Gyeongju's old city wall

The old city wall of Gyeongju, which dates back to the 11th century, has long fallen into disrepair, and its remains are only visible in a few places. But the city has recently embarked on an ambitious project to restore sections of it.

looking to the southwest: east section of wall and structure foundation

looking to the northwest: east section of wall and structure foundation (and boy with parasol)

Here's a bit of information about the city wall. Perhaps the stones visible in the pictures above are related to the Jipgyeongjeon Hall or the administration building mentioned in the text.

The word "defying" in the English text is definitely a mistake. The intended word is probably something like "displaying".

A bit to the north of where the two pictures above were taken is the location of the former east gate (Hyangilmun 향일문 向日門 'Facing-the-sun Gate') to the city. Several backhoes are currently at work day and night preparing the site for the restoration of the gate and surrounding wall, as well as a park-like adjoining area. It should be pretty spectacular when it's finished.

Artist's rendition of future appearance of this section of the wall

Gyeongju's been spending loads of money on these sorts of restoration projects, both beautifying the city and making it more attractive to tourists.

Another major project is the restoration of the old Woljeong 월정 Bridge. It was built in 760 and was Korea's first covered bridge. The restored bridge is going to be quite magnificent.

Artist's rendition of future appearance of restored Woljeong Bridge

Much of the bridge proper is already completed, but the two side houses are still under construction, so you can't yet walk across the bridge. We visited a few nights ago and discovered that the whole thing is beautifully lit up at night.

We hope to walk across it next time we have a chance to visit Gyeongju.

English borrowings vs. English words

Here's an interesting sign that we saw recently in the window of a clothing store at a highway rest stop, advertising a really good deal.

Reduced from $300 to $150!

You will notice immediately that there is an English word on this sign. But it may surprise you to know that, in fact, all the words on this sign but one are English. Or, to be more precise, they are of English origin.

The text in green reads:

Orthography: 매쉬 베스트 + 점퍼 SET
Transcription: meswi beseuteu-wa jeompeo seteu
Pronunciation: me-shwee be-suh-tuh-wa juhm-puh setoo [mɛ.sʷi bɛ.sɨ.tʰɨ-wa tʒʌm.pʰʌ sɛ.tʰɨ]
Meaning: "mesh vest and jacket set"

Excluding the plus sign, this line consists entirely of words of English origin:

meswi 매쉬 from mesh
beseuteu 베스트 from vest
jeompeo 점퍼 from jumper (British English meaning 'sweater', but used for 'jacket' in Korean)
seteu SET from set

So why are the first three written in the Korean alphabet, while the last is written in the Roman alphabet?

I don't know why.

First hypothesis: The first three words are Korean words—though Koreans may know they are from English, they function as ordinary Korean words. The fourth word is not a Korean word, but an English word that all Koreans recognize from having studied English in school. This accounts for the difference in orthography.

Second hypothesis: All four words are equally Korean, but the last is written in the Roman alphabet to attract attention and lend cachet.

Parking in Gyeongju (part 4)

I mentioned in the first post of this series that the indiscriminate and inconsiderate parking habits are as much of a hassle for locals (at least when they aren't the ones doing the parking) as they are for visitors like me.

If you have a house or a business, how do you stop cars from parking in front, making it impossible for you to get in and out, move supplies in and out, and let customers in and out?

As you can see, a "NO PARKING - Tow Away Zone" sign will not do the job.

Small plastic traffic cones are no deterrent.  They can be easily crushed without damage to the car.

The most commonly employed solutions are low tech but quite effective. People set out obstacles, heavy and solid enough to deter a would-be parker from simply driving over them or moving them, but portable enough that they can be moved out of the way by the home/shop owner if necessary.

One of the most popular anti-parking devices are large plastic jugs filled with water or, more commonly, sand.

This residence is on our daily walk to daycare. Every morning the woman sets out her jugs on the street.

