Today is the first day of a new week. I started my daily life with new power, stretching myself, washing my face with cold water. Yes, it's fresh. My ordinary and normal day started just like that.
But when I got out of my house, I suddenly found that most of the signboards on streets are written in english(or english-based korean). Blue Club, Beer and Hof, PC Room, Starbucks, Monkey Coffee(?)...I can hardly find korean-only signboards. "What the... . Am I living in Korea?"
In fact, we are using too much english in our daily life. We even use english even when we have korean words to use instead of english. Why do we misuse english and 'banish' our own language, korean? What's wrong?
I know that koreans are abnormally 'indulged' in english just because they thought using english well looks they are intelligent, elegant and rich. And our society just caused the wrong thought; many koreans can't find jobs unless they have very high score on English ability tests(e.i. TOEIC).
However, the truth is that using english in our daily life doesn't mean that we are smart. In fact, it's literally a silly, foolish and BS belief. If we lose your origin, korean, speaking or using english well is meaningless. Even more, using english is not a privilege nor a guarantee. Even igonorant, illiteral americans can 'speak' and 'use' english as well as we do.
Though the truth is like this, many people still think using english looks and sounds better than using korean...I really can't understand why we, koreans, don't even feel a small amount of proud of our own culture. I know that koreans usually think foreign countries which are stronger or wealthier than our country as the better in every aspect. The so-called flunkeyism.
But we need to change the way we think the relationships and interactive positions between our culture and that of other countries. If we don't try to restore and solve this problem, we'll lose many traditional korean words again as we did when Chinese alphabet came to our country and when Japanese alphabet banished traditonal korean words.
We should remeber that we are Koreans, who can't be substituted by any other people or race, and whose language also the unique on the earth.
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3 comments:
I think you know Emperor of Qin(秦). He was the first emperor of the whole china. He did lots of things. Some things were good, some things were bad. At that time, in china, they used different money, studied different letters. That's very hard to communicate. So he just picked one and removed others. At that time, many people refused to remove their own things. But now, we know that Emperor of Qin had done right thing.
I think, maintain our charactoristics maybe is important. But to globalize we have to and must to make the language united into one.
hmm I disagree with you.. actually I think there is not enough english signs... kkkk :) But I understand your thoughts... I don't Korea will lose it's identity and culture. It's too rich and traditional to be lost. I think it's good that there's more globalization here in Seoul. It's necessary so that more people come to visit your country and learn about your culture, and thus spread your culture... SO, making it "Foreigner-Friendly" is really a good thing... :)
Hah,,,It's a concern. I think many coutries would have conflict if there are a lack of communications.
Enlish is just a language which can communicate with others and solve these problems. We need this kind of language.
How can we doing business in this coutry with foreigners who can not speak Korean.
We would learning above one foreign languages for nagative efforts if we become a winner of world competition.....;)
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