this. A person born in March, after the Lunar New Year, is considered a full year younger than someone born in the middle/end of January, before the Lunar New Year - and therefore they can't be friends! This, however, is a post for another time, and if enough people beg me out of curiosity, I'll do it soon.
[interesting note for future Lighters/folks studying in Korea: when Korean people ask you your age, do not answer in numbers unless you're positive you've got your Korean age right and that people will understand you to be talking about your Korean age and not your American age! This is particularly important because of 호칭, proper forms of address. For example, last year I told some guys I met in Korea that I was 20, which I was (in America). They said that they were 21, and that I should call them 오빠, or older brother. Later, it came out that that they were 21 in Korea, making them 19 in America, and thus making me 누나, or older sister.
How should you give your age, then? Just answer with the year you were born, like this: 저는 88년생이에요 (effectively translated to, "I was born in 1988.") But be careful - if you were born before the Lunar New Year, you are considered part of the age group of the preceding year. So, a friend of mine born on January 21, 1987 says that she is "빠른 87," translated as "fast 1987," meaning that she is considered the same age year as those born in 1986 after the Lunar New Year. Has your head fallen off yet? Come to Korea!]
Anyway, I was afraid that I was going to spend the Lunar New Year alone, mostly because it's a very family-oriented holiday that often winds up being pretttttty involved because of 제사 (Je-sah), a practice I don't really understand all that well beyond knowing that it has something to do with making offerings to ancestors. I didn't really expect to be invited anywhere, and therefore made plans to stock up on convenience store essentials, but then! My wonderful, amazing friend Nahee Unni contacted me from Yale, where she is studying, and asked me if I would like to spend the holiday with her family in Bucheon, a suburb of Seoul. At first, I was slightly apprehensive - prior to the New Year, I'd never met anyone in Nahee Unni's family, and given that she was studying in the States, she wouldn't even be there. But who was I to turn away such a generous and warm invitation? I gladly accepted, went to Hyundai Dept Store to buy her family a gift of red ginseng to thank them (gift-giving is a general practice, although the gifts certainly vary - I spent an hour wandering around the basement of the department store fending off the overeager sales pitches of saleswomen dressed in Korean traditional garb before deciding on it), and a few days later, found myself on a bus to the outskirts of the city.
[It must be noted that Seoul turns into a veritable ghost town on the Lunar New Year - almost nothing is open or running, save for 24 hour convenience stores and public transport. If you're traveling on the New Year, make sure to adjust your travel time for a lack of traffic - Nahee Unni said it would take about 1 hour by bus to get from Sinchon to Bucheon, but because the streets were so empty, I made the trip in 30 minutes flat and got to her house ridiculously early.]
Unsurprisingly, and much to my delight, Nahee Unni's family was welcoming, warm, and lovely. While a lot of people celebrate the holiday with extended family and elaboration, I was the only non-immediate-family guest at the Song house that day; but given that Nahee Unni has two older sisters and a kid brother, the house felt full and loud. I really, really enjoyed getting to know all of them and getting to put in a full days' worth of Korean practice - but I was unprepared to find that both of Nahee Unni's parents spoke 사투리 (sa-tu-ri), a slangish kind of "country" Korean that's used in a lot of provinces/cities outside of Seoul (like Busan). The pronunciation and even some of the vocab is very, very difficult to understand if you've only ever been exposed to "Seoul Korean," so it's not worth beating yourself up over it if you can't comprehend anything that's being said to you. Needless to say, it was kind of hard to communicate with Nahee Unni's mom because of the language barrier, but her sisters helped me out a lot and I think she liked me enough [lolz]. She gave me a ridiculous ton of food to take home. 넘 감사드렸어 ㅋㅋ
I also finally learned how to play 윷놀이 (kind of - I was only half paying attention while we were playing because Nahee Unni skyped us during the game) and 고스톱 (Go-stop), a Korean card game popular among gamblers. Go-stop is actually ridiculously fun, but a little tricky to get down for a first-timer. It took me upwards of 10 rounds before I could actually play on my own. We didn't gamble, but perhaps now I should start...? Can't read mah go-stop face. Sorry, that was horrible. I should strike that out, but I'm not going to.
