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Thursday, March 29, 2012

큰 칼…

I don’t know what to say of this situation that occurred yesterday.

While translating '”우행시” (abbreviation of 우리들의 행복한 시간), AKA “Our Happy Times” which is the novel that I’m working on for my thesis, I came across an intertextual reference in one of the paragraphs. The author made reference to one of Korea’s most famous folk tales, 춘향전 Chun-hyang Jeon.

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춘향이가 큰 칼을 쓰고 앉아 있는 것은 청승스럽고 미련스럽고 아니면 무언가 위엄 같은 것이 있어 보였지만, 그건 어디까지나 훗날 당연히 이몽룡과 함께 도래할 극적인 정의의 반전을 위해 비참하면 할수록 좋은 도구이겠지만, 21세기가 다가오는 때, 실은 그건 좀 충격적이었다.

My translation: When Chun-hyang was in a cangue, she had looked pitiful and silly, if not somewhat dignified, but the more miserable she looked, the better it was for the inevitable dramatic reversal of justice that came along with Lee Mong-ryong.

The translation is a revised version. At first, I thought that ‘큰 칼’ supposedly meant ‘large knife’ so I had translated the front clause as “When Chun-hyang was sitting down, using a large knife,…” Apparently, there was a second meaning which I didn’t know of when I first translated it so when I presented the un-revised version to my supervisor, he was quite confused. Why did the author mention Chun-hyang using a large knife in this context? Mind-boggled, he went to google Chun-hyang Jeon to look for clues to this ‘knife’. After briefly looking through an online text of Chun-hyang, he suspected that 큰 칼 was referring to a ‘large cangue’ instead of ‘knife’, but he wasn’t sure. So he asked me if I knew Gong Ji-young’s (author of novel) email or contact details so that he could ask her about it. I said the only way I knew how to contact her was through her twitter. So I logged into twitter and he sent a message (in Korean, of course) to her asking about the meaning of ‘큰 칼’.

After that, I didn’t dwell on this matter anymore but waited for the author’s reply. At night, when Bf came online, I took the chance to ask him about the meaning of 큰 칼. After a few minutes he was able to give me a perfect answer of the word. Indeed, besides meaning ‘knife’, it also meant ‘cangue’ or ‘pillory’. He said it was in the naver dictionary! The dictionary which was like my bible during the translating process had this word?!! I was dumbfounded. Why didn’t I look it up in naver? I had assume it ONLY meant ‘knife’… And I felt so embarrassed for my prof and about the message sent to GJY. She must think, I’m not dictionary, look it up yourself. And no, she didn’t reply my tweet.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

떡볶이 Ddeok Boggi/ Spicy Rice Cakes: Recipe (Translated!)

image떡볶이 Ddeok Boggi/ Spicy Rice Cake

For people who are interested in making authentic Korean dishes, I believe that learning from the Korean themselves is the best way of making them. So I decided to translate this recipe from the blog of a published Korean cook for those who are keen on the attempt of making a good ddeok boggi dish from scratch, i.e. no instant sauces! In addition, this recipe is aimed at making home-made ddeok boggi to taste as good as ddeok boggi sold in cart stalls on the streets of Korea (usually a feat that is difficult to achieve at home as claimed by the author). Unfortunately, I cannot copy and paste the wonderful HD photos, taken for each step, from her blog. The photos are very helpful and perhaps, one can even cook up a dish JUST by looking at the photos! Click here for the original blog post!!

Ingredients:
20 pieces of rice cakes
3 pieces of fish cake
¼  white onion
1/3 carrot
7 pieces of sesame leaves
½ stalk of spring onion
a pinch of sesame seeds

Anchovy Kelp Broth:
A handful of anchovies
1 piece of white radish (100g)
1 piece of kelp (10 by 10cm)
1 piece of dried chilli
7 pieces of raw garlic
5 cups of water

Seasoning Sauce:
4 tbsp Korean hot pepper paste
1 tbsp chilli flakes
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp starch syrup
½ tbsp soy sauce
½ tbsp minced garlic

Instructions:

1) Anchovy Kelp Broth

Brew the soup stock according to the ingredients listed above. Once the water starts boiling, reduce to medium heat and boil for 20 minutes. Although most of the time kelp is removed from the water in the middle (of the boiling process), it is better to keep it boiling until the end for a strong and thick flavour of the ddeok boggi’s broth. This strong flavour is what makes the street food ddeok boggi. As condiments (T/N: MSG, etc) are not used, a strong flavoured soup stock is needed.

