In Korea, there are words for every social role. Frequently, the job position titles aren’t inherently gendered as they are in French, where a male translator is “traducteur” and a female is “traductrice”. Believe me, it’s not because of a lack of gender equality in the French-speaking world, or because of greater equality of the sexes in Korea; far from it. Gender is just different in the Korean language. The pronouns we use to address people, for example, are constructed not only to indicate the sex of the person referred to, but also the relative age of the person (relative …

Hey, over there! Kangmi’s got some great-looking resources to check out for working on Korean language study. When I have a quiet bit, I’ll really dig in and see if this stuff can help me any. I’m looking to really start again now, and it’d be a help.

I delight in telling Koreans about ways in which their nation is just like the nation they love to hate: America. I thought Andi would be all over this, but she isn’t, and though I am sick as hell (and about to sleep) I am posting a link to an article on the front page of today’s Korea Herald, which claims that Korea is not ready for gay marriages. No big surprise, of course. Some of the other laws governing marriage are even more medieval than those in the West. But it was striking that two old lesbians having lived …

I was walking down the street last night after having watched a movie, and I wanted to find a taxi. Of course, where I got to the main street, a number of young couples were waiting, so I decided to walk a few blocks down and nab a taxi before it hit the busy spot. As I was walking, someone grabbed me on the arm. I turned to see who it was, thinking it might be a friend or acquaintance, but not, it was a total stranger. A Korean ajeoshi — a middle aged man. I looked at him and …