[그렉의 한국 엿보기] A unique sense of the language, 'OUR'

'Our Greg Teacher' called a boy from afar. I turned to my student, Nick. He was dangling on a shopping cart waving his hand over head. He was with his family. They were shopping, and I was shopping with my Korean friends as well. I saw that he was not with my students. To my regret,I am not a teacher to all of his family.

My friend told me why my young student called me 'Our Greg Teacher.' That expression is translated word by word from a Korean greeting. Also, their 'Our' is a little bit different from our 'Our.' Even his speech sounded confusing. The word 'We' refers to me 'You and I.' Since then I have paid attention to 'our' Korean expressions. I have found they are used to saying 'our country,' 'our school,' and 'our home.' I always hear them say 'our country,' I would not be included when they say 'our members.' Their 'our country' sounds much stronger than Hilter's Third Reich slogans of pure blood of the German people. Their thought there seems to be no nation except Korea.

Also, 'our school' reflects a sense of exclusive solidarity to me. To say, the school that consists of 'you and me' is to distinguish itself from other school. The school should be the best and there is no equal to 'our school.' They have never opened their arms to other school students, who they consider opponents or enemies to be defeated some day. 'Our school' implies me a feeling of superiority to any other school. Every memember of 'our school' should help each other in the name of 'our' feeling to better other schools. This sense of bonding has raised in me a sorrowful feeling of the history of Japanese invasion to Korea a long time ago.

[그렉의 한국 엿보기] A unique sense of the language, 'OUR' 청취

In extreme contrast, 'our home' has much friendlier nuance than the expressions of our school and our country. The Koreans that I have met so far easily invite me 'Come to our home.' My feeling is that I have already become not only one of their family members but also a sweet brother to them. A possibility that they would embrace all nations and peoples as brothers and sisters all over the world has hit me. That is another version of the egalitarianism of Indian philosopher and poet, Rabindranath Tagore,

Their unique sense of the language, 'our,' has been a still unsolved question. If I found any vocabulary equivalent to it in the English dictionary, I could be a great scholar helping to prevent terrible events like the 9/11 disaster and the Iraq War. Less than that, I would like to be a 'their Greg teacher' to Nick's family. However, I hope there will come the time when I can answer 'Hi, our sweet student,' to Nick.
/ 입력시간: 2008. 04.08. 09:44