Thursday, August 26, 2010

First Post Ever!

かんばんわ! I think that's correct?

Hello. My name is Eugene Sohn, a sophomore at Notre Dame. I live in Dillon. I'm originally from Seoul, Korea, but I've spent most of my life overseas in China and Taiwan. I love music and dance, and anything related to the two. I'm in the College of Business but my major is yet to be decided; hopefully a Philosophy minor because it's awesome.

Why learn Japanese? I got lots of reasons why.

0. I need a foreign language and Spanish seems a little too hard.

1. I love the food and I hope to someday try all the restaurants in Japan.

2. I love the fact that I'm Korean, and Japan is our neighbor, yet I don't know anything about Japan except what I know from watching the Last Samurai.

3. Usually Japanese manga is not my thing, but Vagabond (about Miyamoto Musashi, the strongest Japanese Samurai in history) and Hajime No Ippo were great reads, I learned a lot from them. Oh, forgot to mention Slamdunk which is also written by the author of Vagabond; great manga about basketball, I cried at the end.

3. DANCE. Japanese people are one of the most violently expressive and energetic dancers. And especially looking at the younger bboys (aka. breakdancers), anybody would wonder if they drink Red Bull 24/7 in place of water. Very creative too. I need to find out a little more about the Japanese society and how it produced this insane culture where people live in little boxes and manage the extreme generation differences.



All Area Crew, from Japan



Mortal Kombat from Japan in the 2006 Battle of the Year Show

4. The way the Japanese mixed Buddhism with their culture and came up with Zen seems interesting, not to mention how they added their own twist to Taoism and Confucianism influences. I want to know more about that. Ideally make Japanese friends and learn from them.

5 comments:

  1. にほんのダンス(dance)が すきですか?(do you like~?)

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  2. Wow! I'm such a fan of Hajime no Ippo! And Slam Dunk was good too, of course. I haven't tried Vagabond, but someday I will. I've never found anyone else that's a fan of Hajime no Ippo before! Nice to meet you!

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  3. This blog post reminds me a lot of that MTV Bboy challenge a few years ago, where the two finalists were from Japan and Korea haha. I remember thinking their styles were very different too; it would definitely be fascinating to have something like that at Notre Dame!

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