I've been on vacation since Wednesday, the day before the actual New Year, but after getting home from Nahee Unni's house, I started to not feel very well. My stomach began acting up - at first, I thought maybe I'd overeaten or that something I'd eaten at her place hadn't sat well with me, but I spent the better part of Thursday night and yesterday running a fever and being unable to eat solid food beyond a few saltines, so I guess I must have caught some 24-hour flu. I woke up this morning feeling like crap, but I've felt gradually better and have (so far) been able to keep down a little bit of bread, a little bit of fruit, and some 죽 (jook, Korean rice porridge). I hope I continue to get better - I haven't felt well enough to do ANYTHING, and so I wasted all of the time I intended to use reviewing and previewing for next week's classes sleeping or watching internet TV in bed. Plus, I plan to watch the Superbowl on Monday morning (shhh), and my stomach better be in solid enough condition for 8:30am beers and snacks!
As I understand it, Korea's (and China's, and Japan's) latest batch of Light Fellows have been chosen! 축하합니다! I'll take this opportunity to put it out there that I'm available to answer any questions or take comments on Korea, living here, going to Sogang, etc etc. I'll also be breaking with my tradition of completely ignoring the question in the Light Fellowship weekly email to post an "advice for future Fellows" blog sometime in the near future. Wait for it, wait for it.
Happy New Year to all ~ 먼 곳에 있는 친구들, 우리 같이 설날 보낼 수 있었으면 좋겠죠? 앞으로 늘 건강하시구요, 늘 행복하게 사시구요, 늘 낙찬적으로 생활하시기를 :) 사랑해요 ♥
One bowl of 떡국 (ddeokguk, rice cake soup) later, and I'm now [officially] 24 years old in Korean age. Even I am still unclear as to why, exactly, Korea forces me to be closer to age 30 than I physically am, but measuring age according to the lunar calendar is kind of bizarre in and of itself. Take a person like me, born in October - the minute I was born, I was considered one year old. Upon the [lunar] new year, everyone in the population - myself included - gains another year. So as a 3-4 month old baby, I was technically 2 years old in Korea. As it happens, if your birthday is later in the year (Sept - Dec), you will spend a grand part of the year being two Korean years older than you actually are - in 2010, I was 23 in Korea, but spent most of the actual year being 21. The really fascinating thing about this system of age-numbering is that it very neatly categorizes age differences between people - for example, if you ask me how many years there are between me and JM, I'll say, "3 and a half." If you ask her, she'll say "3." Because no matter how physically old we are, every New Year, she will always gain one year and so will I. This year, all people born in 1985 are 27, and all people born in 1988 are 24. Three years' difference, always - no less, no more. This also has the fantastic effect of creating barriers between people according to age: as mentioned before, older Koreans are never to be addressed by name by those younger than them, and the Lunar New Year stands as a marker of this. A person born in March, after the Lunar New Year, is considered a full year younger than someone born in the middle/end of January, before the Lunar New Year - and therefore they can't be friends! This, however, is a post for another time, and if enough people beg me out of curiosity, I'll do it soon.
[interesting note for future Lighters/folks studying in Korea: when Korean people ask you your age, do not answer in numbers unless you're positive you've got your Korean age right and that people will understand you to be talking about your Korean age and not your American age! This is particularly important because of 호칭, proper forms of address. For example, last year I told some guys I met in Korea that I was 20, which I was (in America). They said that they were 21, and that I should call them 오빠, or older brother. Later, it came out that that they were 21 in Korea, making them 19 in America, and thus making me 누나, or older sister.
How should you give your age, then? Just answer with the year you were born, like this: 저는 88년생이에요 (effectively translated to, "I was born in 1988.") But be careful - if you were born before the Lunar New Year, you are considered part of the age group of the preceding year. So, a friend of mine born on January 21, 1987 says that she is "빠른 87," translated as "fast 1987," meaning that she is considered the same age year as those born in 1986 after the Lunar New Year. Has your head fallen off yet? Come to Korea!]
