I had another tiny yet triumphal linguistic milestone this morning when I logged onto the internet. I opened up google news, which, because of my IP address, plops me down on the Korean version of the site by default. Normally, the only time I spend time on google news in Korean is if I’m intentionally and masochistically spending time there trying to decipher a headline or maybe (if I’m feeling ambitious) the first line of an article.
But today, I had the experience of a headline grabbing my attention and leading me to click through to the article. It said: “스페인 여객기 추락 153명 사망…19명만 생존.” It helped that there were a few keywords in the article that I easily knew: 스페인=(Spain), 명=(PEOPLE COUNTER), 사망=(dead). So it was about 153 people dead in Spain. More terrorism? I, the reading public, had to know more!
Of course, I went to google news in English, finally, to satisfy my curiosity. But it was cool to have the experience of “spontaneous reading” (as opposed to deliberate reading, I guess). Still, reading about airline crashes, whether in Korean or English, isn’t necessarily smart, right before an airplane trip.
And now, a completely unrelated thought. There’s been a lot in the news lately about McCain closing his gap with Obama in polls on the presidential race, and much commentary about how they’re “neck and neck,” or somesuch.
But Obama is still at 60 points to McCain’s 40, if you look at Intrade. Intrade is a “prediction market”–a place where people bet real money on the outcomes of future events–and a large number of studies have shown that prediction markets are phenomenally more accurate than polls at predicitons. So I’ll just keep watching Intrade and keep ignoring the polls–I will be surprised if that historical accuracy doesn’t again prove out.
Day: August 20, 2008
Caveat: 드르르
My current favorite Korean word is 드르르 (government romanization deureureu, IPA /tɯɾɯɾɯ/). Although I’m not quite sure how to use it smoothly. Er… that’s what it means: “smoothly, swimmingly.” Something like that. I love the sound of it. The way it sounds like you’re beginning to hum some great musical trope or something. Duh-ruh-ruh.
I went to KINTEX this morning. KINTEX is a giant convention center, but every Wednesday the Uijeongbu area Immigration office (which handles the northern half of Gyeonggi province) sets up a help desk for all the foreigners in the Ilsan area, so they don’t have to trek to Uijeongbu to get their paperwork dealt with (40 minutes in on one subway line, then 40 minutes out on another is the most plausible way to make the trip, I would guess).
I got the reentry visa and paperwork worked out for my trip to Australia next week (leaving this Saturday). The matter went smoothly. There: 드르르 진행되었어요. I used it!
That date has crept up very fast. Of course, with my last-minute negotiations over the contract renewal and all, I actually only bought the tickets last week. So not that fast, really. It’s ending up being a last-minute thing all around.
I took the taxi to KINTEX–it’s less than 3 bucks, so no big deal. Then I decided to walk home. The sky was deep cerulean. The weather’s been hot, still, but much less humid, and so there’s not much haze in the air, especially with a nice morning breeze blowing. There were huge puffy lumps of cobalt and chalk cruising the skies randomly, looking for something to rain on. I zig-zagged through the narrow grid of the kburbs somewhat aimlessly, knowing my general direction.
I felt extremely aware for once of what a huge metropolis I’m living in – I’m on the northwestern corner of one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, by population. I could travel east, south, or southeast for over an hour and still be in neighborhoods identical except in specifics. West and north are different – 15 minutes west is the estuary of the Han River, and beyond that some islands and the Yellow sea and China. 20 minutes north is the most militarized border in the world, and a socialist workers’ paradise, I think.
Here is a picture of a lovely ivy-covered kburban home.
