An auspicious year for resolutions and barbecue

Orignially published in The Groove, March 2007
By Tracey Stark

Every year in late December I think long and hard about the 12 months gone by and decide in what ways I can better myself. Then, on January 1 I begin my concerted effort to apply my New Year’s Resolutions. As soon as the hangover wears off, of course.

Within a month, many of my resolutions have fallen by the wayside. Take this year for example. On my very long list is “No.27: Write the great American novel.” As you can imagine, writing this monthly column takes up all of my extra time, making this a bit of a lofty goal. So I can scratch that one off. Then there’s “No. 42: No more beer.” Again, I don’t know what I was thinking.

Anyway, the point I’m getting to is that by living in Korea you get a second chance at the yearly self-improvement game: Lunar New Year. And this year is not just any year, it’s the Year of the Pig. Or, depending on which media outlet you believe, “The Year of the Golden Spicy Barbecued Pig with a side of Baked Beans.”

This year is auspicious in that the Golden Pig only comes along once every 600 years (or 60 years, depending on who you ask) and is believed to bring wealth to all those who are born in this year. That obviously rules out you and me, but if you know a newborn, this may be the year to let the little booger eater pick your lottery numbers for you.

As it’s already March, we’re a few weeks into the new new year, but ending procrastination was not on my old list, nor will it be on my new list. You heard me right, my new list. I suspect that a majority of you have also failed miserably in your resolutions, so follow my lead and start over.

What follows are some examples from my original list and how they have been altered to suit this auspicious year.

Original resolution: “No more beer.”
New resolution: “No more cheap beer.” (There’s no sense in being miserable for a year.)

Original resolution: “Go to the gym every day.”
New resolution: “No more cheap beer.” (See what I did there? I combined two seemingly unrelated resolutions into one, thereby cutting down on the chances for failure.)

Original resolution: “Learn Korean.”
New resolution: “Get a bilingual best friend.” (Korean is a really hard language. I’m serious.)

Original resolution: “Pay off all debts.”
New resolution: “Eat more noodles.” (This allows me to keep my expenses down and drink more expensive beer.)

With just a little thought this can be the first year you have made and kept your resolutions. The Year of the Pig is a year meant for luxury and excess, not a year for privations and hardship. Don’t put yourself in the position I did at the end of December, Year of the Dog, when I thought more about what I had to sacrifice in the year ahead to better myself than what I could do better to make 2007 great.

Hwighting! An Ode to Konglish

A Stark View

Hwighting! An Ode to Konglish

By Tracey Stark

Originally published in The Groove magazine, Seoul, Korea, February 2007

“More than 350 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to,” Bill Bryson writes in his book The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way.

In Korea, English is a multi-million dollar a year industry. But what happens when you mix the Korean language’s syntax with a limited English vocabulary?

Answer: You end up with a pidgin known locally as Konglish.

The rise in Konglish has resulted in the creation of English-based phrases used in a uniquely Korean way. Terms like “level-up” instead of upgrade, “hwighting” instead of go for it, and referring to a person as a “mania” of something instead of the something being the mania (or the person being a maniac for that matter). The list goes on and new phrases arise all the time.

A great example of Konglish in its written form can be found at the western entrance to Itaewon (the side coming from the army base), on the left hand side, near the big map of the neighborhood. Here is just the first sentence of it:

“As for Itaewon dong that the Han River is located at south and the Mt. Nam is located at north, Dong name originated from the fact that the post-town in which is Itaewon existed at Chosun era (14C).”

This example perhaps best illustrates how translations can go terribly wrong. If you haven’t seen this sign, I strongly suggest you make a pilgrimage to it the next time you are in Itaewon. When read aloud by a mildly inebriated native English speaker, it has a strong intoxicating effect, leaving the reader befuddled and perhaps slightly drunker.

Restaurants and other businesses sometimes seem to advertise their wares in Konglish/English to appear more sophisticated to non-English speakers. Bars with signs that read “Live and Hof” signify that they are more international in nature than a pojangmacha, because they are using both English and German to advertise their offerings. I have yet to figure out what they mean by “Live.”

Or else they translate their menus directly into English using the first word on offer in their bilingual dictionary - “Ooh, look! Rice with spawn! Sounds delicious.”

Restaurants with creative names like “Born to Be Chicken” near Seoul Station, “Sexy Pig” in Hongdae, and “Donkey Fried Chicken” abound. Knock-offs of Western retailers like “Foot Rocker” proliferate. And misspelled translations made into expensive-looking signs like the “Cigalettes” stands along the main road near City Hall are also common.

