Fighteeng!

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!