나는, 외국인 - I, Foreigner

Weirdest is at it again.

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0000

I swear he is doing it just to try and tick me off, in a friendly way:

“Ha-i. How are you. I’m fine thank you and you?”

His English is way good enough to know those are exactly what you should not be saying.

Uri Teecha

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

I took my recently discovered shortcut home through the elementary school. Through this shortcut I have found that many of the middle school students play football and basketball on that field instead of walking further to the middle school.

As I passed a bunch of my students they all greeted me. One buy skipped in my direction, yes skipped, and shouted “헬로 우리 티처!” (Hello Uri Teacha) Uri us Korean for ‘our’. How nice.

Crunching Numbers

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Via Travis H.

Saw this link above (link) the one you posted and thought I'd crunch some numbers myself. While the foreign population rose 2% from 2008-2009, "violent" crime rose 18%. Robbery was the big one, almost doubling from 133 to 260. To put that in perspective, .03% of foreigners committed a robbery. Furthermore, 0.22% of foreigners are thieves. "Other" crimes (not specified) rose 8%. It is interesting they did not break those numbers down further, since the 5,551 crimes not specified represent more than 2/3 the total 7,812 crimes committed (speeding tickets anyone???).

~=~

Overall, 0.89% of foreigners committed a crime (notice the decimal points on these percentages), giving a "criminal" rate of less than 1 per 100,000. That number would drop further given that one "crime" does not equal one person, one person likely committed several crimes.

~=~

The FBI considers "violent" crime to be murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. But no figures for murder or rape were cited, though those two terms were cited in the second line of the article. Theft is a property crime.

~=~

Just for reference (not to be compared to my "criminal" rates, which account for number of criminals per foreigner) the US crime rate in 2008 for all crimes (violent and property) was 3,672 per 100,000. Violent crimes were 454 per 100,000.

~=~

The US murder rate was 5.4 per 100,000, between Turkey and Kenya. South Korea was 2.8 between Switzerland and Finland.

Smell that foreigner

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:00:00 +0000

"When walking past a foreigner's house, there was a unique odor foreigners carry. That is how I fathomed out whether a foreigner lived in the house," Baek was quoted as saying by police. Full article here.

Maybe it was because they didn't smell of kimchi and garlic. Oh! The apartments smelled of deodorant. Funny stuff.

Did you know that Koreans naturally don’t have a sweat smell? That is why deodorant is so difficult to find here.

Thanks to Christopher for turning me on to this one.

I love Google Translate

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:00:00 +0000

안녕하세요..급식실입니다.
우유급식 희망조사서를 학생들 편으로 보낼 예정입니다.
꼭 학부모님께 동의를 받아서 작성해 오도록
학생들에게 얘기를 해주시고, 금요일까지 급식실로 가져다
주시기 바랍니다.....선생님들의 많은 협조 부탁드립니다.

Hello .. is geupsiksil.
Students Hope Survey of milk feed is expected to send other side.
Write your parents agree to come to you
I'll let the students, through Friday, bringing to geupsiksil
..... Please ask teachers' cooperation.

Survey of milk feed? Really? No, thanks you.

Yuna’s Hole

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 04:00:00 +0000

Apparently Yuna's Hole is now a matter of public consumption. Now, now. No jokes about how you would be willing to do the eating.

I suppose it is Tour le Jour's way to celebrating Kim Yuna's Olympic Gold with this bagel. It is actually quite clever and just me being a dirty old man, but hey, who's going to stop me?

Diamonds and Ice

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 03:00:00 +0000

A camera. A piece of ice. The sun.

The Korean Winter Hat Society

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:00:00 +0000

Hair

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 03:00:00 +0000

What do you get when you let an wind carrying actual icy snow to hair exposed for a few hour?

Taebaek Snow Festival.

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:00:00 +0000

Cake Cup

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 03:00:00 +0000

I discovered this coffee shop slash bakery a few days ago. The coffee is not the best (still Bliss Coffee), but it is good, and however little the coffee is lacking in taste is made up for by the very low price and the setting.

