Actually this whole 'fake love' thing is... pretty okay
hanguknamja reblogged
We were talking in class today about how the quality of a translation can make or break an author’s overseas reputation, and The Vegetarian came up as an example. When I first heard that the Man Booker prize was being given jointly to the author and translator of The Vegetarian, I was a tad non-plussed, even though I’ve read plenty of Korean books in very mediocre translations in my time, and can obviously appreciate the importance of a translator’s skill.
Then our teacher mentioned how when she read The Vegetarian in Korean, she really didn’t think it was worthy of a literary prize. Now clearly everyone’s going to have their own opinion about a book, so this was just one person’s opinion, but after I mentioned my surprise at how the translator has only been learning Korean for a few years, and by her own admission can’t hold a conversation in the language, someone said that apparently there has been a fair amount of chat in Korea about how many mistakes there are in the translation. However, the consensus seemed to be that those mistakes actually improved the book, so she deserved her part of the prize ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
i haven't read the book, nor do i plan to, but after comparing the first paragraph of it with the english translation (see below), i think the last point is valid.
the translation takes some liberties and alters the style of the original, generally for the better. or rather, it adds a bit of style and a hint of panache to the rather limp and lifeless prose of the original. the '[neither] striding nor mincing' at the end of the paragraph is brilliant. i think i'd prefer to read this in english translation.
아내가 채식을 시작하기 전까지 나는 그녀가 특별한 사람이라고 생각한 적이 없었다. 솔직히 말하자면, 아내를 처음 만났을 때 끌리지도 않았다. 크지도 작지도 않은 키, 길지도 짧지도 않은 단발머리, 각질이 일어난 노르스름한 피부, 외 꺼풀 눈에 약간 튀어나온 광대뼈, 개성 있어 보이는 것을 두려워하는 듯한 무채색의 옷차림. 가장 단순한 디자인의 검은 구두를 신고 그녀는 내가 기다리는 테이블로 다가왔다. 빠르지도, 느리지도, 힘 있지도, 가냘프지도 않은 걸음걸이로
Before my wife turned vegetarian, I’d always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way. To be frank, the first time I met her I wasn’t even attracted to her. Middling height; bobbed hair neither long nor short; jaundiced, sickly-looking skin; somewhat prominent cheekbones; her timid, sallow aspect told me all I needed to know. As she came up to the table where I was waiting, I couldn’t help but notice her shoes—the plainest black shoes imaginable. And that walk of hers—neither fast nor slow, striding nor mincing.
Anonymous asked:
What do you think about the recent interest in K hip-hop from foreigners? And the rise of K hip-hop thots on tumblr who complain about the appropriation of black culture in Korean rap music while simultaneously fetishising Korean men and listening to rap songs they don't understand the words of .... any thots?
no.
Anonymous asked:
I love u, hanguknamja!
k.
art of conversation 076
she: hey, i think that's kinda old. check the expiry date.
me: it's honey. it doesn't go bad. it's always fresh, like me.
she: what? i didn't know that. are you serious?
me: no.
she: what?
me: i'm not always fresh.
hanguknamja reblogged
Korea's last prince, 이우. Died in 1945 in Hiroshima, Japan. (x)
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima not only took the life of one of the last Korean royals, it incinerated over 20,000 common Koreans, many of them forced laborers, at the hands of their enemy’s enemy, who not only did not distinguish between civilians and soldiers but refused to distinguish between the Japanese and their victims.
After the war, the few Korean survivors went unrecognised as victims of this atrocity, because they were not Japanese nationals, and neither they nor their offspring, many of whom suffered severe congenital malformations from the radiation poisoning, received compensation or adequate medical treatment.
They were thus triply victimized. First by the Japanese, who enslaved them. Second, by the Americans who exploded an atomic bomb over them indiscriminately. Third, by the world, for refusing to recognize them as victims of an atrocious crime against humanity. Even today, I’m surprised about how few people realise that so many Koreans were killed at Hiroshima (and Nagasaki).
Reblogged again for the commentary.