2) Seasoning Sauce

Make the seasoning sauce by mixing the ingredients listed above. The amount of hot pepper paste has to be more than the chilli flakes, and the amount of starch water has to be more than sugar. This will bring about the thick flavour of the sauce found in street food ddeok boggi.

3)  Cut the fish cakes into triangular shapes. Slice the onions, carrot and sesame leaves into strips, and chop up the spring onions.

4) Soak the stiff rice cakes in warm water before cooking them. There is no need to parboil the rice cakes. As the rice cakes will be boiled down in the sauce, there is no need for the rice cakes to be soft (before cooking). You can use ddeok boggi rice cakes or cut up the long bar rice cakes into fine slices.

5)  Once the broth has been well brewed, remove the broth ingredients and set the cloudy broth aside.

6) Pour the prepared seasoning sauce into the broth and start boiling.

7) Once the water starts to boil, add the rice cakes in.

8) Add the fish cakes, spring onions, carrots and onions as well. Boil until the sauce thickens. Use high heat and gradually reduce to medium heat while boiling until sauce thickens. As the sauce boil, stir to prevent the rice cakes from adhering to each other. The sauce of street food ddeok boggi is quite watery. Adjust the boiling time according to your preference for the thickness of the sauce.

9) Once the sauce thickens, sprinkle sesame seeds.

10) Serve with sesame leaves on top. Add sesame oil according to your preference... but without it, the taste of street food ddeok boggi can still be achieved.

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I made ddeok boggi twice within two weeks with the same recipe because the first attempt was quite a failure. I had added too much water the first time and the taste was too bland. I learnt from my mistake and was quite successful the second time! The photos will show the difference between the two:

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Left Photo: Failed attempt / Right Photo: Successful attempt

Actually making ddeok boggi isn’t new to me. I had make this dish a couple of times last year but with instant ddeok boggi sauce which is what anyone can do. Thus, I’m glad to be able to whip up this dish from scratch with the simple recipe above! The sauce of the ddeok boggi is the most important element. The taste, colour and texture of the sauce is what determines the overall taste of the ddeok boggi. Remember not to overestimate the water amount when you’re making this! I also recommend adding sesame oil because in my opinion, it really adds to the flavour of the dish.

Ddeok Boggi has always been one of my favourite Korean dishes. I absolutely love the tender texture of rice cakes accompanied with the bright red sauce which is both spicy and sweet at the same time. Having spent a period of time in Korea, I have tasted really delicious rice cakes sold along the streets of Seoul. If some of you didn’t know, ddeok boggi is the street food icons in Korea, loved by people of all ages. It can be eaten lightly as a snack in between meals or part of a  meal accompanied with other street food such as fish cakes (오댕), intestinal sausages (순대) or ramyeon!

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Boyfriend and I have had lots of meals like that when I was in Korea because they are not only delicious, they are convenient and can be found almost everywhere. One won’t go hungry on the streets of Seoul. And very fortunately for us, there was a small and modest stall in Sillim, the area where I stayed at, that sold really delicious ddeok boggi. The sauce was really rich in flavour. Bf was immediately hooked when we had our first snack there. For a few days, he kept having ddeok boggi from that stall, even the ahjumma there could recognize him. He even asked me to practice making it until I can achieve a result that is as delicious as the ddeok boggi sold there. Maybe that’s one of my motivation for making this dish. ;p

P.S. Sorry for the lack of photos, especially those of the Korean ingredients (fish cake, hot pepper paste, etc). If in doubt, don’t hesitate to ask me about the kinds of ingredients used!

Monday, March 19, 2012

Affirm your ♥ through ♥

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질투로 사랑을 확인하지 말라. 밀고 당기기로 사랑을 확인하지 말라. 그 사람의 부재로. 괜한 말다툼으로. 다른 사람의 입을 통하여. 사랑을 확인하지 말라.다만 ♥으로 ♥을 확인하라. 1cm 중

Don’t affirm your love through jealousy. Don’t affirm your love through give and take. Don’t affirm your love through the person’s absence, pointless arguments and through the words of other people. Instead, affirm your love♥ through love♥. From 1cm (a Korean inspirational book).

