Ask a Korean! News: To Give, or Not to Give?

Mr. Joo Seong-Ha of Nambuk Story wrote a very compelling post laying out the dilemma of providing aid to North Korea. Below is the translation:

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Yesterday on this blog, a commenter quoted one of my articles and demanded that I make my position clear. I do not respond to every comment because I am busy, but in this case I felt that I had to, since the commenter said he is also a defector who does not even know if his family in North Korea is dead or alive. I myself have experienced this, so I know that pain better than anyone.

The commenter was outraged at this sentence in my article: "Personally, it does not look great on the part of Lee Myoung-Bak administration to be on a high horse of North Korean aid while only giving 10,000 ton of corn."

Before I explain my position, I will first provide a more fundamental explanation. I have always said that there is no one answer to North Korea. I believe it is a matter of choice. A mountain has only one peak, but there are many paths to reach it. One cannot say this path is the only correct path, and not that one.

Opinions regarding food aid to North Korea in the end divide into "give" and "not give". I believe that both opinions are persuasive in their own way. I have always said we should give, but I don't think the opinion of "not give" is wrong. If we do not give, we do gain much. If the rationing stops, North Korean regime's control over its people will loosen up, and the people will be freer. Of course this is a big advantage.

In spite of that, I have my own reason to promote food aid. I wrote an article previously on this topic, so I will not repeat too much. My view is that stopping food aid may be correct for now, but there might be a different answer if we considered 20-30 years into the future when Kim Jong-Il is dead and we would be judging what we did today. Let us not fixate on Kim Jong-Il regime here and now, and set our sights beyond that.

There is a third opinion that says we may provide aid as long as transparency is guaranteed. I believe this is no more than a wordplay. Defectors know what I am talking about. Every day, I saw the North Korean soldiers changed into civilian clothes and changed the license plate of the military car to fool the United Nations watchers and take the food. I have also seen the officials pretending to provide ration when the UN watchers are monitoring, and take them away when the watchers were gone.

Defectors need to respond the opinion of food aid with transparency. How would one guarantee transparency in a country like North Korea? Is it even possible? How? Everyone insists upon transparency but I have not seen anyone who provided an answer about the way to actually achieve that. Personally, I don't believe there is any way to achieve transparency unless the watchers go into every house and see the food going over people's throat. The officials will just take them away if the watchers leave. But obviously this will take several thousands of watchers, which Kim Jong-Il will never tolerate.

In other words, transparency is just a wordplay; this is a matter of giving, or not giving. Of course, if we do give, we must insist on transparency. But that is no more than a matter of occupying moral high ground in order to mentally satisfy ourselves. Sending watchers to North Korea is no more than a formality, and North Korea is only pretending to be watched. The food can go anywhere the North Korean regime wants it to go.

I previously said that we had to provide food aid even if it goes to the military. The vast majority of North Korean soldiers are children of laborers and peasants. The majority of male defectors who are now in Korea must have served their 10 years in the military as well. It would be simple to understand if you put yourselves in their shoes and think you are currently serving in the North Korean military.

I do not want them to starve. Even the soldiers will be North Korean people once they finish their service. The effect of starving in the teenage years lasts the entire life. I believe the Kim Jong-Il regime will probably continue for another ten years at best. In that case, I don't want the generation that will support North Korea after the unification to be weak and dumb because of starvation. In a society like North Korea, there is no way to distinguish the military and civilians. Do you think it is humanitarian to provide aid to children? Do you think those healthy children will not report to the military? Providing aid to North Korean children is essentially investing into the future of North Korean military.

I have also previously said that it would be a good idea to invest in North Korean infrastructure, because by the time the roads and railroads are complete in about 10 years or so, Kim Jong-Il will be dead.

Then why did I say it does not look good to grandstand over 10,000 tons?

To repeat, North Korean aid is a question of giving or not giving -- and I believe that if we are giving only 10,000 tons, we might as well not give anything. If we chose a path, we should be faithful to that principle. Now we are violating the principle (that we set for ourselves) of "no aid without reform" just to give 10,000 tons. Was Korean government's principle on North Korean policy was so cheap that it would give way to an aid of 10,000 tons? Think then about how North Korea would mock South Korea, and how North Korea would consider South Korea to be cheap. "Cheap" was the first word I thought of when I heard about the 10,000 on as well.

I think we should either give a lot more, or not give anything at all.

Some said providing corn instead of rice would make it more likely that regular people would receive the aid, but even this is suspect. Do you think North Korean officials don't eat corn? How many spoiled North Korean officials are there who refuse the ration because it's corn? Or have you seen reports that said North Korean military swore to only eat rice? That's just not true.

From South Korean perspective, rice should be easier to send up. Rice, not corn, is rotting away in government silos; it is costing South Korean government millions of dollars to keep the rice in storage. [TK note: South Korean government buys all rice that is over-produced in order to subsidize the rice farmers.] I do not really care if it is rice or corn, but maybe corn is marginally better since more quantity goes up for the same price.

At this point, there is no way to stop the 10,000 tons from going up at any rate. And we do not know how much more aid will be provided in the future.

But let's call a time out here, because there is one more thing to consider. Although I have said we should provide food aid to North Korea, but now is not the right timing. I hope we will give that 10,000 tons, and hold out for at least another six months while only saying we will provide aid.

Why? Because right now, there is a power struggle between the regime and the market forces since the currency reform. North Korean regime is trying to cut off the chain of food and household items supply that was previously dominated by the market forces, and is trying to take over that chain itself. So the regime is now trying to shut down the marketplaces, supply goods through government-owned stores and provide ration. In order to do this, the regime needs a lot of food and goods. If the regime cannot guarantee the supply, the market forces will win. There is already chaos in the marketplace.

One might hope that North Korean regime might try to re-establish order and engage in reform, but that hope is not credible. The easy way is to help the market forces win in North Korea. In order to do that, there should be no aids in goods to North Korea, as it is essentially rooting for the market forces to lose. For now, we should wait and see -- and later (the battle will be over in about half a year or so) when the market forces emerge victorious, we can send a lot of food at that point. This is how we provide North Korean aid in order to achieve our goals.

Of course we need to demand transparency with our aid. It is doubtful that our demand will have any real effect, but it puts us at a moral high ground.

North Korean regime is in a real bind since the currency reform. I think that is reflected in the fact that they are now reaching out to receive that 10,000 tons, which South Korea previously offered but North Korea did not even bother to respond. At least South Korean government is sending it into the remote port of Cheongjin, which I believe is a good idea.

This post got a lot longer than I intended. I am sure there are many who disagree with me, but it is a matter of differing opinions, not a matter of right or wrong. Any opinion can be correct as long as one takes the attitude of recognizing differences.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

AAK! Music: Hope by Kim Dong-Ryul (2000)

Inspired by a marathon session at a noraebang last night, the Korean is starting a new corner - "AAK! Music". This corner will provide a Korean song, the translated lyrics and a brief overview of the artist and/or the song. The song selection is guaranteed to be arbitrary and capricious to the whim of the Korean, but he will take requests and translate them if he likes the request. (Hint: the Korean despises boy/girl bands and their fans. Expect your email to show up at "Best of the Worst" corner if you dare to request anything from Girls Generation.)

