Caveat: Bionic Breakdancer

It's Sunday morning. I'm not really online – this is a queued blog-post. I've decided to take Sunday off from the internet. See you later.

I'm not going to provide much commentary – this video is awesome, if you grew up in the 1970's, like me.

What I was listening to at some point in the past.

DJ Keltech, "Six Million Dollar Man Break Dance Remix." I like this Keltech guy a lot. Some good stuff there.

 

Caveat: Monkey Darts

It was supposed to be a one-off thing.

I have this rainbow-colored plush monkey that I bought at the Minneapolis airport last summer. He has magnets in his hands and feet, and it says "Minneapolis" across his tummy. Because of the magnets, he sticks to the whiteboards, and the elementary students can entertain themselves endlessly with it. One day, seeing a student toss the monkey at the white board and trying to make it stick, I made a joke about playing "darts" with it. We ended up drawing a target on the white board and tossing the monkey at the target in an ad hoc game of darts.

And then it spread to the middle school – perhaps I wasn't entirely guiltless in this. I'm always on the lookout for ways to get the middle schoolers to do anything besides nap in their desks and mess with their phones. This, apparently, was it.

This morning, we played monkey darts. I give out my play money to people who hit the target. I take money when they miss. So it's got an element of gambling to it, which I suspect appeals to them,  too – who doesn't love a game of chance.

The monkey's name, by the way, is "Dinner." That's because he's the alligator's dinner.

Md 001

Caveat: A net exporter of culture

Supposedly, Korea overtook Japan as an exporter of "culture." This is a little bit hard to understand or explain – what it means, or how it happened. There's an interesting article at Quartz online. I also remember hearing that South Korea was a net exporter of culture (in monetary terms – video games and music play a big part in these figures).

Caveat: 하지마

It's fairly typical that after working so much, I suffer insomnia. So now I'm kind of tired-grumpy.

Here's a trivial fact that I overheard on the radio and that I was too lazy to confirm using the internet: Indian laws allow deities to be parties to legal disputes.

What I'm listening to right now.

B.A.P., "하지마" [hajima = Stop It].

Caveat: 14 hours

14 hours is a pretty long day. Off to work at 8:30. Home at 10:30.

I didn't feel that much stress, but there's a lot going on – an informational / marketing meeting for parents in the morning, hoesik for lunch (with colleagues) then a full schedule of classes for the afternoon

OK. Now I'm tired. See you later.

Caveat: 나무만 보고 숲을 보지 않는다

나무만      보고      숲을       보지        않는다
tree-ONLY see-CONJ forest-OBJ see-PRENEG do-not-PRES
[You/She/He/They/Someone] don’t see the forest and only see the tree.
“Not seeing the forest for the trees.”
What, there’s a forest? This was quite easy to figure out, both grammatically and proverbially speaking. Yay.

Caveat: Não existo


Capa_fernando_pessoaComeço a Conhecer-me. Não Existo

Começo a conhecer-me. Não existo.
Sou o intervalo entre o que desejo ser e os outros me fizeram,
ou metade desse intervalo, porque também há vida …
Sou isso, enfim …
Apague a luz, feche a porta e deixe de ter barulhos de chinelos no corredor.
Fique eu no quarto só com o grande sossego de mim mesmo.
É um universo barato.

– Álvaro de Campos
(Heterónimo de Fernando Pessoa)

Caveat: you can grow ideas in the garden of your mind

When I was a child I didn't like Mr Rogers. But over the years since, I've grown to appreciate him, some, especially in the context of working with children so much.

Here's an interesting and hooky video I ran across.

I rather like the main conceit: "you can grow ideas in the garden of your mind."

