MP3 Players ^__^

I have never had a real reason to buy an mp3 player. But I will be on the move almost constantly for the next six months; I now have my reason. Within hours of my purchase of an Apple iPod 80gig Classic, I discover Keith has received a Microsoft Zune for Christmas. After suggesting we bring our machines and have them battle to the death (plus internet research later) I discovered the following:

Same price, same hard drive space, same audio quality, basically same set of features, same weight and overall size.

Zune screen is much larger.

iPod battery lasts a lot longer.

Zune accepts more video formats.

Zune only works on PCs and noticed that software only runs on Vista. iPod works on both platforms and all OS versions. Noting also that my music is primarily on a Mac and it sorted on that Mac, iPod wins here.

Zune does not recognize DRM copyright protection meaning you can legally purchase music but will not have the ability to play it.

Zune requires software hacking to accept Unicode. When trying display a non-Roman based alphabet the words show up as squares or as gibberish instead of the correct letters or characters. What this means is I will not be able to read any of the song names of my Asian music; which is almost all of it.
If you are curious what your computer can read and what it can't click on any of the following links to see if there is Asian script or a bunch of small boxes:
Test Korean
Test Japanese
Test Chinese Simplified

If Unicode is not supported then it also means I will have a really hard time getting a Zune repaired anywhere in Asia, meanwhile there are a number of Apple Authorized Resellers in multiple Asian countries. The warranty reason alone is worth me keeping the iPod and the Unicode reason really hammers it home.

End result: I am really happy with what I bought and don't feel any regret~^____^ v

Back In the US

Christmas Eve - Finished packing bags and my room. Left Nonsan around 1pm, arrive Yongsan Station around 4, Myeondong at 7, met friend at 8, dinner 8:30, Namsan Tower, arrived at apartment at 1 am.

Christmas Day - Woke up 7:30, shower and breakfast, airport bus to Incheon, reorganized suitcases, grabbed a dounut and drank my water bottle dry before they could confiscate it and later refilled it (3x during the trip), left Korea 12 noon, arrived in Japan, Immigration and Customs with only one shoulder bag: "Um, is that all you have?" asked Customs, left the airport, exchanged currency, strolled around some more, bought a few items, airplane left 45 minutes late, arrived in LAX, Immigrations and Customs, freshened up in bathroom, met Grandpa for lunch 11:30 am, rode home, fell asleep around 5:30 pm, woke up 1 am.

I came back knowing I will return to Korea in two weeks. That combined with sitting around Nonsan for 3 days with nothing to do, has allowed me to mentially prepare myself for the return. Returning from Yonsei I went through heavy reverse culture shock. This time around I feel more prepared and, do I say I feel very American right now?

The Other Side of the Coin

I mentioned some of the good things about being foreign but I left out some of the bad things of being foreign. Life can be very hard for foreigners in any country, that is pretty standard fair. A lack of communication, racism, getting charged more for things; these can all be very common things.

I really haven't had much of a problem with racism. In East-Asian countries (read not Southeast Asian countries - I don't know about those) it is a good thing to be white. The Korean people are usually very kind and I have found very willing to help in a number of circumstances. As I have found out it is not as good to be brown or black in this country.

Getting charged more for items, yeah it happens on occasion. Truth is you can normally tell when it is going on and if you are careful it won't happen much. Truth is this, as are all the other items, happens to foreigners in all countries.

Lack of communication is the biggest problem for myself. Between cultural assumptions and me not hearing everything, I get skipped on a fair amount of information. Korean being a language I can speak some of, I can do all of the necessary things; I can buy soap, I can get a taxi, I can buy train tickets a week ahead of time, etc. But having a real conversation with real thoughts, can be awfully hard to come by. As I recently had, I needed to have a conversation with an individual about a very important issue and spent around an hour only to find myself unsuccessful. I had to call a friend who intervened on my behalf and was able to get everything taken care of and translated back to me in about 10 minutes. Situations like that make you feel helpless and very needy.

Salvation Army

I was getting ready to ride the subway and I heard a familiar ringing sound off to the side. I had forgotten that this is the time of the year for the bell ringers to come out and generally gather in the subways, as per better temperatures.

Don't have cash on you? Not a problem~ use your subway card or debit card.

Don't have a debit card but have an audio book? Not a problem~you can drop off your book as well.

When Dad had visited we saw a group gathering around a stage. I've never know the group to have a band or two. Turns out the Salvation Army has a pretty strong presence in this country since 1908 when they first arrived.

