Shop Vegetables at Small Stores

혼자 살다 보면 장보기의 지혜도 생기기 마련이다. 그 중 하나로 야채는 마트가 아닌 동네 수퍼나 작은 가게에서 사는 것이다. 마트에서 파는 야채들이 포장은 잘 되어 있지만, 묶음 단위가 크기 때문에 비싸고 절반 정도는 썩어서 버리게 된다.

사진 속의 야채들 가격이 잘 기억 안 나는데, 피망은 확실히 2,000원이었고, 오이와 깻잎은 합쳐서 700원 정도였다.

까만 봉지는 한국의 대표적인 비닐 봉지 색이다. 유럽에서는 흰색이 우세한 걸로 알고 있다. 까만 봉지는 굉장히 유용하다. 특히 더러운 쓰레기나 화장실의 휴지통을 비울 때 제격이다.

이 야채들로 무엇을 만들었는지는 다음 포스트를 기대하시라.

If you are single, you come to have some widoms for grocery shopping. One of the tips is buying vegetables not at hyper markets but small stores in one's town. At hyper markets, vegetables are wrapped nicely, and because of this, the price is expensive and moreover the bunch itself is kinda big so you throw around a half of the vegetables before you finish them.

I don't remember the exact prices for the vegetables on the pic, but peppers were 2,000 won (1.5 euros) for sure and a cucumber and sesame leaves both were about 700 won (50 euro cents).

Black is a typical colour for plastic bags in Korea. As far as I know, white leads in European countries. Black plastic bags are quite multi-purposed, especially for ugly rubbish and waste from a toilet bin.

Please look forward to the next post, which will be about what I cooked with these vegetables.

Suits to Men, Miniskirts to Women

On the way to go shopping last Saturday, I asked my brother how men can endure the suit in the summer. He answered,"it is the same as miniskirts to women in the winter." I think he's right.



지난 토요일에 쇼핑하러 가는 길에 동생에게 물었다. 남자들은 여름에 그 더운 정장을 어떻게 입고 다니냐고. 동생이 답하길, "그건 여자들이 한겨울에 짧은 치마 입는 거랑 똑같아." 동생 말이 맞다고 본다.


* Photo: A new suit for my brother's first permanent employment
사진: 첫 정규직 출근을 앞둔 동생을 위해 장만한 새 양복

Theme of the Blog

While googling other blogs, I found a blog talking about what to blog. The point was each blog should have a consistent theme so that it makes bloggers able to expect what will be posted next on the blog.

So, I thought about what kind of theme I would set for my blog. First of all, I've changed my blog's name from deulpan (my web nickname, meaning a grass field in Korean) to Korsmopolitan (Korea+cosmopolitan, I initially wanted Kosmopolitan but it's already taken). If you look up 'cosmopolitan' in Collins Cobuild Dictionary, it says 'someone who is cosmopolitan has had a lot of contact with people and things from many different countries and as a result is very open to different ideas and ways of doing things.' I have to say I am trying to be very open though and I want to utilise my blog to make it.

Many of my posts will be about analysing things by a kind of comparative method. For example, I pick up a scene which represents Korean culture and develop my imression into how non-Korean would see it. But I have to admit that the object to be compared is yet limited to my experience in Western European countries. To avoid being biased as much as possible, therefore, I am widely open to any opinions.

다른 블로그를 검색하다가 블로그에 무엇을 게시할 것인가에 대해 얘기하는 블로그를 발견했다. 요지는, 블로그라 하면 일관된 주제를 가지고 독자들이 방문할 때마다 어떤 이야기가 올라올지 쉽게 예측할 수 있어야 한다는 것이다.

그래서 나도 내 블로그에 어떤 주제를 걸까 생각해보았다. 무엇보다 블로그 이름을 들판에서 Korsmopolitan으로 바꾸었다.(Korea와 cosmopolitan의 조합인데, 원래는 Kosmopolitan으로 쓰고 싶었으나 누가 먼저 채갔다.) 콜린스코빌드 영영사전에서 cosmopolitan을 찾으면 이런 뜻이 나온다. '코스모폴리탄은 여러 나라 사람이나 그 나라들과 관련하여 많은 접촉이 있어서 다른 생각이나 행동 방식에 상당히 열려있는 사람을 가리킨다.' 하지만 난 이미 그 경지에 이르렀다기 보다는 아주 많이 열려있으려 노력중이라 해야겠고, 그래서 이 블로그를 그 일환으로 삼으려고 한다.

내가 올리는 글의 상당수는 비교법을 이용하여 상황을 분석하는 것이 될 것이다. 예를 들면, 지극히 한국 문화를 보여주는 장면을 골라 내가 받은 인상을 외국인이라면 어떻게 볼까로 발전시키는 것이다. 그러나 여기에도 헛점이 있으니, 내가 비교하는 외국의 범위가 서유럽 국가에서의 내 경험에 불과할 것이라는 점이다. 따라서 편협한 사고를 최대한 피하려고 하니, 어떤 의견이라도 환영이라오.

Husband and Wife's Day

In Korea, we have around 40 commemoration days including some of national holidays. However, I think many can hardly name any ten of these commemoration days. It's mostly due to they are not bank holidays and we are not so much concerned with the groups that wished to have those commerative days. As for me, I list Elderly's Day, Sea's Day, Book's Day, Students' Day, Science Day, Environment Day, Police Day, Disabled's Day.

And today I've learned another commemoration day, "Husband and Wife's Day", which was just enacted this year. This morning I was watching a news channel, and it explained why 21 May was chosen for the day: in May, so-called a month of family (we have both Children's Day and Parents' Day this month), 21 means 2 persons (man & woman) become 1 family. Though the term 'husband & wife' in this meaning strongly refers to only married couple, excluding couples just living together, I like the idea of detaching and attaching the number 21.

Just a giggle: today is also Coming-of-Age Day here. Unlike other commeration days, this special day does not have a fixed date but is the third Monday in May. The meaning of 21 from H&W Day can be applied to this day too I think, if it simply means 'two become one' like the one from Spice Girls' song.;)

* Photo: My best friend, Jinhee and her husband, Jinho, who have just got married.