Tag Archives: seoul

31 Oct

hillbilly

Who taught: Jessy and Ashka

hillbilly

hillbilly

Hey there! How have you been? I really wish all of you are doing well. Hurricane Sandy hit the northeast of the U.S. and a lot of people are without power now. Hope my friends are fine there.

I live in Pittsburgh, PA. A few weeks ago, Jessy and I were taking a walk and we talked about things we are missing, living in a small city. So, Pittsburgh is still a city with around 300,000 people. But, to me, that is nothing. Why? it is because I am from one of the cities near Seoul, Korea and my previous work was in Seoul.

The population of Seoul itself is around 11 million and if we consider the metropolitan area, the population is around 25 million. It is a huge city. To give you an idea about how big it is, it is bigger than New York City. There are a lot of things we used to enjoy, especially at night. Don’t get me wrong. We do like Pittsburgh a lot.

So, the thing we talked about is that it is very different living in Pittsburgh from living in Seoul. When we used to live in Seoul, we call people from small cities or towns “Chon-Nom(촌놈)” in Korean. “What is Chon-Nom in English? What people call people from rural areas in the U.S.?”

Jessy and I did some researches and found this word, “hillbilly.” Let me guess its etymology! I think this is referring to a person whose name is bill (one of the most common names just like Joe) and who lives on a hill. How perfect is it? Hope my guess is correct.

Anyway, after that conversation, I thought I would remember it. But, I forgot.

Luckily, Ashka posted the picture that you see here on her facebook timeline. Wow! Wow! It was a moment of eureka for me. Thank you, Ashka, for posting this because this totally refreshed my memory. And, of course, I do need to thank Hillary and Bill Clinton. Than you guys! Because of you guys, now I feel pretty confident that I will remember this word.

What do you think? Actually, if you yourself are a hillbilly, then you should totally know this word. Hey, after all, I could consider myself as a hillbilly too. Pittsburgh is a small city. One may argue this but at least to me this is true. 🙂

01 Aug

watching the grass grow

Who taught: Jake and Carol

Seoul (Source: Wikipedia)

There is a street near my company where most of employees of my company park their cars. In my case, I walk from my house to the company and, sometimes, I meet my friends as I walk through the street. Last week, I met Jake and Carol on the street. We walked together to the office and we talked about Carol’s house improvement projects. She bought a house and Jake and Carol are working on a lot of different parts of the house. This is one thing I found very interesting living in America. In Korea, people do not want to buy a house which requires a lot of works. Instead, they buy a house which is perfectly fine as it is. In America, many people buy a house which might require some works and they actually work on those things by themselves. It is called DIY (Do It Yourself!). You can buy a lot of things such as paint, hardwood floors and even doors from places like Home Depot or Lowe’s. Literally, they have almost everything you need for your house.

Anyway, one of the projects they are working on is seeding lawns in their backyard. I saw some of the pictures she posted on Facebook and it was growing very slowly. We talked about that it would take a while to be looking good. During the conversation, I said, “It will take a while and needs patience, right?” And Jake said, “Exactly, it is like watching the grass grow.” At that moment, I did not know the expression and I just thought that the grass indeed grows slowly and he was agreeing with me. But then Jake asked me, “Oh! Do you know the expression?” “No!”, said I.

Jake said, “It means something is boring!” Carol added, “There is another one! It is like watching paint dry.” So, we were basically taking about the origin of the expression and it itself really explains the meaning of the expression. How funny it is!

We do not have this kind of expression in Korea! Do you know why? It is because there is no space for lawns in Korean houses, especially in Seoul. The city is almost like 10 times bigger than New York city and there are 12 million people living in the city. The population of South Korea is 48 million. So 1/4 of Korean population live in Seoul. According to Wikipedia, it is no 8 in the world largest cities, bigger than any cities in the U.S.