Today marks the 3 year birthday of my favorite group, 2NE1. For fellow 2NE1 fans1 I thought I’d just post a few of my favorite videos. Happy birthday, 2NE1!
Clap Your Hands (박수저):
Go Away (Japanese version):
And Ugly:
Happy birthday, 2NE1! 2NE1는 정말 대단해요!
1 Blackjacks for life. 
Recently, I found a funny blog post on Twitter (thanks to Khatz from AJATT) about the two ways to learn a foreign language, using Lord of the Rings as the example.
For those not familiar, if you look on the link above, the pictures on the left are the council of Elrond from the Lord of the Rings. To learn a language destroy the One Ring, they chose the method I have been using to learn Japanese. I purchased some books (some actually pretty helpful), and I also took Japanese courses in college, which were not very helpful. I learned some things, but the format was outdated, and it was a lecture course. I wasn’t really learning much. Worse, I developed some bad habits and misunderstandings I have to still overcome 15 years later. 
I like how the character Elrond complains about not having “Ring-Destroying Genes”. That’s a joke of course. People believe that if they’re not born a native speaker, they can never really be fluent at it. During the time I was learning Japanese in college, and first dating my wife, I often felt like that: I wasn’t Japanese and wasn’t living there, so I couldn’t really ever speak it.
But with some advice from my wife years ago (who learned English here in the US and speaks quite fluently), I started reading Japanese more and trying to get more exposure through online news, podcasts, etc.
It helped a lot more than 2 years of college study of Japanese language. Like Frodo Baggins, it’s a long, long road, but you just have to walk, walk, walk. It’s fine to supplement your exposure to a language with study (I recommend it), but the study has to supplement the exposure, not the other way around.
P.S. I was a pretty bad student in school. I had a lot of C’s and D’s in classes and never finished a book I was assigned. My poor grades continued all the way until I was 16 years old. That year, I remember my teacher giving us the reading assignment of Tolkein’s Fellowship of the Ring. Not only did I finish the book (which I never did before), I finished early and got an A on my book report. After that, I loved reading books. Thanks Tolkien!
Recently, my wife and I were talking about a certain famous pop singer. We agreed that this person sings really great, but wasn’t very attractive, then my wife said in Japanese:
天は二物与えず
Ten wa nibutsu ataezu
Basically this means “Heaven doesn’t bestow two gifts”. This is a proverb in Japanese and I think it’s a clever one.
The term “Heaven” needs some clarification though. In traditional Chinese thought, Heaven (天) was seen as a source of order and natural law. There is some overlap with the Western notion of Heaven, but not that much, hence translations can be confusing. As Confucius said in the Analects (trans. by Professor Muller):
[17:17] Confucius said: “I wish I could avoid talking.”
Zigong said, “Master, if you didn’t speak, what would we disciples have to pass on?”
Confucius said, “Does Heaven speak? Yet the four seasons continue to change, and all things are born. Does Heaven speak?”
You can see how in Chinese-Confucian thought, which influenced all of Asia, Heaven tends to work silently, and is responsible for Nature working the way it does. But then again, it also has some qualities of granting and favoring a person. Again, as Confucius said:
[3:16] Confucius said: “In archery it is not important to pierce through the leather covering of the target, since not all men have the same strength. This is the Way of the ancients.”
So, anyway the point is that people might be born with one gift, but may be deficient in other areas. It’s OK. It’s just the way things work. Having one gift is enough, and worth cherishing.
Hi everyone,
Just a quick announcement that my wife, daughter and I will be taking another trip to Japan in the second-half of August.
Normally we go at the end of the year so we can enjoy New Year’s and also my daughter’s birthday, but the prices for airlines are getting extremely expensive. We spent a huge amount for our trip in late 2011 because the flight was so close to New Year’s and that didn’t take into acount money we spent there. Also, flying around that time was extremely stressful because we just got finished with Christmas, my daughter’s birthday celebrations in the US, and so on. It was just too much. Plus, my daughter had to miss some school
So this time we decided to do it during late August. My daughter’s summer-school will have finished, and she won’t miss any school in September. Also, it will make my life at work a lot easier too, because my company is very busy around the end of the year (holiday shopping, etc). Plus, the airfare was about one-third cheaper flying in August instead of the New Year.
Now, there is one big drawback though to coming in August: it’s super-hot and muggy.
In Japan they call it zansho (残暑), the lingering, long summer heat. I haven’t been to a hot and humid climate since I was 23 in Hanoi, Vietnam (mid-summer), and I usually go to Japan when it’s pretty cold or early Spring. We’ll see how it goes.
