Bye Seoul

Another three months in Seoul have come and gone. Tomorrow I return home.

Today is quite likely the peak moment of my Korean language speaking ability for my entire life. Unless of course I manage to return to Korea for an extended stay some time in the future.

Here's a recent picture taken on the Seoul National University Campus. The main gymnasium is on the left (building #71); just behind it you can see the dark gray top of the Language Education Institute building. The hills form a backdrop to the similar profile of the new buildings under construction, draped in blue.


The blog will now become dormant again. Thanks for reading!

Gangwondo

Today I returned to Seoul for my last weekend before going back to America. Erma's parents drove me up, and tomorrow they will take away all the stuff they lent me. We drove to Seoul through Gangwon Province (강원도 江原道). Not far north of the capital city, Chuncheon (춘천 春川), we passed this sign, which illustrates several features of Korean transliteration of French that I mentioned in my previous post. The Korean says Bongjyureu, rendering French Bonjour. We see the use of Korean ㅇ ng for the nasalized vowel of the French syllable bon, and the foreign-looking spelling 쥬 jyu for the syllable that is normally spelled 주 ju in Korean.

What's funny about the sign is that Bonjour has actually been misspelled as Bongjour at the top of the sign, no doubt because the normal romanization of Korean ㅇ is ng.


Beef is not the only meat that is making news here in Korea. Avian influenza has hit the chicken industry hard here, and huge numbers of chickens are being slaughtered. In order to try to protect the uninfected chickens in the north, the authorities have set up several stations along the roads that spray all cars that pass.

The stations look like this:


Here's the truck in front of us approaching one of these stations.


And now we are going through the spray.


(Full disclosure for journalistic integrity: The careful reader will notice that I've mixed pictures together from three different places.)

Here's a truck carrying a cow. Poor cow has no windows to roll up, and will get exposed to the spray.




I have no idea what the spray could be. An antibiotic wouldn't be of any use against a virus.

At this point we were above the 38th parallel, not far from the DMZ. Periodically along the road one sees these structures:

They are protective barriers. In the event of a North Korean invasion, those large columns will fall across the road, blocking it off and, hopefully, slowing down the tanks.


We stopped for lunch at a restaurant with a lovely view that specialized in salmon trout sashimi (song'eo hoe 송어회).



It also came with salmon trout spicy soup (mae'untang 매운탕). On the top are hand-shaven noodles.

Much packing to do now!

Beullangjeri

The title of this post is a Korean rendering of boulangerie, the French word for bakery.

French-style (or at least French-in-name) bakeries are very popular in Seoul these days, and there are several highly successful chains with branches all over the city. I decided to compile a photo gallery of some of them.

The first one, Cherbourg, is the least fancy of the lot. I took this picture in the long-distance bus terminal (Gosok Teomineol 고속 터미널), which is where I catch the bus to Erma's parents'.


Bonespé is located on Jongno 종로, a major downtown thoroughfare. I've only seen this one, but I think it must be a chain, since the sign identifies this as the "Jongno Branch". It looks very fancy.


Jean Boulangerie is in Nakseongdae 낙성대, not far from where I live. I always seem to be walking by on a Sunday, when it is closed.


Paris Baguette is one of the largest chains, and is pretty fancy. This one, not far from the Seoul National University subway station, has a café inside. It's where I took the picture of the strawberry-cream bagel.

Tous les Jours is the most common chain store. I don't know of a neighborhood that lacks one.


And then, of course, there is my little neighborhood shop, Petit Amour.


There is something of linguistic interest here as well. For those of you who don't want to follow a slightly technical discussion, skip down to the next line of asterisks.

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Here are the names of the stores and their Korean renderings. I've also provided Korean pronunciations in International Phonetic Alphabet for those of you to whom it's meaningful. (Because there is no accepted IPA symbol for the Korean tense obstruents, I will simply double the letter.)

Cherbourg	쉘부르	Shwelbureu	[ʃwɛlbuɾɯ]
Bonespé	보네스뻬	Boneseuppe	[ponɛsɯppɛ]
Jean Boulangerie	쟝 블랑제리	Jyang Beullangjeri	[tʃaŋ pɯlaŋdʒɛɾi]
Paris Baguette	파리 바게뜨	Pari Bagetteu	[pʰaɾi pagɛttɯ]
Tous les Jours	뚜레쥬르	Tturejyureu	[ttuɾɛdʒuɾɯ]
Petit Amour	쁘띠 따무르	Ppeutti Ttamureu	[ppɯtti ttamuɾɯ]

What's interesting to me is the fact that the Korean transcriptions of these names show remarkable sensitivity to the actual pronunciation underlying the French orthography, and in particular to orthographic differences between French and English.