Cake Cup is a charming little place that bakes and sells mini cakes, cup cakes and biscuits along with the standard hot drinks. I might be spoiled with South African prices, but paying more than R20, about US$2.50, for a single little cup cake seems a bit much for me. Then again, I might also just be ignorant of prices back in the RSA. Soon, however, i will taste one.

What follows is basically just a dump of photos that I took at Cake Cup. If only I had a very wide angle lens to capture the whole place in one shot.

Spot, the Stand-up Comedian

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 01:30:00 +0000

Spot, a student of mine, was telling me jokes just now.

Student: Dog, you know. Barn. What?

Me: Huh?

Student: Barn? You know?

Me: ...blah...blah… B-U-R-N? As in Fire?

Student: Yes? Hot dog!

Weird girl was asking me “What do you call a burning dog?” Funny.

Then she asked me if I knew (insert strange Korean word) from Star Wars. A quick action showed me she was talking about a Lightsaber, the light sword thing-a-ma-bob. So she asked: “What colour is a lightsaber?” Naturally I answered: “Red, blue or green.” Shaking her head she said “Orange!”

It only took her only a couple of seconds and a blank look on my face to realise that this was a joke that only worked in Korean. Apparently the world for “orange” is Juhwang(주황), and if you say this quickly it is the sound of a lightsaber extending. Once I got that part I was actually quite amusing.

Side note:

I looked up “Orange” and then “Orange Colour” on Google Translate. It gave me “오렌지 컬러” (Oraenjee Ceolleoh), basically just English with a Korean accent. Quite useless, actually.

At the Entrance

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Solar Power

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The view from my current apartment is just so much more interesting than from the previous one. That, and water does not freeze during the day.

Oops!

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:30:00 +0000

I'm really, REALLY sorry. In South Africa we don't have to check to see if the water in the toilet bowl is frozen.

How Beautiful?

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The less flattering side of snow. Once everyone has woken up, gotten in their cars and went to work, we are left whit this brown mess on the roads. As the days go on that mess will spread outwards to the walking areas.

Snow Day. A REAL one this time.

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Korea was hit by snow on Monday. I am not exactly sure which areas were hit, but Gyeonggi-do git it big time. People who have lived here in Icheon for a long time said that they have never seen so much snow in this city and I recently heard that it is the highest snowfall since 1937.

Slaves to the System

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A boy came into the office today, apparently to join in his class’s share of the cleaning. Just to make sure I asked him why he was here and he replied: “Servant. Slave.” At least one student is honest about his feelings. =D

Taebaek Landscape

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 03:00:00 +0000

The lack of sun that made everything seem much desaturated, along with the white background from the weather, allowed me to get these spooky, lonely shots.

The bit of sun we saw at the start of the hike =D

Right at the top of the mountain, in front of the shrine to whomever (I cant find the information at the moment) is a bit of strange moonscape. Along with the white-out from the miserable weather it made for a strange view of seemingly lonely hikers.

Fashion

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Heart

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Go, Go, Go!

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The traffic lights just outside my school. This particular intersection is the source of much frustration and confusion. I'm surprised no students have been run over yet.

I took the photo as I left school at about 4:45. it is winter, so by that time the sun is already very low and created a slight background colour which is helped along by the colour processing action I ran.

How to be grateful for a small start…

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

“Teacher, I need money.”

“Oh? Why do you need money?”

“I want to buy clothes.”

“Hmm. (Curious) How much do you need?”

“이만 팔천 원! (28000 won)”

“Hmmmm?”

“Uuuuhm.”

“Twenty eight thousand won?”

“Uuuuhm. Ten (makes an X in the air) two, (shows eight fingers) zero, zero, zero.”

“Yes. 2, 8, 0, 0, 0. 28000 won.”

“OK. Yes.”

“Let me see…here is 50 won.”

“Really?! Thank you teacher!”

Tous Le Jours

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

지하주차장

noreply@blogger.com (Otto Silver) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

A sign indicating the underground parking. Like signs all over the world, this one is pointing in the wrong direction, unless you are looking for the stairs that does to the underground parking, maybe then, if you look around a bit. Take care to avoid the waste food bins at which the sign is pointing.