All sorts of other objects are employed. Giant tires, metal barriers.

Notice this metal thing is secured by a chain so it can't be stolen.

When not in use, it can be stored off the street. Note the wrappings around the sharp edges.

All of these barriers make it really hard to walk on the street as a pedestrian. Note that there are no sidewalks on these streets. When there are no barriers, you can walk reasonably safely just inside the dotted yellow lines, as here:

But when the barriers are out, you have to constantly step out into traffic in order to walk around them.

(This is post 4 out of 4 on the subject of parking. See earlier posts here, here, and here.)

Parking in Gyeongju (part 3)

As a rule, streets, driving lanes on major roads and freeways, and parking spaces are narrow. But Koreans have fallen in love with large cars. Fitting these cars into an infrastructure designed for small cars is a challenge; the likelihood of cars denting and scratching each other is high.

A very high percentage of cars have little foam blocks glued onto the doors. At first I thought that these were there to protect the car from getting damaged. But on reflection, that really wouldn't work: they can't keep the body safe from dents and scratches. It seems more likely that they are there to protect other cars from being dented by a thrown-open door. Or perhaps to protect the door edge itself from being damaged when thrown open into the side of another door.

Many of these foam blocks are blue and non-descript of shape.

At first I assumed that these were purchased by the car owner, but later I noticed the same kind of foam blocks on some new cars being transported by car trailer. So now I think they are probably put on at the factor to protect cars during transport to the dealer. I don't know if they are left on new cars when they are sold as a matter of course, or if the new owner can request not to have them removed.

Some foam door protectors come in other colors and inventive shapes, and I suspect that these have been purchased and attached by the car owner.

Here's a pink one shaped like ... hmm, maybe a cloud.

And here are pink ones that are wing-shaped.

And here's a car that appears to have supplemented the blue factory foam guard with some dog's-paw shaped foam pads that may be designed to protect the car from damage. Or perhaps they are just there to look cute.

By the way, if you look at the cars in my posts, you'll notice that nearly all the cars are white, black, or silver. It looks to me like well over 80% of the cars on the road are one of these three colors.

(This is post 3 out of 4 on the subject of parking. See earlier posts here and here and later post here.)

Parking in Gyeongju (part 2)

Some people park in everyone's way so often that they keep their cell phone number visible on the dashboard. That way they can be reached and asked to move their car.

The methods for displaying the phone number range from the purely utilitarian to the whimsical.

"I am temporarily parked. Sorry!"

"Temporarily parked"

"Today too, safely ..."

I haven't bothered to blur out the phone numbers. Please don't call any of them!

I don't know if people put these numbers in the window out of a genuine desire not to be troublesome to others, or if they feel that putting their numbers in the window is a defense against ill will, giving them effective free rein to park wherever they wish.

(This is post 2 out of 4 on the subject of parking. See earlier post here and later posts here and here.)

Teachers' Day

This month we've already had Children's Day and Parents' Day, and now, today, is Teachers' Day. Many gifts have been exchanged this month.

The name of the holiday in Korean is of interest. It is called Seuseung ui nal 스승의 날 "Teachers' Day". What's interesting about it is that the word used here is not the common Korean word for teacher, which is seonseang 선생 先生. Seonsaeng, of course, is just a borrowing from Chinese (cf. Mandarin xiānsheng 先生)—or, more properly, just a borrowing from Japanese (cf. sensei 先生) which is a borrowing from Chinese.

Seuseung is the native Korean word for teacher, a word that has been almost entirely replaced by the borrowing. I've never heard it used in normal conversation.

At any rate, this is the day that students give gifts to their teachers to show their appreciation. It was a pleasant surprise for me to receive a gift from one of my students in America.

The word for teacher on the ribbon is seonsaeng 선생 (plus honorific suffix -nim 님).

This basket is a mix of roses and carnations. The carnation is a symbol of affection and respect, so it is frequently used as a gift for both Parents' Day and Teachers' Day.