Caveat: the most perverse of all the perverse curly-bracket languages

I am no longer a programmer. My skillset has rusted to such a degree that it is no longer useful. But I still occasionally follow the field, broadly speaking. There is much writing, over at The Reg, that can make me laugh on a regular basis. But this bit… wow. A sample, at length (brimming over with inside jokes and strange, nerdly, programmer-humor):

Zany adventures with Zarco and Marco

  1. And the users of Delphi had become old with the passage of years, and had taken to sensible shoes, and elasticated jeans, and cosy Saturdayevenings in with BBC4.
  2. For their grizzled pates did sparkle in the morning sunshine, like the surface of that glittery sandstone stuff that one sometimes notices in rocks by the seaside.
  3. Yet still the users of Delphi turned out Windows code that was not so dusty, and demanded no runtime, and could fetch its backside off the disk and be begging for input before certain alternatives could so much as put up a 'Please wait' dialog.
  4. And if a few users of Delphi had turned their hands to writing JavaScript-that-is-the-assembly-language-of-the-internet, then most had not followed these filthy traitors into the perverse ways of the curly bracket.
  5. For it is well-known that JavaScript is the most perverse of all the perverse curly-bracket languages, that causes its users to cry Wat! and despair.

That little thing at the "Wat!" link is hilarious, too. Really. Trust me.

Caveat: Great Website, Worst Romanization In The Known Universe

I'm always on the lookout for places online with insightful Korean Language learning tools and information. They're pretty hard to come by. Some time back, I found a website by a guy named Ken Eckert, that includes a section he calls "sloppy Korean." I don't know enough to judge how sloppy the Korean is, but the romanization is so random and poor that I have to work hard, squinting my eyes, so I don't see it.

How hard is it to master the single page of rules published by the National Institute of the Korean Language? Or… if you really hate the South Korean government's official "Revised Romanization" (and I know some people do, including many linguists – but I'm not one of them), there's the perfectly acceptable McCune-Reischauer system, still in use by the North (as far as I know). Regardless, in what linguistic universe is romanizing 어떻게 [eo-tteoh-ge] as "auto-keh" a good idea? I suppose it's motivated by a hope that people will be able to more easily, accurately pronounce the Korean. But if someone is far enough along to be trying to learn phrases at the level presented, I think they'll be OK with hangeul at that point.

I suppose this is one reason why learning Korean is such a struggle for me. With my own background in linguistics, and a strong underlying perfectionism, I have a need for people who are experts in Korean yet who also have some good linguistic training or background. But, in fact, most experts-in-Korean are extraordinarily lousy linguists, and I get frustrated and annoyed very quickly with all their bald-faced linguistic misconceptions and inaccuracies.

Oops. I ranted.

Having said all that, I don't really mean to complain. Or rant. I genuinely appreciate the effort put into it, and the phrase-level translations of colloquial Korean are well-organized and extraordinarily useful. The above makes me sound like the worst kind of ungrateful internet peever-troll imaginable. So I should apologize, forthwith, and not post this. But, um, I'm posting it.

Still, I highly recommend the site to anyone interested in working on Korean. Thanks, and sorry for the rant.

Caveat: Become Someone Else

"I
don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main
interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in
the beginning." – Michel Foucault

Caveat: Cold -> Heat

Heat 001Is it just me or is it damn cold outside? I didn't feel this cold in my apartment, last winter. I think last year was a mild winter. And it's possible that the efficiency of my building's heating system has been reduced in some way or for some reason, as compared to last year. The weather widget on my phone said -17 C this morning (that's 1 F).

Here at right is a picture of the corner of my window frame this morning: see all the ice on the inside of the double-paned glass?

Regardless, I felt cold. And so for the first time since moving to Korea, I decided I needed supplementary heat. I've always been a "cold-blooded" person, in that being cold doesn't seem to bother me as much as being hot. Hence I've never had issues with my apartment being 10 C or even lower. But maybe I'm getting older. Or maybe it was a lot lower than 10 C this morning.

So this afternoon I stepped out and took a brisk walk to the local Hi-Mart, in the snot-freezing cold. I shelled out 60 bucks, got complemented for speaking Korean by 3 different salespeople, and, in a very cheery mood, returned home and plugged it it. I feel better now.


Heat 003

What I'm listening to right now.



Laetitia Sadier, "Find Me The Pulse Of The Universe."

Caveat: Ah, Retribution… PSY Style

So I suspect I might be able to mention Korean rapper and satirist PSY without too many people not recognizing him, at this point. I was slightly ahead of the curve when I [broken link! FIXME] posted about his "Gangnam Style" way back in mid August.

