I'll be honest, in 10 weeks I have learned about 10 words of Korean. There are two reasons for this, neither of which is particularly flattering. The first is that I rely too heavily on a Korean speaker being around- my girlfriend. (One would think that dating someone who speaks a language other than English would be good motivation to learn the language, but I don't seem to be wired that way.) The other reason is worse; I have to some degree accepted being a foreigner and "getting by" with English. Note: I am both publicly and privately uncomfortable with this, yet also unwilling to change what has become the status quo.
Now a generous person might be thinking, "it has only been 10 weeks." To a certain extent this is true, however after meeting many Westerners, I am still searching for one who is bilingual. Someone who reads Korean newspapers, who converses with their colleagues and friends in Korean. I have been told such people exist, and I hope they do, but they are few and far between.
Speaking I think from a distinctly American perspective, (yes I realize the irony of my needing to assert that my perspective is American, and also that the mere admission means yes, I'm not certain how "American" it really is) I believe there is a reason for this. Seoul, indeed Asia, is still more exotic than romantic in most foreigner's imaginations. It is an important distinction. Very few, I think, could see themselves in Seoul long term, calling it home. The language is exotic, the people look different, the lifestyle and culture are different. This sounds obvious, but let me turn the idea around. Suppose you were offered, I don't know, three years in Paris or Buenos Aires for work. Would you be fluent in French or Spanish by the end? I think almost everyone would say yes. I'm not a linguist, so I won't be talking about the ease of Latin based languages as opposed to Asian ones, and I think the reason people believe this is different anyway. Americans/Westerners? can see ourselves living in Paris, going to the boulangerie, the cafe. We get to know our neighbors and become local. We can see ourselves blending in, perhaps because aside from the lack of American fashion sense, we look close enough to these people. Our culture and history is closer. Our romantic idea of ourselves in these cities allows us to believe we would create a home there, a new life, a wonderful life. Because Seoul is not romantic in our imaginations but foreign and different, we perceive our time here differently. Therein lies the problem.
Perhaps some might think my bias towards Europe means I see Seoul differently, or rather others are more adept at seeing themselves here than I am. There may be something to this, but at least in an anecdotal sense, my argument holds water.
Hmmm... this became a little heavier than I intended. If any of the five people who actually read this have another perspective, I'd love to hear it.
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I think the point you make about Seoul being more exotic than romantic is right on, Glenn. The other factors I would mention as reasons not many Americans/Westerners here learn Korean both have to do with the EFL industry. First, because of the nature of the job, a lot of people come with the intention of only staying one year and so decide that learning Korean is not worth the effort, and, second, because those of us who are English teachers have jobs that revolve entirely around us speaking English. There is no real incentive, job-wise, for us to learn Korean at all. Outside of work, basic survival-level Korean is all people typically need to function, so that's all they ever learn.
ReplyDeleteSo, Glenn, against my predisposition to judging everything to suck, I must say I actually really like your blog. The language is light and intelligent and insightful, and carries enough humor to make it interesting to read.
ReplyDeleteAs far topical remarks to this particular post go, yes and no. I mean, I've known plenty of kids who studied in Italy or the Netherlands for a year and did much the same thing that so many of us do -- learn survival language, and spend a lot of time in expat bars drinking with other foreigners. This is not to say that there is nothing to your observation, but that I feel it to be a more personal matter. I mean, yeah, the initial impetus to learn any language is to minimize friction in your daily life, but i think for a lot of us it goes beyond that. People duck Korean in no small part because Korean is fucking difficult, and far more alien to our proto-indo-european-wired minds than say Spanish, Italian, or even Swedish. The grammatical structure is ass-backwards from said linguistic perspective, and is written in a non-roman script (even if the script is probably the easiest part of the language).
Korea is strange in that it attracts a particular kind of visitor whose motives I think are often not representative of the motives of those who travel generally. Many people are here as a job, first, and as a cultural experience second, third, or more distantly. A lot of us, God help me, are just here to drink. Some of us are here mostly to bang Korean chicks (not that I cannot certainly to some extent ID with that impulse).
But either you travel to be soak in a place, or you don't. You can soak without much language, but language, just like relationships with the natives (your girlfriend is cute in the pictures btw) is one of the directest routes to such soaking, and it's why language is a route so frequently pursued, even if, as i shamefully do, you half-ass it.
In any case, kudos. Keep writing.
Best,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I am surprised that both of you mention the job quite prominently... I don't really feel like many people would regard their job as their first reason for being here, even me, and this is from someone who has called himself "teacher" for more than 7 years now...
ReplyDeleteMatthew, I think you touched on two points I was slightly hesitant about- the fact that many people that come here are just kids, and the booze culture that exists. One fault with my assertion is so many that come here are young, and have only known one home, or to put it another way, they don't know shit. And certainly many come for the booze and the travel (and some for the Korean women... I'm very surprised by how my own journey has turned out btw...)
The horrible lifestyle of students abroad is a whole other post, but now I am thinking for the first time- are people who come to Korea different from other travelers? My first thought is no, but...
I have to say, I'm Korea first and job second. I didn't realise I'd be able to drink free in friendly dives at the weekend, so I'm taking full advantage of that too, but it isn't why I'm here. I like languages (I say as a monolinguist) so living in a country for a year without at least trying to learn the language wasn't an option. I made that mistake in China. I was there for four or five months and only picked up basic survival Mandarin. Now, I really regret that, so I'm glad I'm learning Korean. Even if we only stay the year and I never come back, I'm enjoying learning it and you learn more about the culture through it.
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