Op/ed article: "If Only I Were The Taffy Man"

Korea Joongang Daily: Seoul Lounge: If Only I I Were The Taffy Man

Yet another from the "Should've done this a long time ago" file. The high school gets the English edition of the  Korea Joongang Daily and I read it every day. This article warrants posting because it discusses the difficulties in romanizing Korean into English. Romanization refers to taking another script like, say, Korean, and writing the words in the Roman script. 

As the writer Peter M Beck explains,

Korean is one of the toughest languages in the world for native English speakers to learn, but Koreans make it even more difficult by writing their names a seemingly infinite variety of ways in English. In China and Japan, there is essentially one way to write names in English, but for every Korean name, there is at least 20.

The first source of variation is in the format of the name. Some Koreans follow the Japanese rule of reversing the order of their names to conform to the West. Chi-guk Kim may sound better than Kim Chi-guk, but reversing the order sounds unnatural and is unnecessary. Others prefer to follow the Chinese convention of putting the last name first, but having their first name as one word. This makes names more difficult to pronounce. Still others put a comma between their last name and first name, but this makes their names look like part of a mailing list.  

The most confusing way to write one’s name is to write it as three separate, capitalized words. The Washington Post follows this convention, which once led former U.S. Senator Jesse Helms to refer to Kim Jong Il as “Kim Jong, the second.” Fortunately, The New York Times switched to the format I prefer, which is the last name followed by a hyphenated first name, with the second part written lowercase (Kim Chi-guk). [Emphasis mine] 

Like the Joonang Daily and the New York Times, I employ the last name + hyphenated first name formula because it makes names easier to pronounce and because it sounds more natural to me. Most of my students write their names like this as well. 

He continues,

Of course, Koreans are far more creative when it comes to transliterating their names into English. How can a foreigner be expected to know that Lee, Rhee and Yi are one and the same names in Korean? Some Koreans are more creative than others. Every week or two I see a spelling I have never seen before. 

Ironically, even though hangul, the Korean alphabet, has fewer characters than the English alphabet, Korean is difficult to transliterate into English, especially without using markings that require special software. I don’t have a magic solution or preference, but I do have a simple request: Be consistent! 

I've encountered this firsthand. The names Lee, Rhee, and Yi all come from the Korean character 이, which is pronounced like the letter E. Interesting like, 리 is pronounced "Rhee" or "Lee," but I've yet to encounter anyone with this last name.

The names Woo, Wook, and Woong are all similar, for they look like this: 우, 욱, 웅. The 우 character's pronounced "oo". Those three w-sounds don't actually exist in Korean, but the w- gets added to the names or words because apparently "oo" sounds to strange to Western ears. Maybe it looks better in print? Woongjin's a company that makes, among other things, water coolers; I suppose Woongjin looks better than Oongjin.

I suppose that with students' names, it comes down to personal preference. 우 features in plenty of Korean words and names and it gets romanized to the letter U. Still, "u" can be pronounced "oo," so I've students that will write part of their name as Jun or Joon. Despite my predilection for consistency, using the double O does make the name easily to pronounce because Jun can sound like "J-uh-n" to foreign ears.

The name Young's another one because it can be romanized as Yeong. And while Yeong is technically correct, Young's probably more common and again, easier on Western ears.

Beck goes on to talk of some other issues in Korea, but the big focus of the article's about the Korean language and how it gets romanized. It should help people understand how the language works.


[If anyone out there knows more information, please write in. If I'm wrong, correct me!]

Vacation Pt. 2: A Few Lessons Learned

The getaway's underway. Rochelle and I have learned some valuable lessons during our travels around this city and Korea thus far. They're included here along with a few other observations about our first two days here on the coast.

• Buses and assigned seats: Yes, people do care about them. You get assigned a seat whenever you ride on an express bus here. The bus seats are either in rows of one and two (one separate and two together) or two and two. Tickets seem to get assigned row by row until all the rows get taken up. I've never paid too much attention to my assigned seat number and have sat wherever I wanted to. No one had ever said anything about it all year until one of a group of four college-age girls approached Rochelle and I after we'd sat down. (Note: the driver had checked our tickets and hadn't said anything about us) Even though we knew we were technically in the wrong, we tried to explain that we sat together because we're a couple, but the girl insisted, so we ended up sitting apart from one another. The downside to this was we couldn't easily talk to each other during the ride, but it did allow us time to catch up on our music. Lesson learned: if traveling with one or more people, buy all of the tickets at once so you can sit together.