But I recently ran across something interesting. His current social satire is pretty mild. Back in 2003, he as was full-on radical. And angry-radical, too.

In this short video clip, above, he's performing a song called "Anti-American" with a heavy metal band called "NEXT" and he's smashing a toy model of an American tank. Apparently the song included lyrics such as the following.

싸이 rap : 이라크 포로를 고문해 댄 씨발양년놈들과
고문 하라고 시킨 개 씨발 양년놈들에
딸래미 애미 며느리 애비 코쟁이 모두 죽여
아주 천천히 죽여 고통스럽게 죽여

Kill those —— Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives
Kill those —— Yankees who ordered them to torture
Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law, and fathers
Kill them all slowly and painfully

I did not do the translation, and it seems a little bit rough, but I found it online and it's close enough.

I do not condone, and never condone, violence as a response to violence. I dislike the ease with which people transition from violence they oppose to the idea of retributive violence such as that being espoused by the PSY and his metal-headed friends, above. Having said that, I, too, was deeply troubled by the US behavior in, especially, Iraq. I have long felt that Bush, Cheney, and subsequently the disappointing Mr Obama should be held responsible for war-crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan (and Yemen and Pakistan and other places where drone attacks are still being carried out). So without agreeing with his prescription for retribution, I do agree with PSY's anger as expressed in 2003. And I actually find him more interesting, because he's clearly a politically conscious animal – as indicated by both his recent, milder satire as well as this.

[Update added 2012-12-10] I just noticed that blogger Ask A Korean has a very brilliant post on this same topic. Please read it if you're one of those people who are uncomfortable with PSY's rhetoric. Or even if you're not, but just curious about the context of South Korean anti-Americanism.

Caveat: 인디안 썸머

For my Korean movie of the week, I watched a movie entitled 인디안 썸머 [in-di-an sseom-meo = “Indian Summer”in transliteration – just sounded out and spelled in Korean letters]. A very slow-moving, slightly morbid romance between a lawyer and his death-penalty-eligible court-assigned client. I’m not sure I liked the movie that much. The courtroom drama was a little bit interesting, but the romance seemed implausible both because they talk so little but also because of their situations. But anyway. It doesn’t really have a very happy ending – the point of an “Indian Summer” is that it ends in winter quite quickly.
I tried to pay attention to the dialogue, and managed to understand some Korean. I guess that’s progress.
Good night.

Caveat: Junior Counterfeiters’ Club

I use a color printer and print out and cut up my play money which I give out to students as incentives and rewards. They can then spend their savings in my "store" or use them to buy the conventional "Karma" stamps that the other teachers use and which can go toward coupon books for local businesses (this is boring and not very incentivizing, in my opinion, which is why I started doing my play money).

My play money is called "Alligator bucks." And long ago, when I was doing it at Hongnong Elementary, I became aware that there was a certain class of student who would use technology to try to increase his wealth. I have a student, currently, who took some alligator bucks home, scanned them, and then printed them out on a color printer of his own. Their quality is pretty good, and they are now in circulation. But they're not perfect – and mostly I got lucky because I had preemptively taken to using a stamp with a fairly unique design to stamp the backs of the alligator bucks. Two-sided color copying is more challenging.

Counterfit 002This is all par-for-the-course when dealing with a large and diverse group of grade-schoolers. But what's interesting and funny to me, today, is that I saw this enterprising young future mafioso passing out his counterfeit alligator bucks to his friends for free, and he was signing each one – like little works of art. This seemed to defeat the purpose of counterfeiting them, but it was very cute. He was buying status with his fake alligator bucks, just winning the admiration of his peers for having tried to make them. He signed one on the back and gave it to me, grinning. "Do you like it?" he asked. "I like it so much."

Caveat: Emptor

Rosetta-Stone-korean-langguage-cd-rom-course-software-learn-speak-instruction-version-2-400It was a schadenfreude moment when I ran across this blog post about how the marketers at Rosetta Stone language-learning software are bad at translating, the other day – because I'd decided I [broken link! FIXME] didn't like Rosetta way back shortly [broken link! FIXME] after I'd acquired it. I'd decided I'd wasted my $300 and had forgotten it, basically.