According to Wikipedia, the date of Teachers' Day was moved to May 15 from May 26 in 1965. May 15 is the birthday of King Sejong, perhaps the most famous of Korea's monarchs, who is known for his wisdom and love of learning. He is credited not only for wise rule but also for a number of impressive inventions, not the least of which is the Korean alphabet. This makes his birthday a fitting day to celebrate the contributions of teachers.

What's wrong with Korean alphabet

Actually, nothing is wrong with the Korean alphabet per se. It's great. But there is a problem with the way the letters of the alphabet are presented and learned. It's the result of some changes in pronunciation that have happened over the 500+ years since the alphabet was invented.

Here's a poster of the alphabet the way it is usually presented, with 24 letters: 14 for consonants and 10 for vowels.

I've placed a bright red vertical line after the last consonant and before the last vowel.

The ordering is quite systematic. All the consonant letters come first, then all the vowel letters. Within each group there is also a logical ordering. Little kids learn the alphabet by reciting these 24 letters in order.

Here's an example of systematicity in letter design. If a vowel sign has an extra short line attached to it, that signifies a preceding "y" sound. Below are the vowel letters in the same order seen on the poster, along with their transcriptions. As you can see, they are paired together in groups with and without "y".

ㅏ a   ㅑ ya
ㅓ eo  ㅕ yeo  ("uh" and "yuh")
ㅗ o  ㅛ yo
ㅜ u  ㅠ yu
ㅡ eu  (close to the vowel sound in English "put")
ㅣ i

These are the basic vowel letters in the alphabet, but they are not the only vowel sounds that can occur in a Korean syllable. Most other vowel sounds are actually combinations of vowels—diphthongs—and are written with two vowel letters each. This is why they are not considered basic and don't appear on the chart. You don't need to learn them as part of the alphabet, because they are just letter combinations.

For example, the word for 'ear' is gwi. It has two vowel sounds in it, u followed by i. It's written 귀, i.e. ㄱ (g) plus ㅜ plus ㅣ. The vowel combination wi ㅟ isn't considered part of the alphabet because it is transparently composed of ㅜ plus ㅣ and it is pronounced as u plus i. (Try saying "ui" fast and notice that it turns into "wi".)

Okay, so far so good. But something interesting happened to Korean pronunciation a few hundred years ago. In 15th-century Korean there were two diphthongs ay and eoy, pronounced like the vowels in the English words buy and boy, respectively. The first one, ay, is an a sound followed by an i sound, so was written ㅏ plus ㅣ, i.e. ㅐ. The second one, eoy, is eo ("uh") followed by i, so was written  ㅓ plus ㅣ, i.e. ㅔ. Just as with wi, these were transparent combinations, so they weren't learned as basic letters of the alphabet.

But then pronunciation changed. The sound ay coalesced into a single vowel ae (as in English met), and the sound eoy coalesced into a single vowel e (as in English mate).* But their spelled forms didn't change. So while graphically ㅐ and ㅔ look like sequences of two vowels, they are pronounced as single vowels. That means that you can't understand how to pronounce them by looking at their graphic structure the way you can with wi ㅟ. You just have to learn them as is:

ㅔ e
ㅐ ae

Well, think of poor little 3-year-old Tek. He's been looking at this poster in his room every day, learning the letters, singing them at school, and he's also learned how to write his name in Korean. And one day he says, looking at the chart, "Where is ㅐ?" That's the vowel in his name. And it's not on the poster!

In my opinion, the "alphabet" should have been reformed long ago with the addition of ㅐ and ㅔas basic letters. In our household we have taken a small step in that direction by amending our poster.

The alphabet chart, now supplemented with one of the two missing basic vowel sounds.

 * For almost all Korean speakers these two vowels have now merged, but they are kept distinct in spelling. Kind of like the way "w" and "wh" sounds have merged for most speakers of American English, but we still keep them distinct in spelling.

