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There is a major construction project underway right now. Recently two buildings were torn down to make way for one larger multi-purpose building. All of the girls from elementary-high school moved out of their building and are now cramped into even tighter quarters for the next 8 months or so. The chapel was also torn down. Here is a picture of the current progress. I don’t have good information about what is being built, but I sure hope it will be an improvement. The kids tell me that the new building will have a “gym” which really would be awesome. There isn’t really any good place nearby for the kids to play. And when it is as cold at it is right now, being inside is really the best option. The new building will also house some of the kids. But in the meantime, things are pretty tight. I’ll be posting periodic updates so you can see how the construction is coming along.

With Christmas around the corner, you can expect some stories about what the holiday is like for these kids.

In fact, Christmastime marks my one year anniversary of working at the orphanage.

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Every year the orphanage sets up a bazaar to raise money. It is usually at the end of October. I wasn’t volunteering there last fall, so this was my first one. Preparations started a few weeks before. Josh warned me that the staff would be pouncing on us to buy some tickets for the event. Each ticket cost 10,000원 and then could be spent on various things at the bazaar.

Each staff member is charged with selling 10 tickets. So, one called me up and asked if I would buy some tickets. I agreed to buy 2. Then, I decided I could afford to invest a little more in the event, so I gave her enough money for 5. But I should have been more discreet. Another worker (the one Josh and I call “Mean 오마” overheard our conversation. She cornered me and begged me to buy tickets from her too. She was practically screaming about how I bought 5 from the other lady, and how I should have spread it around instead. I could only look at her sheepishly and say how I bought 5 already, and I didn’t need any more. Then really started twisting my arm (literally). She grabbed my hand, starred intently into my face and made me promise to buy 3. She was unrelenting! I tried to tell her how I didn’t have any more cash..but that wasn’t good enough. She was happy to take the money later, in exchange for my promise to bring the money next time! Phew!

The day of the bazaar finally approached. The plan was for all the foreigners who volunteer at the orphanage (there are about 4 of us) to sell some cookies and brownies. Josh also bought an ice cream machine so we could sell “home-made ice cream.” We set up our table. It was a great opportunity to practice some more Korean in a setting I never have before. If you’ve spent any time in Korea, you are familiar with the salesmen on the subways. They wheel their carts on the train and very politely introduce their product, going through this whole spiel about how wonderful it is and how great the value is. But that wasn’t my model. I was going more for the street salesmen in a market. These guys scream, and basically just repeat the same thing over and over again. So I started bellowing:

“맛있는 크키이에요. 천원이에요”
“Delicious cookies…just one dollar!”

That is my best guess as to what the guys on the street say. Its probably not all that correct, because the Koreans kept looking at me and laughing (although that’s also because it is so rare to see foreigners making fools out of themselves in Korean). But, we did manage to sell all of our cookies, muffins, and ice cream! I did have to make some deals when we got to the end. Some people really scored with 1/2 price or 1/4 price discounts!

Working at the orphanage always provides me with some great language experiences. Sometimes I get caught off guard that I am understanding the conversation. It seems when I TRY to listen I have a harder time getting it. However when I just participate, subconsciously expecting to understand, I find my comprehension is much higher. That day I was able to translate for a friend and answer a lady’s question without missing a beat. She wanted to know “why foreigners were selling things at the bazaar.” The tone in her voice was not so pleasant actually. But I just told her that “우리 보유관에서 봉사해요.” “We volunteer at the orphanage.”

This picture is of 성태 helping crank the ice cream machine.

오스틴

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Look at the name written on this signboard of a (probably) fried chicken restaurant (오마이치킨= Oh my chicken) . What do you think this is a parody of? It’s obviously not a literal translation of “오, 나의 치킨” or “오, 나의 닭”, right?

Of course, you would often hear Korean people saying “오 마이 갓!(Oh my God!)” in a joking manner even if they don’t really speak English, but looking at this 오마이치킨, I am sure 90% of all Korean people who use the Internet (which is … almost everybody) would think of the name “오마이뉴스”.

오마이뉴스(http://ohmynews.com) is an online newspaper that has the motto “Every Citizen is a Reporter(모든 시민은 기자다)” and it was founded 7 years ago in 2000. It’s an interesting form of media because about 20% of all the articles from Ohmynews.com are written by 55 freelance reporters who are mostly ordinary citizens, yet this online newspaper has such a big influence that it even had some obvious influence in the result of the presidential elections in December 2002.

