Yesterday I received a text message from my boss. It wasn’t just to me – it was a “broadcast” update on the topic of whether or not we would be getting the Monday (Dec. 31) between Sunday (Dec. 30) and New Year’s Day (Jan. 1) off as a holiday. I already knew that we wouldn’t be – that kind of bonus “intercalary” holiday is more rare in Korea than a chicken with teeth. We didn’t get the Monday before Christmas off either.
But that’s not what I’m complaining about. I’m complaining about the text message itself. It was in Korean, of course. And after studying it for more than hour, I have no idea what it says. I could figure out that the topic was about the holiday, but, except for the fact that I already knew the decision was that we would have had to work on Monday, I never could have guessed that meaning from the text. I can’t identify the keywords that would allow me to glom onto even the core meaning.
I am fond of trying to read and understand “found Korean” – as opposed to Korean from Korean Language textbooks, I guess. “Found Korean” means things in the real world that I might conceivably actually want to understand, such as text messages from my boss. But this type of “real” Korean presents huge challenges. The language has a lot of abbreviation – just as text-message-English does – elided words or syllables or strange spellings. Furthermore, Koreans seem to view punctuation of any kind as utterly devoid of meaning – it’s just a convention, like how Westerners view paragraph divisions, perhaps. So note the message’s utter lack of punctuation. The first thing I had to do, to even begin to understand it, was figure out where the sentences started and stopped.
Here is the text.
전 직원 공지사항 31일 휴원여부에 대해 많은 고민을 했지만 수업을 함이 옳다라고 결론내립니다 계속된행사여파로 피로가 누적되었을거 잘 압니다 저부터도 너무힘드니까요 연속3일을 못쉰다는 아쉬움이 아니라 하루만 일하면 다시 다음날 쉴 수 있구나라는 긍정의생각으로 임해주실것을 당부드립니다 수없이 많은 번민후의 결정인만큼 충분히이해해 주시고 기꺼운마음으로 받아주시기를 다시한번 부탁드립니다 애써 고생해 뿌린씨 막바지 조금만 더 힘 쓰면 풍성한 수확을 거둘수 있을겁니다 조금만 더 힘내주십시오 거의 다 와갑니다 그리고 새해에는 우리 모두 풍요로운 해가 될수 있을거라 믿습니다 언제나 자발적으로 일해주시는 여러분이 계셔 덜힘듭니다 올 한해 많은고생 함께 하신 전직원께 다시한번 깊이감사드리며 새해 더욱 건강하고 좋는일만 넘쳐나길 간절히 간절히 기원합니다 카르마플러스어학원장 올림
Eventually, I gave up trying to understand it. I simply can’t – it’s too far beyond my current level of competence in the language. And that, in turn, left me feeling extraordinarily depressed and gloomy. What? Five years in the country and I still can’t decipher a text message about a familiar topic? What a freakin’ loser I am…