Parking in Gyeongju (part 1)

In a continuing effort to make this blog as exciting as possible, I'm devoting yet another post to parking, everyone's favorite topic.*

Here's the first thing about parking. Parking spaces are fully enclosed by white lines, unlike in the US, where only three sides of the parking space are lined.

Note the burial mounds in the background. Sure sign that we are in Gyeongju.

It's amazing to me how such a small distinction can create such a large difference in impression. There's something about parking lots that seems Tetris-like, as if a child is going to arrange toy vehicles inside little rectangular compartments. Although the feel is very ordered, the effect is somewhat chaotic, as there is no indication of which side you are meant to enter the space from.

In Seoul and in Japan I've seen a lot of crazy parking structures that are designed to efficiently pack a lot of cars into very small spaces. I've blogged some of them; the photos are worth checking out.* We've only seen one such structure in Gyeongju, and it's not all that impressive. But it's still weird-looking to an American.

It's a parking elevator.

So here's my rant. I really, really, really hate the way people park here. It is careless, thoughtless, and hazardous. There seems to be no limit to how illegally or dangerously someone will park. Completely blocking traffic, putting pedestrian lives in danger, causing material damage to public and private property—these are apparently not concepts that trouble the minds of drivers wishing to leave their cars.

I'm pretty tolerant when it comes to cultural differences. But not in this case. I feel constantly endangered by the idiocy of the parking culture here. Below is my gallery of annoyingly, stupidly parked cars. You could get this many pictures any day of the week by walking around for five minutes. I am mercifully only posting seven here for now.

Car blocking alley

Close-up of hopelessly inadequate cones meant to prevent cars from parking in crosswalk

Car in crosswalk

Car even more blocking crosswalk, and sidewalk

Cars parked on sidewalk

Car parked in front of "No parking in road" sign

Car making mockery of rubber cone

 When I asked Erma's parents why Koreans do this, my father-in-law's response was "Those stupid guys." I guess that's about all the explanation one can hope for.

  Needless to say, there is no parking enforcement. Maybe a few tickets would solve the problem.

  This situation is not just painful to foreign visitors, but also creates a great deal of inconvenience for locals (when they are not themselves being drivers). I'll post about how they deal with the parking nightmare soon.

* Okay, maybe just my favorite topic. Here are all the posts on this blog that have been tagged with the label "parking" -- 8 and counting.

Parents' Day

Close on the heels of Children's Day is Parents' Day. Which is surprising because I would have thought the corollary to the Peanuts strip is that in Korea, every day is Parents' Day. The school did not forget about this holiday either. They sent home a little basket of carnations and a card:

Carnations seem to be the official flower of Parents' Day.

Here's the back of the card:

"Mom, Dad, I love you"

Unlike Children's Day, school is open on Parents' Day but Tek happened to skip that day because we took a road trip. (More on the road trip later.) They seem to be very good at observing holidays at the day care.

This post is about men's bathrooms

This is not the first post on this blog about men's bathrooms, and I suspect it won't be the last.

On my way to Changwon 창원 last weekend, I changed bullet trains at Dongdaegu 동대구 station. The train I got on was actually two trains stuck together. It was announced that after pulling out of the station, the train would separate and go to two different destinations.

Two trains joined

But I digress. This sign was hanging on the wall just inside the entrance to one of the sizable men's rooms at Dongdaegu Station.

Korean, English, Chinese (in a notably ugly font), Japanese

There is an Asian zone within which female employees clean men's public restrooms while they are in use. It includes China, Taiwan, Korea, and Thailand, but I haven't traveled widely enough to provide exact boundaries. I have had on more than one occasion the experience of peeing at a urinal while a middle-aged woman is standing behind me mopping around my feet.

It's hard to say to whom this is more degrading, or whether it is degrading at all. It's a cultural phenomenon that I just can't wrap my head around. In cultures that are traditionally quite conservative when it comes to keeping the sexes separated, it's never made sense to me that you would have women watching men relieve themselves. On the other hand, the women are usually quite old; perhaps they are considered desexed by age.