Doing some quick searching I found some old pictures showing those familiar buckets being passed around and being used in the city. Everything from food kitchens in the city to those for kids at a school. Found a school in a remote area and then with some newer uniforms and sending the kids marching off to school. Mobile Clinic~ Making and repairing clothes~ And a cute little picture to finish it off.

Foreigners

Sometimes it can really be benifitual to be a foreigner in Asia. This is not always true as there is the occasion where it is a negative thing (ask me about drunks on trains :) I still stumble with the language but despite that people don't expect me to understand the language or the culture. I've been taught by several people outside of this country that, for an example, if you get pulled over simply speak in English and speak it really fast. For the officer it will not be worth the trouble and you can usually get away with it.

Now I haven't been pulled over seeing how I haven't driven here yet, but I have had other examples.

The school started a campaign that on Wednesday everyone needs to clean their plate; no food trash allowed. Well my first Wednesday that this program started, no one told me about what I need to do. So despite them telling me no and rejecting my tray, I didn't understand what was going on and they took it anyway.

Another time I went back for seconds so I could have a midnight snack. It looked like they were telling me I shouldn't or wasn't allowed to, or something along those lines. But I honestly didn't understand and after a moments pause they gave me seconds ^^

Sometimes when kids get punished they have kitchen duty which includes serving food. One of the sophomore students (aka not in my class) was serving and I wanted more food. It took a minute for him to understand (with me talking in Korean) that I wanted more food. He had a look on his face like he wanted to tell me something; like he should give me a reason not to give me more food. But he discovered it was easier to give me more food than it was to try and explain in English. I got the food I wanted :)

ㅋㅋㅋ *Happy~*

Translation Styles

I have noticed there are two main ways to translate things; the first being literal 'word for word' translations and the other being 'sentence for sentence.'

The first one is the worse of the two. Languages are not all the same, that is why they can be such a pain going from one to the other.
Korean and English have completely different sentence structures. Example:
Korean: 내일 난 학교에 갈게요.
English: Tomorrow I school to the will go.
I have seen a number of subtitled movies and a few time it is in this method. This is also what happens when you translate subtitles using a translation program. Despite it looking odd this can actually be really benefitual if I am trying to learn the language; I can see how it flows and how it thinks.

The other method is 'sentence for sentence' or 'thought for thought.' The structure may have to change, the words used may have to be changed, but the thoughts get across; which is the point of translating.
Korean: 내일 학교 가요.
English (word for word): Tomorrow school go.
English (thought for thought) Tomorrow I will go to school.

If someone does not know another language needs more or less (or different words) then they might change the structure, but the words will be misleading.
-Korean in a group society, so words like "my" "I" "me" are not really used. So in many sentences the subject is dropped; in English you cannot do this.
-English needs the tenses to be correct, Korean is more lax. In English you must use verbs in the future tense even though you have already stated it will be in the future ("tomorrow," "next week"). But in Korean, if you have already told the person "next week..." you don't need to conjugate the verb to the future tense; they already know it is in the future.

Another example of how literal translations can be misleading is what responce will a person have when they do not understand. In Korean, if you do not understand what someone is saying and you want them to repeat it, you simply say "yes?" This can really be a problem when, to English speakers, it sounds like the person agreed with me (by stating "yes") when really they were trying to tell me they didn't hear me.


"Okay" has really bugged me until I understood how Koreans use this word. In English it can be used as a form of confirmation or if things are good they are 'okay.' Examples:
"Are you okay?" "Is the food okay?" "My head feels okay now."

In Korean "okay" is used also as "yes." Example:
Rick: So you saw a movie last weekend?
Student: Okay!
This really confused me as students used "okay" = "yes."

I may not be in a Korean Language class or studying vocab as hard as I should be, but I am learning alot about how the language works~

Snow~

The second snow of the season didn't last as long as the first. The first stayed the night and the second had too small of flakes to last.

The temperature is perfect for snow as ice on the field can now support the weight of students or myself. Also the stairs are starting to get iced over. We'll see who gets hurt first...

Christmas Season

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Korea. The Myeondong area in Seoul is looking quite nice. I was told it looks a bit like New York; I will leave that to the people who have been to the city, as I have not. Even the trees look pretty right now. This is what it looked like at the end of my study abroad. One of my last memories is with Kevin with the city decked out.

Next we found a cool displace outside of a mall; it was Christmas around the world. You could see Japan, China, Korea, France (the soldier looks eastern European to me), The United States, and even The North Pole.

Just a few weeks until Christmas~