The Korean already explained the difficulty of translating a song here. (The song accompanying that post is also quite good.) So the Korean is always open to translation critiques.

Without further ado, today's selection is Hope (희망) by Kim Dong-Ryul (김동률).

희망
Hope

사랑에 눈이 멀어서 행복했던 날들 이젠 꿈이었어라
The happy days spent blinded by love were now dreams
그저 흘러가는 물처럼 멈출 수도 없는 세월 탓으로
Just blaming the time unstoppable like flowing water
그럭 저럭 살아지긴 했으나 무엇 하나 보여줄 것 없으니
Somehow I continue to live but with nothing to show for
지금와서 또 누군가를 만나도 섣불리 널 지울 수 가 있을지
Now if I again meet someone could I dare erase you
오 사랑은 참 잔인해라
Oh how cruel is love
무엇으로도 씻겨지지 않으니
Nothing washes it away
한번 맘을 담근 죄로
By the sin of dipping my heart once
소리없이 녹아내려 자취없구나
it silently melts away without a trace
오 사랑은 참 우스워라
Oh how funny is love
기나긴 날이 지나도
Long after long days past
처음 그 자리에 시간이 멈춰버린 채로
In the same place frozen in time
이렇게 버젓이 난 살아 널 그리워하고 있으니
I shamelessly live on like this longing for you

그래 한번 살아보는거라고
Yes, I will try living
더 이상 나 내줄것도 없으니
For I no longer have any more to give
독한 맘이 다시 무너지는 것은
My resolute heart again falls apart
내 아직 그대를 사랑하기에
Because I still love you
오 사랑은 참 잔인해라
Oh how cruel is love
무엇으로도 씻겨지지 않으니
Nothing washes it away
한번 맘을 담근 죄로
By the sin of dipping my heart once
소리없이 녹아내려 자취없구나
it silently melts away without a trace
오 사랑은 참 우스워라
Oh how funny is love
기나긴 날이 지나도
Long after long days past
처음 그 자리에 시간이 멈춰버린 채로
In the same place frozen in time
이렇게 버젓이 난 살아 널 그리워하고 있으니
I shamelessly live on like this longing for you

Briefly about Kim Dong-Ryul:  Kim Dong-Ryul debuted in 1994 as a part of a duo called 전람회 ("Exhibition"), along with another talented singer named Seo Dong-Uk (서동욱). Kim was initially famous for being an intellectual pop star, as he attended the prestigious Yonsei University at the time when he debuted. His duo disbanded in 1997, and he released his first solo album in 1999. He has three albums under 전람회 and five solo albums, all of which ranged from fairly popular to chart toppers. This song is on his second solo album, also titled 희망. His official website is here.

The Korean on Kim Dong-Ryul: An amazing voice linked to deep sentimentality. His lyrics aspire to be universal, and his best songs elegantly express the desperate, unrequited love separated by impossible barriers -- the type that is often cheaply actualized in Korean dramas.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Here is something that drives the Korean crazy:

Learning a language sometimes seems as difficult as dieting. The solution is to figure out how to stay interested after the novelty wears off.

To counter boredom, online language programs have introduced crossword puzzles, interactive videos and other games to reward users for making progress.

The Web Way to Learn a Language (New York Times) (emphasis is the Korean's.)

No, the solution is not crossword puzzles and interactive videos. The solution is discipline. The solution is the willingness to sacrifice the here and now for the future reward. Learning is not supposed to be fun all the time, you lazy spoiled brats!! For cryin' out loud.

Koreans are world champions of text messaging.

Important Announcement: Email Change

After years of tribulation with Hotmail, the Korean finally got sick of the ineffective spam filter and terrible search function. The Korean can now be reached at askakorean@gmail.com. If you are waiting on a question, no worries -- all of the old emails are intact, and the Korean will continue going down the line.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com (Note the change!!)

The Korean is vaguely disturbed by this article:

Over the last few years, the tiny College of Saint Rose in Albany has seen applications increase at least 25 percent annually, minority admissions rise and its standing in the U.S. News and World Report rankings climb more than 20 rungs.

Its secret? Lifting a page from the marketing playbook of credit card companies.

Last fall the college sent out 30,000 bright red “Exclusive Scholar Applications” to high school seniors that promised to waive the $40 application fee, invited them to skip the dreaded essay and assured a decision in three weeks. Because the application arrived with the students’ names and other information already filled in, applying required little more than a signature.

Colleges Market Easy, No-Fee Sell to Applicants (New York Times)

The Korean can see how it could help the students to get rid of some red tape, but... there is just no dignity in this.

Why Do Koreans Like Cute Things?

Dear Korean,

Since I arrived in Korea, I have wondered about the national obsession for cute things. I know of no other place where grown men and women so enthusiastically pose for photos with cute robots, over-sized teddy bears, wear cute Mickey and Minnie Mouse paraphernalia, and... well, the list goes on. Cute cartoon cows on galbi signs? Cutesy police officers who look like puppies on road signs? What's the deal? Seriously, Teenie Weenie? (It's a clothing brand centered around globe-trotting teddy bears who look rather out of place in any location that isn't a child's story book)

- I'm Not Wearing A Shirt With That Damn Bear No Matter How Adorable It Makes Me


Dear INWASWTDBNMHAIMM,

You speak the truth. And in this case, pictures are worth a thousand words. So without further ado…

Cute robot assisting English education? Check

Time for NSET Luddite movement? (Source)

Grown man peddling teddy bears? Check.

Pro Gamer Yoon-Yeol Lee shows off teddy bears modeled after him. (Source)

Cannibalistic chicken peddling spicy chicken (dakkalbi)? Check.

My head is here. Now come taste my body! (Source)

Cutesy police officers who look like puppies? Double check.

At least it doesn't look like a pig. (Source)

Police characters, hard at work. (Source)

And horror of all horrors, Teenie Weenie.

Yes, an entire fashion chain built around a teddy bear theme!! (Source)

Pick up your jaws -- you are ruining the carpet.

Why is this happening? A society’s consumption pattern is a complex sociological issue, requiring many eggheads and inscrutable doctoral dissertations in order to uncover the multitudinous layers that create a sophisticated mosaic comprised of tastes, class identifications and ...

Heck, who is the Korean kidding? The answer is one word:  Japan.

In fact, when INWASWTDBNMHAIMM says he knows of "no other place" with obsession for cute things, he pretty much told the world that he has never been to Japan. Because if he did, he would have seen these:

One of the first things you see as you are stepping out of the Narita Airport near Tokyo. (Source)

 And these ladies, if you are lucky. (Source)

 The pinnacle of Japan's kawai-ness. (Source)

Although Korea is a major exporter of culture at this point (in the form of movies, TV dramas and pop music,) Korea had no significant pop culture to speak of as recently as 40 years ago as the country struggled to build their way out of the heap of rubble. As Korean pop culture grew into form, it was influenced by two major pop cultures close to Korea -- American and Japanese.

