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Well, the dissemination of high-quality English menus might not be important to everyone, but in Daejeon, it seems, they take this issue pretty seriously. 
Stephen, an American working at a research center in Daedeok, recently met his French friend Alex at a restaurant near KAIST for lunch. After wondering for some time what to order they turned their eyes to the English menu. The restaurant has menus written in both hangul and the roman alphabet, making selecting a dish easy for Stephen and Alex, who are not skilled in Korean. Similarly, a public space where foreigners can live conveniently has been built in the Yuseong area of Daejeon. Yuseong-gu and KAIST announced that the building of the KAIST International Zone, a space where foreigners and Koreans can come together in cultural understanding, ceremonies for which will be held starting on the 4th of next month. The International Zone will be created as a space that foreigners can easily use and will cover some 31,200 square meters from the east side of the Yuseong-gu Office to the west side of KAIST. It will be like the neighborhood of Itaewon in Seoul, where many foreigners congregate. The zone began with the proposal of a foreign woman professor. The first female professor at KAIST, Mary Kathryn Thompson, proposed to KAIST that, "if you go to Japan the menus have pictures so if you point with your finger they can understand what you want, but around KAIST it's hard to order because the restaurants don't have English menus or pictures of the food." Last November the Yuseong-gu Office received the proposal from KAIST and selected as the 11th area improvement project, and the plan is proceeding in phases to create a brand-name street like Itaewon. This year a large sign was erected announcing the creation of the International Zone and local businesses are being asked to create standardized English-language signs and menus. Also, comprehensive improvements will be carried to the outer and inner facilities in participating businesses including in the bathrooms. Next year sidewalks, Indian sculptures, and lighting will be installed and signs will be placed on the highway and in Gyeongbo and Honam advertising the International Zone. Discount coupons will be issued when the facilities are used. When workers from KAIST or the Yuseong-gu Office eat at local restaurants they will be given a 10 - 30% discount. To build up the Zone the local government plans to build facilities, including a small theatre, an outdoor concert space and an art exhibition, that Koreans will enjoy using and which will offer the experience of Korean culture. With cars banned from entering, the plan is for the International Zone to make Yuseong a noted tourist spot like Itaewon. Jin Dong-gyu, head of the Yuseong-gu Office, hopes that "the creation of the International Zone will contribute to an economic strengthening and revitalization of the area's businesses. We believe it will make a significant contribution to the globalization of a scientific Daejeon."Another Itaewon? I'm not sure the peninsula could survive that. Also, I have to say that Ms. Thompson's quote above is complete BS -- most restaurants in Japan DON'T have picture menus. Trust me, it is not that much fun learning two alphabets (hiragana and katakana) and 200 kanji just so I can pick what I want when I go out to eat. In Korea you've got hangul which takes you how long to learn? Why should the restaurant be doing anything for you if you can't take the time required to do something so basic for your life there? Besides, plenty of kimbap shacks do have a few pictures up. I really hope this woman has been misquoted.
Comments
Yup. We were in Tokyo just last week and like my 2 previous visits to Japan (once to Osaka, once to Tokyo), I found English to be pretty scarce on the menus of restaurants not obviously targeted to foreigners. To wit, we were even in the Shinjuku district, which is one of the most foreigner-friendly districts in Tokyo ! The only menu I saw pictures on were at the sushi restaurant, and it pretty obvious that material was of stock origin. In other words, pretty much the same sushi pictures I've seen everywhere and likely from the same source. Compared to Japanese menus, Korean menus are far more accessible. Also, like you said, learning 22 to 28 Hangul characters is far easier than the 300+ or so of the three Japanese alphabets required to read a menu. I'm thinking the 1988 Olympics and 2002 World Cup have a lot to do with Seoul's relatively good support of English in public places.
The foreigner anecdotes sound phony. One does not need to be fluent in Korean to learn how to read Hangeul and the names of basic dishes. It is not unheard of for the Korean media to make up quotes. Out of curiosity, I did a search of Ms. Thompson on Google and at KAIST and got no results. It's possible that she is no longer at KAIST and therefore a suitable person to misquote since it isn't likely that she'd ever read the article.
I remember reading about her when she was first hired towards the end of 2007. If you do a Google search with her name in hangul you'll find that Korean journalists don't seem to agree on how her name is spelled in English, but I assume she hasn't left KAIST after such a short time. For sure though, you're right that the possibility of a misquote is high.
I found her doing a search of her name in Korean. It sounds like Korea was her first overseas living experience, so perhaps tourist restaurants in Tokyo spoiled her expectations.
way to put in your 2 cents!! damn right!
I dunno, the KAIST international zone sounds like it could, if done right, be a good thing. They should stop with the comparisons to Itaewon because that is not an example they'd want to follow. But it could have potential as an interesting cultural centre as long as it didn't turn scummy.
Mary Thompson still works at KAIST -- I saw her on campus recently. Also, the article is incorrect: she's the first female *foreign* professor at KAIST. There are already female Korean professors at KAIST. (But not many.) I do agree that learning Hangeul and a handful of food words is very easy and makes going to restaurants with no English on the menus reasonably easy. If you're smart enough to be a student or faculty member at KAIST, it shouldn't be difficult for you. :) That said, I'm happy to see the area next to KAIST being made more foreigner-friendly, although I already find it quite foreigner-friendly as it is. Gung-dong, the next neighborhood over from the proposed International Zone, has several foreigner hangouts, as well as the Islamic Center of Daejeon.
That's what I was going to say - isn't KAIST some kind of genius school? If you can't quickly learn enough Korean to order what you want from the menu, maybe you're at the wrong school? Let's just assume it was a misquote.
[...] Korea Beat picked up on this one: Similarly, a public space where foreigners can live conveniently has been built in the Yuseong area of Daejeon. [...]
Shame it is written that way, makes her sound like she couldn't be bothered to take the 5 minutes it takes to read Korean
Even the dullest of people could learn basic Hangeul in about a week of less than dilligent study. If you learned to read English by phonic methods as a child, I you may find it easier to deal with since it is entirely phonetic with very few rules 'exceptions.'
[...] Korea Beat picked up on this one: Similarly, a public space where foreigners can live conveniently has been built in the Yuseong area of Daejeon. [...] |
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