Tag: weird history

The Land of the Morning Neologism

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Yeah, I’m talking about Korea. John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar–one of the most neologism-heavy SF novels I’ve ever read–comes to mind quite often as I hear the new neologisms spinning out, month after month. If you’ve never read Brunner’s novel, then I suppose I’ll have to give you a few examples. 된장녀 (Dwenjang Nyeo) One, of course, was the 된장녀 (dwenjang nyeo), a truly nasty word that translates literally as “soybean paste girl.” Soybean paste, while the basis of a number of Korean dishes (like dwenjang jjigae), is basically a brown stinky fermented bean paste. It’s not all that complimentary, …

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Media, Power, and Technology: The Themes of My Media English Course

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So, I was thinking about what to do with the real intro lecture to my Media class, last week. (Yes, it was week three of the semester, but as one student put it to me the other day, “We don’t think of the first week of school as the first week of classes. You know how we change classes and shop around.” The first week of real classes is Week 2, and in Week 2 I led a discussion about personal opinions and experiences of Media, of course. So I was casting about for what to do with my Week …

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Old Foreign TV Shows in Korea

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Last week, I was coming home from Seoul by taxi, because I’d missed the last train, and I happened to hear a series of old TV show themes. From the commentary — what little of it I could understand — it was a kind of late-night retrospective on (American) TV shows that had aired back in the old days of Korean broadcasting, before Korean-made media had expanded to the point where it could dominate the Korean airwaves. It was pretty interesting, and the cabbie and I chatted a little about the shows, as each theme played. Some of the ones …

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Bwi~! and Buyeo Wives, &c.

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That’s a word I think I made up myself, in Korean. At least, I’ve never heard anyone else say it, though Lime told me it sounds like the mopey protestation of a five-year-old. 븨~! This word is occasioned because my Sado Seja story did not make it into the Datlow/Mamatas anthology Haunted Legends. I’m sure competition was fierce, though, and they’re good editors. If only Nick had had the time to savage the story, I’d have learned a lot, I imagine. (But who has time?) Anyway, I’m going to do what I often don’t do… send the story out immediately. …

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The Imo Incident (or, The Incident of the Imo Year, or maybe just Eight Days, or Eight Days in the Imo Year)

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Whew! Well, I’ve just about finished the finishing touches on a story I’ve been on-and-off working for a long time, my Sado Seja story…. which wasn’t originally a ghost story. Actually, I have heard a few people claim that there were ghostly happenings at Changdeokgung, and even Lady Hyegyong mentions palace ghosts — some poor woman who was executed for necromancy against the queen a generation or two back, for example, was thought to have left an evil spiritual residue behind — but strictly speaking, I’ve never encountered the story of Sado Seja as a “ghost story.” And yet Sado’s …

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The Iri Yeok Explosion, and the Iksan Landfill Crisis

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This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series Who's Complaining in Korea

As you can see from the links above, this is the second in a pair of posts responding to the question posed by Roboseyo and The Korean. If you haven’t read part 1, go check it out before reading this. If you’re not inclined to check it out, here’s the nutshell: To complain is human. I Whinge, Thefore I Am. To complain online is even more common. We’d be reading whining blogs from 1380 is blogs had then existed. Expats probably complain a lot because of a few specific reasons: Many expats are English teachers, a relatively stressful (and in …

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Got China?

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A couple of them in this post on a blog I just discovered (in the Columbus, was-already-there sense), The China Beat. Particularly cool are the piece on Li Wei  at 1000 Words and Virtual Shanghai. Plus why Jonathan Spence absolutely, totally rocks like a motherf*cker. (More here.) Listen to Spence’s Reith lectures here… even if you do skip the long (and iffy) question periods. Or download the MP3s (from links listed) here. I’m listening to lecture #1 now — which is about Confucianism, by the way, and thus of interest to all you Korea-watchers —  and the big question is: …

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From Paris to New York… by Land?!?!?

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I was browsing Manybooks.net’s new additions, and I happened upon this: Many who read the following account of our long land journey will not unnaturally ask: “What was the object of this stupendous voyage, or the reward to be gained by this apparently unnecessary risk of life and endurance of hardships?” I would reply that my primary purpose was to ascertain the feasibility of constructing a railway to connect the chief cities of France and America, Paris and New York. — From Paris to New York by Land, by Harry de Windt (1903) Eh? A transatlantic railway? Oh, no, they …

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