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Crowd delighted by fluent foreigners
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sojusucks



Joined: 31 May 2008

PostPosted: Sun Sep 12, 2010 3:49 am    Post subject: Crowd delighted by fluent foreigners Reply with quote

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2920580

Quote:
Fluent foreigners delight crowd at speech contest

On Saturday, foreigners from all over the globe gathered at the Crown Building of Kyung Hee University. They were there to celebrate the Korean language and the birthday of its inventor, King Sejong, at the 13th World Korean Language Speech Contest for Foreigners.

A total of 1,119 applicants from 29 different countries competed in the fierce preliminary rounds, out of which 22 made it to the finals. Strict categories were used to judge the contestants, including speech content, flow, stage manner, cohesion, pronunciation and level of bonding with the audience.

The participants in the 13th World Korean Language Speech Contest for Foreigners delivered speeches, some in near-fluent Korean, on various topics, most addressing different experiences in Korea. Contestants spoke of what they perceived to be true �Koreanness� and Korean beauty, and an intently listening audience laughed and clapped as they gradually grew more and more emotionally involved.

One contestant from China spoke of her experiences in Busan, and her initial difficulty understanding the area�s strong accent and dialect. She told a funny anecdote about a misunderstanding with her employer at her part-time job, and her convincing delivery of Busan dialect drew much laughter from the audience.

Contestants from Mongolia, the United States and Armenia deliver speeches on their personal experiences with the Korean language, culture and people at the World Korean Language Speech Contest for Foreigners at Kyung Hee University. [YONHAP]

�At first, I had no idea what my employer was trying to tell me,� she said. �I thought it meant something bad, but I realized later that he was just thanking me for working hard that day.� A warm atmosphere filled the auditorium as she ended her speech by talking of the inimitable Korean �jeong,� a strong sense of affection that touched her during her stay.

An Indian contestant described his partiality for bibimbap, a Korean dish of rice, vegetables and red pepper paste mixed in a bowl.

�It�s incredible how many different ingredients go into this one tasty meal. It�s my favorite Korean food,� he said.

His fondness for Korea was palpable when he talked about how disappointed he is that Korea is fast losing its natural landscapes, and is instead being overcrowded with tall buildings and apartments.

An Armenian contestant related her struggle to overcome Korean prejudices against marrying foreigners. Today, she enjoys a happy marriage to a Korean husband and a close relationship with her in-laws, who turned out to be kind and caring once they accepted her into their family. She ended her speech by saying, �Saranghamnida Daehanminguk� - �I love you, Korea� - punctuated with a wide smile.

Other contestants from countries including the United States, Indonesia, Mongolia, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, England, Iran and Japan talked of their love for K-pop, taekwondo, Korean dramas and samulnori percussion quartets.

The gold medal went to Morgantamar from Mongolia, who talked about Korean cuisine, tteokbokki in particular. He currently studies Korean at the Institute of Global Education at Kyung Hee Univeristy and plans to study computer science at Kwangwoon University next year.

Even after the awards ceremony concluded, members of the audience lingered, talking amongst each other about how amazing it was that Korea and Korean culture had grown so well known across the globe. Some could be heard speaking of the shame they felt at neglecting other countries� culture while foreigners embraced and pursued Korea so vigorously.

The speech competition not only provided an opportunity for foreigners to display their remarkable talents in Korean, it induced discussion among Koreans on the value of their national language and the need to work to abolish race-based prejudices. Most of all, it recognized the foreigners who have already committed so much time to their new home, becoming cultural ambassadors.

By Moon Dan-bee Contributing Writer [[email protected]]
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Louis VI



Joined: 05 Jul 2010
Location: In my Kingdom

PostPosted: Sun Sep 12, 2010 4:51 am    Post subject: Re: Crowd delighted by fluent foreigners Reply with quote

sojusucks wrote:
The gold medal went to Morgantamar from Mongolia, who talked about Korean cuisine, tteokbokki in particular.

Laughing
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caniff



Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map

PostPosted: Sun Sep 12, 2010 8:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

He didn't mention the Mongolian "spot", I hope.
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tomato



Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

PostPosted: Sun Sep 12, 2010 6:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

On Saturday, September 11, a group was carrying signs outside the Crown Building of Kyung Hee University and questioning people who was going into the building.
Here is a translation of the flier which they were passing out:

Quote:

The WORLD KOREAN LANGUAGE SPEECH CONTEST FOR FOREIGNERS
is an act of TREASON!!!!


