The Teacher Becomes the Student

[dedalusj]

Currently, I am living in Seoul, having moved here for my five-week vacation to take an intensive Korean class at 이화 여자 대학교.  I originally hoped to read and write and speak entirely in Korean for the whole month, including this journal.  It started out that way, (as the Korean entries below will attest,) but, at least in regards to this journal,

Comments

[aaron_kim]

I envy you because you can learn any exotic language you want with joy anytime. Why don't you make your Korean more sopisticated? There are a lot of subtle, sensitive and emotional Korean expressions that are beyond description only with English. For example, 'yellow' is not just yellow in Korean. There are various adjectival phrases such as 노랗다, 누렇다, 노르스름하다, 누르스름하다, 샛노랗다, 싯누렇다, 연노랗다, 누리끼리하다, 누르죽죽하다, and so forth. To feel these words could give you kind of pleasure. All you need is just your heart to feel it. In the 6th vedio clip linked, if the performing artists use 3 drums, the performance is called '3고무' and if they use 5 ones, it is called '5고무'. I see there are 5 drums so it is '5고무'. And the name of the drum itself is '무용북'. Korean students often perform 사물놀이, 판소리, and 부채춤 in the school arts festival. I have that experience(사물놀이) as well. I didn't know that western people think about 한복 like that. Interesting. Just feel free to do it. You don't need to pretend to be Korean. Actually, it is quite a rare chance. I think you will hardly have a chance to wear 한복 again as far as you are living in Korea until you totally leave for the US. In my case, I only wear 한복 once in a blue moon. It's been about 15 years since I didn't put it on. If I have a chance to wear 한복, I will appreciate it because I'm not pretty sure when I could see it again for the rest of my whole life. As you know, Koreans are warm-hearted and Korean is emotional language so adjectives have very developed to automatically express one's mind or thinking including complements. Please understand the cultural thing that Koreans give somebody the complements. It's not flattering. Koreans commonly and naturally do it to make others happy no matter what they have a purpose or not.