--irony: i actually want to learn about the author's intent behind diction, choice of symbols and characters, the things that i couldn't stand in my english classes and was convinced that english teachers made us study those things because they were evil.
in the states, we go out of our ways to eat organic, freshly, locally grown produce. in the philippines, when i bite into my 88th mango, 9th pineapple slice, or 13th tiny banana (not the chiquita bananas), the taste of freshness is beyond blissful.
--irony: filipinos go out of their ways to eat unhealthy, international fast food. the most delicious goodness are before their eyes, but they prefer the oily, fried JUNK. food from the foreign land/hard to come by/more expensive are more desirable?
after i left korea in 1995 and soon after that, rice was not part of my staple diet. i don't even know when the phasing out (if it was even a phase-out) happened. when i am in the states, my parents and extended family members don't expect me to eat rice and no one gets offended. even when i was in korea for a month in 2007 and my rice was always untouched, it didn't bother me that i might look rude.
--irony: i eat more rice now. i must be in an asian, but truly a foreign, in my mind, country because the guilt that i didn't even know existed when i sat with korean adults at the dinner table during my time in korea, magically appeared and now i feel like i'm defying the entire filipino culture if i don't eat rice with my food.
filipinos say really formal, or sometimes awkward sentences, that make me smile. for example, they say things like, "did you take your breakfast/lunch/dinner?" or... oh, of course, when i sit down to write, i can't think of another example. anyways, it throws you off because sometimes sentences that are meant to be questions are meant to be declarative, or vice versa. you often find yourself in 2 seconds of momentary silence, probably with a really lost look on your face. of course, the harder part is recovering from that mental/facial expression hiccup and acting like you just were silent and looked really confused, all due to fault of your own because you are either hungry/tired/air-conditioner is really loud/my music was on too loudly, etc., and nothing to do with them.
--irony: i started talking like them. AHHHHHH i actually wrote "...if i don't take my rice with my food" (from the previous irony) and quickly fixed it after i wrote this section. hmph.
some accents are just hard to understand. i mean, i strain my ear towards their words, as if moving my ear closer to them will help me understand better. it's as logical as americans talking louder and slower, in english, when they are in a foreign country. i just feel helpless. i mean, what am i supposed to do? i'm always troubled when "those" people come and talk to me because, let's face it, it's a little too late for me to admit that i just don't understand them, that i never really understood them since day 1. anyways, i got the opportunity to share this feeling with one of my coworkers about those other people who spoke at the conference. i mean, i just zoned out the moment those panelists started speaking. whew, she expressed the same sentiment!
--irony: then she proceeded to say, "yeah, filipinos don't have any accents, so it's easy for you to understand all of us, right?" me: "((two second silence)) yeah. definitely."
my life is full of irony...ironies? is there a plural form?
el fin.
I love how you think about everything--why things are the way they are, and why you think the way you do. Because of this, events and circumstances will never control you because you will always find something valuable in whatever you do. I miss talking to you.
ReplyDeleteI will let Ms. Minami know that you don't think she is evil anymore. I can imagine her saying with a surprised look, "Ohhh...really?" Don't worry, I will explain that you have realized that understanding symbolism and the author's background brings whole new levels of meaning to what you read. I had the same thing happen to me when I was in college, and I was equally surprised. Funny how as teenagers we "know everything" and then find out later that maybe we really don't.
Interesting they say "take breakfast" etc. That is the way many of the British say it.
They also say "I'm going to hospital" leaving out the article "the". How come the English can't speak English properly? j.k. of course.
(and think of all the time you spent learning to use articles, that's ironic :) Oh, yes, there are "ironies", and the word is full of them. That's one of the things that makes it interesting.
hahaha i can imagine mrs. minami's look. :) hahahaha
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