It is, then, no surprise that Korea is infected by Japan's love for cute cartoon characters. Let's face it -- people like cute things. There is no population of children in the world that rejected Pokemon, and that's not because of its compelling story line. It is perhaps the first cartoon whose only appeal was cuteness overload.

Even children of South Park love Poke--, ahem, Chinpokomon.

The only reason why American adults are inhibited from embracing their cuteness-loving nature is the years of Puritanical repression they suffered as children, only using yellow No. 2 pencil when they secretly desired colorful mechanical pencils with anime characters printed on them. So INWASWTDBNMHAIMM, you actually want Teenie Weenie deep down. Look at that bear smiling. He's smiling at you! Are you going to disappoint the cute bear? How dare you!

But the Korean understands that old habits die hard, and your revulsion will not subside easily. So next time when you are subject to the horrors of Teenie Weenie, do what all Koreans do when they hate something about Korea -- blame Japan.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email the Korean at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Ask a Korean! Wiki: Highlights???

Dear Korean,

I was writing because I have been in Korea for a couple of weeks now and I am starting to get some roots. I know that this is a superficial question but I am a high-maintenance girl. I was wondering if there was anywhere that a westerner could get her hair done as in highlights. I don't think that most Korean hair salons have the correct highlighting ingredients for a blonde westerner.

High-Maintenance Foreigner

Dear High-Maintenance Foreigner,

Yeesh, the Korean is glad that he is nowhere near you. The Korean is marrying the Korean Fiancee because she is the ultimate low maintenance woman. (The Korean does not even remember her birthday. She doesn't mind.) Fortunately, he has never needed to dye his hair in his life, and certainly not in Korea. Dyed hair would have incurred extra beating from his teachers.

Readers, where should HMF go? The Korean thinks that hair salons in Apgujeong ought to have the equipment, but he does not have any personal knowledge.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Earthquake in IT?

Dear Korean,

Why do Koreans refer to Haiti as 아이티 (A-ee-ti)? My understanding is that the Haitian pronunciation contains an "H" sound. I imagine it would have been easy to replace the '아' with a '하'. Is it simply a matter of a single individual's (perhaps someone in the media) pronunciation mistake carrying over to an entire nation? I believe there are other instances of inexplicable pronunciation modifications, but this one seems particularly timely. Of course, I may be wrong about the native pronunciation. I don't believe there's an H sound in French. Is Aiti the correct pronunciation? Is it the English-speaking world that has it all wrong?

Eric M.

Dear Eric,

It is indeed the English-speaking world that has it all wrong. Check out this video of an IMF representative pledging support to Haiti in French.

No "H" to be found in Haiti -- the man pronounces like he is saying "IT".

And you are correct that Koreans refer to Haiti as "A-ee-tee". For example, at this link, you can see the news of an NGO called "Good Neighbors" delivering supplies to people of "아이티".

What comes into play here is Rule of Foreign Words Transliteration established by the National Institute of the Korean Language (국립국어원). Just like L'Academie francaise, NIKL governs all things related to Korean language, including how words that did not originate from Korea are supposed to be written. The overarching principle of the rule is to transliterate the words as they are pronounced in their language. Specifically, the Rule of Transliteration provides a chart that matches up the International Phonetic Alphabet to Korean characters, with more detailed rules in different languages such as English, Spanish, Japanese, French, etc.

The Korean likes this rule because it shows respect. Although Korean language sometimes has a separate name for a famous city in a foreign country -- for example, Sang-Hae (상해) for Shanghai (상하이) or  Dong-Kyeong (동경) for Tokyo (도쿄) -- under this rule, Koreans are supposed to write them as 상하이 and 도쿄, not as 상해 or 동경. (In contrast, English-speakers have no qualms for calling Munchen as "Munich" or Praha as "Prague".) Calling a different country/culture with the name that they gave to themselves shows a lot more respect than calling with the name that we came up for them.

But it must be noted that, despite the good intentions, this rule is really hit-or-miss in practice. Because of some arbitrary elements in the rules, Korean transliteration of an English-based word is often unrecognizable, even accounting for the fact that certain sounds in English do not exist in Korean. This is particularly worse for American English pronunciation, because NIKL apparently based its rule on British English -- you know, where English came from originally. The result is that even though there may be better ways to transliterate things in Korean, following the rule gives out the worse transliteration.

For example, one such arbitrary rule is that you cannot use ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, ㅉ in transliteration, but use ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅅ, ㅊ if necessary. Another rule is that when p, t, k is followed by a consonant, the Korean vowel ㅡ needs to be attached to p, t, k. So the word "sickness" is transliterated as 시크니스 under the rule, while 씩니스 would be much closer to the actual pronunciation. Another arbitrary rule is that [ou] in the International Phonetic Alphabet should be transliterated with 오 ("o"). Under this rule, the word "boat" is transliterated as 보트, while 보우트 might be closer to the actual pronunciation.

From the Guardian (UK)

At any rate, this is not important. What's important is what is happening in Haiti. Did you donate? It's fast and easy: text HAITI to 90999, and you can donate $10 to the Red Cross in the relief effort.

-EDIT 1/25/2010- To complement the Korean's near-total ignorance of French, David from Ask a Frenchman! came to the rescue. Here is the Frenchman's comment:

Just one detail, the guy is not just "an IMF representative" but he is Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the current Director of the IMF, former Minister of Finances (1997-2002) and Minister of Industry (1991-1993) in the French government, and possibly future French President (in the current polls he'd win if the elections were these days).

Concerning Haiti, the name is originally a Taino name meaning "Mountain in the Sea" or something like that and it didn't have a "H" in its pronunciation, the H appeared when it was first written (by the French) but keep in mind that in French, H is never pronounced (only in "ch" pronounced like "sh" in English). Thus, the original, and subsequent French pronunciation (French still being the official language of Haiti -with Haitian Créole) is something like "A.E.T" in English (that's what Strauss-Kahn says in the video, although it could sound like "IT".

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Ask a Korean! Wiki: Korean Men in NYC -- Where Y'all at on Friday Night??

Dear Korean,

Simple question, where do single korean men hang out in NYC? Where can i meet them ? :)

Geraldine J.

Dear Geraldine,

That's a hot girl name. Fellas, where should Geraldine go tonight?

As to the Korean himself, he will go home to his fiancee and watch the Lakers at Madison Square Garden with a nice glass of Merlot. 

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Is Cilantro Kryptonite for Koreans?

Dear Korean,

Why do Korean people hate cilantro (aka coriander/chinese parsley)? In all of my experience, this is like the kryptonite of the Korean race. I live in China where there are tens of thousands of Koreans -- and lots of cilantro. If you ask a Korean what they hate most about China almost unanimously the answer is "cilantro" (followed soon after by "and everything else in China.")

Can you eat cilantro?

