the Korean language

well, Korean is Korean in Korea, just like Japanese is Japanese in Japan. hmmm... its difficult to explain, but as a Singaporean, I guess we have a different 'interpretation' towards language. English is the main (written) language in Singapore - if you only speak Mandarin (and no English), you can get by with a limited subset of Singapore. Likewise if you only speak Malay, or Indian, Japanese, Korean, assuming that you do not want to communicate with a person from another race.

I should have expected it, but then reading (and understanding) is different from experiencing. It always has been for me. Korean is the language here, it is the alphabet here. People type Korean on their keyboards as fast as I type English, perhaps 140wpm, it is quite amazing to see vowels and consonants combine to form words after words.

In my own internalized interpretation, Korean language is a "pronouncing-alphabet". Just like I can recognize abc...xyz immediately, Koreans can recognize 어디에 갈가요 as individual "unique-sounds" immediately. To me, I take time to _parse_ the characters, dissemble them, construct, and pronounce each sound.

e.g. 갈. It is made up of k-a-l. And so a string of (normally) 2~3 words form a meaning. Sometimes romanized, like 텔레비전. Other times from Chinese, like 약속.

Anyway, what am I driving at? Haiz... the language barrier is still too great for me to break. Nowadays I hardly speak 10 sentences a day, and I pretend I'm an invisible wall 95% of the time our team of 4~6 goes for lunch. Then the weekends are so empty and free. Its not like Japan anymore... not like I can go everywhere to explore and play. Sometimes my team helps me to order food for lunch. (T.T)

I need to start from zero... I need to forget my old self... I need to step out... I need to find a routine to settle down... in this new life~