I caught a taxi today to visit the Baotuquan（趵突泉）springs here in Jinan. I asked the driver what my chances were of catching a cab to the airport around 5:30 in the morning on Monday to get to Jinan airport to return to Korea and how long it would take from my hotel. After he answered, [...]
I went to 춘천 in Kangwon province this past Monday to scout out what the state of local history was in the province and what materials I might be able to find on life there in the early postwar period (1945-50). The city library’s reference room was closed (how did I miss that when writing [...]
Couldn’t the Korean government wait until I got my first book published or at least until I finished my dissertation? The new government will not extend the mandate of five out of the 10 current presidential commissions — the Presidential Committee for the Inspection of Collaborations with Japanese Imperialism, the Truth Commission on Forced Mobilization [...]
I have recently switched to almost full-time reading of early postwar Korean newspapers. I’m avoiding those newspapers (조선일보, 동아일보, 서울신문) from this period that I have easy access to back in my library in the US or through online databases. There are two bound and published collections with copies of early postwar newspapers easily available [...]
I confess that I’m one of those Orientalists who really loves the characters used in the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. There have been many voices (e.g.) over the last century or so who have argued for the complete romanization of East Asia’s languages and Korean nationalists (as well as those who claim they only oppose [...]
I opened up my copy of the newspaper this morning and very quickly realized it was a slow news day. Or at least an editor at 조선일보(朝鮮日報) made that call. Today the top right quarter of the front page of the newspaper was dedicated to introducing a series of new articles on prices in Korea, [...]
Catching up on some newspaper reading, I came across a piece (Korean) by Scott Burgeson, of Korean Bug fame, in the September 15th opinion pages of Chosun Ilbo. In the article he describes a phenomenon familiar to most non-Asians who have lived in places including Japan and Korea: a paralyzing shock exhibited by natives of [...]
While descending some stairs into the Shinchon subway station here in Seoul, Korea this evening, I was stopped by a boy perhaps five or six years old. Blocking my path, he smiled brightly and said, “안녕하세요” (a Korean greeting). I waved to the kid and replied with the same, “안녕하세요.” Hearing my reply, the boy [...]
I’m sure it is hard to make language textbooks. On top of introducing grammatical patterns, vocabulary, and maintaining a certain level of appropriate difficulty, the writers need to try to make the contents of the readings interesting and hopefully educational. This is something I can appreciate in my last summer of formal language study, here [...]
I’m spending a quiet Friday night here in Seoul, Korea after my first week of summer Korean language classes at Yonsei (I was at Seoul National University’s program the last two summers). I have gotten into the habit of watching the 9pm news on Korea’s MBC channel and was especially amused by one of the [...]