새로 알게 된 것이다

During this Thursday evening lesson, my Korean language teacher at SKS told me an observation that she has gathered with regard to Chinese-speaking students learning Korean. She discovered that Chinese-speaking students seemed to have problem pronouncing "double-L(ㄹ)". In that, she meant that we frequently stumbled on words like 설날 (seol-lal), 관람 (gwal-lam) and 일년 (il-lyeon). I kinda agreed with her. "Double-L(ㄹ)" pronunciation doesn't exist in Chinese language. Because of that, I tend to let down my tongue after pronouncing the first "L" even though I may be aware that it is a "double-L(ㄹ)" situation. I guess there is no other way of rectifying the fault except through more speaking practices.

During this Saturday afternoon lesson, my Korean language teacher at NEX was surprised to discover that Singapore men do not hand over their salary to their wife. She said in Korea almost all the men hand over their salary to their wife for safekeeping. She could not come to term on why Singaporeans though Asians have a mind of westerners. I thought this social norm of Korea is more effective than the Singapore Woman Charter in guaranteeing the right of women. There is a common perception that Korean men are chauvinistic. But what people don't see is that Korea men act responsibly when it comes to providing for the family. There is a saying that in a dysfunctional society men become bad when they have money and women have money when they become bad. However in the Korea's context, men cannot become bad because they don't have money and women need not become bad to have money.

My teacher at SKS told us that she just received 6-months of bonus from her Singaporean husband who works in the Singapore Airlines. With that bonus, she bought a new 37" Sharp LCD TV. She seemed to be very pleased with her new buy. It seems that some Singapore men do give their salary and bonus to their wives.