John K.

Dear John,

The Korean loves cilantro. Salsa, pho and bahn mi are not the same without it.

Cilantro, the Korean hearts thee.

But you are absolutely correct that many Koreans hate cilantro.Why is that?

First of all, the cilantro-hate is not necessarily confined to Koreans. There apparently is an online community of cilantro haters with nearly 3,000 members from mostly United States and Canada. Particularly amusing is their haiku section, where you can find these gems:

Cilantro my bane

Vile herb in my salsa go
Rot sickening weed

Malodorous weed!

A vagrant's armpit would be
More appetizing.

Nasty vile weed

Cilantro wrecked my dinner
Thought it was parsley

So being a Korean cannot be the only reason that leads to many Koreans' cilantro-hate. The bottom-line reason why many Koreans hate cilantro is simple. Korea has never grown cilantro, and cilantro is not a part of Korean cuisine. Often, people hate food that they are not used to.

But Korean people's cilantro-hate is nonetheless interesting, because it is a nice reflection of Korea's insularity. Many who visit Korea are often surprised at the unexpected provinciality of Koreans, especially when it comes to food. For a huge city that aspires to be world class, Seoul has a deplorable lack of world cuisine. There is a myriad of different Korean food, but a place in Korea to get a good dry-aged steak is few and far between.

Even the Chinese and Japanese dishes -- food of the two closest countries to Korea -- are thoroughly bastardized. The most popular "Chinese" dish in Korea, jjajang-myeon, does not exist in China. (It is a bastardized form of dandan-mien, which has a fleetingly similar taste.) Sushi in Korea is invariably served -- horror or horrors! -- choguchujang, the sour version of Korean hot sauce that overwhelms the delicate flavor of raw fish fat melting on the tongue.

Jjajang-myeon, you delicious bastard.

The food scene in Korea reflects the fact that Korea had been a really isolated country. Particularly since World War II, Korea was a virtual island, with the Armistice Line on the north serving as the fourth and more grassy shore. During the ensuing Cold War, Korea had practically no interaction with the communist China. Interaction with Japan has always been strained for obvious reasons, which further contributed to Korea's gastronomic isolation.

Particularly instructive is how pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) made inroads in Korea. Given Korea's relative geographic proximity to Vietnam (shorter flight than going from New York to Los Angeles) and Korean people's enthusiasm for hot broth, pho must have come to Korea from Vietnam, right?

The very first pho restaurant in Korea.

Actually, no. No Korean has even heard of what pho was until late 1990s. It was actually Korean Americans, who frequented Vietnamese restaurant in California, that introduced pho into Korea. The very first pho restaurant in Korea, Pho Hoa in Samseong-dong, Seoul, was not open until 1998. It was a part of a chain restaurant that started in San Jose, California, not anywhere in Vietnam.

Of course, as things always are in Korea, things are changing. As the country became richer, Koreans now have the time and money to care about what they eat, and they have experienced more world cuisine through increased travel. Although things may not be good, at least they are better than before. There are finally enough decent burger places in Seoul to have a top 10 ranking. Previously nonexistent cuisine like Indian and Thai are slowly making their ways into Korea. But gastronomically speaking, Seoul is not about to turn into New York any time soon.

(That last sentence should not be read as the Korean's endorsement of Korean food in New York. The Korean's massive hatred of New York "Korean" food is a post for another day.)

-EDIT 1/25/2010- Excellent article on the gastronomic state of Seoul. (In Korean. Seriously, if you care about Korea, just learn some Korean. Please. The Korean is tired of translating things.)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Good article on "colorism" in America:

The Senate leader [Harry Reid]’s choice of words was flawed, but positing that black candidates who look “less black” have a leg up is hardly more controversial than saying wealthy people have an advantage in elections. Dozens of research studies have shown that skin tone and other racial features play powerful roles in who gets ahead and who does not. These factors regularly determine who gets hired, who gets convicted and who gets elected.

Consider: Lighter-skinned Latinos in the United States make $5,000 more on average than darker-skinned Latinos. The education test-score gap between light-skinned and dark-skinned African-Americans is nearly as large as the gap between whites and blacks.

Shades of Prejudice (New York Times)

And also, hope everyone has a good Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Asian Americans owe much to Dr. King, since the fact that recent immigrants like the Korean and countless other Asian Americans can have the chance to succeed in America is entirely due to the Civil Rights Movement.

Thank you Dr. King, for making the American Dream possible.

Go Vote for CPAF!!!

More about CPAF:

If you are a caveman who don't know how to vote on Facebook, Here is an easier link: http://www.votecpaf.org/

Here is a video featuring Sandra Oh, Lisa Ling, Laura Ling, Tamlyn Tomita, Rosalind Chao, Sheetal Sheth and others:



(You can also see this again at here: http://www.teddyzee.com/cpaf/)

More videos!



Check out CPAF's YouTube Channel for the latest videos at this link: http://www.youtube.com/user/cpafpsa

AAK! readers, thank you for your support in spreading the word and encouraging the vote. With your help, we can make a difference.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Ask a Korean! News: North Koreans Directly Connect with South Korea via Chinese Cell Phones

Excellent article on Dong-A Ilbo about how cell phone is playing an invaluable role in getting information from North Korea, written by none other than Mr. Joo Seong-Ha of Nambuk Story. Translation below.

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Recently, major news such as North Korea's currency reform and the outbreak of H1N1 influenza were first uncovered by North Korea-related non-governmental organizations. Information that the Korean government cannot verify is being broadcast live on these organizations' homepage every minute. Cell phone is the most important device in making this possible. In the era of 18,000 North Korean defectors, cell phones are unveiling North Korea's shroud of secret.

Elite Defectors Hack North Korea with Cell Phones

The intelligensia defectors working in the North Korea-related NGO are the core contributors of acquiring North Korean information via cell phone. They were former elites in North Korea, having graduated from colleges and usually worked as officers, which makes them the top experts of the realities of North Korea. They operate their own intelligence network within North Korea. They are able to detect North Korea's changes and the source of information simply by listening to a few words over the phone. They would sometimes ask the North Korean collaborators to create a report on the information they need as well.

The collaborators within North Korea, although usually paid, are nonetheless dissatisfied with the North Korean regime. Relying on them, the elite defectors can act as a dagger threatening the regime by spreading information that the North Korean regime does not want to tell its people or connecting with the anti-establishment groups within North Korea.

It has only been around ten years since North Korean people communicated with China or Korea via cell phone. At first, the cell phones were brought in by Chinese smugglers who needed to contact their North Korean counterpart. But as the number of defectors to Korea increases, the number and use of cell phones connected to North Korea has been increasing as well. Cell phones are used to make appointments, sending people and money, or delivering goods that people ordered. There is even a case in which a Korean pastor uses cell phone to proselytize by calling his followers in North Korea at a specific time every week.

A cell phone connected to North Korea, combined with individualized reporting through Korea's Internet, provides a wealth of information that surpasses traditional media. It is expected that there will be more occasions of North Korea-related NGOs competing for breaking news.