Not everybody likes this newspaper because it’s very progressive in its views, but it is gaining wider and wider readership because people feel that other major daily newspapers are influenced too much by pressure from outside and it often publishes articles that you cannot find in other newspapers or articles that talk about the same topics but in a different point of view.

So, it would be no surprise if EVERYONE told me that they thought of 오마이뉴스 when they saw 오마이치킨 - it’s THAT influential, or at least its name is widely known. Ohmynews also has an English site for global news and its content is 100% contributed by citizen reporters from all over the world. Take a look at ” http://english.ohmynews.com/ ” if you are interested.

Well, that’s it for now. I’ll try to introduce some more topics that would be helpful for you to know in understanding the Korean culture, including these kind of ‘parodies’ found in signboards, so if you have any questions or requests, please let me know.

Today, in Seoul, we had the first snow of the year!! It started like a little rain, but then the rain got thicker and turned into heavy snow!! I’m sure all of you have different ideas coming to your mind as you hear the word “snow”, but this is what came to my mind when I saw the snow piling up outside my window a few hours ago.

Something really serious happened when I was home for vacation. My friend Josh, who also volunteers at the orphanage told me that some of the older boys were caught with stolen money! Apparently each kid is given 5,000원 (about $5) each month as “allowance.” I’m sure it gets spent immediately on 컵라면 and other unhealthy snacks. But sometime during the summer break, a few of the older stole 500,000원 (about $500) from a man in the neighborhood. You might think that they would have tried to hide it really well, but money really burns holes in these kids’ pockets. So four kids split the money amongst themselves, the older ones threating the younger ones within an inch of their lives to keep silent. It wasn’t long before the staff got really curious about how these kids kept having money to buy things. The older boys wouldn’t talk. But one of the younger ones fessed up, and finally the truth came out. They now have to forgo their allowance until the debt is paid.It really represents a larger problem there. Things get stolen quite frequently. But usually, they steal from EACH OTHER. In Korean society, being a little bit older comes with some real tangible benefits. And the kids at the home squeeze everything they can get out of it. There are middle school and high school students on the second floor, above the elementary kids. They often exploit their seniority. Here is one conversation I witnessed about a cell phone. Remember that I said some kids have parents. Some parents have bought cell phones for their kids.

고등 학생: 전기 줘! Give me your cell phone battery! (they have the same model)
4학년 학생: 왜? Why?
고등 학생: 형! Because I am your big brother! (no blood relation, but since he’s older, he is 형)

So the kid gave up battery. And he might not have seen it again. I wouldn’t be surprised.

Last weekend a 5th grader told me how he used to have a Nintendo DS. I have no idea how he managed to have one of those, but he did. Once the older boys found out about it, it was gone. They stole it, and probably sold it online! The same thing happened last year with someone’s Playstation Portable. The older boys throw down the age card, and there is nothing the younger kids can do about it!

오스틴

Well, most of the times, humor is not humorous any more once it has to be ‘translated’, but I think there can be a justifiable exception - which is, when you are studying a foreign language! It’s always good to know more about the culture, and understanding Korean humor can be another fascinating way to help yourself do that!

In Seoul, Korea, there’s a market place called 동대문, and this is where you can find a lot of ‘fake’ goods that look like the authentic ones, but really aren’t real. But what’s funny is, some of the fake goods have ‘proudly fake’ logos that anyone can see that this is a humor, so a lot of people end up buying those T-shirts, bags, caps, or whatever because they like the humor, even if the quality of the goods isn’t guaranteed.

One perfect example of this is the parodies of PUMA.

This is the original logo of PUMA, as you know, the sportswear brand.

And as you know, PUMA can be written as “푸마” in Korean, and there happen to be lots of everyday words that end with “-마”. So, naturally, there are lots of hilarious parody versions of “ㅇㅇ마” or some other words that have the “마” or “아” sound near the end.

Check these out.

PUMA –> PAMA

(파마 means a perm that you have on your hair)

PUMA –> TUNA

(Tuna 튜나 has similar vowel sets to 푸마)

푸마 –> 비만

( 비만 means obesity. Haha. Look at the picture)

푸마 –> 치마

(치마 means a skirt )

푸마 –> 피마

( the verb 피우다 or 피다 means ‘to smoke’ and the verb ending form ‘~마’ shows a will for an action and is often used toward younger people than oneself. So 피마 means “I’ll smoke.̶

PUMA –> PUNCH

( no explanation neeeded, right? Haha)

T.T

푸마 –> 피나

( 피가 나다 or 피 나다 means ‘to bleed’, so 피 나 means “I’m bleeding” in informal speech. )

푸마 –> 하마

(하마 means a hippo in Korean.)

