Boss BBQ ★★★★

Next to Central Park is a vibrant neighborhood with bars, restaurants, PC bangs (internet cafes), and even an animal hospital. Because the Mr. teaches at a private school until 10pm, and then often grades until 11pm, we have to eat at places that stay open late.

One of our favorite late-night spots is Boss BBQ. They specialize in chicken and beer. You can get 3000 cc of Cass (a Korean lager that has become more popular than Hite) for only 14,000₩. That's equal to about 8 bottles of beer. If that's too much, you can get 2000 cc for 10,000₩. Either way, it's a steal.

But Boss BBQ doesn't want you to drink without eating. It's not allowed. So you can order their specialty, chicken.

Their menu is very foreigner-friendly. It has pictures you can point at. If you read Hangeul (like you really should! It's super easy to learn) you will be sitting pretty.

One of their specialties at Boss BBQ is boneless fried chicken in a sweet sauce. It's a lot like the General Tso's chicken that you can get at Chinese buffets in the US. And it's delish, but definitely not healthy.

Boss BBQ's boneless fried chicken

Perhaps because specializing in beer and chicken is not a totally healthy lifestyle choice, Boss BBQ serves salad as a side dish with every meal. You can get free refills of your salad.

Boss BBQ also has more Korean-style chicken. This dish is an entire chopped chicken (bones in) simmered with vegetables. It is probably healthier than the dish above because it's not fried and it had vegetables. Also, the parts of the chicken were recognizable, so you know what you're eating. ("Found the neck!") It wasn't as delicious, though.

An entire chopped chicken with vegetables

For a place that specializes in chicken, it's strange that the Mr. and I like their non-chicken dishes better. Boss BBQ serves a mean budaejjigae (army stew), served with loads of mushrooms, sprouts and hot dogs. The Mr. also likes their fruit plate.

Gloss:

부대           찌개

army base   stew 

부대찌개 and fruit plate at Boss BBQ

In the picture above, you can see tomatoes on the fruit plate. Yes, tomatoes are technically fruit, but Westerners typically treat them as vegetables, serving them in savory dishes. Koreans treat tomatoes as fruit. They are served on top of cake, along with grapes and kiwis. I even got tomatoes with some chocolate fondue once. Linguist Ashley does not recommend tomatoes dipped in chocolate.

We like Boss BBQ because it's open late, the food is good, and the beer is cheap. As if that wasn't good enough, the old man who runs it is super-nice. Last night we asked him for some rice to go with our budaejjigae. He didn't have any, so he ran to the convenience store and came back with a microwaved plastic container of white rice. He gave it to us as service. Koreans sometimes give customers a freebie, called service, to inspire customer loyalty. Then the old man went back to his booth, eating chicken and drinking soju with a shotglass. We love him.

The final reason we like Boss BBQ is that it's not obnoxiously busy. The music isn't too loud, it's not too noisy or too smoky, and the clientele is less drunk than at other places. It's a classy drinking establishment.

Our only real problem with Boss BBQ is that we tend to go to Boss BBQ too often.

Boss BBQ: ★★★★

A star is deducted because not all dishes are as delicious as the fried chicken and budaejjigae, but it definitely beats Kkanbu Chicken.



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My Oscar Predictions 2012/Analysis of Best Song Category

Last year I predicted more Oscar winners than anyone else at the Oscar viewing party. Prepare to be devastated once again, Muncie. Ladies, place your bets.

BEST PICTURE The Artist

BEST DIRECTOR Michel Hazanavicius

BEST ACTOR Jean Dujardin

BEST ACTRESS Viola Davis

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Christopher Plummer

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Octavia Spencer

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Midnight in Paris

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY The Descendants

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM A Separation

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE Rango

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY The Tree of Life

BEST FILM EDITING The Artist

BEST ART DIRECTION Hugo

BEST COSTUME DESIGN Hugo

BEST ORIGINAL SONG Man or Muppet

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE The Artist

BEST SOUND MIXING Hugo

BEST SOUND EDITING Hugo

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS Rise of the Planet of the Apes

BEST MAKEUP The Iron Lady
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

BEST ANIMATED SHORT Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT The Shore

I am certain about the first 9 predictions. I made a lot of these guesses based on other critics' predictions; obviously this is how I guessed the shorts and best doc. I've seen most of the others or read tons of reviews about them.