In particular, note the Korean rendering of the voiceless French sounds spelled with the letters p and t. In English, these letters generally represent aspirated sounds (i.e. they are accompanied with a puff of air), and therefore are rendered into Korean as ㅍ [pʰ] and ㅌ [tʰ] in the transliteration of English words. But in the names above, they are rendered as tense initials ㅃ [pp] and ㄸ [tt], reflecting their unaspirated pronunciation in French. (I've marked these in red above.) This seems to be quite consistent, except for "Paris", which as a place name already has a fixed Korean spelling of long standing.

Of particular note is the rendering of "Petit Amour", capturing the French liaison. The final t of Petit is, in the Korean orthography, the beginning sound of the second word, 따무르 Ttamureu.

Also of note in these transcriptions:
1) The French ch sound is always rendered in Korean with lip-rounding (note the [w] sound in the transcription of Cherbourg).
2) After Korean palatals ㅈ j and ㅊ ch, there is no distinction between palatalized and non-palatalized vowels. In other words, while one can spell 자 ja and 쟈 jya differently, the pronunciation is exactly the same: [tʃa]. Native Korean morphemes are always spelled without the -y-. But foreign words are often spelled with the -y-, probably because it makes them look orthographically foreign. Thus the English name John is usually spelled 쟌 jyan rather than 잔 jan, even though both are pronounced as jan. We see this principle at work in the Korean renderings of Jean and Jours.
3) Nasalization of French vowels is represented orthographically by a following -n. Koreans render this as ㅇ ng, whereas for English words final -n is rendered as ㄴ n. You can see this principle at work twice in Jean Boulangerie.
4) French voiced obstruents (b, d, g, j) are, like their English counterparts, rendered with the plain series of Korean obstruents, which are pronunced as voiceless unaspirated (well, slightly aspirated) word-initially, and as voiced word-medially.

**********

The other day, perhaps just to drum up business, out in front of Petit Amour there was a balloon arch and speakers blaring music. The song playing when I took the picture was "Hot Stuff". You can recreate my experience by looking at the photo while listening to this.

This kind of balloon arch is very commonly seen when Korean businesses have their grand opening, or as they call it in Korean, "Grand Open" (just like that, in Roman letters). But to really do a Grand Open right, you should have two scantily-clad dancing girls gyrating to the music.


Not long ago two construction projects took place near Petit Amour. The top floor of the building was renovated, and the street was repaved.

It all happened incredibly fast. I wanted to take a series of pictures documenting the process, but it was all over in one day.

Note, above, the thick electrical cables that run from the roof of the building down into Petit Amour. This is probably not to code!

I would like to mention here how incredibly hard-working the small business owners in Seoul are. The chef-owner of Petit Amour is there every single day (including weekends and holidays) from at least 7:00 am to 10:00 pm. (He might be open longer hours than that, but I haven't checked.) Restaurant owners, convenience store owners, and produce sellers in my neighborhood work similar hours. What recreation they enjoy (TV, newspapers, conversation) takes place during lulls in their work. And as tough as their lives must be, I have found in almost all cases that they are polite, friendly, and provide good service.

Sogogi 2

The uproar over the resumption of Korean imports of US beef has only been growing since I last wrote about it. There is tremendous opposition from lawmakers and civic groups.

On my bus ride down to Erma's parents' place yesterday, live legislative hearings were showing on the bus TV the whole way. The hearings were supposed to be about the proposed Korean-US Free Trade Agreement, but everyone just talked about beef.

Apparently when imports were banned by the last government, a huge amount of American beef was sitting in Korean warehouses. Instead of destroying it or sending it back, it just sat there frozen. So now the plan is to release it. Apparently the meat contains bone, spinal column, and other cow parts that are acknowledged to be the most dangerous parts for spreading mad cow disease.

With the new agreement, all that meat was going to be released immediately. It's causing a furor here, especially because the previous government issued all these reports about how dangerous that meat was. There have been large candle-light vigils protesting the beef, attended by tens of thousands of people in Seoul.

(Picture taken from here.)

The intense opposition has led the government to agree to a delay of about a week. But so far it still looks like the beef will be released into the market. (The delay does mean I won't accidentally eat any of it before I go.) I'm highly sympathetic to the Koreans who are opposed to this agreement. I don't want to be eating bone-laden American beef either, and I think they have good reason to be concerned.

