Wish you were here. Finally it's Wednesday. The flu is going around a lot of people have been sick, few of our kids at school as well. Unfortunately Korean parents have to work, so unless the kid is running a high fever, they send them to school. So a lot of other kids and teachers get sick too. 

I wasn't feeling well since Sunday, but somehow managed to get through the day on Monday, chasing the headache with some EasyN6. But in the evening I was really in a bad shape. I don't usually get flu, but I was worried about Covid, so I ordered some self testing kits from Coupang (delivered before 7am next day). 

When I woke up in the morning I had a message from my boss that one of our teachers thinks she might have a flu and decided to go to see the doctor. I really wasn't feeling great, so I did the Covid test (with a hopeful heart), but "unfortunately" it came out negative, so I went to work - teach the 6 years old instead of the sick teacher. 

I think this was the first time I wished I had Covid, so I would have a good reason to stay at home. Somehow we all got through the day, today it's Wednesday, sick teacher is back, even though still sick, and I am feeling a bit better. The big bowl of Pho for dinner last night was a great idea.

Now just to put my mask on and get safely through the rest of the week.

Koľko rečí vieš, toľko krát si človekom

In Slovak we have this saying "Koľko rečí vieš, toľko krát si človekom" which translates as something like "You are as many times human as is the number of languages that you can speak". I have to admit that until recently I didn't really understand the meaning of this saying. I simply thought that speaking other languages makes you more human, since you can understand more people.

yeah, I know many of my friends hate this pose :)

But as I came to Korea I realized that there is more to it. Or maybe that I completely misunderstood it. Did you ever realized that when the same person speaks different languages their personality changes. Or maybe it's not really their personality, but they come across differently. It's not that the person becomes someone completely else, more like some other part of themselves is allowed to come through different language, something that could not be expressed through another language.

Natalia and I trying out our 애교

For example (예를들으면) (it's always easier notice it on other people than yourself) I have this friend here in Korea from Central America, her mother language is Spanish, but she is really good in English since she studied at the international school while in her country. So from the beginning we would talk together in English. We have another students here whose mother language is Spanish as well, so I had a chance to observe her while speaking with those people, and I realized that while she speaks English, she is really calm and down to earth but as soon as she starts speaking Spanish, she gets really animated, uses her hands a lot either to gesture or to touch people while talking with them, a lot more emotions could be seen as compared to when she spoke in English. We were here together to study Korean so as her Korean skills were improving I could notice another change. When she would speak Korean she would speak in much quieter voice, and her gestures became little different. She would act in a more cute way than in her English or Spanish self.
So than I started wonder if I am the same way, and I have to admit that I realized it's exactly like that and the same goes for other people. 
Just try to watch yourself more carefully. The more fluent you get in a language, and the more natural it becomes for you, the better you are able to express some other parts of your personality, you become an "another human". Which I realize that a better English translation of the mentioned Slovak saying would be "You are as many times a person as is the number of languages that you can speak."

My Christmas card this year

I often wonder what would my friends from US and Slovakia say if they seen me speaking in Korean. Dad of one of my friends said once "키가 커도 귀여운 점이 있네" (Even though you're tall, you have a cute side to you). I never thought of myself as cute, but I guess the Korean 애교 (aegyo) is getting to me as well, so I'm sending you some of it.

Language and Culture

Here is one of the short assignments that I wrote for my Cultural Psychology class last semester. This one is on the topic "Language and Culture"

After reading the article Nouns Cut Slices by Graf at al. i thought about how strong impression the nouns can leave when speaking about a person. When I was studying an education we were taught to avoid so called labeling. Don’t label child (use noun) describe the action. This goes especially for negative behavior. Don’t say “You are a liar” but say “right now you said a lie.” We were taught that children can associate themselves with these labels and eventually start believing them as truth and act according to that. It is interesting to see how the nouns vs. adjective can influence the intergroup bias. We can see this on daily basis when people are trying to separate themselves from others even as racial labeling - a Black and a White or an Asian they all have a stronger feeling to it than just saying a black person, white person, asian person. In the USA it went as far as changing the connotation (contextual meaning) of the term Black from merely descriptive word to an insult. 

