jook
Jun 13th, 2007, 06:41 PM
Hell is a life misspent
As I ponder my existence in my boring, soul-sucking, utterly meaningless job as a replaceable cog in an uptight corporation, I indulge in one of my favorite thought-experiments, which is, if I had to do it all over again, how would my life be different? If I could go back in time, with the foresight I have now, what would I do differently?
An utter waste of time, perhaps, but less detrimental to the body than...say...a pack of Marlboro's. But it does help pass the time from lunch to coffee break to rush hour traffic.
Last night, I was watching a Korean soap drama on TV and noticed nowadays, they're pretty good about the English subtitles. At the end of the show (I forget the title), there was a credit which read "subtitles by Jennifer Lee". For legions of like-minded, grown-up reformed twinkies such as I, who sound like developmentally-challenged 5 year olds when speaking their mother tongue, this service is a great boon. Thank you, Ms Lee, whoever you are, for your valuable and perhaps under-appreciated service.
Subtitles are like little Rosetta stones. Helps us get in touch with the mother tongue. For us cultural half-breeds who are in a perpetual state of existential angst about identity, we could probably stand to do more to brush on our Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean etc. After all, language is the cornerstone of this thing called identity.
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced there is really little excuse. Young Asian-Americans, who can excel in exercises of supremely useless tedium such as memorizing hundreds of SAT vocabulary words in hopes of getting into a "good college", so that you can be a doctor/lawyer/engineer, and live happily ever after, could probably stand to focus that same dedication and zeal to maintaining a functionality in the mother-tongue. I know that because I used to be one myself. Unfortunately, distracted by more compelling and immediate goals, in the absence of parental compulsion, one often doesn't see the point of going through such trouble until one has spent some time in the real world awhile.
I think I should have liked to have been a Korean drama subtitle technician. Sometimes I can spot an occasional "nuance-discrepancy" (despite my skill in impersonating a developmentally-challenged 5 year old) and think maybe I could have done a better job.
Future generations: don't end up in boring, soul-sucking, utterly meaningless job as a replaceable cog in an uptight corporation. Do something special, something that has meaning, and something you can find freedom in.
As I ponder my existence in my boring, soul-sucking, utterly meaningless job as a replaceable cog in an uptight corporation, I indulge in one of my favorite thought-experiments, which is, if I had to do it all over again, how would my life be different? If I could go back in time, with the foresight I have now, what would I do differently?
An utter waste of time, perhaps, but less detrimental to the body than...say...a pack of Marlboro's. But it does help pass the time from lunch to coffee break to rush hour traffic.
Last night, I was watching a Korean soap drama on TV and noticed nowadays, they're pretty good about the English subtitles. At the end of the show (I forget the title), there was a credit which read "subtitles by Jennifer Lee". For legions of like-minded, grown-up reformed twinkies such as I, who sound like developmentally-challenged 5 year olds when speaking their mother tongue, this service is a great boon. Thank you, Ms Lee, whoever you are, for your valuable and perhaps under-appreciated service.
Subtitles are like little Rosetta stones. Helps us get in touch with the mother tongue. For us cultural half-breeds who are in a perpetual state of existential angst about identity, we could probably stand to do more to brush on our Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean etc. After all, language is the cornerstone of this thing called identity.
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced there is really little excuse. Young Asian-Americans, who can excel in exercises of supremely useless tedium such as memorizing hundreds of SAT vocabulary words in hopes of getting into a "good college", so that you can be a doctor/lawyer/engineer, and live happily ever after, could probably stand to focus that same dedication and zeal to maintaining a functionality in the mother-tongue. I know that because I used to be one myself. Unfortunately, distracted by more compelling and immediate goals, in the absence of parental compulsion, one often doesn't see the point of going through such trouble until one has spent some time in the real world awhile.
I think I should have liked to have been a Korean drama subtitle technician. Sometimes I can spot an occasional "nuance-discrepancy" (despite my skill in impersonating a developmentally-challenged 5 year old) and think maybe I could have done a better job.
Future generations: don't end up in boring, soul-sucking, utterly meaningless job as a replaceable cog in an uptight corporation. Do something special, something that has meaning, and something you can find freedom in.