DANNY TILLMAN's Site

FATHER'S DAY FOTOS & TEXT, JUNE 21, 2015

by Dady

First posted on June 25, 2015, at 1:40 am. EST.

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Before we get started, on the Father's Day stuff, here is information about Hangeul (Korean language) that Nathan emailed me on June 19, 2015: Korean writing copies the writing of a Chinese character, so it works from left to right, top to bottom.

Like a Chinese syllable, Korean syllables have:

1. An "initial", which is always a consonant (even if it's "silent" - see below).

2. A "media," which is always a vowel.

(3. An optional "final" consonant. Some syllables have them, some don't.)

By the way, this is how all languages work, including English - we just don't think about it. For example:

"Example"

- ex (no initial; medial /e/; final /x/

- am (no initial; medial /a/; final /m/)

- ple (initial "p"; medial /ə/; final /l/)

In Korean, for example, Miran's name (Yang Mi Ran) looks like this:

양미란

The first "syllable" has three letters, which you read left to right, top to bottom: 양

- ㅇ: The initial. This is a silent consonant. Korean (written) syllables cannot begin with a vowel, since their theory is that consonants are the "mother sound" and vowels are the "baby sound," and you can't have a baby without a mother first.

-ㅑ: The medial: /ya/

- ㅇ: The final: /ng/ (Same as the first letter, except now it's pronounced, since it's at the end of the syllable.)

The second syllable has two letters: 미

- ㅁ: The initial: /m/

- ㅣ: The medial: /i/ (English "ee")

The third syllable has three letters: 란

- ㄹ: The initial: /r/ (actually an almost-rolled "r" like Spanish except weaker)

- ㅏ: The medial: /a/

-ㄴ : The final: /n/

Note: In the next section of Nathan's Korean Language lesson, he is referring back to this photo of a sign that he emailed on May 30, 2015. The caption he added with the photo was this: "I saw this construction sign while walking today. The top text says "cheon-cheon-hi" (slowly), and the bottom "hoing-dan-bo-do" (crosswalk). The dude at the bottom is drawn with the same anime-ish cute style that I also saw in China and Taiwan for public announcements like this - I think we don't have anything like this in America."--

So back to the construction sign, the word is 천천히

The first two syllables are the same, with three letters each:

- ㅊ: The initial: /ch/

- ㅓ: The medial: /eo/ (We don't have this sound in English. It's like a combination of the "o" in "coffee" and the "u" in "uh")

- ㄴ: The final: /n/

The last syllable has two letters:

- ㅎ: The initial: /h/

- ㅣ: The medial: /i/

I know it seems complicated at first, but once you get used to it, it's a beautiful, simple system, it's easy to read, and it works almost perfectly phonetically, unlike English.

The alphabet (한글, "han-geul") was invented by King Sejong (1397 - 1450).

Love, Nathan

Father's Day email from Micah

Since today is Father's Day, I decided to look up the #1 song for 1980, when Dad first became a father. The #1 song for the year was, evidently, Blondie's "Call Me" (hooray!). Pink Floyd's, "Another Brick in the Wall" was #2 (hooray!), Olivia Newton-John's "Magic" was #3 (I only know the other ONJ song), Michael Jackson was #4 ("Rock with You"), Captain and Tenille were #5 (what an adorable name; "Do That to Me One More Time" was the song; pop music song titles never change), Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" was #6 (hooray!), Paul McCartney's "Coming Up" was #7, and Lipps, Inc.'s "Funkytown" was #8 (hah!). Herb Alpert's "Rise" was #54, Pat Benatar's "Heartbreaker" was only #83, and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' "Refugee" only made it to #100.

In 1979, the Knack's "My Sherona" was #1 (hooray!; best bass line ever), Chic's "Le Freak" was #3 (lols), and the Village People's "YMCA" was #8 (plus, there were two Summer, Donna [Simmer Down Now!] songs in the top 10).

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

Love, Micah

* * *

Father's Day email + photos, from Nathan in Seoul, Korea, June 20:

Since it's already Sunday here, I wanted to wish Dad a happy fathers' day and send a few pics of what we've been up to (which still isn't much, due to MERS).

Photo 031. 6-15-15, 9:40 am. KST (Korea Standard Time; Korea doesn't observe Daylight Saving Time). Last Monday we took our first trip outside of Seoul to meet one of Miran's undergrad professors. Her undergrad school is in 춘천 (Chun-cheon) and is also where her dad is a professor. Chuncheon is also Miran's place of birth. This pic is from the campus - you can't see them well, but there are lotus flowers on the water.>>

On June 21, Micah commented: "Nathan: I wish America had driving simulators as part of our driver's license tests. Maybe they'll start using virtual reality goggles once those come out next year.

"Now I'm wondering what driving tests were like back when Dad first started driving. I remember this one young-Mickey Rooney movie we watched once where M. R. was like 14, went out bought a car, and started driving it around, all in one day, with no license. Anarchy." * * *

Here is an email from Ezra (who is staying with friends Stephen & Joel Hayes at their apartment in Indiana, PA, near Pittsburgh) & photo of the Father's Day card he made.--

Happy Father's Day Daddy!!!! I made a card for you, here is the picture of the cover.>>

* * * Ok, now to the photos taken by dady on Father's Day at 960 Calvert Rd., Rising Sun, MD, when Joanna came to visit. (All times are in EST (Eastern Standard Time)--

001. 12:33 pm. Joanna at kitchen table; we had homemade pizza (by Momy), salad & ice tea. (This shot taken without flash; later, I had to increase the brightness with the photoediting tool on Windows Picture Gallery.)>>

012. 2:40 pm. (Camera atop the rail, set on automatic.) After telling everyone how to pose for the picture so as to be seen, dady himself leaned forward & blocked the view. Sorry about that. You can see a little bit of Joanna & Momy; Seth is behind Momy out of sight. Seth's stick won again! For those of you who haven't seen the Disney Winnie the Pooh cartoon story about this, the game consists of dropping a stick into the water on the upstream side of the bridge, then everybody rushes to the down-stream side of the bridge & looks to see whose stick comes out from under the bridge first. Seth has won this game 3 times in a row! We are still trying to figure out how he does it. >>