Another thing, that i found interesting in this research article, was mentioned in study 1. It doesn’t have to do much with the linguistics as it has with in or out-group preferences. Here the authors mention that three of the groups showed in-group bias in the noun condition except the Czech participants who on the other side showed an out-group bias in the adjective condition. In my opinion this might be caused by a preference for things that come from foreign countries. From the questions that researchers asked in here “… more meaningful, … more beautiful… better composition… would you like to hang in your living room…” the outer-group bias might be cause by the notion that if it’s from other country it is better, more exclusive, higher quality and also more representative that if it is from my home country. It is a little inferiority complex that is still more less prevalent in post-communist countries towards the things from “west”.

In the study of use of agents vs non-agentive language the most interesting thought is pointed out towards the end. It states that there might be some cultural differences in use of those when speaking about other people but research has shown that even English speakers then to use non-agentive language if the one involved in the accident is the speaker himself. Especially if the result is negative. People tend to say “he broke it” if it involves other person but “it broke” when it comes to themselves. In the positive situations it’s the reversed. They tend to use non-agnet for others and agent for themselves. “it started working again” if it’s done by someone else or “I made it work again” as done my speaker himself. 

If interested in reading the papers I read for this assignment:

• Graf, S., Bilewicz, M., Finell, E., & Geschke, D. (2013). Nouns Cut Slices: Effects of Linguistic Forms on Intergroup Bias. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 32(1), 62-83.
• Fausey, C. (2010). Constructing agency: The role of language. Frontiers in Psychology, 1.
• Kashima, Y., Kashima, E., Kim, U., & Gelfand, M. (2006). Describing the social world: How is a person, a group, and a relationship described in the East and the West? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 388-396.

Long time no see :)

So after two years I logged back on into the blog and just read my last post... yeah life went pretty different after that.
I went back home, got a job, spent time with friends and family and than... I left for South Korea. Not just for a short trip, no that would be boring. I came here to study. I have been here actually already for a year and 4 months. It has been quite an adventure and I am enjoying it a lot.
My major here is social and cultural psychology which is very interesting and I get to learn a lot about differences between Korean culture and so called Western culture. The only problem is that all of my classes are in Korean.
Of course before I started classes I took one year of very intensive Korean course, and even though it's ok for a basic conversations it's definitely not enough.  I feel like a pre-schooler who was put into college level classes and understands a word here and there but has no idea what is going on. Suddenly the conversation shifts to let's say motivation and someone's mentions system of rewards and punishments and the little pre-schooler takes a chance and jumps in with "my mommy gives us candy.
Anyway I decided to get back to blogging so be ready for some fun stories, observations and cultural comparisons as I explore this place even more. 

P.S. Pictures are from a trip last year to Jeju Island. Beautiful place, but we went there in a very cold season. Hope I will get to go there again :)

What's the plan?

It's Thursday. That means that exactly in 3 weeks I get on the airplane and fly home. 
People ask if I'm going home for good. I usually answer that I don't do things for good, only for the greater good :) Truth is that even though I might have a plan, I don't really know what is going to happen. My plans had always been very tentative. The plan is: go home, get rest, get change, be with family and friends, get job, travel (hopefully), get together the paperwork from school, apply for grad school back in US, back in Maryland, get into grad school, find a way to pay for grad school, come back to US, come back to Maryland. So what can go wrong? 
But really just because it won't go according to my plan, it doesn't mean that it's necessarily going wrong. It just means it's going different direction. So as I'm going to say goodbyes and hoping to see everyone soon, my story is still open ended (as is everyone else's really). 

PG150 final portfolio - Student Choices

 After the five assigned categories, we could submit three student choice pictures. Here I got a little upset with my professor, because I got this picture I thought was really cool, but he didn't want me to submit it, because it was "too candid". I ended up doing something else, but it wasn't that great so here are my "four" student choices. #4 is the one I was not allowed to use. #3 is what I choose instead. #2 is also from my first roll of film. Can you guess the city now? ;) #1 is one of my favorite pictures (good job Chicka)

#1

#2

#3

#4

PG150 final portfolio - Quality of Light

Quality if light is hard to describe, it should be clear that the picture is about light. Most people took pictures of shadows - some of them very cool. Mine was a little different.