kangmi: learning korean

Hangul Day Upgraded to a National Holiday?

From The Korea Times:

The 560th Hangul Day, celebrated today, has been declared a national holiday. The day was re-designated a national holiday last year following the revision of a related law.

Hangul Day, which commemorates the invention of Hangul, the Korean writing system, was designated a national holiday in 1945, but was downgraded to a commemoration day in 1990.

However, the government decided to re-establish it as a national holiday, so now South Korea has five national holidays: March 1 Independence Movement Day, Constitution Day on July 17, Liberation Day on Aug. 15, National Foundation Day on Oct. 3, and Hangul Day on Oct. 9.

and more:

Posted by kangmi on October 8, 2006 at 8:52 AM1 comments

Kangmi returns to learning Korean

I had no idea when I went on hiatus August 24 of last year that it would last this long. First it was one thing, and then it was something else. However, I’ve been laying plans over the last couple of months to start learning Korean again. Once upon a time in Seoul marked my official return both to kangmi and to learning Korean.

My major blogging temptation is to allow time spent blogging about learning Korean to replace actually learning Korean. I have committed to seven hours of language study a week, and no more than three hours of blogging and blogging administration. Less blogging if circumstances dictate, but not less studying Korean. It will be painful, as there are all sorts of things I want to fix and move around and organize, but I have a list, and each of those things will be completed over time. There’s nothing so broken at kangmi that it can’t wait.

Stay tuned for reports on how I have structured my learning time; using my commute to learn Korean; why money spent on Pimsleur is money well spent; why you should use a language repeater; and where I am going with all of this.

Posted by kangmi on October 4, 2006 at 10:17 AM8 comments

Jodi dreams in Korean

One of the milestones of learning a language is dreaming in that new language. Jodi of The Asia Pages finally had a dream that counts.

I’m still waiting.

Posted by kangmi on October 4, 2006 at 10:14 AM2 comments

Ministry of Information and Communication introduces new online ID system

From The Hankyoreh:

South Korea has introduced a new personal identification number system for use on the Internet, a move intended to block personal data theft prevalent in cyberspace, a government ministry said Monday.

Under a set of guidelines by the Ministry of Information and Communication, the new identification numbers called “i-PIN” will be available on the Internet starting Monday, along with the existing “citizen registration numbers.”

i-PIN stands for Internet personal identification number.

Internet users will be allowed to choose either i-PIN or their registration numbers to confirm their identity on Internet sites.

No word on whether it will solve the online registration problem we non-Korean citizens experience.

Posted by kangmi on October 4, 2006 at 10:12 AM0 comments

The Unforgiven | 용서받지 못한 자

Yoon Jong-Bin may be a baby-faced twenty-seven-year-old, but he’s also a young director with a bright future. The Unforgiven, his graduation thesis project at Chung-Ang University, is a powerful story of relationships shaped during compulsory South Korean military service. The film was released at the 2005 Pusan International Film Festival and was screened in the Un Certain Regard category at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

I saw The Unforgiven at The University of Notre Dame last night. Yoon answered audience questions after the screening. That I got to experience two of my favorite things—Korea and film—in the same evening—has but one clear precedent—a 1989 screening of an execrable piece called America, America. Fortunately, The Unforgiven more than makes up for the other.

Some highlights:

-Although I knew better, it was still hard to disregard the apparent gay undertone of the movie (which goes more to show I’ve been away from Korea for a while). That easy same-sex intimacy one finds among Koreans looks very different to Western eyes. Time after time, Seung-Yong appears to be about to tell Tae-Jung what he came to say, and every time I held that in the back of my mind as a possible reason, even though I knew that wasn’t it. Knew it. I wasn’t surprised when an audience member asked the director about it. He said that he’s been asked about it everywhere he’s gone except, of course, in Korea.

Posted by kangmi on October 3, 2006 at 4:18 PM0 comments