Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Jeonju Archery Part 2.

From part 1, back up a few weeks.

One of the kindest and eldest men in the club insisted I be given a name. Not just a Korean name (which I still lack but we won't get into) but a Korean archery club nickname, which everyone must have. Coincidentally he and I didn't meet again until my fateful return-to-the line day.

He began with "mi" (미), taken from miguk, "Beautiful Country," as America is known in Korea thanks to the Chinese thinking it was beautiful a really long time ago.

He then offered me the choice between five second characters, ranging from "peace" to "house/floor" to "instrument." The aforementioned bilingual explained that two or three were traditionally girls' names and suggested I go with ... the three I just managed to remember. I settled on "peace" because it wasn't "instrument." Music is a part of my soul but it ruled me too long. Also I had never heard that name before but I thought I'd heard "beautiful peace."

And now, I am mi-sung (http://www.koreanwikiproject.com/wiki/index.php?title=%EB%AF%B8 for mi, http://www.koreanwikiproject.com/wiki/index.php?title=%EC%84%B1 for peace (accomplishment)). Please refer to the Chinese characters for the true writing.

But I must say my peace is not beautiful.

I WANT TO HIT THE DAMN TARGET. Not the grass. Fortunately now they tell me my arrows must be too heavy ... that surely must be the problem.

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