Apparently, the marketers were putting German or Dutch or Swedish noun forms in place of the English verb form for "snow" in a multilingual play-on-words based on the song line "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow." Which, of course, indicates a rather poor apprehension of the grammatical issues at play. But then there was a comment on the blog post that made me reconsider, and decide that the criticism of the Rosetta marketers was irrelevant: the commenter (who went by Breffni) wrote:

I don’t get the idea that mixing English with German, Swedish and Dutch
is an acceptable conceit, but using nouns for verbs is an incongruity
too far. ‘Let it Schnee’ is wrong, all wrong – but ‘Let it schneien’,
that would be fine? It’s bilingual word-play, from start to finish.

And so, my schadenfreude moment quickly faded. Because… here's the thing: I totally agree with this point – if you're going to play with mixing languages, what does it matter whether you're getting the grammar right – it's like complaining that the pieces don't go together when playing with Legos and Lincoln Logs at the same time (which I did as a child, and I'm sure there are more contemporary equivalents). The point is, you're mixing things up, so just go with it. That's what makes it "playing with language," and not, say, Chomsky's "government and binding" theory or abstract grammar. In fact, it's the over-emphasis on grammar vis-a-vis communicative efficacy that I dislike about Rosetta, and thus internet grammar peevers are criticizing from the wrong end, as far as I'm concerned.

So regardless, that doesn't change the fact that I deeply resent having wasted $300 on Rosetta. But I'm not blaming the marketers. I'm blaming the designers' poor grasp of foreign-language pedagogy and methodology. The only thing the marketers did wrong was successfully convince me to shell out $300.

Caveat emptor.

Caveat: 어리버리하다

My boss earlier was talking about me to another teacher, in Korean. I understood only fragments of what he was saying, but, as will happen when someone is talking about you, I was trying hard to understand. Eventually I interrupted, saying, "what?" and interjecting myself into the conversation, because I was feeling self-conscious.

One phrase he was using was using was "어리버리한" [eoribeorihan] which would be a derived participle of a verb form ending in -하다. He was at a loss to explain what this word meant in English, and at the time the best I could puzzle out was that it meant vague or hazy. He was using it to describe the way that I was when he first met me. Recall that my current boss has been my boss before – he was in 2008 at LinguaForum. So he's seen my evolution in my latest career as EFL teacher in Korea for most of its length.

I decided to try to puzzle out the meaning of this word he was using to describe me, but it's not a dictionary word as best I can figure out. One slang entry I found says it means "sucker." The google agreees. Another slang entry I found says "someone who is easily taken advantage of." This would make it like the English word "rube," maybe.

I think what Curt was meaning was that I was insecure in my teaching, and not showing a lot of confidence. Since the word was being applied to me, I might charitably prefer to translate it as something like "newbie" or "newb."

Caveat: Empire With A Smile

I got up early and went to the US embassy this morning. I have to renew my passport – which means it's been almost 10 years since that panicked moment right before my departure for my 2003 trip to Australia when my passport wasn't showing up and I had to change my schedule at the last minute, which is why I came to Korea as a tourist as part of a layover on that trip to Australia which is why I considered coming to Korea to teach in 2007 which is why I'm still here 5 years later. And my passport is full of stamps.

I went to the embassy once before, here – it was in 2008, when there was some quirk of my visa situation at that time that required a visit. The embassy is in an oldish (1970's? – that's old in Korea) building a block south of the restored Gyeongbokgung (Joseon Dynasty Palace), but until the 1990's it was the location of the Western-looking, German-designed, Japanese-built capitol. I actually rather liked that old building, but amid much controversy it was torn down as a lingering symbol of the Japanese colonial period, the palace that had formerly been on the same location was restored. I remember the capitol vividly from when I was in Korea in 1991.

I had a pleasant experience at the embassy, but it's always such a strange experience visiting a US embassy. The US is the closest thing, in today's world, to a world-spanning empire. But the imperialists treated me much better at this outpost than they do when I'm actually at home in the country itself. Very friendly, organized and courteous, despite the massive amount of security involved – entering the embassy is a bit like getting on an airplane in this TSA era.

Here's the embassy.

