Announcement: New Q&A System

Dear everyone who sent the Korean questions -- the Korean has not forgotten about you. But the Korean tries to answer all questions in the order received, and the delay is pretty long (right now around 2 months.) The delay is especially long because of the Korea-Japan series, and since there will be another series about language, it's going to be longer.So when you do send a question that is time-sensitive,...

Korean Language Lesson Series – Methodology

Dear Korean,I am a Korean-American in my 30s and I didn't learn the Korean language when I was a kid, except little tidbits. I want to learn more and someday speak fluently. What books, methods would you recommend?Keep on trucking!- Eager BeaverDear Eager Beaver,The Korean Mother is a high school Korean language teacher. After going through a few different books, she found Integrated Korean by University...

Read This, Fans of The Departed, and Learn the Truth.

At the end of a previous post, the Korean promised that he would pour down some raging shitstorm upon Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences if The Departed wins any Oscar. Well, The Departed won 4, so here is the shitstorm, as promised.Here is the simple reason why any Academy won by The Departed is bullshit. The Departed...

Looking for Korean Men?

If you had noticed, there is a little tag on the bottom of the tool bar on the right, called "sitemeter". Sitemeter is this neat thing where the Korean may track how many visitors Ask A Korean! has had, and so on.One of the features of Sitemeter is that the Korean can see what terms people searched on Google or Yahoo to get to this blog. Overwhelming majority of the search terms, obviously, is "ask...

Korea-Japan Relation Saga, Part III – WWII

See other posts in this series: Part I Part II Part IV Part VThis post is a particularly difficult for the Korean to write because, after all, he received a good amount of education in Korea, especially when he was young and impressionable. It is difficult for the Korean to be objective, but he will try his best.We are still dealing with the question as to why Koreans hate Japanese so much. If you...

Sae-hae Bok Mah-ni Baht-u-se-yo! -- Part II

The past weekend was Lunar New Year (the 18th, to be exact). If you call it Chinese New Year, the Korean, along with the Vietnamese (whoever and wherever s/he may be) will kick your ass. Just like Christmas is not European Winter Solstice, Lunar New Year is not Chinese.Lunar New Year is called seol-nal in Korean. It is also...

Military Stories

(If you are not familiar with the concept of Goon-dae, please read this post first.)A reader sent the Korean this:My daddy loves to tell his military stories! The most traumatic to me as a young girl (regretfully, his firstborn was a girl, and by over five years - although he adjusted by making me a badass) was the story about digging tunnels through snow in his underwear in the bitter Korean winters.The...

Happy Commercially Made-up Gift Giving Day!

(Okay fine, this post is a day late. Last time the Korean checked, ain't nobody paying him to keep up the blog, so the posts will come when the Korean damn well pleases.)You think Valentine's Day is commercialized? You should see what's going on in East Asia - as with cars and electronics, they took something from America and...

Korea-Japan Relation Saga, Part II: Pre-Modern Times

(See Part I here.)Here is one thing that Americans tend not to understand about the world: most countries in the world have a very long history, and the modern citizens of those countries identify with their history 100 percent. For example, as much as Americans learn about the heroics of George Washington, relatively few people...

Ask A Korean! News: KFC - Not from Kentucky

There are so many delicious Korean foods, but you probably wouldn't have guessed that fried chicken is one of them. Well, Korean fried chicken is really unlike any other in the world, and it's finally available in New York. The New York Times carried an article about Korean-style fried chicken places that are now popping up...

Super Bowl!

The Korean is more of a college football fan, but it's a big day so why not?Super Bowl XLI is meaningful for the Korean Family because this would be the first Super Bowl that the Korean Father would ever be watching. The Korean Father loves sports, but could not get into football because 1. there is no pro football team in LA, 2. the rules are too complicated. But over the last year's bowl season,...

Gangsters and Thugs, Criminals and Hoods

Dear Korean,I've been doing some reading for a project and came across a reference to the Korean mafia. Can you give us a little primer on them? What makes them different from other organized crime syndicates? Their history? What types of services they provide? How they are structured? How they are seen by the Korean society?...