We are the Miriam Ferguson Society, dedicated to defending this great country of ours from KSL students.
We are a group of Koreans who realize that there is a place for everything.
The place for a fish is in the water, the place for a bird is in the air, and the place for a foreigner is in the foreign language classroom.
Just as it would be a crime against nature to put a fish anywhere else or to put a bird anywhere else, it would be a crime against nature to allow a foreigner to go anywhere else.
Yet that is exactly what we see people doing here today.

Do you know why our language is called 우리 말?
Because it is our language and nobody else's!
Do you know why our nation is called 우리 나라?
Because it is our nation and nobody else's!
Do you know why our national flower is called 우리 나라 꽃?
Because it is our national flower and nobody else's!

Yet here we have foreigners standing up in front of hundreds of our fellow countrymen, openly and brazenly taking away our language and our nation and our national flower!
And what are our fellow countrymen doing about it?
Are they booing and hissing and drowning out these speakers?
No!
Are they standing up and heckling these speakers?
No!
Are they mob attacking these speakers?
No!
Believe it or not, they are cheering and applauding!
If we don't put a stop to this outrage right here and right now, these outsiders, and others like them, will overrun and mongrelize this great land of ours!
You don't think that can happen?
Well, just look what they did to the Roman Empire!

So the choice is yours:
Are you going to betray your country and join this audience,
or are you going to defend your country and join our picket line?



Last edited by tomato on Sat Sep 18, 2010 2:38 am; edited 1 time in total
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ddeubel



Joined: 20 Jul 2005

PostPosted: Sun Sep 12, 2010 8:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

LOL, you made my morning!

Idiots everywhere - always the same message, "The Barbarians are at the Gates". (good poem/book by the way).

thanks for taking the time to translate and post. Appreciated.

DD
http://eflclassroom.com
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Mosley



Joined: 15 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Sun Sep 12, 2010 9:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tomato has given us a great example of the ongoing, widespread xenophobia/racism that exists in Korea today.

I'm a bit puzzled by the "Miriam Ferguson" bit, though.
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Konglishman



Joined: 14 Sep 2007
Location: Nanjing

PostPosted: Sun Sep 12, 2010 9:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mosley wrote:
Tomato has given us a great example of the ongoing, widespread xenophobia/racism that exists in Korea today.

I'm a bit puzzled by the "Miriam Ferguson" bit, though.


I am assuming that this is a practical joke of Tomato's. Miriam Ferguson was the first female governor of Texas.
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Steelrails



Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System

PostPosted: Sun Sep 12, 2010 10:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mosley wrote:
Tomato has given us a great example of the ongoing, widespread xenophobia/racism that exists in Korea today.

I'm a bit puzzled by the "Miriam Ferguson" bit, though.


Except Tomato's article was satire. The whole Miriam Ferguson bit should have tipped you off. If not that, then the fact that it was written in perfect English should have been a clue. But that's okay, your school system clearly didn't train you in "critical thinking".

Speaking of prejudice, you assumed what he wrote was true. But it wasn't. You assumed the worst about Koreans without even checking the facts.

Now who is prejudiced and bigoted?
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Hotwire



Joined: 29 Aug 2010
Location: Multiverse

PostPosted: Sun Sep 12, 2010 11:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here is a 'translation' of the flier which they were passing out:
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tomato



Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

PostPosted: Mon Sep 13, 2010 4:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hello, Mosley!

The Miriam Ferguson Society is dedicated to fighting second language literacy among English-speaking foreigners in Korea.
They named themselves after the first woman governor of Texas, who vetoed a bill requiring foreign language class in high school.
She is alleged to have held up a King James Bible and said something like "If the English language was good enough for Jesus and the Disciples, it is good enough for the children of Texas."
Although this quote is not authenticated, it establishes Miriam Ferguson as a figurehead for the cause of second language illiteracy among speakers of English.