Information Belt Formed Along North Korea-China Border

Shaded area signifies the belt where a direct call to South Korea is possible. 

Notice the wider band on the western edge of the map.

 Chinese cell phones smuggled into North Korea are used for communication between Korea and North Korea. One can use the same procedure for dialing a Chinese cell phone. However, not everywhere in North Korea can one speak with Koreans -- it is only possible along the Tumen and Yalu Rivers. North Korean border cities and towns are usually located along the river at the foot of the mountain, and the Chinese cell phone signals cannot travel over the mountain. Drawing a map of the areas receiving the Chinese cell phone signals results in a narrow and long band along the North Korea-China border -- a belt that serves as a window between North Korea and outside. Around the flats at the mouth of the river at Shinuiju, the signal travels all the way to Yongcheon, which is several dozen kilometers away. However, a satellite phone can connect to Korea from any place in North Korea.

Usually Korean-Chinese act as a broker to smuggle phones into North Korea and pay phone bills, as defectors who live in Korea usually form a considerable network in China in the course of escaping North Korea. Calls with Korea usually occurs at night. North Korea began setting up wired phone in individual homes since around 2000. There are currently 90,000 North Koreans enrolled in the wireless phone service, which began in December 2008. These phones, while unable to make direct calls to Korea, periodically send information from the inland, including Pyongyang, toward the information belt along the North Korea-China border. In other words, there is a system in place through which a person located at the border can verify information by calling Pyongyang and immediately relay it to Korea.

North Korea Invests in Signal-Detecting Devices

North Korean government is well aware of both the method by which cell phones connect to South Korea and the danger it poses to the regime. Several years ago, North Korea purchased a fleet of German-made signal-detecting vehicles (each of which cost nearly $1 million) as well as portable detectors from China. These make it risky to speak more than a minute in the border cities in North Korea. Informants make their calls either while constantly connecting and disconnecting, or in a nearby mountain where a vehicle cannot easily reach. A relatively longer call can be made in the rural areas.

North Korea punishes those calling with South Korea harshly, going as far as execution. China is also known to have a system that automatically taps any calls near the border, but it is unknown whether it shares the information with North Korea.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Ask a Korean! News: Mixed Heritage Men Eligible for Draft

Here is a positive step for race relations in Korea:

Starting next January, externally visible mixed heritage men will also serve in active duty in case they are considered eligible for active duty by the draft board.

According to the Military Manpower Administration's statement released on the 14th, starting next January mixed heritage men (Caucasian/African heritage) whose mixed heritage is clearly externally visible must serve either in active or supplemental duty (public service agents) based on the result of the draft board examination, pursuant to to the amendment to the Military Duty Act passed by the National Assembly late last year. Previously, "visible" mixed heritage men was exempted from the military duty, although they could serve active duty on a volunteer basis.

Military Manpower Administration explained that the amendment applies to mixed heritage men born after January 1, 1992. An official of the MMA stated: "Currently there are six or seven African/Caucasian draftees per year, but the number is expected to increase going forward." He also said: "Currently there are around 200 Asian mixed heritage men, whose mixed heritage is externally unclear, being drafted each year."

Ministry of Defense also expressed its plan to enable joint reporting for draftees from multicultural families starting late this year.  An official of the Ministry of Defense said: "We are considering allowing draftees from multicultural families to apply for joint reporting, which allows siblings, relatives and friends to be stationed together. This proposal will also include expanding a number of bases eligible for joint reporting.

The military administration will also include a clause prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color or religion in the military human resources guide and service guide, and give priority to addressing any difficulty of draftees caused by discrimination on the basis of color. The military will also pursue a policy of providing early exposure to the military experience for multicultural youths, for example through military camps.

 Military Allows Joint Reporting for Those from Multicultrual Families (Dong-A Ilbo)

Although the language implying clear racism (like "visible" versus "invisible" mixed Koreans) in the article is distasteful, this is a very significant and positive development. For Korean men, the military service is one of the most significant periods of their lives. They often develop lasting friendship and connections through their service. Even among strangers, the shared experience of dealing with various crap during their service allows Korean men to bond very easily. Although there will surely be distressing strife and conflict in the beginning, the Korean could think of no better way to have mixed-heritage Koreans (at least among men) to feel like they are part of Korean society.

Here, again, America's experience provides a favorable example. Racial integration in American military long preceded integration in the larger American society, as President Truman ordered the end of segregated units in 1948. Despite some resistance and struggle, the military provided an advanced career option for African Americans -- there were black naval officers as early as 1944. Similarly, Korean military could provide an advanced career for mixed-heritage Koreans, (relatively) free from the implicit and explicit racism that may keep them away from the job market.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Public Service Announcement: Vote for Center for the Pacific Asian Family on Facebook

Dear Korean,

I read your blog religiously and am a big fan. The issue we are dealing with deeply impacts the Korean community...

The Center for the Pacific Asian Family was fortunate enough to finish in the top 100 in the Chase Community Giving program on Facebook, earn a $25,000 grant and become eligible for the next round of Facebook voting from January 15-22. The top finisher will win $1 million and five runner-ups will get $100,000.

I still can't believe that it happened. It did, but there is so much more work to be done. The Chase Community Giving program not only gives CPAF critically needed funds, but helps to raise awareness of a profoundly important issue that is too often kept in the dark. As you may know, CPAF provides emergency shelter and counseling services to victims of domestic violence and rape.

I am asking for your help and the support of Ask A Korean! to help CPAF in the next round of voting. I think it would be an incredible statement on the part of our API community to rally around such a worthy cause. Rarely is there an opportunity for such an immediate reward for building community support. We need your visibility, influence and leadership to help make a difference.

I would love to hear your ideas about how we can enlist Ask A Korean to rally the community. Please help us help CPAF help our API women and families.

Teddy Z.


Well, what are you waiting for? Get on Facebook and vote away. If you have any ideas about how else the Korean could help, please leave your suggestions in the comments.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

The Korean's English Acquisition, and the Best Method to Master a Foreign Language, Guaranteed

Dear Korean,

My name is The English Teacher. The English Teacher has a question for The Korean. The English Teacher read the Korean's recent post about the interesting 바보 Ray. In that post, The Korean said that he came to America at the age of 16, without knowing English. The English Teacher can judge by The Korean's prose that his written English is for all intents and purposes, perfect (unless The Korean employs an editor to raise said prose, which The English Teacher thinks is unlikely). The English Teacher wonders about The Korean's spoken English. Do people know that The Korean is a non-native speaker when they hear him talk? If so, how noticeable is The Korean's accent? How old is The Korean, if he doesn't mind The English Teacher asking?

As a teacher of English to Korean high-school students, The English Teacher is merely curious about how much he can expect from his students, and what he can tell his students when they ask how much improvement they will see if they go to the US to study English.


The English Teacher


Dear English Teacher,

The Korean is very happy to see the third-person speak catching on. It is the Korean’s wish to have AAK! sounding like a discussion among enlightened pro wrestlers.