Anyway, I was afraid that I was going to spend the Lunar New Year alone, mostly because it's a very family-oriented holiday that often winds up being pretttttty involved because of 제사 (Je-sah), a practice I don't really understand all that well beyond knowing that it has something to do with making offerings to ancestors. I didn't really expect to be invited anywhere, and therefore made plans to stock up on convenience store essentials, but then! My wonderful, amazing friend Nahee Unni contacted me from Yale, where she is studying, and asked me if I would like to spend the holiday with her family in Bucheon, a suburb of Seoul. At first, I was slightly apprehensive - prior to the New Year, I'd never met anyone in Nahee Unni's family, and given that she was studying in the States, she wouldn't even be there. But who was I to turn away such a generous and warm invitation? I gladly accepted, went to Hyundai Dept Store to buy her family a gift of red ginseng to thank them (gift-giving is a general practice, although the gifts certainly vary - I spent an hour wandering around the basement of the department store fending off the overeager sales pitches of saleswomen dressed in Korean traditional garb before deciding on it), and a few days later, found myself on a bus to the outskirts of the city.
[It must be noted that Seoul turns into a veritable ghost town on the Lunar New Year - almost nothing is open or running, save for 24 hour convenience stores and public transport. If you're traveling on the New Year, make sure to adjust your travel time for a lack of traffic - Nahee Unni said it would take about 1 hour by bus to get from Sinchon to Bucheon, but because the streets were so empty, I made the trip in 30 minutes flat and got to her house ridiculously early.]
Unsurprisingly, and much to my delight, Nahee Unni's family was welcoming, warm, and lovely. While a lot of people celebrate the holiday with extended family and elaboration, I was the only non-immediate-family guest at the Song house that day; but given that Nahee Unni has two older sisters and a kid brother, the house felt full and loud. I really, really enjoyed getting to know all of them and getting to put in a full days' worth of Korean practice - but I was unprepared to find that both of Nahee Unni's parents spoke 사투리 (sa-tu-ri), a slangish kind of "country" Korean that's used in a lot of provinces/cities outside of Seoul (like Busan). The pronunciation and even some of the vocab is very, very difficult to understand if you've only ever been exposed to "Seoul Korean," so it's not worth beating yourself up over it if you can't comprehend anything that's being said to you. Needless to say, it was kind of hard to communicate with Nahee Unni's mom because of the language barrier, but her sisters helped me out a lot and I think she liked me enough [lolz]. She gave me a ridiculous ton of food to take home. 넘 감사드렸어 ㅋㅋ
I also finally learned how to play 윷놀이 (kind of - I was only half paying attention while we were playing because Nahee Unni skyped us during the game) and 고스톱 (Go-stop), a Korean card game popular among gamblers. Go-stop is actually ridiculously fun, but a little tricky to get down for a first-timer. It took me upwards of 10 rounds before I could actually play on my own. We didn't gamble, but perhaps now I should start...? Can't read mah go-stop face. Sorry, that was horrible. I should strike that out, but I'm not going to.
I've been on vacation since Wednesday, the day before the actual New Year, but after getting home from Nahee Unni's house, I started to not feel very well. My stomach began acting up - at first, I thought maybe I'd overeaten or that something I'd eaten at her place hadn't sat well with me, but I spent the better part of Thursday night and yesterday running a fever and being unable to eat solid food beyond a few saltines, so I guess I must have caught some 24-hour flu. I woke up this morning feeling like crap, but I've felt gradually better and have (so far) been able to keep down a little bit of bread, a little bit of fruit, and some 죽 (jook, Korean rice porridge). I hope I continue to get better - I haven't felt well enough to do ANYTHING, and so I wasted all of the time I intended to use reviewing and previewing for next week's classes sleeping or watching internet TV in bed. Plus, I plan to watch the Superbowl on Monday morning (shhh), and my stomach better be in solid enough condition for 8:30am beers and snacks!
As I understand it, Korea's (and China's, and Japan's) latest batch of Light Fellows have been chosen! 축하합니다! I'll take this opportunity to put it out there that I'm available to answer any questions or take comments on Korea, living here, going to Sogang, etc etc. I'll also be breaking with my tradition of completely ignoring the question in the Light Fellowship weekly email to post an "advice for future Fellows" blog sometime in the near future. Wait for it, wait for it.
Happy New Year to all ~ 먼 곳에 있는 친구들, 우리 같이 설날 보낼 수 있었으면 좋겠죠? 앞으로 늘 건강하시구요, 늘 행복하게 사시구요, 늘 낙찬적으로 생활하시기를 :) 사랑해요 ♥
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