Day: August 22, 2008

I’m off for a week, now.  I fly to Australia tomorrow.  I have about 120 student essays to correct–which gives me something to do on the plane journey, I guess.
It rained most of the day today, and it was cooler…  It was nice.   After work got out, I had dinner with Curt and we talked about his plans for his academy that he’s trying to build.  I hope he is successful… I felt a bit badly about having rejected his offer for ElBeuRitJi’s, especially with those essays weighing down my backpack.  But… that’s life, right?
Curt spent some time talking about 정 (jeong), about how it was a Korean concept that had no direct parallel in English. It definitely seems to have a lot of possible translations: naver.com’s online dictionary says “feeling, emotion, sentiment, love, affection, passion, human nature, sympathy, compassion, heart” among other things. But I don’t think it’s that inaccessible a concept. Curt feels strongly that Westerners are too dominated by practical and excessively rationalist tendencies, while Koreans are guided by emotion. I don’t think this is true, but I have a heard time trying to argue with him about it, so I tend to just nod and reflect on what he’s saying. I guess I’m always more interested in what people of different cultures and backgrounds have in common than what separates them, so I’m always seeking commonalities, maybe.
Below is a picture of the shiny metallic-looking Jeongbalsan police station tower, as seen (through some other buildings) from a parking lot a block west of my apartment building.  It looks a bit like a grounded rocket ship from a 1930’s-era movie.

-other Notes for Korean-
In other notes:  뜻이 있는 곳에 길이 있다=”where there’s a will there’s a way”
뜻=aim, intention