But yes, the Korean did come to America at the age of 16 years and 8 months. He is now 28 years and 10 months old. But saying he came “without knowing English” is an exaggeration, since the Korean received regular English education in Korean public schools before he came to the U.S. (Although many readers would know that does not mean a whole lot.)

And no, AAK! does not have a copy editor. (But that does not stop the grammarians from emailing the Korean with grammatical mistakes in his post. Keep them coming!) As to the Korean’s spoken English, you can be the judge. Here is an interview that the Korean did with UCLA radio about Barack Obama’s election. People who hear the Korean have said that he has a West Coast accent, characterized by slightly slower speech and a stronger r sound. The Korean also has a fairly obvious Korean American inflection. (Not a Korean accent, mind you – those who have spoken to many second generation Korean Americans know what the Korean is talking about.)

Map of American dialects, based on the PBS special Do You Speak American?

To give a self-assessment, the fact that he learned English relatively late still subtly bothers the Korean in certain situations. The Korean has a really hard time reading people’s handwritings unless they are extremely neat, because he just has not seen enough of them growing up. Also, he often stumbles on scientific/medical terms that persons with his education would generally know. (For example, the Korean can never remember which leg bone is the “femur”.) Idioms give the Korean a hard time as well – it took him years to figure out what the phrase “cut the cheese” meant. The Korean still hates talking on the phone in English because he has to concentrate extra hard compared to speaking face-to-face. Careful readers of AAK! also may have noticed that the Korean still slips up on the usages of articles and prepositions.

But in the grand scheme of things, all of the foregoing are just minor annoyances. The Korean obviously feels pretty comfortable in English, and he rarely has a difficult time expressing any concept in English.

Would the English Teacher’s students be able to do what the Korean did? The Korean thinks they can, although it won’t be easy. The Korean will describe his English acquisition below. Despite his commendation of the third-person speak in the beginning, the Korean will now switch to first person – because this process was a rather personal affair.

How the Korean learned English, and the Korean’s guaranteed method of achieving fluency in another language, after the jump.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.



The Process of the Korean’s English Acquisition

It must be first said that I am not a genius. Far, far from it. All my life I have been an A-minus student – decent, not brilliant. This was true in elementary school, middle school and high school in Korea, as well as in college and graduate school in the U.S. Nor did I ever attend a foreign school (like Seoul International School, for example,) where instructions were given in English. I went to a regular Korean elementary, middle and high school, receiving regular public school English education that any other Korean student received.

(Aside: the only time I was better than an A-minus student was during the 2.5 years in my high school in California, when I could not speak English for half of that time. And it’s not as if my school was a bad one with low expectations either. If that’s not an indictment against the deplorable state of K-12 education in America, I don’t know what is. The reverse of my situation – a 16-year-old American coming to Korea and getting straight A’s without knowing Korean at first – could never, ever, ever happen. Ever.)

Nor was I situated in an environment that was particularly conducive to English learning by immersion. According to the 2000 census, my town in California has the highest percentage of Asian Americans in the continental United States – an incredible 62.5 percent. (I attended University of California, Berkeley – which “only” had 48 percent Asian Americans – and thought the school was infested with white people.) There was – and is – absolutely no need to speak English anywhere in my town. I might as well have lived in Korea and attended a foreign school. There are four huge Korean supermarkets in our small, 55,000-resident city. Korean restaurants of all kinds are everywhere. My brother and I would play a game we improvised, called: “What is in Korea that is not in our town?” The only thing that we could come up with was a go parlor (giwon). Sure enough, a go parlor opened several months later, much to the delight of my father, a huge go fan. My school was filled with many, many Korean speakers who staked out their own corner in the schoolyard to hang out among themselves, speaking Korean. It was a hard task to avoid them intentionally for the sake of learning English. To this day, I have few friends from my time in high school.

I began my American schooling at the beginning of the second semester of the tenth grade. I recall the despair of my first few months at school. I was literally Charlie Brown in a classroom as my teachers spoke “wah-wah-wah.” I had to join the school choir, not because I liked singing but because it was one of the few classes that I could take without knowing much English. One time, after being at a loss facing a pop quiz in my biology class with a picture of a leaf absorbing carbon dioxide and expelling oxygen, I filled out the entire quiz in Korean just to confirm to myself that I did not suddenly become stupid by moving to America, and the knowledge of photosynthesis that I had in Korean did not disappear somehow.

광합성이 뭔지는 알고 있었는데 말이죠.

(Luckily, being at a Korean-heavy school meant that my high school had a Korean-speaking biology teacher, who graded the quiz on behalf of my regular biology teacher. I scored 100 percent on that quiz – the only one in the class to do so. Did I mention American high schools are soft?)

On top of that, I was expected to take the SATs, and score high. What an absurdity that was, that I had such an expectation. I took an SAT diagnostic exam, and faced the lowest score of any examination that I have ever taken in my life. And that’s with the perfect score in math. (This is back when SAT I was just verbal and math. In fact, I could not believe that American high school students struggle with SAT I math, which I covered in sixth grade in Korea.)

English had to be learned. I tackled this problem like a good Korean student – rote memorization. It seemed obvious to me that without knowing words, my English would go nowhere. I decided that I should memorize every single word in my sight that I did not know. I bought many boxes of empty flashcards and wrote the words I did not know on one side, and the definition on the other side.

This was not an easy task. Finishing a simple homework would create a pile of cards, since I probably understood one out of ten words in my textbook. Working on one diagnostic SAT took weeks, because I was so terrible in the verbal section to the degree that it was comical. In a typical sentence completion question where I was supposed to choose the right word for an empty space in a sentence, I did not know all five of the possible choices, and two more words from the sentence itself. And there were a hundred questions like them.

I organized the cards into bundles of 50 cards. I memorized a set until I got everything right without regard to the order of the cards, then moved onto the next set. When I completed five bundles, I re-did the entire five bundles before moving onto the next. Within a year, I did not even need the flashcards for the initial bundles – I could recite them all by heart, backwards and forwards, with words matching the definition. Boxes upon boxes filled a wall in my room. By the time I graduated, I memorized more than 30,000 words.

I also needed to be able to listen and speak. To develop speaking and listening, I watched at least 3 hours of television every day. God bless the closed caption, and the endless reruns of The Simpsons, Home Improvement and Full House – I had the caption on, and mouthed the word exactly as they sounded like. I said the difficult words over and over again until I got them right. (It took years to get “girl” and “rhythm” right.) I got into the habit of talking aloud to myself to make sure what my speech sounded right. (I still do this often, which initially creeped out my fiancée.)

I can still recite a number of Simpsons episode by heart because I repeated them so many times.

Then came reading and writing. I began by reading my favorite books that were available in English, starting with Les Miserables, then Brothers Karamazov. Even after I built a decent-sized mental storage of vocabularies, I still had trouble reading a long sentence with a complex structure. Well then – you can guess what’s coming. Whenever I had trouble deciphering a sentence, I wrote it down and memorized it whole. Whenever I had a chance to write, I tried to incorporate the new sentence structure I learned, plugging in different vocabularies that I memorized.

