Korean Vs. Japanese - Which Language?

[dismalfuture]

^^i think you mean a phonetic alphabet.

dismal is right, a year of japanese is going to mean nothing in japan.

i would imagine that spending a year in either country with no friends, minimal language skills and limited money would be unimaginably alienating and difficult. esp japan does not strike me as a culture looking to welcome outsiders in with open arms.

I have been going to Japan less frequently over the past few years I guess, so I'm out of the loop on Japan lately. I found Tokyo really dead and vacant feeling last time I went, nothing happening. I used to really want to live in Tokyo, but that flame has since died.

At this point I could pick up and move to Japan, and there's not much stopping me, but I don't see a point in doing that. I've been talking about doing it later in the year, but we'll see, it's unlikely again.

On the other hand, Korea is getting emptier and emptier as well, it's not like there's any cultural flourishing or anything, it just follows Japanese moods whether each other knows it or not. The downside is that even though Korea follows Japan 20 years late, Koreans don't have the benefit of a bubble economy to bring all the lasting benefits of something like that, and Korea is still ghetto.

Nowadays in Korea, you need a little imported runabout car like a Mini or a Lexus IS so that you can chaffeur around mini-sluts to department stores and take them to love hotels. That is all people do around here anymore. Club to bad music, still wear lots of cheap knockoff clothes, drive a little 4 cylinder car, drink soju and pick at a plate of animal parts on a grill, and fuck. If you're a girl, dress in cheap slutty clothes, look for a guy with a little 4 cylinder car who will buy you soju and a plate of animal parts to pick at, and fuck. Try to find the meaning somewhere in there. I know Korean culture is based around drink, fuck, drink, fuck, but there's not even any humor left in it anymore, really.

[conqueror]

dis: you could say the same about many western countries too (including australia), except switch soju for beer and a 4 cylinder for a v8 or something.

i would imagine that spending a year in either country with no friends, minimal language skills and limited money would be unimaginably alienating and difficult. esp japan does not strike me as a culture looking to welcome outsiders in with open arms.

i did this for almost that amount of time and had a blast. difficult, yeah but that's half of the fun/appeal. unless you have a desired skillset/qualificatiton though japan doesn't really offer much future or long time options for foreigners outside of eikaiwa, not that i'd consider that a 'future' at all.

[herpsky]

lulz. I'm just giving you what little I know about it. I'm still in the process of getting my East-Asian Studies/Japanese Language degree, myself...but I'm planning to do JET regardless. Sorry I can't be of more help.

the degree sounds like an

epic fail.

[Seething Tortoise]

^Should at least major in something else and have Jap as a minor.

[cyberPUNK]

haha let's be honest, most humanities degrees are an epic fail. definitely need a solid game plan to make money with one.

[dismalfuture]

dis: you could say the same about many western countries too (including australia), except switch soju for beer and a 4 cylinder for a v8 or something.

This is true as well, but here's another dirty secret - most people who come to Korea, either for studying or for teaching English, if not Korean by blood, are usually here because they want to go to Japan but either can't afford it, or aren't qualified to teach English in Japan and didn't make the cut, or a combination of both. It's the 'fake Japan' for a lot of asiaphiles who can't even tell the difference. I've even met women who are like this, not limited to males.

[yakrian]

haha let's be honest, most humanities degrees are an epic fail.

Precisely. Might as well get a degree in something I'll enjoy. Besides, most employers can give you the specific training that you need as OJT. Learning to deal and communicate with other cultures is something that takes a little more time. Either way, say what you will, I'm happy with the education I'm receiving at the moment.

[dismalfuture]

royalefatale posted in here and I was gonna reply to it, but he had an interesting point I guess; some people are actually not interested in Japan and do come to Korea for whatever other reason. It's a new phenomenon, but I guess the internet and the kpop beezies and stuff have had some sort of promotion effect.

We got drunk this past weekend and ended up sitting with some black girl from Canada with a really bad attitude, who came to Korea to teach ESL because she likes K-pop. Definitely not a common occurrence but yeah there are fewer child molesters and extreme conservatives in hiding coming out to Korea for ESL and more younger people with friendlier intentions.

[poly800rock]

like the nerd who go to japan for manga i suppose

[readytoignite]

some black girl from Canada with a really bad attitude, who came to Korea to teach ESL because she likes K-pop.

weird, i wonder if there's some corresponding dude from asia who moved to canada because he likes rush / alanis morrissette / celine dion.

actually a band from aichi once crashed at my place and the drummer was mega stoked at thinking he was in the same state as bruuuuuce

just goes to show there's a lot of weird cultural iconography going on, even (especially?) in this age of globalization

[kcsnacks]

shiiieeetttt

hahah thanks for all the responses.. I've chosen japanese but I'm pretty positive I can do like a week of it and still have time to drop and change it to korean (or even spanish or indonesian (dad's from malaysia and the languages are fairly similar so he could help me a bit with that)) if I don't like it.. I'm mainly doing it to bump up my GPA then I'll go into something that will actually make me money.. but for now I'm going to do it as a replacement for a gap year because it's always been an interest to learn another language and other cultures