When someone stops and talks with me,
they quickly find out that I love anything that has to do with Korea.
I loved the country since high school, and even served my mission
there. I'm also adding Korean as my minor. When I first got introduced to the language, however, it took
a different rout. My first thought when I first got introduced to the
language was the common cliché phrase, “It's all Greek to me.”
Mainly we attribute this phrase to
something we don't understand, which is what happened when I first
saw the Korean language. But I never knew how much that applied until
I found out that Korea actually had foreign relations with Greece
itself, especially during the Korean War when they helped with the
Korean military force in the 1950s.
Now, South Korea has an embassy in
Athens, which opened in 1973, and Greece opened an embassy in Seoul,
South Korea's capital, over two decades ago in 1991. The two
countries go back and forth with governmental representatives,
bringing in bilateral treaties for agreement.
I really appreciate how civilized these
two countries are with one another. In terms of language, they are
not all that similar, but they are in terms of the welfare of their
governments and people.
In Mexico, they say "It's in Chinese" if they don't understand. However, I don't know a lot about Mexican-Chinese relations. I think this is a unique story that you share about your connection to the Greeks. Last semester I spent a lot of time trying to make connections between myself and the topics assigned for blog posts. But it seems that you were able to make the connection easily!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how quickly and differently each person relates to something. I definitely wouldn't have made that connection, but it now makes sense.
ReplyDelete