The most interesting category this year, for me, is Best Song. I really don't know which one the Academy will go for. I love the fact that one-half of Flight of the Conchords could win an Oscar. Plus, it's a great song. The first time I listened to it, I went around singing it all day. (The Mr.: "What the hell are you singing?") It's sweetly ridiculous and I love how it skewers the usual grand, soaring vocals that the Oscars famously reward (e.g., "My Heart Will Go On", "Beauty and the Beast", "Can You Feel the Love Tonight").

On the other hand, "Real in Rio" has a lot of features that the Academy has awarded in the past. It has a World Music beat that takes off at a sprint, like "Jai Ho" and "Under the Sea". It also has rap, like previous winners "Lose Yourself" and "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp". I like the choir and the Brazilian beat. It's not bad.

I'm placing my bets on "Man or Muppet" because I think it is the better song. I would love to see a song that perfectly balances satire and sincerity win. This is the category I'm really excited about. 

A lot of people are bitching about there only being 2 nominated songs in this category. My response is: At least they are good songs. Here's a list of bad songs that have won: both winners by Randy Newman, "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp", "Al otro lado del río", "I Need to Wake Up", "Falling Slowly" . . . At least both songs this year are good. I'd rather have two good songs than 5 crappy Billboard rejects.

*UPDATE: I got 17/23 predictions correct, including Best Song. I'm so awesome. 

Noryangjin Fish Market

The Mr. and I went to Seoul. We ate at a big fish market called Noryangjin.

This is probably less than half of it.

The smell was mighty.

We bought a king crab. They gave us some jumbo shrimp as "service", and we took it to a nearby restaurant. They cooked it for us.

It was the best crab I've ever had. The best part wasn't in the legs, but in the body of the crab. Still, it was kinda nasty to cut it open ourselves. It was like that high school biology autopsy assignment. I mean dissection. (Bad memories of a fetal pig are happening right now.)

While we were waiting for our crab, a guy started yelling at one of the women working as a cashier. He was drunk and his friends held him back. The woman who worked there tried to talk to him, but he ended up throwing a chair around. It was exciting. We were really close. It was like front-row-at-a-hockey-game exciting.

If you go to Noryangjin, try to bring a Korean or someone who speaks Korean so you can get a discount. You can really bargain with the fishmongers if you can speak the language. Also, wear clothes you don't mind getting dirty. The fishmongers wear rain boots. I got crab liquid all over me.

The Problem with Hugo

~Here Be Spoilers~

I am not a machine. You cannot find the right key to make me work. You cannot use parts of me to make another person work. You cannot spend enough time on me that will make me work. Again: I am not a machine.

I just finished watching Hugo. It was a little predictable, and I didn't like that the unsavory characters had dialects associated with lower social classes than the protagonists (this is common in films; it is called dialect discrimination), but I have a huge problem with the central message of the film.

In the film, the central protagonist and titular character, Hugo, inherited an automaton (robot) from his father. (Actually, the automaton belonged to the museum the father worked for, but we'll continue in the spirit of he-who-loves-it-most-deserves-it.) He works to restore it, find its key, and make it work.

Enough with the automaton reaction shots!

What bothers me enough to write a blog entry is that the automaton becomes a metaphor for people who have issues. The former antagonist in the film, Papa Georges, makes this clear in his end speech: "Ladies and gentlemen, I ... I am standing before you tonight because of one very brave young man who saw a broken machine and against all odds, he fixed it. It was the kindest magic trick that ever I've seen." The eye contact and reaction shots make it clear that Papa Georges is the fixed machine.

I wish the film had charmed me like it did critics. I wish the moral at the end had been more complex. The simplicity of the solution--it's OK, we found his old films!--though it is historically accurate meant Papa Georges' character flaws were reducible to a single cause. If only that were true in real life! If only we all were broken birds, and all we needed was for a "very brave young man" to pay attention to us.

