Here in Korea (twenty days) we are grateful not to be expected to grasp their unique alphabet or spoken language.
One look at us and they say 'hello'.
Even those Koreans without any English are patient with us, not only in tourist precincts but off the beaten track.
That feeling of becoming a drifting muggins has mostly worn off.
Right now the English media here are telling Koreans to wake up at long last to 'multiculturalism', but this mainly
seems to be 'watch out for "mixed marriages" in trouble because the foreign bride is being abused'.
Max in Seoul (but soon home to Melbourne)
On 15/06/2013, at 2:57 AM, Douglas Barbour wrote:
> Not to mention that the fact that most of them know at least 2 languages, making you feel even more foolish...
>
> Caught that, you did.
>
> Doug
> On 2013-06-11, at 4:15 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Languageless
>> moving
>> from situation
>> to situation
>> on the basis
>> of visual cues,
>> fingerfuls
>> of loose change
>> and gooby smiling.
>>
>> Everything you thought
>> important, everything
>> which defines you
>> as adult
>> has been bound up in being
>> understandable.
>> Now you're the muggins.
>> Almost adrift.
>>
>> But for your Mastercard.
>>
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>
> Latest books:
> Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
> Recording Dates
> (Rubicon Press)
>
> Springtime’s wide
> water-
> yield
> but the field
> will return
>
> Lorine Niedecker
>
>
>
>
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