I did all this for roughly two years. (By the last semester of my senior year I no longer felt the necessity.)

I dislike being immodest, but the description above about my efforts would be meaningless if I did not discuss how far my efforts took me. I became an assistant editor of my high school’s very competitive journalism program in my senior year. My Spanish teacher wrote for me a gushing letter of recommendation, noting that I knew neither Spanish nor English when she first met me but I was her best student by the end of the semester. I graduated as a salutatorian, with a single B-plus on my high school transcript. I took SAT I almost exactly one year after I came to America. I scored 1590, with 800 in math and 790 in verbal. I was admitted to a number of elite colleges, and chose to attend University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley and afterwards, I had no need to study English the way I did during my high school years, except for the occasional “femur”s that still bedevil me. In other words, I went from basic English skills to college-level English proficiency in two years.

Go Bears.

The Myth of “Fun, Immersive Language Learning”

Switching back to the third person...

The Korean knows that gaining this level of proficiency at this speed does not happen often, and many language students fail trying to achieve what he achieved. Again, the Korean is not a genius. Then what was the difference?

Looking back, the Korean can think of two things that set him apart. First is motivation. The Korean Parents – particularly the Korean Father – abandoned many great things he had in Korea for us to move to America. Now that the Korean has had several years of career, he can truly appreciate the magnitude of the sacrifice the Korean Father made for the education of the Korean Brother and the Korean. Even as a relatively ignorant 16-year-old, the Korean Parents’ sacrifice was obvious. The Korean had to succeed, because a failure would be the ultimate insult to the Korean Parents. The Korean understands that this factor is not easily replicated with other students – while many students are motivated, few would consider it a matter of life and death as the Korean did.

But the second factor, in the Korean’s opinion, can be replicated relatively easily with other students of language. The second factor that set the Korean apart was this – not for one second did he buy into the myth of “fun, immersive language learning.” Instead, the Korean structured his language learning entirely around rote memorization and repetition – the methods that are often renounced by many language teachers and students.

The myth of “fun, immersive language learning” usually takes on this narrative: “Children learn their first language nearly effortlessly. They do this by being constantly surrounded by the new language. So when learning a second language, you must surround yourself with that second language, with emphasis on a lot of listening and speaking. (Because children do not pick up their first language from books.) Once you are immersed the second language, you will pick up that language as if through osmosis.”

Innumerable language-learning books, software and curricula were created pursuant to this philosophy. It seems to make sense, because we all know at least one language, and we think we remember how we learned it. The philosophy also has an irresistible appeal of inertia – without having to actively learn, one can pick up a very useful skill simply by sitting around and absorbing.

But this is wrong, all wrong. It is wrong mostly because it is fundamentally based on an erroneous assumption -- that an adolescent/adult can learn a language the same way as a child can.

Harvard professor Steven Pinker’s best selling book, The Language Instinct, shows just how wrong that assumption is. (If you are interested in language, The Language Instinct is a must-read. Heck, it is a must-read even if you are not interested.) The central theorem of The Language Instinct is that humans are born with a capability for language that we lose after a certain age. This innate capability for language affects all aspects of language, namely: sound, vocabularies, syntax/grammar.

Seriously, just read this book. You will thank the Korean later.

First, sound. Pinker describes an experiment where certain sounds were played to 6-month-old infants while they were sucking on a bottle. One could tell if the infants detected a change in sounds by observing how vigorously they were sucking on the bottle. (If they were sucking on a bottle at a speed of 1, for example, they sucked on the bottle at the speed of 2 when something around them changed. Over time, they gradually go back to the speed of 1, until something else changed.) For example, the tape recorder droned on with ba ba ba… for several minutes, then would change to pa, pa, pa… Sure enough, infants would suck more vigorously when the sound changed.

Astonishingly, the 6-month-old infants reacted to the changes in sound that adults could not detect. English-learning infants could distinguish the finer sounds used in Czech, Hindi and Inslekampx (a Native American language) that English-speaking adults could not. To give a more familiar example, most adult Koreans cannot distinguish the long and short i in English, i.e. the difference between fritz and freeze. Similarly, most adult English-speakers cannot distinguish the sounds of 파 (Romanized as “pa”) and 빠 (Romanized as “ppa”) in Korean. This study suggests that, for example, an infant in an English-speaking country who has never heard Korean around her can distinguish 파 and 빠 although her parents cannot; similarly, an infant in a Korean-speaking country who has never heard English around him can distinguish fritz and freeze, although his parents cannot.

But when the same experiment was performed on 10-month-old infants, the infants lost their ability to distinguish those sounds that do not exist in English. In other words, the ability to learn which sound belongs to a language and which sound is a random white noise happens between the ages of 6 months and 10 months.

Equally astonishing is a child’s ability to learn vocabularies. In order for an accurate count, grammarians Anna Maria Di Sciullo and Edwin Williams came up with a concept called a “listeme,” which is a unit of memorized vocabulary that cannot be produced mechanically by rules. (For example, if a person knows two words, “bucket” and “buckets,” the person knows one listeme because one can derive the meaning of “buckets” from “bucket.” But the phrase “kicking the bucket” is a separate listeme from “bucket,” because one cannot draw the meaning of “kicking the bucket” from knowing the word “bucket.”)

How many listemes do you think a six-year-old child knows? Here is a hint – the most distinguished English-language writer of all time, William Shakespeare, used about 15,000 different listemes in all of his plays and poems. Surely, Billy Shakespeare has to be several times better than a six-year-old, right? Actually, no. According to a study by William Nagy and Richard Anderson, the best estimate shows that an average six-year-old child knows 13,000 listemes.

"What? I used only 2,000 more listemes than a six-year-old? Preposterous!"

Recall that an average six-year-old cannot read books on her own; any word they learn comes from ambient speech. Given that word learning does not start until the age of 12 months, children learn a new word every two hours they spend being awake just by listening. Pinker puts it this way: “Think about having to memorize a new batting average or treaty date or phone number every ninety minutes of your waking life since you took your first steps. The brain seems to be reserving an especially capacious storage space and an especially rapid transcribing mechanism for the mental dictionary.” This pace of word learning lasts until adolescence, and tapers off afterward.

But for the Korean, the most incredible component of the language instinct is an infant’s innate ability to learn grammar. For example, babies who can only speak in single words still have a grasp of syntax. An experiment seated babies in front of one screen that shows Big Bird tickling Cookie Monster and another showing  Cookie Monster tickling Big Bird. A voiceover said, “Oh look! Big Bird is tickling Cookie Monster! Find Big Bird tickling Cookie Monster!” (or vice versa.) The babies invariably looked more at the screen that depicted the sentence in the voiceover. This means that infants have an innate sense of an essential part of English grammar – that is, the fact that the word order in a sentence determines which word is the subject, and which word is the object. (“Big Bird is tickling Cookie Monster” and “Cookie Monster is tickling Big Bird” are made up of identical words – we know the two sentences mean different things only because of their word orders.)