If you enjoyed this film, wonderful! I wish I had. I expected to like it, but there were a lot of little things that didn't add up for me, and the big message is so problematic it depresses me.

Very Delicious House: A Restaurant Review with (SPOILER!) a Surprise Ending

Across the street from our apartment is a restaurant named 정말 맛있는 집, or Very Delicious House. It would stand to reason that the food purchased in this house would be very delicious. 

And the Award for Best Name goes to ... 정말 맛있는 집!

Gloss:

정말    맛있는      집
Very    Delicious   House


But sometimes I just don't order well. I have been known to go to a steakhouse and be quite peeved about the quality of my casserole. I stubbornly ordered fish at every restaurant in Nashville before I admitted fish is not one of the South's specialties (do not speak to me of the bottom-dwelling catfish). And so it was with Very Delicious House.

With the Mr. off teaching over-schooled Korean youngsters that Columbus does not deserve a national holiday (Chungdahm's reading exercises are wonderfully revisionist), yours truly is often left by her lonesome during the hours the hagwon is open. Therefore, I must feed myself. Or, rather, I must choose a restaurant to feed me. One day, I chose Very Delicious House.

Dining alone in Korea is as awkward as dining alone in America, but choosing your restaurant well helps. Very Delicious House has booths separated by screens for optimal privacy. That way your shame can be shielded from the innocent accompanied diners. Also, Very Delicious House is, as I mentioned, across the street from my apartment. It is literally about ten yards from where I compose this blog post. Therefore it would appear to be a capitol spot to eat alone.

I took off my shoes, sat on a thin pillow on the floor, and examined the menu on the wall. Stuff was expensive. I didn't want a ₩12,000 dinner for one. I am not that extravagant. I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu: 누룽지탕, for ₩5000. I had no idea what it was, but I knew it was cheap.


The waitress brought this:

Not the 누룽지탕 I ate. Another blogger's 누룽지탕. But mine was similar.

This is just burned rice and hot water. I like rice, but I'm the kind of person who always puts something on the rice. I think it's bland by itself. Drowned in hot water without spices, vegetables, or meat it's ... well, I ordered wrong. I forced myself to eat the blandest food I have ever had in my life. I made it through the meal, paid my ₩5000, and memorized the word 누룽지 so I wouldn't order it again.

I knew the fact that I ordered something I did not like was not the restaurant's fault, so I braved going back. Very Delicious House deserved another chance at earning its name. I sat down in the same spot and carefully ordered 우거지탕. I didn't know what that was either, but it was only ₩5000 and at least I knew it wasn't 누룽지탕.

Well she brought me 누룽지탕 again.

And I was mad. I knew the two soups have similar names (nurungjitang and ugeojitang), and that she probably misheard me, or my pronunciation was too foreign. This happened in Venezuela when I ordered a mojito and I received a gin y tónico. When you speak a foreign language, your tongue becomes a giant raw potato in your mouth. But ex-pat frustrations aside, what was I going to do with this mushy rice before me?

Both times I ate at Very Delicious House I received eight colorful side dishes with my burned rice soup. This time, instead of punishing myself with rapidly-cooling watery burned rice, I mixed the spicy, flavorful side dishes (especially the kimchis and the sauces) with the rice soup. And low and behold, it was good. I ate all the rice. I asked for more side dishes. 

I am now full. I have this euphoric feeling Anglophones cannot describe with an adjective. We resort to a phrase we seldom use: I have eaten well.

Although I have only had one dish at this restaurant, and the waitress misheard me (or I misspoke), and one meal was miserable, I have to give this restaurant props for breaking down the walls I erected between myself and bland well-being food. Very Delicious House changed my mind. I now understand why 누룽지 is a beloved Korean comfort food.

Very Delicious House: ★★★



View 정말 맛있는 집 (Very Delicious House) in a larger map
Make your own  누룽지탕 by following this recipe.