-English translation by me :)-

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Uneventful.

Life’s a dull ever since the semester started. Everyday I’m just caught in the web of research, my honours thesis and translation theories. Somehow, I just cannot seem to organize these theories in a logical way for my thesis and inside my head is just a bunch of information all messed up… It’s been like that for the past three weeks, but now I’m catching up on research, reading up “quite” intensively and trying to push my way through on starting to write this thesis which is actually called a critical commentary intended to address translation issues I face in my translation project. Because it’s not the conventional kind of thesis, I am having a little difficulty starting on it but I am glad that I don’t have to write 20,000 words of thesis. This translation thesis that I’m doing is 2/3 translations and 1/3 critical commentary, so it’s about 5,000words of commentary that I have to write.

This semester, I have no official classes. It is just basically thesis-writing. So it’s really such a dull without much of a campus life, only the meetings with my supervisor would bring me to UQ twice a week. I’m just on my own the rest of the time. I meet up with some friends once in awhile, but without cliques to hang out with, I feel quite lonely at times. Good friends have all graduated and gone home. This is probably one of the reasons why I can’t wait to graduate and leave this place as well.

On the bright side, I have been trying to achieve multiple tasks with the time I have. Besides working on my thesis, I am also self-studying Korean, translating other kinds of short texts and trying to cultivate the former habit of spending more time with books (non-academia). When I was younger, I used to read quite a lot… series and series of books but why did this habit die throughout the years? I love reading, but I realised that I cannot stay reading as long as I did last time. So right now I’m just trying to cultivate the reading habit again.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

‘Heaven’ by Ailee (에일리)

Once in a while, as a practice for both my language and translating skills, I would find something to translate (Kor-Eng), be it lyrics or quotes or anything else that doesn’t take too much of my time. Of course, they have to be meaningful at the same time. Today, it’s Ailee’s debut song, Heaven, which is gaining a lot of love in Korea and the rest of Asia right now. I was actually a little late in discovering this awesome song and regretted not opening up to her when she first released this song in February. I really love the beginning of the song in which her voice and melody really pull you into the song. 

Heaven  (English translations by me)

Where you’re at, I’ll be there too
Where you go, I’ll go there too

I smile everyday for you, I pray for you
I fall asleep thinking of you, I wake up calling your name
Stay by my side and stick up for me
You are my heaven

You’re my only way
I only want you, I am thankful for being by your side
You’re the only one babe
I am happy to be with you who showed me what love is in this harsh world
Heaven Heaven Heaven Heaven Heaven x2
If we’re together, we will never cry never never cry

Heaven Heaven Heaven Heaven Heaven x2
Together, forever, never gonna be alone

I breathe in your arms, we kiss in your arms
I feel like I’m dreaming listening to your voice
I can tell from your eyes, I can know your love
You’re my heaven

You’re my only way
I only want you, I am thankful for being by your side
You’re the only one babe
I am happy to be with you who showed me what love is in this harsh world

Heaven, My only one, yeah, the one whom I’ll protect
Whatever sadness, whatever pain, if I’m with you
I do not envy anyone else… Hold my shaking hands
Because you are the reason I live

You’re my only way
I only want you, I am thankful for being by your side
You’re the only one babe
I am happy to be with you who showed me what love is in this harsh world

Heaven Heaven Heaven Heaven Heaven x2
If we’re together, we will never cry never never cry
Heaven Heaven Heaven Heaven Heaven x2
Together, forever, never gonna be alone
Oh, so alone.

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Words in purple are the original English lyrics. And click here for the original Korean lyrics. As you can see, there are quite a lot of original English lyrics and there wasn’t any difficult vocabulary, so it wasn’t really that difficult to translate. Even so, I’m still an amateur at translation, so I welcome any feedbacks from experienced translators, fellow language learners or just casual readers (to check English errors)! :)

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Koreans: Addicted to Coffee or Cafes?

I don’t know if an average tourist spending a 1 or 2-weeks vacation in Seoul or other major cities such as Busan and Daegu would realise this but these cities are flooded with cafes. I began realising this after a few weeks into my stay in Seoul and there are cafes EVERYWHERE in the cities. Be it large or small, commercially or privately owned, simply or beautifully decorated… you can find an abundance of cafes with different concepts and ambience.

