Do you know Chusok? 추석 아시죠?

This is related to a conversation from Space Nakji's site, in which Anglophones not of 100% Korean ethnicity and Korean birth ponder why so many Korean-Koreans think so many "foreigners" don't know squat about even basic Korean things or participate in the most basic of Korean cultural experiences. In essence, the "Do you know Chusok?" line of questioning.

I'm going to come slightly to the defense of some Korean-Koreans who end up making these inane statements by stating that in some cases, it is a matter of a verbatim translation (known in the trade as an L1 transfer, as in a direct transfer from the L1, or 'first language').

As the lead-up to an important question about scheduling, one person I know asked me a few weeks ago, in English, "Do you know Chusok?"

"Of course I know Chusok," I answered. "I've lived here how many years? I even teach my American students about it!"

It was a pretty inane question coming from someone who not only knew that I had lived here a very long time, had celebrated Chusok, and even had mentioned to her that my birthday was around Chusok.

But then I asked her, for shits and giggles, to tell me what she had meant to say in Korean.

She was a little confused about what I wanted her to say, but I explained briefly, and so she began, "추석 아시죠?..."

So, "Do you know Chusok," should have been... would have been (if coming from a native English speaker), "You know the Chusok holiday coming up, well, I was wondering if you would be able to..."

In other words, completely different from how I interpreted it. We native English speakers do this all the time: "You know the McDonald's up the street? There was a shooting there because someone wanted an Egg McMuffin after 10:30 and they wouldn't sell him one."

When I start to say, "You know the McDonald's up the street?" the person listening knows that that rhetorical question is just a starter for more pertinent information. The person doesn't jump down my throat and say, "Do you think I'm an idiot? I've lived in this neighborhood for twenty-five years! Of course I know the McDonald's up the street! I go there all the time! You and I went there last week and had an Egg McMuffin, even! Do you think I'm senile?! Well, do you?!"

The more degrees away from native-speaking ability, the less this rhetorical starter can seem like a rhetorical starter. With a pause after the starter, bolstered by unfortunate non-native word choice, the rhetorical starter can easily seem like the showcase sentence.

Do you know Chusok?