My Daejeon-Seoul bus ticket. Note the Korean and English writing. You can't play the "dumb foreigner" card with this one.


• Do not book motels with agoda.com: The site will charge your credit card before you arrive at the motel and it will charge you the first night's stay if you cancel the day of your arrival. They'll also will not refund any money if you check out early. We heard about this firsthand and our Korean buddy Young-hoon confirmed it too. He said that most Koreans don't like the site. I like booking.com and asiarooms.com because neither site deducts money up front; while they do ask for a credit card number to hold an accomodation, you do not actually pay any money until you show up to check in at wherever you're staying.
• Check your motel's location on the map. What looks close on the map isn't always so in reality. Then again, what looks to be in the middle of nowhere my still be accessible by bus. Again, something learned firsthand. I'd booked our motel, the Good Stay Motel Hill, because it had affordable rates and good amenities, but upon consulting the map, it looked like getting in and out of town would cost a fortune in taxi fare. Not true. We found that it's located 20 minutes outside of downtown Gangneung by bus and 10-15 minutes by taxi. Today we took a taxi in and rode a bus out.
• Good Stay Motel Hill basic room rate: 40,000won/night. Room includes refrigerator, computer (with Internet), TV, air conditioning, and a balcony. There's a water cooler and a microwave downstairs as well. Despite being outside of the downtown area, it is an excellent deal. The motels and hotels near the bus terminal cost 70 to 90,000won a night. By staying here, you may pay more money in cab fare (if you choose to forgo the buses), but you'll still come out ahead. Plus, you may get an ocean view.
• Study your Korean. Motel and hotel clerks may not know or speak much, if any English. The two older ladies running this place speak next to no English and we'd originally had some trouble with getting the details of our stay figured out. Young-hoon provided invaluable help over the phone.
• On a practical note, you may note, you need to study the phrase "There's a problem with ~" in case there's something wrong with your room. Having a digital camera around to take a picture of the problem can help immensely as well. This happened to me in Daejeon because the refrigerator in the room was leaking water onto the floor. The hotel clerk did know some English, but I took a photo with the iPad and showed it to him and he understood right away.
• Korea has excellent public transportation and taxi systems. This isn't so much a lesson as an observable fact. A nearby hospital with a taxi stand solved the taxi problem and we figured out the somewhat-confusing bus routes after studying them for a few minutes. And even though the schedules can get confusing, please note that Korea has excellent public transportation. This seemingly-remote motel's on more than one bus line and the buses run every 20-30 minutes. Fares are 770won (~75 cents) with a T-money card and 1,000won with cash .[Well, my T-money card had no money on it and the drive didn't object to the 1,000won bill I put in the box at least]
• You may end up with cab driver who can't read a map or think to use a GPS. The key word here is may. Every other cabbie I've known has known exactly where to go and how to get there, but yesterday's cabbie couldn't figure out who to get to our motel. I'd shown him the place's address in Korean and he had a GPS in the cab but he didn't use it. It didn't help that he spoke no English and I didn't know enough Korean to keep up with what we was saying. We drove to the tourist office to ask about directions, but it was closed because it was after 5 on Saturday. (Idea: keep tourist offices open on weekends because that's usally when tourists go traveling) The clerks in the nearby City Hall (somehow it was open) told him where to go. He eventually drove us there, but he missed the turn off and proceeded to miss the front entrance.
• As a side note, when we finally arrived, a patient from the home for mentally disabled next door was outside and ushered us inside. Rochelle and I both knew that we weren't in the hotel, but we'd also long ago learned that it's best to follow along with the Koreans. We walked inside to find more than eight patients eagerly wanting to meet us. Among them was an older white man who spoke English with a European accent. He did the standard Korean thing asked us where were from. Despite feeling overwhelmed, we greeted everyone amicably because they were all quite nice and then made our exit. We must've missed Nurse Ratched; she was nowhere in sight. Another observation: Korean zoning laws are nothing like they are in the US. You would never see a mental hospital next to a motel in the States.

The motel from the outside.

The view from our 6th floor balcony. You can see the East Side (aka the Sea of Japan) in the background. Yep, we've an ocean view.

Korean cultural lesson: Notice the lack of a 4th floor. Most Korean buildings do not have a 4th floor because the Sino-Korean word for four, sa is sounds like the Chinese word for death.

Next up: photos from Gangneung, including the Terarosa Coffee Factory and Gyeongpo Beach. Cheers!