Tuesday, June 20, 2006

my old friend Hans

This is my buddy John, who owns his own hagwon in Dunedin, NZ (that's the South Island, he tells me). Pronounce it something like, "duh-NEE-d'n." When I first saw the city's name in writing, years ago, I thought it was pronounced "DOO-nuh-DEEN." John had a good laugh at my ignorance.

John's in Korea to do some networking for his school, English Advantage. He kindly took the opportunity to meet up with me on Monday in Kangnam. I haven't seen my good friend since about 1996 (ten years!), so this was fun.



We're hitting lunch on Tuesday as well. Ten years, and not much time to catch up: John's off to Japan on Wednesday for more meeting and greeting, then he hits Pusan, then he's rushing up to Seoul for his 18-hour flight home.


UPDATE: "South Island" now capitalized, per reader comment!


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4 comments:

Stafford said...

Capitals my man...capitals.

R said...

Shouldn't this post be called, "My old friend John"?

I have two friends named Hans. Neither of them are from NZ though.

I have a friend from NZ called Andy, however...

But, he's not from Dunedinn.

I knew a guy from Dunedin once...

His name was Brendan.

Brendan is incidently my middle name.

None of us are called John though...

Must be a different guy.

Kevin Kim said...

"Hans" is etymologically related to "John" (as are "Jann," "Yann," "Ian," "Johann," "Jean," etc.), and John speaks German, so I decided to call John "Hans." Jawohl!

I did the same to my friend Charles, calling him "Karl" on the blog (he also speaks some German). Don't mind me; just being weird.

A prof at Catholic University, one Father Sloyan, told me that the Latin name for Kevin is "Coemgenus" or something like that. He pronounced it "koh-emm-GAYness," which was just charming.

I should sign my posts as Coemgenus from now on. Assuming I've got the spelling right.


Kevin

Kevin Kim said...

Ah-- according to Wikipedia, Coemgenus is the latinate version of the name of Saint Kevin of Glendalough.


Kevin