Word order is how we know "Dog bites man" is different from this picture.

In another experiment, psychologist Karin Stromswold analyzed sentences containing auxiliaries (e.g. “can”, “should”, “must”, “have”, “do”) from the speech of thirteen pre-schoolers. In English language, there are 24 quadrillion logically possible combinations of auxiliaries. (For example, “He have might eat” or “He did be eating.”) Out of the 24 quadrillion choices, only around a hundred are grammatically correct. (For example, “He might have eaten.”) Stromswold analyzed 66,000 sentences from the pre-schoolers where the children could have made an error. The number of errors found in those 66,000 sentences? Zero.

What does this all mean? It means that second language acquisition is not like first language acquisition at all. First language is learned like breathing is learned. When you are no longer a child, your brain simply went past the stage where you could absorb language without extra effort. Simply put, a fun, effortless second language learning is a pipe dream. It does not exist.


The Most Effective Way for Second Language Acquisition, Guaranteed

To be sure, the Korean’s method is only for those people who want to have a mastery (which, according to the Korean’s own definition, equals college-level proficiency) over a second language in a short period of time. If all you ever wanted is to have survival-level language skills, this method is probably an overkill.

However, since learning English, the Korean has spent some time learning Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and Latin to differing degrees, applying the same method he used for learning English. For each language, the result was unmistakable – the Korean always gained greater proficiency in those languages at faster clip compared to other students who were in the same classes as he, which confirmed to the Korean that his method is indeed the best one. If your aim is to gain mastery over a language in the shortest amount of time possible, the Korean absolutely guarantees that the following is the best and most efficient way:

1. Start from reading and writing simple sentences, and gradually move onto reading and writing increasingly more complex sentences. Remember that a single noun could be a good enough sentence when the situation is right. (For example, saying “water” when you are too hot, as in “please give me water.”) You can expand that single noun into an increasingly complex structure, like this: “Water”; “Water, please”; “Give water, please”; “Give me water, please”; “Give me cold water, please”; “Give me a glass of cold water, please.”

2. As you go through the first step, learn all the grammatical rules such that you are expanding the sentence correctly. Here is a comparable example of expanding sentences in Korean: “물”; “물 줘”; “물 주세요”; “물 좀 주세요”; “찬 물 좀 주세요”; “찬 물 한 잔만 주세요.” In this simple example, no less than five grammatical rules can be identified: (1) object-predicate word order; (2) use of honorifics (주세요 conjugated from 주다); (3) verb conjugation (주다 --> 주세요, 차다 --> 찬); (4) use of “counters” (물 한 잔); (5) use of particles (한 잔만). Memorize how these rules operate in different sentences.

Then maybe you can learn the song 물 좀 주소, a classic by 한대수 pictured here.

The list will be long, but it is finite. And without knowing these rules, you cannot use complex sentences. For example, there are many Korean students, having studied in America/Canada, who appear to have mastered English because their accent is slight and they seem to be able to write without misspelling things, but rarely use a slightly complex grammatical structure like a dependent clause in their speech or writing. This is not a mastery over language.

3. Memorize words. This is the most important part. Once you have a firm grasp over grammar, all that stands between you and language mastery is the number of vocabularies you can punch into the different sentence structures. Memorize every word you encounter and do not know. Have a very high bar for “not knowing” a word – if you cannot produce a definition under 3 seconds, you do not know the word. Be ready to memorize at least 30,000 words, if not more. Just to give you a perspective, the Nagy-Anderson study that the Korean mentioned above found that an average high school student knows around 60,000 listemes, and a superior high school student knows twice as much. You need to make up that ground somehow.

4. Listen and speak the language every day. This is the part where immersive language learning can be helpful. You need to develop a careful ear to recognize different sounds, because again, you no longer have the amazing infant sound sensor anymore. Listen to words that are difficult to distinguish, and imitate the sound as you listen.

5. Do it over and over again until the desired mastery is achieved.

The Korean can already hear the protests. Why does it have to rely on rote memorization so much? It sounds excruciating! Shouldn’t learning be fun? To those protests, the Korean has only this to say:

SUCK IT UP, YOU SOFT SACK OF SHIT!

Mind you, the Korean loves America. The Korean practically writes a love song to America every chance he has. But there are certain things about contemporary America drives the Korean crazy, and this is one of them: the idea that the process of learning is somehow supposed to be fun. Just drop it. Forget it. What is fun is the result of learning – the infinite amount of fun when you finally put the finished product to use. And truly, that applies to second language acquisition as well as anything else. Your horizon will expand beyond the limit of your imagination. You will gain perspectives that you couldn’t have even dreamed of. Don’t be a whiny bitch. Your sacrifice will be worthwhile.

Another objection that will surely be raised is this: “Doesn’t the Korean’s method for the most part rely on rote memorization?” No, that’s not correct – the Korean’s method relies entirely on rote memorization. The Korean cannot see why “rote memorization” became a dirty word in education somehow. How else are you going to learn words and grammar? Again, high school seniors know as many as 120,000 words. Do you think you can learn 120,000 words in one or two years just by “surrounding yourself with the language”? Please.

Language learning is like dieting. There might be tons of advertisement about fast results and magic formulas, but at the end of the day, honest effort is the only thing that works. Only the undisciplined deludes herself into believing that some other magic might work. Want to lose weight? Eat healthier and exercise more. Want to master a second language? Memorize grammar and vocabulary. It is that simple.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Korean American Simon Cho, who entered America illegally at age 4, now represents America in Vancouver as a short track speed skater in the U.S. national team.

Hooray to immigration making America better.

New York Times selected Seoul to be one of the 31 places in the world to visit in 2010.

The Korean watched that one movie this past weekend -- you know, the movie that everyone is talking about only because everyone is talking about it. (It involves blue aliens.)

Overall, a fine movie. Watching it on IMAX 3D helped. Here are the Korean's petty, nitpicky, spoiler-free impressions:

(1) People have called it Dancing with Wolves with aliens. The better analogy is Princess Mononoke with aliens.

(2) There was no reason why the colonel's mech infantry should have fallen when he died. (And please, that's not a spoiler.) The machine shutting down and slumping would have been more dignified. At least it didn't explode.

(3) In the words of the Korean Fiancee, your ride matters. Need respect? Roll up in a nice ride.

(4) James Cameron apparently dug deep into Stuff White People Like to make this movie: "religions their parents don't belong to", "Asian girls" (might as well be alien), "diversity", "awareness", "being an expert in YOUR culture", "natural medicine", "being the only white person around", "hating corporations", "having gay friends" (again, might as well be alien).

(5) Jake's stubborn determination to speak in English at many critical moments was rather annoying: "I am one of you, and I am here to save you! Now listen to me as I speak in a language you don't understand! I'm sorry your highest leader must translate for me like he works for me or something but hey, have you seen my sweet ride?"