Well, I actually began noticing the cafes when I stumbled across a Charlie Brown cafe in Sillim, the area where I stayed. People following my facebook closely might remember the photos of a Charlie Brown cafe I uploaded while I was in Korea. The cafe was too cute that I told bf we have to go there for a date even if we don’t feel like drinking coffee. :p

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Comparing the number of cafes I’ve seen in all the countries I had visited, Korea has got to be the country with the most. With random cafes along the streets, I find myself hanging out with friends in the cafes very often.

There are certainly many reasons as to why so many cafes line the streets of the large cities in Korea. A reason is probably to get away from the freezing weather outside, or having a good break from the pressure of the competitive society, but I believe that a bigger reason for Koreans to visit cafes so often is because of socialising. Hanging out, chatting, meetings, and even studying. I get this idea from their concept of DRINKING, yes beer and soju. Koreans are good at drinking, they go drinking very often because they think that chatting over a meal and sharing drinks would make them feel closer. It’s their way of socialising. I suppose that it is the same as going to a cafe. Some Koreans don’t drink or can’t drink, so perhaps a better way to get close with say, a colleague or a date is to go to a cafe!

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What a name to give to a cafe. Exorcist Coffee.
If I remember correctly, the drink in the right photo is an orange peel tea. The taste was really strong, both very sweet and sour. I’m not an orange lover so it wasn’t much to my liking. I only picked that tea because it was the only tea left and I didn’t feel like drinking coffee.

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I’ve seen a good amount of cafes with stocked-up bookshelves as shown in the photo above. There is the risk of people stealing them but it would great if cafes in Singapore could have free books for anyone to read!

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AND THEN, there is the evolution of cafes in Korea: Dog and Cat cafes. These are where dogs and cats roam freely around the cafe while you enjoy a cup of latte. Dog-owners tend to bring their own dogs to these cafes and let their dogs socialise as well! So it’s a place for both human and pets to socialise! It is also definitely a great place for dog/cat lovers, just like me, to hang out and play with the animals.

I have actually been to the dog and cat cafes in Seoul and Daegu, and I’m sure Busan has one or two of such cafes. For people who are interested, the best dog cafe I’ve been to is called Bau House located at HongDae station in Seoul. As compared to the other dog cafes, for one it has great seats as can be seen below, and they sell treats for the dogs so it’s easy to attract them. In the other cafes, it’s difficult to play with the dogs when you don’t have any treats for them. As for cat cafes, they are not as active as dogs and they’re not as noisy as dogs, so it’s a little more quiet, for the more reserved people? ^^

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Anyway, I have realised one special drink that could be found in almost every cafes in Korea but not that commonly seen in Australia and Singapore (only countries I’m familiar with). That’s the GREEN TEA LATTE! They can most definitely be found in large commercialised cafes in Korea but most of the privately-owned cafes do sell them as well. Indeed, cafes in Korea have a wider range of drinks available, besides the normal drinks that contain caffeine.

I personally love going to cafes even though I’m not a fan of coffee. I just love the idea of enjoying a cup of drink in a relaxed environment and having a good chat with friends. ^^

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Spreading The Word For JYJ- DBSK

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Last night, after reading this I felt like someone had dropped a bomb in my heart. Listening to the audio files in that article made me feel even worse. I didn’t really read more into the issue and went to bed feeling shocked, disappointed and sympathetic. Jaejoong cursing and hitting a fangirl… I was really in a state of shock because the vulgarity intruded the nice and caring idol I thought him as. I even dreamt of him being sent to the police station for hitting the fans. It was a mentally tiresome night, really. But from the audio, I could actually hear that he didn’t sound quite like himself. His words were slurring a little and I had the thought that he might be drunk.
 
From a TVXQ fansite, I came across a really long article translated by a Korean fan and it states that the audio was edited to make him sound really mean… It also states that JJ was indeed drunk at that time and lashed out when he realised a 사생 (sa-saeng aka private aka stalker) was stalking him. The article shows how insane these stalkers can get and how long they have been stalking DBSK. It’s just insanity. Jaejoong is wrong for resorting to violence, but what made him lash out? What triggered him to do that? It’s not 1 year of stalking, it wasn’t 5 years of stalking, but 9 years of stalking. There is always a limit to a person’s tolerance, is there?
 

P.S. Can’t believe I’m posting this after not blogging about them after such a long time.