2012-12-06 10.03.28

Turning the other way (about 90 degrees counterclockwise), you can see the statue of Sejong the Great, who reigned in the 15th century, the pinacle of Joseon civilization. Behind him, the palace gate and behind that in the distance, Bukhansan.

2012-12-06 10.02.11

Caveat: Crunch Crunch

It's pretty rare for the weather to get colder after snow, in Korea. Normally, in Korea, after a snow, it warms up – because moisture (and thus snow) always comes from the south. So snow-followed-by-bitter-cold is more Minnesota-style. After a lot of snow today, however, things have gotten quite cold. I love how that makes the snow go crunch crunch as you walk, and the way that cars make a muffled skwunka-sound as they drive past.

Waka 001

Caveat: Mientras baja la nieve

Mientras baja la nieve

Ha bajado la nieve, divina criatura,
el valle a conocer.
Ha bajado la nieve, mejor que las estrellas.
¡Mirémosla caer!

Viene calla-callando, cae y cae a las puertas
y llama sin llamar.
Así llega la Virgen, y así llegan los sueños.
¡Mirémosla llegar!

Ella deshace el nido grande que está en los cielos
y ella lo hace volar.
Plumas caen al valle, plumas a la llanada,
plumas al olivar.

Tal vez rompió, cayendo y cayendo, el mensaje
de Dios Nuestro Señor.
Tal vez era su manto, tal vez era su imagen,
tal vez no más su amor.

– Gabriela Mistral

Hoy veo la primera nevada acá en las cercanías de Seul. Los coreanos tienen una tradición de que la primera nevada trae buena suerte, o algo así.

Saqué esta foto desde mi ventana hace momentos.

Snow 001

Caveat: Johnson’s Finger

I have a sixth grade student who goes by the English nickname of Johnson. He is the absolute lowest-scoring individual currently enrolled at KarmaPlus English Academy. He has some weird behavioral issues. He chose his English nickname, for example, fully aware of its slang meaning, which I needn't elaborate upon here.

The other day, I was making the kids in the class – the lowest level class that I teach – memorize a dialogue from our book. I was making them write it out. Johnson decided to add pictures to his version, which I reproduce below. I realized his pictures are pretty faithful to the pictures in the textbook, except he's introduced a plethora of middle-finger gestures, to liven things up. The boy on the skateboard in the first frame is clearly presenting his middle finger proudly to the other person. And in the second frame, the one person is clearly meditating on a whole string of F-U icons.

Johnson 004

Such is life with adolescents immersed in our fabulous global culture. I don't really find it that offensive. I often pretend to be more offended than I am, if only in an effort to convey to the students that there might be some limits to inappropriate behavior. Mostly, I hope that showing them kindness and tolerance can induce them to pursue the same values. I'm not always successful. But I try. And I like to document their oddly entertaining quirks and foibles.

Caveat: the the

My intention had been to make a simple blog post of this bit of music I'm listening to, as I often do, these days. Nowadays, approaching 3000 posts, I do a quick search of my posting history before making a new post, because I have some rules: never post the same video or piece of music twice, and never post the same title, twice (though I may have broken that one a few times).

So the piece of music I wanted to post was by the band with the euphonious name of "the the." One of the absolute best band names of all time. So I searched my blog for "the the" – it seemed like a weird enough thing – I'd either posted something by them, or not.

Lo and behold, I never posted anything by that band. Unfortunately, my search for "the the" got 3 pages of google hits. Why? Because apparently in Jared-typo-ese, it's quite common: I like to type the the when I mean the. So then, being the slightly OCD person that I am, I decided I needed to fix all these typos. That took a long time. Fortunately, I had a "The The" soundtrack to accompany me. Heh. Heh.

What I'm listening to right now.

The The, "Giant."