How to Learn to read Hangeul Part 4/4

If you've gotten this far in my How to Learn Hangeul series, you are probably serious about learning to read Korean. If you've been practicing your flashcards, guess what? You already read 한글. If that was your goal, you can stop reading. You will be able to go to a Korean 레스토랑 and recognize if they serve 김치, 김밥, 라면, or 비빔밥. You'll know if a person's family name is 김, 백, or 이. You will be able to read a ton of loanwords and your time in Korea (or some city's Koreatown) will be immeasurably enhanced. You will already know more than most foreigners. In short, if you are not interested in learning to speak Korean, and only in reading, you can stop.

This post is more for people who want to speak Korean. If you want to continue your Korean studies beyond sounding out English loanwords, keep reading. In this lesson you will learn about initial devoicing (it's much more simple than it sounds) and how to pronounce some tricky final consonants. Your pronunciation of Korean will improve. In time, this knowledge will also help your listening comprehension.

Voicing and Devoicing

In an earlier post I showed a picture of your relaxed vocal cords. We need to talk about those cords some more.

I hope you are not in public, because I want you to make a z sound. Go ahead. Really. Don't whisper or it won't work. Make a loud z sound.

Now put your hand on your throat. (Trust me, this is all related to reading Korean.) Do it like this:

No manicure. No lipstick. Just phonology.

When you make a z sound, you should feel your throat vibrating. That's your vocal chords! Cool, huh? Now make an s sound. Your fingers don't vibrate. Now make a z sound again. Now they're vibrating. Switch between a z sound and an s sound. When you make a z sound, your vocal cords vibrate. They don't vibrate for an s sound.

The vibration of the vocal cords is the only difference between a z and an s. The z is voiced and s is devoiced (or voiceless). There are a few other pairs of sounds which are only distinguished by whether they are voiced or not.

Voiced   Devoiced

z             s

b             p

d             t

g             k

 j             ch

(In English, the ch sound is not exactly a devoiced j, but we can think of it that way in order to read Korean. I'm simplifying here. Also, Korean doesn't really have a z. That's why the amusement park in Seoul, Everland, has a 주토피아. That's zoo-topia, not Jew-topia. My friends and I thought that was funny.)

Initial devoicing

If you are in Korea, or if you have spoken with Koreans, you may have noticed that at times they seem to say "Pusan" for Busan and "Taegu" for Daegu. You also may have heard "kalbi" for galbi and "pibimbab" for bibimbab. Of course, they are pronouncing these Korean city names and word correctly. This phenomenon is called initial devoicing.

If a voiced consonant is the first word in a sentence, or after a pause, Korean will devoice it. 

So if these Korean letters are first, they are pronounced like their devoiced counterparts:

Voiced     Devoiced

ㅂ             ㅍ

ㄷ             ㅌ

ㄱ             ㅋ

 ㅈ             ㅊ

Don't devoice these

Sometimes, though, the Korean language wants the initial sound to be voiced. That's where those weird double consonants come in. These four double consonants are not devoiced. You pronounce them very much like their voiced simple consonant counterparts.

ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ  ㅉ 

(There is another double consonant, ㅆ, which is always devoiced. Just, you know, so this process is not too straightforward and simple.)

Usually, these double consonants are Romanized as kk, tt, pp, and jj. However, you will make a closer approximation of the Korean pronunciation if you pronounce them as g, d, b, and j.

ㄲ  g

ㄸ  d

ㅃ  b

ㅉ  j

(There is a slight difference between the voiced simple consonants and their voiced double consonant counterparts. But don't worry about that right now. Maybe don't worry about that ever. Let's keep moving.)

Final consonants of syllables (받침)

You already know that some syllables in Korean can end in a consonant. For example, the middle syllable of my name has a ㄹ: 쉴. 


If a syllable ends in a consonant, that consonant is called a batchim (받침), which means support or small plate. Most batchims are relatively easy. In the above syllable, you see a ㄹ and you pronounce a ㄹ.

Some batchims are more complicated. All three of these letters in the batchim position sound like  ㄱ: ㄱ, ㄲ, ㅋ.

Therefore, these three words are all pronounced "pag": 박, 밖, 밬

They are not pronounced "bag" unless the syllable is not initial. For example, if I were saying "미스터박 I would say "mi-seu-teo-bag" (Mister Park).

