The Korean election, as explained by 6th graders

EDIT: The election was on December 19.  Park Geun-hye won in a very close race.

December 13, 2012

The election according to sixth graders:

"Grandmothers and Grandfathers most like Park Geun-hye.  Park Geun-hye's father developed South Korea.

My mother likes Moon Jae-in, because his surname is Moon.  My mother's surname is Moon!

Roh Mu Hyun died.  His died is mystery.  Guess is, alone died… suicide.  He hometown went, died.

Park Guen-hye is government like.  Moon Jae-in like person, and for person.

Japanese Imperialism ended.  So North Korea is start fighting, so we fight.  North Korea, China help.  South Korea, USA help.  China fighting people many.  38 line, temporary war fighting suspended, not finished.

Tong-il, Unification. On reunification: I don't like it.  North Korea is very poor, so South Korea must pay for North Korea.  Many money spend.

Our country is Democracy, but North Korea is Communist.

Me: Will you vote in the election?

No.  We are not vote, because student.  19 years up vote.  20 years old.

Me: Do you have to go to school?

School? No, because Red Day.  Korean Day is now Red Day.

Teacher, if you Korean, you vote who?

Me: Probably Moon Jae-in.

My new camera

December 10, 2012

I got a camera last week.  It's a Holga, which is a popular "toy camera" made in Hong Kong.  It's basically a cheaply made plastic lens film camera with a minimum of settings.  It shoots 120 format film, which is about 60mm square, so the actual image taken is almost four times the size of typical 35mm film.  It's known for taking slightly strange, "dreamy" retro photos.  I picked up some expired black and white film (because that's all I could find) and took it to the park today.

They say that you have to just shoot a few rolls of film and make a lot of mistakes.  That's how you learn.  Well, the first 3 shots I "took" with this camera are a great example.  First photo: never happened.  I was winding the film, and saw a number "1", my signal to stop winding.  Instead I kept winding until I saw the number "2".  I thought about trying to rewind it, but I'll just write that off as an easy mistake.  Second photo: I think it was a success.  I was near the entrance to the park, and wanted to take a photo of the park and the mountain behind it, so I put the focus all the way out.  The third photo I took was of some people dancing to promote their candidate in the upcoming presidential election, Park Geun Hye.  A few minutes after taking the photo, I realized that I hadn't focused, so it was still set on "mountain" range.  Oh, well.

I have a lot to say about the upcoming election, so you'll just have to check back with me in a few days to read about that.

I ordered some more film online, and it should be here by this weekend.  It will probably be a couple of weeks before I get some film developed and see how successful I am at my new hobby.

Names

December 9, 2012

Tonight, I helped my language exchange partner pick an English name.  It's always fun for me.  Nuri Han is now AKA Nicki Han.

Do I have a Korean name?  Yeah, I have two: a serious one and a joke one.  The joke one is 오만원, Oh Man-won, which is Korean for "Fifty bucks".  My serious name is 강지훈, Kang Ji-hun, which I decided on after looking up the 한자 (Chinese Characters). 강 is a common family name that means "river", 지 means "wisdom", and 훈 means "merit".

I don't know what Nicki means.