As for plans there, I don’t have much. My wife and I and her friends all want to go to Shin-Okubo again. I hope to load up on KPop albums, and my wife might get some dramas as well as albums. I could buy them in the US using YesAsia.com or Amazon, but I had a bad experience with the former, and the latter is fine, but selection is limited.
Also, I hope to visit Sensoji temple in Tokyo again. It’s been a long while, and I’d like to pay Kannon Bodhisattva a visit.
So, if you’re in Japan around August, I’d love to see you! I always try to visit a couple friends every visit, but I’m also happy to meet new faces.
Hope to see you there!
Happy Mother’s Day, everyone! My daughter made this for my wife earlier this week.
Mother’s Day is observed in Japan on the same day as haha no hi (母の日, “Mother’s Day”). Since we live in the US, my wife and I ordered flowers and some sweets for my mother-in-law using Amazon.com in Japan.
I looked up Mother’s Day in Korea, but it seems that it is observed there as Parent’s Day (May 8th).
But to all mothers everywhere, have a wonderful Mother’s Day!
P.S. Posting a day early in the US, to catch the “moms” in Asia and EU who are a day ahead.
So thanks to my wife’s friend in Japan, who also gave us a nice tour of Shin-Okubo a few months ago, we got a copy of the famous Korean Drama neon naege banhaesseo which gets translated as “Heartstrings” or “You’ve Fallen for Me” more literally.
The drama stars Jeong Yong-Hwa (정용화), who’s called yonfa (ヨンファ) in Japanese, who’s the lead-singer/guitarist of the group CNBlue. This is one of their most popular songs:1
My wife and her best friend in Japan are both fans, this friend sent us a copy of this drama which had Japanese-subtitles in it. I can read Japanese enough to follow story by reading the subtitles, so my wife and I decided to watch it together.
The drama is definitely for the ladies, but for me I learned a lot just by watching it. For example the grandfather of the main actress (Park Shin Hye) is a very traditional Korean man so he proudly wears hanbok and plays Go. I’ve never seen a guy wear a hanbok before so it was really interesting to me. Also, in one scene, it shows the funeral for the father of the main actor, and it was really interesting to see how a funeral might look in Korea. This is one of those things that you might read about, but you can really learn more seeing it on screen.
I’ve watched a lot of J-Dramas over the years with and without my wife, and it was interesting to compare the two. J-Dramas seem shorter, 45 minutes vs. and hour, for example. Also, unlike J-Dramas which seem to have a fairly straightforward plot, my wife and I noticed that the plot in “Heartstrings” was a lot more complicated, had a lot of side-plots with other characters, and the series as a whole ran much longer than the typical J-Drama.
Somehow it vaguely reminds of American Soap Operas which are high on drama and subplots that seem to go on forever. All of it is pretty exaggerated though. Life in Korea probably isn’t like this, but it keeps you watching.
But the point of all this is that you really, really can learn a lot about another language, culture by watching popular media. Since I’ve never lived in Korea, I actually know very little about it, besides books and Wikipedia. Seeing how people live, eat, dress or speak in Korea through TV (even if its exaggerated) taught me a lot of little things I wouldn’t have learned in a textbook. Also, from a linguistic standpoint, it really exposes you a lot to how a language is used and not just the rules.
1 If you learn one word in Korean, it’s saranghae (사랑해) which is an informal way of saying “I love you”. It gets used all the time in Korean pop music. ;p
I like following the Hi-RISE project on Twitter and such. Hi-RISE is a pair of satellites that orbit Mars and take very high-definition photos. Often times, they find interesting features that people didn’t notice before.
This article shows a huge dust-devil on Mars, while this image shows not one, but 3 dust-devils stalking the surface.
Why so many dust-devils on Mars? Mars is quite different than Earth. Although it probably had water and more atmosphere in the past, it is basically a kind of cold-desert now similar to the Gobi Desert. Mars has low gravity (only 37% of Earth’s) and so most of the atmosphere on the planet and moisture have gradually left over billions of years. Also, because the magnetic field is so weak, there’s nothing to protect it from energy from the Sun, which destroyed lots of the chemicals there and now the atmosphere is extremely thin (0.6% of Earth’s).
So, due to low gravity and no protection from the Sun, Mars dried up, lost its atmosphere and become a dead world:
The only activity left on Mars are just dry, dust-storms. Amazing how entire worlds can just “die” if the conditions are wrong.