Any of these letters in the batchim position are pronounced ㄷ: ㄷ, ㅌ,ㅅ,ㅆ,ㅈ,ㅊ,ㅎ

This is why the Korean loanword for cheese must be two syllables (치즈).  If you just write 칮 it would be pronounced "chid."

Double batchim
 
I know I've already given you quite a lot to think about as you read Hangeul, but I really must mention the double batchim and their special rules. Actually, had history gone a little differently, there might not be any of these. King Sejong, the Korean king who commissioned brilliant linguists to invent Hangeul, liked Korean spelling to reflect the root words rather than the actual pronunciation. He liked etymology. Had he preferred regular orthography--spelling that makes perfect sense--I could stop writing this post now and get back to watching my totally not-illegal download of Hugo. But, sigh, he liked the spelling to reflect the words it was related to. So here we go.

There are number of double batchims: ㄳ ㄵ  ㄶ ㄺ  ㄻ  ㄼ ㄽ  ㄾ  ㄿ  ㅀ  ㅄ

Most of these are so rare, I'm not going to waste time telling you how to pronounce them. Trust me: the issue won't come up too much. Try not to flip out if you happen to see one.

But there are a couple that are important. ㄺ and  ㄻ are just pronounced ㄹ.

When a double batchim is followed by a syllable that begins with a vowel sound, the double batchim carries over to the second syllable. So the word  있어요 (meaning "exists" or "have"--I'll get to this word and its meaning when I move on to speaking Korean) is pronounced ee-seo-yo.

There are a lot of other rules for pronouncing these double batchim. My advice is: don't waste your time. Remember that they have different rules, and just move on.

And one last thing ...

 ...just to really confuse you. When people have a final consonant in English, it is really enunciated. The final t in cat has to be really heard. It's different in Korean. (If you've taught Koreans ESL and struggled to get them to pronounce final consonants, you know what I'm blogging about.)

Korean final consonants lack the final puff of air that English consonants have. It's like they form the consonant with their mouth, then don't actually pronounce it. Thus, 집 can sound like "chee" and 밥 might sound like "pa." Just be aware of it.

 

Practice

Try reading these words aloud. I have chosen words which will be helpful for you to know during your time in 한국 (Korea). Try to remember the initial devoicing and all the batchim rules. The answers (Romanized) are below. And you can always copy and paste into Google Translate to hear a native speaker pronounce it.

빵 (bread)
빗 (comb)
진짜? (informal way of asking Really?)
꽃 (flower)
옷 (clothes)
닭 (chicken)
집 (house)
감사합니다 (thank you)
없습니다 (there isn't any/don't have)
김밥
찜질방 (public bathhouse)
부대찌개 (army stew)
시내 (downtown)
빨리빨리 (informal: hurry up)

Answers

(Please don't post a comment that I'm "wrong." I know that most websites Romanize these words differently. I'm Romanizing these in order to teach you initial devoicing. Most websites don't do that. So thank me instead of trying to correct me.)

bang
pit
chinja?
god
od
tag
chib
kam-sa-ham-ni-da
eob-sum-ni-da
kimbab
jim-jil-bang
pu-dae-ji-gae
shi-nae
bal-li-bal-li

The Art of Dongtan

Dongtan is a beautiful city to live in. As a planned city, the layout of the streets is a work of art in itself. As I wander through these streets, which are neither perfect grids nor as chaotic as medieval cities, I keep coming across artistic treasures. I've taken pictures of most of them so you can see how fun it is to explore Dongtan.

This is one of my favorites. It looks like a child's play-dough creation blown up to be larger-than-life. You can even see the thumbprints. It's like an homage to children's art.

Dongtan's play-dough man

Not far from the Play-Dough Man is a giant sculpture of an onion. Why? I don't know. But it's pretty cool.

Linguist Ashley and the big onion.
 

This one is, apparently, of a colorful ball of yarn which has been used to create a vase. Or maybe it's something else. I'm not sure what it is, but it's colorful and it cheers me.

Yarn and vase

Metapolis has a number of cool sculptures. Two sculptures are of a young couple and an old couple.

