Lost in Translation

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I made it one month!! Yes! And boy, did it FLY by.

I did norae-bong (spelling?) for the first time this week, which is kareoke. You rent a room with your friends and take over. It's great. I impressed many people with my Blondie and Cranberries interpretations.

Funny story: We were at a bar late last night, and it was pretty empty, when suddenly the bartenders put on "Of Montreal," a band from Athens, GA! Brittany and I were freaking out and ran to the dance floor to celebrate. I talked to the bartender/DJ and he showed me that he had all their CDs! He loves them! I was explaining how we are from the same town, plus REM, the B-52, and Neutral Milk Hotel, and he says, "Oh I have NMH too!" And then he played them, and it was glorious. I felt like I had a little piece of home at a tiny little bar in Busan. What a way to end the night! Min promised me he'd play them again the next time we come. Woohoo!

Here are some more random and funny tidbits I have learned about Korea/Koreans/the hilarities of the English language. Rated PG-13, if the kiddies are reading:

1. "Love Motels" - Koreans live with their parents until they are married. Hence, "love motels" are where people go to, um, have quality time. The funny thing is that they're super cheap and are often frequented by foreigners such as myself in lieu of an expensive hotel. You also drive into the bottom of the hotel, where your car is hidden by the hanging mop car wash things. They're all about discretion here.

2. Wasians: Many foreign guys like the Asian ladies. We have seen so many of these such men with their arm candy that we have dubbed them Wasians, meaning White guy with Asian or Waygook (foreigner) with Asian. Sometimes I like to count Wasians as we walk down the street. It's rarer to find a foreign woman with an Asian man, but it does exist. My co-worker, for example, is dating a Korean man. So I guess Woman with Asian works as well.

3. Lost in Translation: Some of the best translation errors I have read in my students' work in the last week alone:
- In a book report, one girl wrote, "And the three bunnys were molesting Fluffy." Gotta watch that thesaurus!
- One student had to write a list of how she was "alike" and "not alike" to the main character in the story. First, she did it completely wrong. Her "alikes" included "tree, fish, and bowl" but then I read her "not alikes" which included, "tree, fish, excrement, bowl, pond." What? I still have no idea how she found that word!
- A paragraph about being with friends: "I like to play sport with my freinds. Sometime I like to eat with freinds. Sometime I want to sleep with my freinds." The girl was nine and completely innocent. Didn't quite understand when I started laughing!

Never a dull moment. :-D

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