Signs

The signs of three restaurants that share one building are standing side by side. The left sign represents 'Ginseng Chicken Soup' restaurant, the middle raw tuna, the right Chinese restaurant whose name means 'huge luck.'

Lights

Hey, girls and boys, turn on the light and let's have a party tonight.

Pull

When I found this sticker detached a little from the fence, I couldn't help but break into laughter.^-^ Here comes the reason: the message on the yellow sticker literally says "Pull in an emergency." However, we often omit objects in sentences so some meanings can be interpreted in multisense context. In this case, though the message was meant to 'pull (this aluminum fence) in an emergency,' wicked but witty person did 'pull a sticker' in case of emergency. I thank him or her for making me smile.

* I've been trying to stick to the rule of posting a photo a day but was unable to keep it yesterday. On Tuesday I got a call my dad was in ER because of myocardial infarction and therefore I had to come down to a bigger city near my hometown to see him right after work. Fortunately, it turned out the problem is not so serious but he has to stay in hospital for a couple of days and also definitely quit smoking. I know smoking helps him release tensions in some way but now it's time he needs to find another way.

Chaotic Signs

What I hope to be changed in Seoul and its satellite towns are chaotic signs on the outer walls of buildings. Among these many shops in this building, I don't feel like entering any store. In addition, there are three different languages: Korean, Chinese and English

The photo was shot near Beomgye Station in Anyang, one of Seoul's satellite cities.

서울 및 위성 도시의 풍경 중 바뀌었으면 하는 것 중 하나는

건물의 외벽의 어지러운 간판들이다.

이 많은 점포 중 그 어느 한 곳도 가고 싶은 마음이 생기지 않는다.

게다가 한국어, 중국어, 영어의 3개 국어로 되어 있다.

사진은 서울의 위성 도시 중 하나인 안양 범계역 부근에서 촬영하였다.

Please Dont Durty

It's been a while since I took this photo and I've once posted this story on my previous personal web page but I've always wanted to talk about this post once again. In Korea, where English is not just a communication language but an object itself, there are numerous cases of laughing and crying because of English. Due to an obsession with English, occasionally 'Broken English/Konglish' happens and I get embarrassed sometimes but also feel sorry at other times. And in case of the photo above, it was definitely the moment of laughter considering it was rather cute.

That place is on the corner of a street where rubbish is put out. Given the fact that there are many foreign workers in my neighbourhood, I think the owner of this property wanted to give warning to them so sprayed the sentence on the wall. It wouldn't be a big deal though it is ungrammatical because there's no one who don't understand what it means.

이 사진을 찍은지는 좀 오래되었고 예전의 개인 홈페이지에도 올린 적이 있지만

언제고 다시 한 번 이야기를 하고 싶었다.

영어가 단순한 의사소통의 수단이 아닌 그 자체가 목적이 되어버린 한국에서는

영어 때문에 울고 영어 때문에 웃는 일이 허다하다.

영어에 의한 강박증 때문에 가끔은 '엉터리 영어'가 탄생할 때도 있는데,

당황스러울 때도 있고 안쓰러울 때도 있지만

위 사진의 경우는 귀여워서 크게 웃었다.

저 곳은 골목의 한 구석, 쓰레기를 내다놓는 곳인데,

외국인 노동자가 많이 살고 있는 우리 동네의 특성 상

그들에게 한 소리를 하고자 스프레이로 벽에다 쓴 것이다.

좀 틀리면 어떤가, 저 뜻을 모를 이는 없을테니.