Back in Action

I'm back in Incheon International Airport in Korea's capital city, smack dab in the middle of a 7 hour layover. After spending 14 hours on a place in a middle seat (limiting my arms to T-rex style usage only), I arrived here at about 3:00 in the morning Korea-time, then had to wait about another three hours until anything in the airport opened. Oh, the joys of travelling.

Hello, My name is...

JOHN is the most popular 1.st name in USA (... 1.john , 2.david , 3.michael , 4.robert , 5.james ...). One in every 25 Americans are named as JOHN and popularity of name JOHN is 39.93 people per thousand.

If we compare the popularity statistics of JOHN to USA's population statistics, we can estimate that as of August.02.2010 04:40there are 12,372,824 people named as JOHN in the United States and the number of JOHN's are increasing by 104,925 people every year.

Usage of John as a first name is 72.86% and its usage as a middle name is 27.14%. The sum of alphabetical order of letters in JOHN is 47 and this makes JOHN arithmetic buddies with words like Elated. Add "Courtesy of PokeMyName.com' tag and feel free to distribute, copy, republish this interesting, accurate and also useless report about name JOHN. :)

To balance these statistics out, hardly any Taiwanese people choose that name when browsing for an English name.

Apparently they are sick of hearing the names John and Mary because they are used in every guided conversation in every English text book distributed in Asia. Two times in as many days, I've heard someone mock this conversation:

"Hello, John, how are you... Hello, Mary. I'm fine thank you..." and so on and so forth.

Sorry, Mom. Apparently we have boring names.

(what does YOUR name look like in sign language, morse code, marine flag language, and barcode????)

PS. I'm in Korea!

Korea-mania

What is it with Korean pop groups these days? Since I've been here, there have now been two different Korean groups (with a total of 18 singers) to have somehow taken Taiwan by storm. Even though Ja Rule is performing live and Lady Gaga is coming through the night club speakers every other song, Super Junior and Wonder Girls have conquered the hearts of mainstream music and ring tones in Taiwan.

It's for damn sure that you can't go a full day without hearing, if only by indirect reference, of either group's hit single.

So what do you get when you add the Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, and 98 Degrees together, then mix in some Asian?

If you answered "A 13-person Korean boy band called 'Super Junior'," then contact me for your prize. Actually, you'd be hard pressed to find anybody on this island who hasn't heard of Super Junior, or at least their mega-hit, "Sorry Sorry." I'm pretty sure the only English lyrics in the the song are "sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry......... shorty shorty shorty shorty," but it's so catchy that you can't hate it no matter how much its played out. At my school, every kid from age 3-13 knows the signature "Sorry Sorry" dance move of rubbing the hands together, and every apology is followed by another, and another. And yeah, it was a morning warm up song, so I know a dance routine for the whole thing. Jealous?

Check it:


The more recent pop song tidal wave to drown Taiwan is "Nobody," by the Wonder Girls. They are also Korean, but have 8 less in their entourage. The impact of "Nobody" became very evident when I saw a kindergarten student of about 2 and a half feet singing and doing the dance to this song. Adorable. Much like "Sorry Sorry," the Wonder Girls' hit is something that I'd love to hate, but mostly I can't help but get a kick out of how awesome everybody thinks it is.

Check it:



What do you think?

Who's next?

I'd like to extend a warm Asian welcome to Adam and Steve, who have just recently touched down in Korea.

That's two more New Paltz alums to travel west to get to the East to spread the gift of language, which begs the question, "Who's next?" Kinney? D-Lo?

For fresh opinions within new borders, head over to Adam's blog and Steve's blog for updates on their adventures.

For future reference, you can get there under my Quick-links on the right side of my page.

Welcome to Asia, boys! Good luck!