Busan Subway

I'm not sure anyone notice this, but Busan Subway announcement within the train and on the platform are actually available for download from the 부산교통공사 website. Announcement of next approaching station and approaching train are available, as well as some of the previous versions of announcement are available for download. One particular cool thing that I found available in Busan subway is the available of four languages announcement :

한국어 : 지금 장산, 장산행 열차가 들어오고 있습니다. 고객 여러분께서는 한 걸음 물러서 주시기 바랍니다.

English : The train for Jangsan, Jangsan is now arriving.

日本語 : 萇山, 萇山行きの電車が参ります。

中文 : 开往장산, 장산方向的列车马上就要进站了。

Do check out more of these announcements MP3 or WAV file download and also the statistics for passenger ridership of each line and stations are available.

Korean Air Advertisement

Korean Air has launched an advertisement campaign promoting flights from Incheon to Xi'an and Zhengzhou in China. The advertisement contains famous location near these two destinations and also famous quote from old sayings and proverbs as shown in the picture above. In the advertisement, it shows some footage on the location and then comes a scenario based example showing how to use the proverbs. I think this advertisement campaign has become viral in Korea with some people trying to imitate the narrator but with random sound when reach the Chinese proverb portion. Check out the advertisement video at the end of this post.

There is even a parody going on as shown in the picture above, mocking the style of presentation in the advertisement. The first picture (from the original) stated "When you are always given small (unimportant) task to handle, 이사 said .. ". The second picture shows one line of Chinese character 河己失音 官頭登可 with Korean reading of such characters at the bottom [하기실음관두등가] mimicking the same style used in the original advertisement. I have tried to decypher what does that proverb means, but apparently, that is where the parody is hidden. The Chinese characters is just some characters that was selected in place of the Korean pronunciation. The Korean reading of that phrase sounds like "하기싫음 관두든가" means "Should just quit if you don't like to do it." There are some website trying to explain the literal meaning of the Chinese "proverb" and trying to find the meaning. But to me, I just like the sounds-like idea more.

Here are the 3 of the 6 TV advertisements from Youtube. You can check out the rest from Korean Air website at http://chinatravel.koreanair.com/