As a postscript to the above: the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima may have taken the invisible and now forgotten lives of tens of thousands of Koreans and one of the last Korean royals (all of whom came to ignominious or atrocious ends), but the Japanese emperor Hirohito, now known as Showa, himself of Korean origin, came away unscathed. Not only was he not tried for war crimes by an arrangement with the Americans, but he remained on his throne and lived long enough to see Japan rise again to become a dominant world power. Today the imperial family of Japan are one of the most beloved royal houses in the world, celebrated for their elegance and their dignity. In the words of one of the Korean survivors dying of radiation-induced leukemia, it is “a world of filth and fire” that we live in.
on this the 68th anniversary of hiroshima, let us try to recall the forgotten korean victims, stripped of their identity, dignity, and life, finally, in the most atrocious manner. no one will remember them.
one imagines their lives were nothing but pain, humiliation, and misery from the moment they awoke until their very final instant, when they felt their wearied flesh shuffle off as it turned into fire, then ash, that is to say, when they were finally “liberated” by the americans.
history teaches us that a sustained policy of willed ignorance, insidious rationalization, and other techniques of forgetting, revision, suppression and delay until the last victims are dead and buried will always be richly rewarded. every “great” nation, after all, was built on an unforgivable forgotten atrocity and an abomination.
the only thing left to do is to record it briefly here on tumblr, in the desperate hope that one day, some alien mind will discover the charred hardware of some human artifact and, having decoded it and shed thick black tears, wonder how such a vile and stupid race that called itself humanity, capable of such unworldly cruelty, hate, and destruction, could have produced something so marvellous and eternal as kpop, which will be the only thing that survives of us, let us hope.
reblogging as we approach the 70th anniversary of hiroshima…
reblogging as we approach the 72nd anniversary of hiroshima...
hanguknamja reblogged
Shin-Hee Chin, Mother Tongue and Foreign Language, handmade Korean Jeogori, quilted, stitched, stenciled, 2014
funny how this truism remains utterly incomprehensible to most of the world.
even those who grasp it in theory seem incapable of accepting it in practice.
hanguknamja reblogged
zechery-deactivated20220114
Send me to Mars with party supplies before next august 5th
what’s far sadder is that on planet earth there are countless multitudes who do the same thing...
their circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong.
hanguknamja reblogged
hanguknamja reblogged
my heart is bleeding?
hanguknamja reblogged
Le Petit Nicolas court les rues de Séoul.
le petit nicolas dégrade les murs de séoul. fuck le petit nicolas.
hanguknamja reblogged
nitro-nova-deactivated20180206
i wonder how many unreported incidents, large and small, there are for every one reported.
not so long ago, in a very ‘liberal’ area of a very ‘liberal’ city in america (where else am I going to venture?), i was stopped on the street by a couple, one of whom asked me for a light. i said i didn’t have one and moved on.
about five seconds later, when i was well past them, i heard one of them shout back at me, ‘fucking chink! get the fuck out of here!’
i turned back to look. they were already scampering off. there was a crowd of people that kept about their business. no one seemed to have noticed, although how could they have not?
i don’t want to blow this out of proportion. it didn’t even occur to me to report this. it didn’t constitute a crime of any kind, as far as i know. it was just another everyday, tolerated expression of verbal violence and racial hate, probably replicated thousands of time every day, unreported somewhere in america. i didn’t even feel particularly insulted, just a bit surprised, and then not so surprised.
the most striking aspect of this altogether minor incident is the thought that occurred to me afterwards, namely that if i had had a light on me and lit their cigarettes, they probably would have thanked me on been on their way, all the while harboring this secret hate for me...
Source: reddit.com
Books are decoration
So are eyes. And faces and, ultimately, our entire bodies. Learned that from reading books.
i like a korean modern library/megabookstore as much as the next subliterate but when you literally place books out of everyone’s reach you accomplish precisely the opposite of what a library is supposed to do, in my book. you become an anti-library.
hanguknamja reblogged
Choose people who choose you.
Unknown (via onlinecounsellingcollege)
what if they’re thinking the same thing tho..?
hanguknamja reblogged
Nacky & Mocky of #Nackymade will be in the shop this Friday and Saturday June 2-3rd for a bespoke and made-to-order trunk show of their incredible handmade glasses. Please email or DM for appointments. (at The Armoury New York)
cateye glasses don’t work for everyone, actually for most, but they really work on her. she does know her spectacles.
hanguknamja reblogged
Paris….I have to wake up every morning realizing I will never be as cool as an again guy who can grow a beard and smoke
the commentary above is a bit creepy, but i agree, he’s pretty cool. still, i ask myself, do i really want, speaking for myself, to be smoking still and have a scraggly white beard and dress all in black with white converse hightops when i’m 64?