Caveat: 서울에 가야 과거를 급제하지


서울에     가야     과거를                  급제하지

Seoul-TO go-GOAL civil-service-exam-OBJ pass-TAG
[…like] passing the civil service exam in order to go to Seoul.
picture
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” This proverb is easy to understand in the conext of the meritocratic system that existed in the pre-modern period, when one of the few avenues of social mobility open to “regular” people was to ace the civil service exam. It was viewed as a way to get ahead. And so, if you want to go to Seoul (i.e. become successful), you have to try to take the exam. You have to try to get somewhere.
The image at right, found online without authorial attribution, is described to have been taken at a “Joseon civil service exam reenactment” – wow, talk about too much excitement.
picture

Caveat: Winter & Elections

I think winter has arrived. I checked my friendly local news website (naver.com) for the weather. Here's the five-day forecast.

Weather_html_3f42a171

So. Winter.

Yesterday, walking around, I saw banners strung across Juyeop plaza, for the upcoming presidential election (December 19). The two main-party candidates are on the two banners: top is Park Geun-hye (conservative) and below is Moon Jae-in (liberal). The daughter of the dictator versus the former student activist (who was once jailed and barred from politics for his activism). I think either candidate would be a milestone for Korea, and both have their merits. But I predict Park will win.

2012-12-01 11.47.38

Let's see how it plays out.

 

Caveat: Fiscal Cliff Edition

Tumblr_mdxulh1rm71qa0uujo1_1280Most of the fiscal cliff stuff is just media making news.

But, well, I found this funny cartoon thing, at left. The creator's website is called longliveirony – how can that be anything but a fabulous website? She writes, of herself: "Sarah Lazarovic is a person. A person with a portfolio. A portfolio that you are now looking at."

Caveat: it is bitter earnestness that makes beauty

Boats In A Fog

Sports and gallantries, the stage, the arts, the antics of dancers,
The exuberant voices of music,
Have charm for children but lack nobility; it is bitter earnestness
That makes beauty; the mind
Knows, grown adult.
A sudden fog-drift muffled the ocean,
A throbbing of engines moved in it,
At length, a stone's throw out, between the rocks and the vapor,
One by one moved shadows
Out of the mystery, shadows, fishing-boats, trailing each other
Following the cliff for guidance,
Holding a difficult path between the peril of the sea-fog
And the foam on the shore granite.
One by one, trailing their leader, six crept by me,
Out of the vapor and into it,
The throb of their engines subdued by the fog, patient and
cautious,
Coasting all round the peninsula
Back to the buoys in Monterey harbor. A flight of pelicans
Is nothing lovelier to look at;
The flight of the planets is nothing nobler; all the arts lose virtue
Against the essential reality
Of creatures going about their business among the equally
Earnest elements of nature.

– Robinson Jeffers

Caveat: Birthrates and Immigration

There are some direct relationships between birthrates and immigration rates. But it is also true that in economically prosperous countries where there are high levels of prosperity and education (which the US still is, despite recent downturns), immigration can be a substitute for lower birthrates to ensure continued growth. Setting aside sustainability issues (i.e. is growth even the right way to go, in the long, long run), and ethical issues (i.e. my long-declared position that immigration is, in fact, a human right) immigration still becomes a critical factor in determining an advanced economy's health.

Apparently the US birthrate has recently plunged. No one is sure what exactly is going on – it's tied to lower immigration rates (which in turn are tied to the poor economy and high unemployment), but there seem to be other things going on too. Ezra Klein at the Washington Post writes:

A key contradiction in American public opinion is that many people simultaneously think that immigration is bad for the economy (“they’re taking our jobs!”) and that a low birthrate is bad for the economy. But they basically lead to the same economic problem: too many old people, not enough young people.

This really does capture the cognitive dissonance behind anti-immigration thinking.

Caveat: 먼지가 되어

What I’m listening to right now.

picture정준영 & 로이킴,  “먼지가 되어” (originally by 김광석).
가사:

바하의 선율에 젖은 날이면
잊었던 기억들이 피어 나네요
바람에 날려간 나의 노래도
휘파람 소리로 돌아 오네요
내 조그만 공간 속에 추억만 쌓이고
까닭모를 눈물 만이 아른거리네
작은 가슴은 모두 모두워
시를 써봐도 모자란 당신
먼지가 되어 날아가야지
바람에 날려 당신 곁으로
작은 가슴을 모두 모두워
시를 써봐도 모자란 당신
먼지가 되어 날아가야지
바람에 날려 당신 곁으로

picture

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