푸마 –> 푸하

“푸하” is one of many ways to ‘write’ laughing sounds in Korean.

하하하, 아하하, and 푸하하.

Look at the laughing face of the PUMA.

PUMA –> PUMP

(This one is self-explanatory, too. Haha)

푸마 –> 자나

(The verb “자다” means “to sleep” and “-나?” is a way of asking questions often used by males in informal speech)

So 자나? means something like “Hey, you asleep?” or “Are you sleeping?”

This one is my personal favorite . Haha.

푸마 –> 푸#

# (sharp) is written in Korean as “샵” and a lot of Korean people like to shorten the word PUSH-UP(푸쉬업) to “푸샵”, so PU# means PUSHUP.

Look at the delicate single-handed push-up(PU#) that this PUMA is doing!

What was your favorite? Any quesions welcome!

Hi everyone, this is Hyunwoo. 사람마다 생각하는 방식이 다르죠? 그래서 똑같은 사물이나 일에 대해서도 거기에 관련해서 떠올리게 되는 단어들도 다르고요! So, I’ve drawn a simple mindmap of what comes to my mind when I hear the word “November” - maybe not everybody from Korea would think of the same things, but I think it will be interesting for all of you to see what’s in my mind in relation to this month of the year, and it happens to be all in Korean. Haha. So here you go! All questions welcome!

안녕하세요 여러분, 오스틴입니다.

At the 보육원(children’s home) where I work there are about 80 boys and girls from birth all the way up 18 or 19. Older students who are taking college classes, working, or doing some other “productive” thing are allowed to stay once they finish high school. I spend most of my time with the elementary aged boys.

Currently there are 24 of those boys living together. Of those, only 2 are truly “orphaned.” Most of the kids there do have parents. Some of them see their parents on a regular basis. They even go to spend weekends or holidays with their parents! But for whatever reason, they can’t live at home. For some parents, a divorce has left them unable to support their children financially. Others are just simply too poor (perhaps due to a gambling or alcohol addiction). And some have been abused - which in turn, may separate mom and dad, sending one to jail while the other is unable to support the children. Should the situation improve at home, or if another relative appears who is willing and able to support a child, they will leave. But the odds are not in their favor. Once a kid is in “the system” for 6 months, the chances of him leaving shrink to almost zero.

This leads us to adoption. There are orphanages in Korea where you can adopt children. Some of you probably even know someone who was adopted from Korea, or perhaps your family has done that. Maybe even you were adopted from Korea. But in the case of the children I know, none of them can be adopted. Like I said, most of them do still see Mom and/or Dad on a regular basis. According to my understanding of the law, a child can be adopted only if any person who could claim some family relation renounces those ties! One of the boys was simply dropped off at the doorstep of the orphanage when he was newborn. They didn’t know his name, his birthday, anything about him, so they made it up. His “birthday” is Jan. 1 He is ineligible to be adopted because there isn’t anyone to sign off on their family rights. Even if someone could be found, I think they might be reticent to approve an adoption. For Koreans such a thing represents a lot of shame to the family. And while from a western perspective, it might be just as shameful to abandon your children, admitting that fact causes a real loss of “face.”

It is a place where children are really raising themselves. The adult supervision seems to be sporadic and inconsistent. It is difficult to help so many young children manage their lives and be “stand-in parents.” So I see my role there simply as being a positive influence. Occasionally we teach them some English, but it is rare to have quality time for teaching. However there are many chances to provide “life lessons” and guidance in the simple things like picking up after playing, washing hands after using the bathroom, not fighting. And these are the areas that I really want to improve in my Korean. It is forcing me to practice speaking!

Until next time,

오스틴

If you remember the idiom pilot lesson from this week we learned about a 청개구리. Since the boys at the orphanage can be pretty disobedient, I thought I’d ask them about this word. If you go to the actual YouTube page, you can see a rough English transcript in the video description.

Some of the boys didn’t know what 청개구리 meant. I wonder if it’s because they don’t have mothers to scold them!