This dog-soup restaurant that I photographed two months ago:
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| Yeongyang tang 영양탕, literally "nourishment soup", refers to soup made from dog meat. |
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| Bosin tang 보신탕, literally "rejuvenating soup", also refers to soup made from dog meat. |
The coffee shop next door to Tek's daycare was transformed into a hoe 회 (Korean sashimi) restaurant in a matter of days. Now the piano shop next to that restaurant is being demolished.
There are not the same kind of safety precautions here as in the States, for either workers or bystanders. One seldom sees construction workers with safety gear like helmets, ear protection, or goggles even when they are operating heavy, loud, dangerous equipment. The work often spills out into the street without regard for impact on traffic or pedestrians.
A block east of Tek's daycare a new building is going up. One day on our way home we stopped to watch a mini excavator digging a trench in the road in front, presumably for some kind of utility hook-up. Notice the total lack of signs, cones, or any accommodation for the two-way traffic and the pedestrians.
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| This is an active two-way street! |
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| Occasionally this guy with a broom would step out into the street to make sure the cars didn't fall into the trench. |
It then closed, and we've been observing its transformation into a restaurant. Bringing Tek by after daycare to check on its progress has become part of our daily routine. The other day we overheard the restaurant owner, who is often on site supervising, refer to Tek as her "regular customer kid" on the phone.
They just got their new signs up today. But they haven't completely removed the old signage yet.
I don't know if all this demolition and construction and business turnover is just the way things always are here, or if the economy is entering a boom phase.
The old dog-soup place had a very interesting-looking name, no? Four characters in a row that look kind of similar (and two that are identical). Any significance? (I see that the new place has the same final character. I conclude that it means "dog," "soup," or "restaurant.")
ReplyDeleteI can see why you say that. But it doesn't really make any more sense than saying about the English sentence "BUG IN A BIG BAG" that it has "three characters that look very similar and two that are identical". That is, the first part is misleading (there are no "characters") and the second is wrong (nothing is identical.)
ReplyDeleteKorean is alphabetic, with the letters bunched up into rectangles each of which represents a syllable. The sign says 개성영양탕. Those little circles at the bottom are the letter for the -ng sound. It just happens that there are four syllables that end in an -ng sound. The romanized form is Gaeseong Yeongyang Tang. Gaeseong is a city in North Korea (often spelled Kaesong). Yeongyang means "nutrition" (it's borrowed from Chinese yíngyǎng 營養), and Tang, as you surmised, means "soup" (also borrowed from Chinese: tāng 湯).
Speaking of "dog", "soup", or "restaurant", check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosintang#Names
In the photo of the boy looking at the mini-excavator, you can see that he is next to a sign that also has the syllable 탕 (above the 33). Here though, it does not mean soup. It is a sign for a public bath.
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