So today, my essay on “Fending off Discontentment” is in the Korea Herald. It’s part three of a discussion that started on Tuesday here, and continued on Wednesday here. You can also read the essay online here. Roboseyo has posted a bunch of links to the original posts in the discussion, including the series of mine that led to this essay. Ironically, the dripping water in my closet has started again because the repairmen seemed to have gone to much greater trouble to re-wallpaper the closet than to prevent water leakage from repeating each time it rains. And since I …
Tag: KOREA
골프 영어 학원?
(Trans. “Golf English Cram School”?) It could have happened. Responding to protests, the Ladies Professional Golf Assn. announced Friday that it would back down on suspending golfers who do not speak adequate English, reversing a controversial decision that had thrown the organization smack into the nation’s long-running culture wars. The LPGA Tour had announced last month that it would suspend golfers who could not speak English in media interviews, acceptance speeches and tournaments by 2009, saying that language fluency was critical to the sport’s promotion and marketing efforts. The action occurred as foreigners have increasingly come to dominate women’s golf, …
Matt on Symmetry in The Host
For those into Korean cinema, Korean SF, or both: Matt’s written up a good post on The Host and the role of symmetry in the film, and linked my posts on the Host (starting here). I’ve commented to expand (slightly) on his observations. Check it out! As for me, I’m planning on working on a paper on the film and its political elements, somewhat expanding on my observations in the posts I’ve made here, and on the paper I’ll be presenting in a couple of weeks. I’ll be working on that sometime in the next couple of months, time permitting, …
Shepherds and Sheep
Those of you who knows your Canterbury Tales well don’t need the exact line I’m thinking of in that title, so I won’t give it here, since it would be overstatement. Or, well, no, not really, but it would be not-nice understatement, anyway. I’m struck, in reading the work of schoolteachers who are trying to write an English text for students of the level they teach — and trying is the word, indeed in a couple of senses — that maybe some of the content just shouldn’t be in there. The problem isn’t total incompetence on their part. A lot …
Sorted (I Think)
Well, I’m glad to say that after a weekend of stress and even a certain amount of impotent rage, things seem to be sorted. The whole mess could have been avoided if the guys on Friday hadn’t been utter dolts, but at least someone higher up intervened and rendered their dolthood less than all-powerful today.