Tag Archives: South Korea
Wayfarer’s Challenge
This is an article I wrote for A Holistic Journey. South Korea was, and still is, a means of escape for me. On a practical level, it offered me a ticket out of my depressing neighborhood in Nevada (U.S.) with the meth lab across the street. On a slightly higher level, it released the […]
Racing Videos
Hey all, here are the videos I made about racing the Daewoo. I’ve decided to post them oldest to newest. Hopefully there will be many more in 2014.
The Speech Contest
I had been avoiding giving speeches at the Mokwon University chapter of Toastmasters, mostly because the speeches are in English, the members are almost entirely Korean and the entire thought of competing with them just struck me as incredibly unfair. There was also the part about me not wanting to write or memorize a […]
Context in Foreign Language
I had gotten to the point I was feeling pretty cocky with my Korean. Granted, I am perhaps a bit (okay, a lot) more prone to bouts of cartoonish egomania than most, but this particular run of overconfidence wasn’t entirely my fault. You see, on the morning in question the nice lady selling me coffee […]
Woopsies I’ve Made Trying to Speak Korean
Bad subtitles in Kung Fu movies have made the woopsies of Asians speaking English well known. However, what many westerners do not know is that the Placenta and Teeny Weeny stuff goes in both directions. Stuff I’ve said while trying to speak Korean: In conversation with an older woman. “I speak politely to you because […]
Adventures in Linguistics
Korean (한국어) differs from English in every way you can imagine. It also differs in some ways you cannot imagine. Because of this both Koreans and native speakers of English often end up with creative grammar, weirdness galore and unintentional humor when they stray from their mother tongues. The Korean-speaking-English weirdness manifests in what I […]
Fun Facts on Teaching English in South Korea
Hi everyone, Here are a few fun facts if you are interested in teaching English in South Korea: Most programs for foreigners teaching in Korea require nothing more than a four year degree. There are also comparable programs in Japan and China. Typical pay for a teacher in Korea is around 2,000,000 won per month […]
Return to the United States
A little more than a year ago I left behind my family, my friends and my job in Reno. I did this because Chungdahm April Language Academy offered me work teaching English in Korea. Here’s what happened. Return to the United States “그레하운드 장류정에 가야 해요.” I was standing at the airport in San Francisco […]
People and Fun and Funny People
I lived in Daegu for my year of teaching. I started out knowing exactly zero people and finished the year with more friends than I could make time to hang out with, which brings me to another observation on Korea. If you can’t make friends there you either stink to high hell, look like a […]
Things to Fear and Things to Ignore, Korean-style
A good rule of thumb for Korea is to assume that half of what you see will be very familiar and half will look like something invented by Martians. You can find multitudes of Martian-like behaviors by examining the things Koreans fear and the things they couldn’t care less about. Koreans do not like infectious […]
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