The principle that idiocy knows no national boundaries was again confirmed in the reactions to the tragedy caused by Japan's earthquake -- in Korea, idiots on the Internet celebrated Japan's earthquake, and in America, some idiots on the Internet thought Japan was getting its payback for Pearl Harbor attacks.

But the king of all idiots in this parade is Tokyo's Governor Shintaro Ishihara, who said the earthquake was a "divine retribution" for Japan's politics. Let's see if the bar can get any lower.

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The Korean is Now on Twitter -- in Korean

To be honest, the Korean is a Luddite when it comes to social networking sites. It took this blog more than 3 years to get a Facebook page, only after many proddings from the readers about getting a Facebook account.

And then, there is this whole Twitter thingamajigger. The Korean avoided it as long as he could, but the same problem as Facebook happened with Twitter -- there are so many people on it, and some of the people on it are pretty darn interesting. But the Korean cannot just have a Twitter account just to follow people.

The Korean's solution:  The Korean's Twitter account will be entirely in Korean (except for proper nouns and the like,) and it will be mostly about his little personal thoughts. Following the Korean on Twitter will NOT give you the latest updates of this blog, because the Korean is not going bother with it. And don't even think about suggesting the Korean the programs that will link Facebook, Blogger and Twitter together unless you want to see his head explode.

Right now, the over/under for how long this Luddite would keep this up is ... oh, let's say a week. Until then, you can follow the Korean at www.twitter.com/askakorean.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

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Any day on which David Chang gets a shitty review is a good day for the Korean.

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The Korean puts in a lot of effort to show people that what they do unknowingly could betray their subtle racism, held unknown even to themselves. And then the Korean sees a video like this, and despairs -- why bother talking about subtle racism in the face of such obvious racism?

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Just look at the way Lee Sora owns the crowd in this video with her voice:

This is music, boys and girls.

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The Korean is LIVE CHATTING at the Mixologist tonight, from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. EST. Follow the link the sign up for the LibraryMixer and the Mixologist. Remember to add "The Korean" as your friend on LibraryMixer.

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The "Untranslatable Word" Trope

First of all, the Korean's thoughts and prayers for everyone in Japan today. Please be safe.

In reaction to Japan's earthquake, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times wrote a blog post about Japan's national character that will assist the recovery from this disaster. The Korean generally agreed with the overall point made by Kristof, but he found this passage a bit annoying:

But the Japanese people themselves were truly noble in their perseverance and stoicism and orderliness. There’s a common Japanese word, “gaman,” that doesn’t really have an English equivalent, but is something like “toughing it out.” And that’s what the people of Kobe did, with a courage, unity and common purpose that left me awed.

Sympathy for Japan, and Admiration [New York Times]

What annoyed the Korean was the "untranslatable word" trope -- about how "gaman" doesn't really have an English equivalent.  Um, actually there is an English equivalent of "gaman" -- any Japanese-English dictionary can tell you the equivalent. "Gaman" means "patience" or "perseverance." And hey, "perseverance" sounds awfully like "toughing it out."

Of course, there are cases in which word-to-word translation is not possible. For example, a word like 온돌 -- Korea's floor heating system -- does not have a single equivalent word in English. Also, there are cases in which the word itself could be translated, the precise emotion evoked by a word is difficult to translate. (See this post for example -- the word "white" loses all poetic meaning when translated from Korean to English.)

But in general, there is no word that is truly untranslatable. Instead, the "there is no equivalent word in English" is a crutch, overused whenever writers need a cheap and facile way of describing another culture. Through this trope, the writer tries to give off this impression: "Oh, those mysterious Japanese people! (In Kristof's case.) They have this concept that we cannot truly understand. All we could do is to guess at it, as if trying to divine if there will be rain by looking at the clouds."

The Korean likes Kristof's reporting a lot, but this is just lazy writing. What is wrong with simply saying that the Japanese people have perseverance? By setting up the story with the "untranslatable word" crutch, Kristof put Japanese people beyond the understanding of ordinary American people, only reachable through Kristof's own description of the Japanese people. This is not a good way of trying to bridge the gap between cultures.

Kristof's point is that there is much to admire about Japanese people's persevering spirit. The Korean agrees. But by setting up the Japanese perseverance as something alien to us, Kristof abdicates his stated goal. When the Japanese are portrayed as these inscrutable beings whose mindset we cannot completely understand, there is no point in admiring the mindset because we can never have that mindset anyway.

And it is not as if Americans have not had disasters which they overcame by way of their perseverance. Kristof could have chosen any number of challenges that faced America -- the Great Depression, Civil Rights Movement, World War II, September 11 -- and reminded Americans of their own strength and at the same time identify themselves with the Japanese also. But instead of fostering connection, the "untranslatable word" trope fosters separation.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

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