Whether or not this is related to the fact that in these same countries (and Japan) it is typical for men's bathrooms to be situated in such a way that passers-by can get a glimpse of men peeing as they walk past the open door I can't say. (For pictures, see the last half of this post.)

Anyway, the unusual thing about the sign reproduced above is that it claims that the bathroom is closed during cleaning. I've never seen a sign like this before, and I wonder if it's an attempt to "Westernize" the public face of Korea (much like the "walk on the right" campaign)—a theory supported by the use of multiple languages. But nobody was falling for it. The bathroom was briskly in use, men walking in and out completely oblivious to the female workers doing their job inside. None of those workers were young or smiling like the lady in this picture.

Saying goodbye is hard to do

When traveling to another country, many people try at the minimum to learn how to say three things (in addition to basic counting): hello, goodbye, and thank you. It's not hard to learn a few polite phrases, and it can go a long way toward smoothing your interactions.

For most languages this is pretty easy, if you're not too hung up on perfect pronunciation.

Mandarin Chinese: nǐ hǎo, zàijiàn, xièxiè. (6 syllables)
French: bonjour, au revoir, merci. (7 syllables)

But for Korean it's a different story.

"Thank you" isn't actually that bad: gamsahamnida. It's a bit long at five syllables, but it's perfectly serviceable in most situation.

"Hello" is somewhat trickier. You can get by with just one form, annyeong haseyo (5 syllables), but you will hear people say annyeong hasimnikka to you, so you've got to be ready for that one. And to kids you should really just say annyeong, but annyeong haseyo won't be a disaster, after all they're just kids, what do they care?

The real problem is goodbye. This is where the different level of politeness and formality, and a wide variety of different farewell contexts, create a genuine challenge of monumental proportions. There is simply no one way to say goodbye that you get away with in all contexts.

Here are different situations that all require a different form of goodbye:

1. You are leaving, the addressee is staying.
2. You are staying, the addressee is leaving or you are both leaving, but in different directions.
3. You are leaving, but plan on coming back later.
4. The addressee is leaving, but planning on coming back later.

Each of these five must be properly modulated, and in some cases radically transformed, depending on the relative social status of the two people involved and the degree of formality and politeness that the situation calls for.  The chart below gives just a subset of the possible utterances.

Situation	polite	non-polite (to inferior)	polite formal	literally
1	annyeonghi kyeseyo	jal isseo	annyeonghi kyesepsio	stay peacefully/well
2	annyeonghi kaseyo	jal ka	anneyonghi kasipsiyo	go peacefully/well
3	tanyeo ogesseoyo	tanyeo olkke	tanyeo ogesseumnida	I will go and come back
4	tanyeo oseyo	katta wa	tanyeo osipsio	Go and come back

But there are many other variations too.

So what should you do if you are traveling to Korea? You can manage in most cases with the first two polite forms, annyeonghi kyeseyo and annyeonghi kaseyo. It's tricky, though, because they differ by only one vowel, and you have to keep the two straight.

My advice would be to mumble the fourth syllable, smile, and bow. Bow deep if you are young, and just incline your head a bit if you are old.

Every day is Children's Day

If there's a Mother's Day and a Father's Day, why isn't there a Children's Day? Everyone knows the standard answer to that question:

In Korea, however, every day is not Children's Day. Children's Day is limited to a single day, May 5th. It's an actual holiday (a "red day" on the calendar), so ironically, Tek will not be spending Children's Day with his peers at the "children's house" (the Korean term for preschool), but with his family. They didn't forget about him, though. He came home today with a pile of gifts. 

They do seem to like to give out snacks at the preschool here. They also gave the children a T-shirt to wear as a uniform when they go on school outings. The kids were given a heavier shirt and pants set in March, but the weather is getting too warm for that. We have not yet opened the wrapped gift. I think we'll save that for Children's Day proper, since we have not gotten him anything ourselves. 

