Happy Birthday?

The way Koreans keep track of their age is so confusing.  Several Asian cultures actually adhere to East Asian age reckoning.  When you are born you are 1 year old.  On your birthday your age doesn't change.  Everyone's age changes on January 1st -- the new year.

This allows for some interesting situations.   The most extreme situation: Say you are born at 11:59pm on December 31st.  One minute later when it is January 1st you will be considered 2 years old.

I have to ask Koreans which year they were born to get a true sense of how old they are.

Then there is the whole Lunar calendar birthday thing, which is another can of worms.

So, happy birthday everyone???

No Chris this Christmas

Last Christmas was the first one I ever spent without my sister Lauren because she was in Seoul.  This year I join my sister in Seoul, and our parents have made the journey to celebrate with us.  My brother Chris did not join us.  It will be the first time in my life that I won't be with him on Christmas Day.  I am sorry for that.  But as a shout out to my bro, you should check out this short film that he wrote and acted in:

Charity from Alex Delia on Vimeo.

Step aside Google

When it comes to search engines, Google, with 66.8%* global market share, is king.  Yahoo ranks a distant second with 7.2%.  Baidu, which is China's #1 search engine, has 6.5% of the global market share (not surprising when a country with 1.3 billion people is hostile towards Google).

Like their neighbors on the other side of the Yellow Sea, South Koreans wouldn't say Google is their go to search engine either.  In fact, in January 2010 Google wasn't even the second most popular search engine.  Actually, wait, it wasn't the thirst most popular either!  The market share breakdown in South Korea looks a little bit like this:

Naver 77%, Daum 11%, Yahoo 5%, Google 2%**

South Korea isn't a communist-Google-hating country, yet Google can only muster a measly 2% of the market share!

The layout of Naver (pronounced Nay-bur) looks like Yahoo but with a lime green twist.  Daum (pronounced DAH-oom) is reminiscent of Yahoo also but with a hipper (eBay knock-off) logo.

I know Koreans swear by these 2 search engines, which can be seen advertised all over Seoul, but I just haven't had much experience with either of them.

I occasionally play games on Junior Naver to help teach myself Korean.  Daum has these really cool, touch screen kiosks at the subways that you can play around with while you are waiting for a train.

I haven't converted to either search engine yet, but I must say, the maps on both websites are far superior to those of Google.  Google Maps is one of the coolest resources on the web.  Street View blew my mind the first time I saw it, but the picture quality and additional features of Naver and Daum are just... wow.

Just check out my apartment building.  Go ahead and take a stroll around my neighborhood while you're at it.

Now, if you still aren't that impressed, how about a bird's eye view of my apartment?


*So the data I have is from 2009, but I don't think much has changed.
**See for yourself.

12 Days of Christmas

This is not a rip-off of my sister and brother-in-law's blog.  


I asked a first grade class to write their own lyrics for the song "Twelve Days of Christmas".  The students radiated with excitement at the thought of writing their own song.  I didn't think it would be too hard of an assignment, but one over-achiever in the class informed me that she spent 5 hours working on her song.  Here is her version sans all the verses and her spelling and grammar errors:

On the First Day of School

On the first day of School

My true love sent to me:

An apple in my heart,

Two dancing sands,

Three lovely teachers, 

(she told me that those teachers were Mr. Gilmore, Mr. Haws and Mrs. Haws)

Four little friends,

Five brown desks,

Six smiling books,

Seven lunch boxes,

Eight sparking windows,

Nine dreaming pencils,

Ten flying butterflies,

Eleven roses of Sharon,

And

Twelve good-bye bellssss.

I'm not sure why I decided to share this.  The little girl is just super cute.  She was really proud of her song yet too embarrassed to sing it along to the tune in front of the class, so old Mr. Gilmore gave his vocal cords a stretch with this new classic. 

Another Spelling Test

I shared one of my student's spelling test a couple of months ago.  This may be unethical and make me a horrible teacher, but I just can't resist sharing (I'm keeping them anonymous at least).  Here is another spelling test:

Rah-me-un: Delicious

When I first got out here I asked my students what their favorite food is.  Many said "rahmeun" or "lahmeun".  I thought to myself, "What the hell is lahmeun??"  They were, of course, saying ramen--as in ramen noodles.  Koreans of all ages love this American-college-student-staple.

No wonder Koreans love it so much; the ramen of Korea is considerably better than the 10 cent Chicken or Beef flavor with which you are familiar.  There are many more flavor options.  This ramen with "HOT TASTE" is one of my favorites:

You get more than just the standard flavor packet inside the package.  You stir in an additional packet of veggies.

The best thing that Koreans do to ramen, which I highly recommend trying, is to add an egg to the boiling water while the noodles are cooking.  This really enhances the meal.  I am shocked college students didn't try this earlier considering eggs are the next cheapest food after ramen.