29.Jun.2008 Read-a-thon: Hour 19 & Mini-Challenges

I do get a bit bored reading for a few hours, even though it’s interrupted by blog reading and blogging.

I’m continuing my interesting facts about Korean:

7) Koreans start their age from 1. So they are 1 when they’re born. (The same like Chinese)

8) When Koreans commit suicide, they usually jump into the water, and they put their shoes neatly at the jumping spot, with suicide notes in it. There’s an old story to explain the reason, but my friend couldn’t remember the story. My conversation with her went like this:

Her: Remember the time when Asian economy crashed about 10 years ago? A lot of people committed suicide that time. Sometimes you passed a bridge and you could see people’s shoes lining up at the edge of the bridge.
Me: AND IT DIDN’T FREAK YOU OUT??!! (You know, knowing that there were people dying near you??!!)
Her: *laugh* Anyway, after a while, they put some people to guard the bridge, so there wouldn’t be more people jumping off the bridge.

Apparently the culture to put your shoes neatly before committing suicide also applies for Japanese. Only Japanese usually jump in front of a running train, because it’s kinda easy for them. In Japan the trains often run at the back of residential areas. So you can just go to your backyard to achieve your goal. (Okay this whole talk about suicide freaks me out a bit)

9) Koreans eat with metal chopsticks and metal long spoons with metal bowl for rice. I love the long spoon, but hate the metal chopsticks because they’re heavier than plastic/wood chopsticks and are harder to use. But then again, I’m never good at using chopsticks.

10) I can go on and on about Korean food and drinks, because I’m a fan :). I cook tokbokki and jap chae sometimes. Tokbokki is Korean rice cake with Korean chilli and some meat and vegie. Jap chae is stir fried glass noodle with meat and vegie. Yuuum.

I’m hungry.

To participate in Care’s hour 19 mini-challenge:
the new interesting word I found during this read-a-thon is spazzer.

spaz /spæz/
–noun Slang.
1. a grotesquely awkward person.
2. an eccentric person.

So I’m guessing spazzer is a person who’s a spaz? (I can’t find spazzer in dictionary.com)

Total
Page: 159
Reading time: around 5 hours