Fighteeng!

I didn't see anyone take the offer, but they had buddies priming the pump by putting on a show for passerbys.

Gotta hand it to these enterprising college students dooking it out just outside Seohyun station the other night around 10pm.

I thought someone had lost a bet, but apparently they’re just trying to make a few extra bucks.  Instead of the plain old, part time waiter or tutoring jobs, these guys were offering anyone to take free shots at the guy with the red headgear for a mere 10,000 won for 30 minutes.   That’s not bad considering minimum wage is about 4,000 won per hour, or just over $3 USD.

Sorry guys, I couldn't find any hot ring card girls, but just these dudes holding up homely posters promoting their new business.

Well, won’t the guy in the headgear, who has gloves too, hit you back?  Ahh, well… that’s where the real draw comes in.  After getting the scoop from my K-friend who was with me at the time, I learned that the guy in the headgear can’t hit you back.  He will only stay in a defensive posture by blocking punches or dodging out of the way.  Or so they claim.

So if you’re stressed out,  you don’t have to beat your wife or drink yourself silly.  Deal with it constructively by punching some poor college students who have too much time on their hands.

Maybe one of these guys will end up doing better than Hong Man Choi, whose MMA career seems limited to celebrity matches like fighting Shaq.

Here's badass Korean rapper, MC Sniper. I doubt his lyrics are consistent with classical Korean.

I didn’t know that Korea used to have another national holiday until I read this editorial at the Chosun Ilbo lamenting how modern popular use of the Korean language has apparently butchered its initial design and intent.

“… the crudeness of the Korean used on the Internet and heard on television, as well as jargon, shortened words and other slang are an insult to our ancestors. We have ended up maiming our written language rather than advancing the alphabet we inherited from our forefathers.”

Hmm… I’m not sure if this is a fair comparison, but is he advocating the analogous position that contemporary usage of English would be blasphemous next to classic examples such as Shakespeare or the King James Version of the Bible?   Has Western street culture influenced Korea to such an extent that there might be such a thing as Korean Ebonics?

What I like, but also bothers me the most about learning Korean formally at university programs is that although I’ll learn the correct way of speaking and writing, I won’t be able to converse in a way that will connect with the locals.  For example, I can understand the formality used when I’m speaking with customer service people at restaurants and stores, but when I’m with a group of Korean friends just hanging out, a lot of it just goes over my head.

While I sympathize with what this guy is saying about preserving the original beauty of the Korean language, I wouldn’t mind attending a class on Korean slangs that complemented the standard stuff, so I can understand some of the jargon coming out of Korean gangster movies or Korean hip hop.

Nearly every Korean newspaper has a short section on learning English that inevitably uses American idioms from examples such as the TV show Friends or The Office, so I don’t see the harm in teaching foreigners the free spirited and casual Korean that is used everyday anyways.  After all, didn’t the late Roh Moo Hyun endear himself to voters by using Korean slang during his campaign speeches?

In a survey in September by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, 68.8 percent of respondents said they favored reinstating Hangeul Day as a national holiday. Serious thought is needed about how such a holiday can be spent meaningfully, since it marks the moment when the written language began enlightening the people.

Hey, I’m all for another holiday that gets me off of work, but I agree that needs to be done in a meaningful way, or else it might devolve into another Columbus day or Labor day that gives people an excuse to just fart around the house the whole day.

Moreover I learned from wiki that just 8 years ago, employers had discontinued the holiday to get another day of productivity out of its workers.  But that was when they didn’t even get Saturdays off.  Since that time, Korea has become a global economic power, so the old argument that having a Hanguel day was hurting the GDP seems misplaced.

So I say too, bring back Hanguel day!

The Chosun Ilbo profiles a fascinating professor named Robert Fouser at Seoul National University who teaches Koreans how to teach the Korean language to foreigners.  The fact that he’s not a Korean (but an American) is a pleasant surprise, but what was more remarkable was that he thinks Koreans ought to be learning more about their own language than English.  Why?

… “There are people who need to speak English at work for business purposes, but not everyone in the country needs to speak English well,” he says. “In fact, I believe the emphasis should be on classical Chinese in order to improve Koreans’ understanding of their own language. Learning Japanese or Chinese seems a lot more effective for Koreans than struggling to learn English. This is the very reason why Latin is regarded as so important in France and Germany, because Latin forms the basis of their languages.”

Sure, of course it’s more effective for Koreans to learn Japanese or Chinese because of greater similarities in language than English, but just because it’s easier doesn’t mean that it’s beneficial in terms of their careers.  An article few days earlier reveals that 80% of Koreans think that their poor command of English is a detriment to their salary.   Most Koreans might not use English much everyday in the office, but the ability to use it is a barometer to see who the best employees are.

I think as a professor of the Korean language, Fouser is probably a bit disappointed that Koreans who strive to teach their language to others do not sufficiently understand the roots and history of their own native tongue.

So will learning the language of their neighbors necessarily also improve the spread of the Korean language? Not quite.

Fouser points to the lack of a systematic approach to Korean language teaching despite increasing numbers of foreigners who are interested. “There needs to be a more professional and comprehensive body for Korean language education to spread the language,” he says.

Hmm… that must be a dig at the Korean language division of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, who is helping to coordinate the adoption of Hanguel alphabet by Indonesian tribes.

Kim Kyu Kwang, who looks like your average teenage guy playing too much Starcraft, is a bit negligent in school and tests and says proudly that he doesn’t want to be doing what other people tell him to.  You might be inclined to think the kid is a slacker, but  he is actually a precocious scientist who just published his first paper in a medical journal, according to the Chosun Ilbo.  Here’s a day in the life of Kim:

As soon as he started high school, he immersed himself in the world of science. All his self-study hours and weekends were devoted to his scientific endeavors.

When he could not figure out answers to questions on his own, he sought help from a university. He sent an email to a medical professor at Seoul National University and asked to be accepted as an intern in a lab and got a chance to observe experiments in the diagnostic microbiology lab at SNU during the summer and winter vacations of his first year. As soon as the supplementary classes at school were over, he ran over to the lab, where he stayed until 10 p.m. every day.

Because he was so focused on science, Kyu-kwang was a little negligent in preparing for school and university entrance exams. But he says, “I’m so happy to be doing what I really like to do, rather than studying stuff that other people tell me to. I want to continue study science and work in bio-informatics.” Kim has applied for early admission at SNU, POSTECH and KAIST.

Way to go, kid.  While his friends all go to cram school and hagwons after school, he jets off to the lab.  What impresses me isn’t so much his academic capability… there are plenty of youngsters like him in Korea… but his attitude that he doesn’t want to do what other people tell him to, probably referring to his parents, teachers and peers.  He knows what he wants and he gets is.  He is an example of how Western individualism, usually regarded as a negative trait for disrupting social harmony in Korea, can be a positive influence on education.

Granted, not too many teenagers know what they want at such a young age…. even adults have a hard time figuring out what their career path is… but sometimes as parents, myself included, perhaps we stifle our kids’ curiosity and ignore signs of their true interests because we don’t want to them to fall behind whatever our neighbor’s kids are doing.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting a well rounded kid that can compete on par with his peers, but not at the expense of fostering his or her own natural gifts and talents.