Is anyone else as annoyed as I am by Flickr’s cutesy attempts to improve international understanding (or whatever) by telling you how to say some equivalent of Hello in a randomly chosen language whenever you refresh your Flickr homepage? The one that set me off most recently is Korean Bangawoyo ‘Pleased (to meet you)’, which [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘Korea’
2 October 2009
Wordcatcher Tales: Datsu-A Nyuu-Ou vs. Datsu-Bei Nyuu-A
One of the frequent catch-phrases in Japanese foreign policy discussions these days is 脱米入亜 datsu-Bei nyuu-A ‘leave America join Asia’, one of many trial balloons floated by the new DPJ-led government. This phrase (r)evokes an older formulation attributed to one of the most avid Westernizers of the Meiji era, Fukuzawa Yukichi, who must hold the [...]
1 August 2009
Wordcatcher Tales: Nisshoku, Shironiji, Tatsumaki
I’ve just returned from Japan, still jet-lagged, with a harvest of about 600 photos to sort through and dozens of new words. The weather was terrible almost the whole time, and so I’ll start with a few of the meteorological terms I gleaned on this trip.
日食 (or 日蝕; see below) nisshoku ’solar eclipse’ (lit. ’sun [...]
13 July 2009
China-Korea-Japan Trade Boom, 1100s
From Japan to 1600: A Social and Economic History, by William Wayne Farris (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2009), pp. 94-96:
Commerce grew to become a vibrant sector, primarily because Japan was located next to the most dynamic economy on earth: that of Sung China. Sung Chinese invented gunpowder, the compass, and mass printing. The country also had [...]
7 July 2009
Wordcatcher Tales: Two Teas, A Bug, OMG
Anybody who’s paid attention to my latest batch of Flickr photos will know that I took a short trip to Korea in June. Unfortunately, the rudimentary Korean I had learned before my last visit there on a wonderful junket in 1995 had faded to the point that I felt rather frustrated by my inability to [...]
20 June 2009
Why China Props Up North Korea
In a New York Times op-ed last week, North Korea-watcher and Korea Times columnist Andrei Lankov explains quite starkly why China will continue to prop up North Korea.
International sanctions, introduced after the first nuclear test in 2006, have not had any noticeable effect — in part because they have not been seriously implemented. It is [...]
12 June 2009
Kim Jong Un: Apollo of the Amnok, Titan of the Tumen, …
Whenever I wonder what Romania might be like now if Nicolae Ceauşescu had somehow managed to survive long enough to pass his kingdom on to his son, Nicu (alas, poor Nicu!), I just turn my gaze to the royal succession in the Hermit Kingdom of North Korea, which fits Tony Judt’s characterization of Ceauşescu’s Romania [...]
4 June 2009
Effects of Tang Imperialism on Its Eastern Neighbors
From Japan to 1600: A Social and Economic History, by William Wayne Farris (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2009), pp. 28-30:
In 631, [Tang Emperor] Taizong decided to resume the Sui policy of attacking the warlike state of Koguryŏ by sending an expedition to gather the bones of Chinese troops who had perished during earlier campaigns. Tang soldiers [...]
30 March 2009
Wordcatcher Tales: Dappokusha/Talbukja
How widespread is the economic downturn across the globe? Well, it’s now affecting many North Koreans, because funds from South Korea that might help them escape their workers’ paradise are not as plentiful as they once were, according to an article in Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun. I’ll quote just the first paragraph from White Peril’s translation.
The [...]
4 March 2009
How Doth Lotte Love Baseball?
In the Los Angeles Times, John M. Glionna profiles the unlikely manager of a once hapless Korean baseball team, the Lotte Giants of Busan: former LA Dodgers infielder Jerry Royster.
Reporting from Busan, South Korea — Jerry Royster isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry: The umps just don’t speak his language. Every time he races [...]