Back home, of course, today is that traditional American holiday, Cinco de Mayo. Happy May 5th, everybody!

This is the right way to catch food particles in a kitchen sink

Sometimes when you are in another country you discover a better way to do things. Some of these things are so obviously an improvement over the way things are done back home that it's hard to understand why the usage hasn't been universally adopted.

In this category I would put cup lids (China: keeps your hot drink hot) and heated toilet seats (Japan).

Also not wearing shoes in the house. This just seems pathological to me.  But I digress.

One of the things we have in America that doesn't work very well are the little kitchen sink strainers that catch food waste so it doesn't clog up the drainpipe. In my experience these things are always stupid and annoying. Here's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

It's small. It fills up right away, so you have to empty it multiple times during a single dish-washing session. But it's hard to get hold of and take out, especially when hands or sink water are soapy.

And here's the fancy, expensive version (from Kohler). Looks nicer, still works stupidly.

Every kitchen sink I've seen in Korea uses the same system, which makes the American system look like it was designed by monkeys.

The drain opening is nice and wide, a good 4 or 5 inches in diameter. On top is a flat plastic disc with sloped sides and a slotted raised center. Only food bits thin enough to slip under the slot can get into the drain.

Lift off the plastic disc, and inside is a big basket, several inches deep, with an actual handle. It has holes on the bottom and mesh sides, for good drainage. It's got a large capacity, and thank to the handle it's easy to lift out for emptying.

I don't know when these first came to Korea, if they were invented here, in Japan, or elsewhere, but it baffles me that they weren't adopted world-wide within a few years.

I wants one!

Want to know how to translate the name of that Korean dish into Chinese? Read this.

If you run a Korean restaurant here or abroad, and you hope to serve a not exclusively Korean clientele, things can be pretty rough. Romanizing the Korean names of the dishes is hard enough, but how do you translate them in a way that makes sense to foreigners?

It's not surprising that many restaurant owners resort to on-line dictionary translations. It's a dangerous game. Korean is full of homophones, and pitfalls are everywhere. For example, if you put yukhoe 육회 into a Korean-English dictionary, you might get back "six times". And you might put that on your menu. As your translation for steak tartare. And if you enter bangeo gu-i 방어구이 'fried yellowtail', you might end up with 'fried defense'.

Fortunately, the Korean government has come to the rescue with a comprehensive new app. Search for any one of hundreds of Korean dishes by name or type. You'll get the official transliteration and Japanese, Chinese, and English translations. From what I've seen of it, the app is extremely accurate and professional.

Since we here at Shou'er Journal pride ourselves on our technical savvy, I'm introducing the app to you via newspaper article. A digital photo of a newspaper article!

You can click through for a larger, more readable image.

One thing that's interesting to me about this headline is the way that Chinese characters (with alphabetic rendering of their pronunciation in parentheses below) in the headline efficiently convey a huge amount of information that would otherwise be quite difficult to explain clearly and succinctly. Chinese characters are rarely used in Korean writing these days, but their use can differentiate words that are homophonous and, because Korean spelling is so regular, orthographically identical.

The Korean alphabetic spelling 육회 could be the word yukhoe 'steak tartare' or the phrase yukhoe 'six times'. They are spelled and pronounced identically. So if the headline had just said "육회 gets translated as 'six times'", readers wouldn't understand the problem. Providing the characters makes it clear that the intended word is steak tartare, and the spelling beneath clarifies the pronunciation for anyone who is shaky on their characters—and makes explicit the homophony with 'six times'.

The picture of the app in the paper shows the jjigae 찌개 'stew' section, starting with kimchi-jjigae and dongtae-jjigae. (The makers of the app, who as I've said clearly know what they are doing, have wisely decided to stick with the familiar spelling kimchi instead of the formally correct gimchi.)