A little more than a decade ago, I was a student of the Ven. Hwasun Yangil Sunim, a Korean Buddhist monk in the Chogye Order. (The title “Sunim” means “teacher” or “master” in Korean, and is analogous to “Sifu” in Chinese or “Sensei” in Japanese.)
Knowing my fondness for languages, Yangil Sunim tried to teach me Korean. As I was very busy with school at the time, I did not devote much time to it, and consequently I retained very little. I promised Yangil Sunim that I would learn Korean when I had the time, and I purchased these
Unfortunately, the first has barely been cracked open, and the second is still in its shrink wrap.
Interestingly, when then U.S. President George W. Bush labeled North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as “an axis of evil” in his 2002 State of the Union address, I had already been studying Korean, Persian, and Arabic. Because of this, and because of my other technical skills, some people encouraged me to consider a career in intelligence, an idea that I rejected because I wanted to retain my freedom to publicly express my political and religious opinions. Of those three languages, the only one that I continued to study is Persian.
– davinci 11775
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