Bucheonim Oshin Nal

Today, May 12, is a public holiday here in Korea: the Buddha's Birthday. (The date is fixed on the lunar calendar, and so varies from year to year on the solar calendar.) In Korean, the holiday is either referred to as Bucheonim Oshin Nal 부처님 오신 날 ("Day of the Buddha's Coming") or Seokga Tanshin Il 석가 탄신 일 ("Day of Sakyamuni's Birth"). The former is pure Korean, the latter Sino-Korean 釋迦誕辰日. (Of course, both involve Sanskrit borrowings, but that's another matter.)

In anticipation of the event lanterns have been strung up around Buddhist temples for months now (as seen here). Yesterday, however, preparations reached a fever pitch as temples prepared for the major festival. At the Jogye Temple (조계사 曹溪寺), which is Seoul's main temple of the dominant Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, there's was a great deal of chaos. Buddhist believers were praying in the temple while workers were setting up sound stages, testing electronic equipment, stringing lanterns, preparing food offerings, etc.

The sea of brightly colored lanterns overhead was quite beautiful.


Musicians were doing sound checks with traditional Korean instruments.


In front of the main temple building, a crane truck was employed to deposit a very large and heavy festive tree to the temple. (It's visible there in the background, underneath the center of the large sign.)


In the morning I had gone with some classmates to the Mongolian neighborhood of Seoul, near Dongdaemun 동대문 東大門, for lunch. There is a surprisingly large population of Mongolians living in South Korea. We ate at a small place called, of course, Ulaanbataar. One of my Mongolian classmates took us there.

The menu consisted entirely of mutton dishes. On the left you see mutton dumplings, on the right a dish of fried mutton, carrots, onions, and noodles.


We drank salted milk tea, which is far more palatable than Tibetan yak butter tea, but still no great shakes.

We also got two soups: One was a mutton soup, and the other one was a mutton soup.


(Not pictured is the different mutton soup at the next table.)

The Chinese people couldn't manage to eat anything. They said the mutton had a "smell". Most Chinese people say this. I don't entirely understand it. Mutton indeed has a smell -- it smells like delicious mutton.

That very evening I had another interesting though very different meal. The friend whose wedding I attended last fall took me in the afternoon to the Jogye Temple and the Gilsang Temple (길상사 吉祥寺). The former is located in downtown Seoul, very close to Insadong. The latter is beautifully situated up in the hills behind Gyeongbok Palace, in a very rich neighborhood somewhat reminiscent of the Los Angeles hills. For dinner we went to Samcheonggak (삼청각 三清閣), also in those same hills. For decades this location was the private dining area of government officials, but is now an area open to the public for recreation. There is a very fancy and expensive Korean restaurant on the grounds.

We ordered a multi-course set meal called Gungjung Sura (궁중수라), which translates roughly to "royal feast". We also ordered a bowl of makgeolli (막걸리), a milky-white rice wine that is sweet and fizzy. It was served with a big wooden ladle.

The first course was a pumpkin porridge served with water-kimchi.


Second course was a plate of bamboo shoots in persimmon sauce.


Third course was a nine-delicacies platter. In the center is a stack of thin pancakes. You put bits of the shredded vegetables on a pancake, roll it up, dip it in sauce, and eat.


Here's our menu. We were screened from the neighboring tables for privacy.


Grilled cakes: shrimp, chive, and fish.


Raw marinated ground beef. (Surprisingly delicious.)


Although they kept clearing plates away as more food came, eventually the table became crowded with dishes.


Japchae 잡채, which I normally think of as the lowliest of dishes. This was "Royal Japchae", however.


Followed by Royal Hot Pot, served in the cutest little individual-sized firepot.



After all these dishes had been served, braised ribs (galbi-jjim 갈비찜) came out along with four side dishes (banchan 반찬).


Then, in rapid succession, seaweed soup, rice, fruit (chamoe and orange), a sweet dessert drink called shikhye, and tteok.

Today in Seoul, it's possible to eat emperor food up in the hills where once only top government officials could go. That's what political openness and economic prosperity will do for you.

Uiinhwa 2

Two more anthopomorphic foods to share.

Walked up a different alley on my way home from the subway station the other day, and saw this restaurant:


The name of the restaurant is Pungcheon Jang-eo, or Pungcheon Eel. Pungcheon, literally 'abundant river' (豐川), is the name of a stream in Jeolla Province that is known for its fine-tasting eels. The word for eel literally means 'long fish' (長魚).

Featured on the sign is an eel chef serving up some slices of eel.

Love the way the eel is wearing a little chef's cap on its tail. Now that's kitchen hygiene for you!

