Life In 19x19

Does that mean we can finally see Yi look excited?

Helel wrote:

Peter Hansmeier wrote: The US Foreign Service categorizes languages based on difficulty for native English speakers. Category III (Languages quite difficult for English speakers) includes: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Ararbic.

The good news is that Swedish is in category I. So get a #¤#¤%¤ move on, show some #"¤#"%#¤ sense, and we can get this forum Swedish speaking in no time!

Note that the Scandinavian languages also use pitch accents, however.

aconley wrote:Does that mean we can finally see Yi look excited?

It's not commonly known, but Yi has a single patch of skin which he uses to show emotion, the frequency with which this patch twitches changes dramatically between when he is subtly bemused (around once a day) and when he is vaguely not pleased (around twice a day).

Helel wrote:

lee-changho-choi-cheol-han-laughing.jpg

Clearly a fake ! Shadows don't fit

It's a trap!

Run Choi! Run!

Violence wrote:It's a bit of a taboo to marry someone of the same surname in the CJK countries, isn't it?

Or is that an old fashioned thing nowadays?

The taboo is still there. However, it is not decided meerly by the surnames. Even one single surname (Yi, or Lee), has many different "Houses", usually noted with originate places. For example, "Kyung-joo Yi" (Yi house from Kyung-joo location) or "Duk-soo Yi", etc. While they have common surname, they have different ancestors.

In Korea, it WAS prohibited by law to marry a person from same houses (same surname and same originating house, called 동성동본, in Korean). But the law has been relaxed (in 90s) and it is legally OK to marry a person from the same surname-house. However, it is still illegal to marry someone closer than 8th-chon. ('chon' is a distance within lineage. Father-me : distance 1. Grandfather-me : distance 2. Sons of my parent's brothers : distance 4. Anyone who has same grand-grand parent is within distance 8 (8th-chon), and cannot marry (legally).

I'm pretty sure that Yi Ch'ang-ho and his fiance is not in the same house. While it is not illegal to marry someone from the same surname-houses, it is still very rare case in Korea.