Friday, June 15, 2012

Yes, Kimchi

Today, I was doing a conversation test with one of my classes.

One boy was sitting in front of me.

I asked him, "What does Choi Hong-man look like?"
 This is Choi Hong-man.
                                                   He is a giant Korean MMA fighter (He's like 7'1".)

Now, we had given them the questions a week ago so that they would have time to prepare.  And, I was planning to follow up the given question with an unknown question to really test their unprepared ability.  The follow-up question was this, "Do you want to meet Choi Hong-man?  Why do you want to or not want to meet him?"

So, back to the boy.  I asked him, "What does Choi Hong-man look like?"

The Boy: "Yes, Kimchi."

Me: "뭐야 (What the...)!!

And, now for something not completely different.  Choi Hong-man vs. Jose Canseco.  Yes, THAT Jose Canseco...


One more time...뭐야!

And, one more thing...if you meet a Korean person who has Choi for a family name, the name is pronounced "Chae".  It does not rhyme with Troy like the announcer did in the video.  It was a terrible Romanization that someone did a long time ago.  So, if you want to impress your Korean friends, say "Chae" instead of trying to pronounce it the way it looks like in "Choi".

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