Waiting for some friends outside the Nakseongdae subway station the other day, I was standing near a small street stall selling fruits and vegetables, and spotted this box:


That's a freckle-faced Asian pear, wearing a traditional Korean farmer's straw hat, holding an Asian pear, and giving the inevitable thumbs-up sign.


The text at the bottom is this character's name: Baedori. Bae is 'Asian pear' and -dori is, I believe, a prototypical hypocoristic ending for boys names. (See, for example, this page on the 1988 Korean Olympic mascot.) So the name is something like "Li'l Pear" or "Peary".

(If he's got a girlfriend, her name would be Baesuni, or "Pearette".)

Hi Seoul!

The newer subway cars in service in the city have video monitors mounted in the cars. These usually play ads and public service announcements. (For example, one urges people not to commit suicide by throwing themselves on the tracks in front of speeding trains, since it would make their wife and kids sad.)

For the past several weeks I've been seeing a long ad for the Hi-Seoul Festival (하이서울 페스티벌) on these video monitors. It is a week-long arts and culture festival whose main purpose is to promote Seoul tourism, held four times a year. The current spring Hi-Seoul Festival took place over this past week, and that's what the ads I was seeing were for.

I was completely taken with this ad. (Or, as we would say in Korean, 이 광고에 반했다.) I couldn't hear the sound, but the images totally captivated me. I'm not sure exactly why, but I think perhaps the ad captured for me the essence of many of the things I love about this city and its residents: the dynamism, the cheerfulness, the pride. On longer subway rides I would see it play every five minutes or so, and every time it came on I would just watch and smile.

So I spent a lot of time on the web trying to track down this video, and I finally have. I present it here for your enjoyment.

It begins with a number of famous celebrities (only one of whom I recognize, pop-culture ignoramus that I am) saying "Hi, Seoul!" and then moves quickly into a montage of different people and groups performing the same dance routine. Two of the groups are young children dancing at one of the main city palaces; one is dancers on stage in traditional Korean hanbok; another has performers dressed as police and other characters on a cartoony stage set. Interspersed with these are scenes of ordinary people and tourists at various locations around the city, as well as of Seoul firefighters and police, who have been coaxed into doing some of the dance moves for the camera.

Enjoy!

Sang-eul Tatda

Warning: Boastful blog entry alert!

Had final exams Wednesday and Thursday. As promised, the listening comprehension was definitely harder than it was for the midterm. I had to make guesses on three or four of the 20 questions. But I knew that I did well on the other parts of the exam.

Yesterday, Friday, was our suryo-shik (수료식 修了式), or "completion ceremony" for the end of the term. It's not called a graduation ceremony because most students aren't graduating from the program, just completing one level and getting ready to move on to the next.

The ceremony was pretty fancy. It was held in an auditorium. As is standard practice for events of any size in Asia, there was a large banner strung up at the front of the room.

It reads: Congratulations, everyone! / Korean Course Completion Ceremony / Seoul National University Language Education Institute

Some students were graduating from the program -- those that had completed Level 6. They wore borrowed gowns and mortarboards, and one of their number gave a short valedictory speech. (Interesting fact: By my count, of the 18 graduating students, 16 were women.)

Graduation was actually the last event on the schedule. I'm showing pictures out of order.

The first event was entertainment. Various students performed songs and dances.




It was all very professionally done, with lighting effects, excellent sound quality, and projected images on the big screen.

Before the ceremony began, I and a handful of other students were asked to move down and sit in the front row. So I knew I was likely to get some sort of award.

As it turns out, I was called up twice. First for having the highest total grade out of all the four Level 3 Classes (about 40 students), a combined score of 99. I apparently got a perfect score on the final exam listening comprehension, which means I guessed right on all those questions I was unsure about.


For some reason I had decided to put on a tie that morning, so I looked rather professional receiving my award. It consisted of a certificate and a nice SNU pen/pencil set.


Not long after, I was called up a second time to receive 300,000 won (about US $300). These scholarships are given to a handful of students in recognition of "sincere attitude" and "superior performance" that makes them a model to other students. I think the award was based on a combination of my grades and some subjective judgment on the part of the teachers.

It sure is fun to get an envelope full of cash!


I feel like I have a lot of advantages over many other students -- maturity (well ... age anyway), experience, knowledge of other languages, no need to work part-time jobs, etc. -- so it doesn't seem entirely fair for me to compete directly against them for these awards. And many other students are certainly in greater need of cash assistance than I am.

But it is wonderfully satisfying to come for just one term of study and feel a real, and publicly acknowledged, sense of accomplishment at the end of it as I prepare to head home in little more than a week.