While admiring the sheer number of places with such names, one has to ask if this is not a marketing ploy to lure you in instead of the result of ignorance, over-ambitiousness or an innocent mistake on the part of some of these merchants.

A case in point is a little clothing boutique in Itaewon called “Make Yourself Fucking Lovely.” The owner speaks some English and is savvy enough to know her sign alone will attract foreigners and her engaging personality as well as sense of style will entice them to spend.

English is commonly used in products marketed primarily to Koreans to give them a cachet that regular Korean products do not have. Take my jeans, for example. They boast “genuine quality” and the “energy of denim.” I think I get what they are trying to say, but still find myself shaking my head like I have water in my ears.

But I digress.

I’m a big fan of Konglish. I’m fascinated by it and have tried to write it and speak it, but my innate attachment to English grammar rules will not allow me to think in this particular idiom. My attempts sound silly next to a true practitioner of the dialect, such as an Itaewon cab driver or bartender or most any hagwon director.

And so I removing cap for the Konglish. Let’s having funny times tonight. Hwighting!

When the Road Hits Back

A STARK VIEW
When the Road Hits Back
By Tracey Stark

Originally published in The Groove Magazine, Seoul, South Korea, January 2007
www.mygrooveonline.com

Reasons to travel beyond our borders and comfort zones are numerous, but not as numerous as the reasons we would be better off locking the door and staying in bed.

We do not travel so we can sit on an airport shuttle bus for two hours in downtown traffic on a Friday evening. We do not travel so we can watch, horrified, as the man across the aisle on the plane empties half his lung into a piece of tinfoil from the dinner. And we do not travel so we can be jostled by short people while trying to remove luggage from overhead. Yet, these are only a few of the hardships we are willing to suffer just to get there. And we repeatedly suffer them as though we have some sort of jet lag-induced amnesia.

When we can finally take off our shoes and dig our feet into the sand or look down into the misty jungle or snow-covered slopes, we must consider all we were willing to endure to get to that moment. It is the sum of all of that hardship – spitters, pushers, crying babies, smelly buses and more – that makes up a trip.

Those reasons not to travel do not stop upon arrival, however. From here we can experience the joy of malaria, the pleasure of the runs after deciding to eat meat pies at a truck stop, the ecstasy of breaking a tooth on an unseen rock in our rice, or the bliss of finding a snake in the toilet. The list goes on and we have heard or experienced it all.

If it wasn’t for the flies, stray dogs, stiflingly-hot buses and endless rubbish tips along the highway, the clear waters of the Gulf of Wherever would not be worth the 24-hours and $800 it took to get there. Those waters may as well be the local swimming pool.

While we are traveling/suffering, however, we say things like “somebody please kill me” or a fever-induced “why?” and still we push on. Traveling does not build character because we see exotic animals or dirty people in funny hats. It builds character because we are out of our comfort zone and can not get back until we disembark in a familiar airport or train station.

It is easy when recounting a trip to friends to find yourself suddenly blind to the misfortunes you have survived. It is because those you wish to share your “magical” experience with would find it so much less magical if you told them you spent the entire month fighting mosquitoes or frantically searching for the next public toilet.

For your friends, malaria and amoebic dysentery are but a footnote, an unfortunate problem that, were they to take a trip of their own, would not affect them.

And therein lay the rub. If you describe in the most minute details the trouble with travel, you will never fully prepare someone else for it. Your friend will see you as either a complainer or an amateur when it comes to the pursuit of being worldly.

When friends return from their trip, they will regale you with tales of the exotic and leave emergency room visits as a footnote. Pressed to explain their miraculous weight loss, however, they will give you details about fevers and hallucinations and IV tubes and say, “I wish I had known in advance.”

But knowing would not have made the trip less troublesome. It is possible that malaria would have been traded for a head wound or an armed robbery. Who can say? The important thing is that the trials and tribulations were uniquely theirs in the sense that everything happened under exacting circumstances that can never again be repeated to the letter by anyone else.

I enjoy travel immensely. I have broken a tooth, suffered innumerable stomach maladies, caught pneumonia, suffered heatstroke, been attacked by swarming black flies, and more. Still, I can honestly say that it is because of these problems rather than in spite of them that I continue to hit the road every chance I get.

And the road, needless to say, continues to hit back.