Sculpture of young couple

Sculpture of old couple

The coolest thing about the two couples is that they are all four of them facing this fountain. It's like the artist is saying that young or old, anyone can enjoy this public space. Or maybe it's like you can grow old together in Dongtan. It is nice to walk by everyday.

Near the two couples is a stream. Apparently there used to be a natural stream or ditch there; as Dongtan was built, this natural feature was incorporated into the city's design. There are sculptures of little boys catching fish in this stream. Since it is winter, I don't have a very good picture. The boys just look cold in their swimming gear. I can't wait to see this sculpture in the spring.

Fishing boys

Near these sculptures at Metapolis are these two creepy faces. I don't really like this one. For one thing they have no expression, and for another they are missing pieces of their faces, like jigsaw puzzle pieces that got kicked under the couch. They remind me of sad robots.

Kinda creepy!

If you walk away from the creepy faces and follow the stream, you have to walk up some stairs. Next to the stairs are sculptures of fish swimming upstream.

The struggle to flop upstream

Frozen fish

If you keep walking and follow the stream, you'll come to Central Park's pagoda.It is painted brightly in a very Korean way.

Central Park's pagoda

This is an even more beautiful pagoda in an apartment complex. (The complex is right on the street; I'm not creeping through private property!) The roof was not cemented together and it has unpainted wood, giving it a more natural feel than Central Park's pagoda.

An even better pagoda

Different apartment complexes invest in beautiful sculptures. This sculpture has three figures dancing in a circle. The figures are stylized, massive, playful, and above all balanced. It isn't easy to make weighty bronze figures balance on one hand or foot. 

Three Dancers

Of course, many of the sculptures I encounter in Dongtan are abstract, metallic, corporate sculptures that I pretty much just hate.

Nice bent paperclip.

Little metallic spheres.

But there are so many hidden art treasures that I just overlook the corporate sculptures when I can. I discovered, near the metallic spheres, public monuments to a classic Korean artist. There is a long wooded lane through which I walk to reach the post office. It has a series of stelae with reproductions of Joseon-era artworks by the great Kim Hong-Do. I love to stop and look at them and imagine what life would have been like for the Korean working class.

Sailing Home

Merchants peddling their wares

A Roadside Tavern

Boy Crossing a Stream on an Ox

Begging for alms

Korean wrestling

Fishing

Shoeing a horse

As a new and planned city, Dongtan is full of architectural surprises. It's marvelous to walk by beautiful works of art every day.

Café Mano ★★★★★

I have discovered the most perfect coffee shop in Dongtan. Behold, Café Mano!

Café Mano

The outside plainness is deceiving. On the inside, it is precious. It is worthy of Pinterest. Look at the cuteness.

This is a beautiful way to store your mugs

My reading corner

A painter comes in and paints these tiny paintings right in the café

The fine ladies behind the counter speak some English

But it's not all unfinished wood and quilts! No, they have coffee so good, they really shouldn't call it Americano. Outside of the US, I have become accustomed to being served watered-down espresso and calling it by my country's name. It used to bug me. I am now merely resigned (and I now have to admit that most percolators, if anything, produce even worse brew than watered-down espresso).

But Cafe Mano makes their Americano rich and creamy. They serve it with two sugar lumps and no cream. Somehow, it's perfect.

Photo by Eric Wong

They also have food that is unbelievably good. I ordered homemade soy salad on a bagel. The only thing was, I didn't know what I had ordered. I didn't know what 수제소이 was. As I ate it, I thought it was chicken salad! Their soy tasted like chicken. They served it with apples cut up in it, and the bagel was hot and toasty. Mmmm.

Soy salad set

The prices are reasonable. For the meal pictured above I paid approximately 8000 ₩ ($7.11). The quality of the food and coffee, as well as the twee atmosphere (unique in Korea), make this set a steal.

Honey Bread

If you're craving something sweet, try the honey bread. Delish!

I give Café Mano five stars out of five. If you are in Dongtan, get yourself to Café Mano. It is located literally next door to my apartment. Here is a map. This is a wonderful place to spend an afternoon.

View Cafe Mano in a larger map