Here is a summary of one of their meetings.
The organization has a solid structure for maintaining loyalty from its members. The leaders have drafted a list of Ten Commandments, a list of adages, and written an anthem.
On the lighter side, they have coined after-dinner jokes and riddles making fun of wegukin's.

Their programs have included an award ceremony for its most diligent members, an award ceremony for wegukin's who have done the most to reinforce stereotypes, a forum on how the English-speaking people came to be genetically inferior, and a forum on the causes of tabloid rumors of Korean-proficient wegukin's. a flier for recruiting new members, a coloring book for training their children to become good Fergusonians, and a handbook instructing wegukin's in the art of docility.

The projects operated by the Society are far-reaching. They operate a mental hospital to treat wegukin's who have delusions of second language educability. They recently launched a genetic program in which they will create wegukin's with just the right hair color and eye color, raise those wegukin's in an isolated Korean language-free environment, and present them to public schools and English schools when the time comes.

There are also ongoing projects in which the Society is engaged. They have drafted a petition to the General Assembly to confine wegukin's in each major city to a Korean language-free zone. They have also tried to persuade the Assembly to make it legal to capture wegukin's and sell them as pets. They have invented an electronic device which detects when its wearer is reading, speaking, or otherwise thinking in a second language. They have asked the Assembly to have every wegukin fit with this device and fined for the time that he or she is in violation.

There has been some question, however, over whether or not the Society members really want what they are pushing for. One group of members took a vacation trip to English Book Land, which is inhabited by the vapid and sterile characters created by the authors of English textbooks. Instead of the blissful experience which they anticipated, the Society members suffered a rude shock.

I hope that they keep taking such trips until their numbers dwindle down to zero.

Hello, Konglishman!
Hello, Steelrails!

I swear to you that all of this is true or my name is not Pierre Giuseppi von Wienerschnitzel the Fourth.
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Underwaterbob



Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Location: In Cognito

PostPosted: Mon Sep 13, 2010 6:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ahh, Tomato's intermittently perpetual language rant. Brings a tear to my eye.
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tomato



Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

PostPosted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 3:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Does a participant in this event have to have fluent conversational ability?
Or does he or she only have to have an immaculately prepared speech?
If it's the former, I don't think I can do it next year.
If it's the latter, I think I can do it.
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littlelisa



Joined: 12 Jun 2007
Location: Seoul

PostPosted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 3:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is only a guess, since it's the first time I hear of this. You probably only need an immaculately prepared speech. However, I'd wager that accent is probably very important for this one. You'd need really really good pronunciation.
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Quack Addict



Joined: 31 Mar 2008
Location: Seoul

PostPosted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 11:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
"If the English language was good enough for Jesus and the Disciples, it is good enough for the children of Texas."


I can't believe she would be that ignorant to say such a thing.
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Mosley



Joined: 15 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 5:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Stoolrails: Baiting another poster with "bigoted" & "prejudiced" violates Dave's TOS & you have been duly reported to the relevant powers that be. I'm surprised that someone w/your erudition and superb education(was it Ivy League? Port Charles U? In any event, all that time & money spent to get you a degree that allows you to have the digits of Korean kids placed in a certain opening in your anatomy?)wouldn't have been aware of that.

In any event, readers will note the irony of you throwing out labels like those at ME, when I am the one fighting against racism.

Now, to the topic. Stool claims his superb education gave him a great insight into Miriam Ferguson. Really? Took a unit on the old gal? A course? Hell, did you major in Miriam Ferguson? Laughing No, phoney, you did what I did(and as an autodidact, I've forgotten more US history than you'll ever know): you googled the name. And I'm glad I did. BTW, scholar, it wasn't "Tomato's" article. He didn't write it. He provided it, and by the links he provided, it seems Tomato(who is a long-timer & by no means even close to being the greatest loon on these forums)needs a few weeks in Thailand or wherever to get his thing about the M. Ferguson "Society" out of his system.

A tad off topic but...it seems this Ferguson character fit the profile of the typical early 20th C., N. Amer. leftist-"progressive" politico. That is, if her statement about English is historically accurate(and Tomato rightly points out the doubts about her actually stating what is alleged)then she ranks up there w/Canadian socialist icons Woodsworth & Douglas, who exhibited signs of racism & "survival of the fittest" theories that would've caused some National Socialists to blush.
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