tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37004786.post-7374661275056387523 2008-02-29T18:37:00.002-05:00 2008-02-29T18:39:20.972-05:00 Signs of the Times Signs. They are everywhere. They can be either man-made or natural. Visible or invisible. They advertise, amuse, announce, annoy, communicate, direct, entertain, identify, inform, lie, point, remind, reprove, tell the truth, or warn. They can be direct or indirect. Some are complete or incomplete. Everyone depends on them, and I, especially as a deaf person, depend even more so on them. We observe or ignore them. I love to look at the signs - all kinds. Economic indications (like the store closings that I read on the net), weather patterns (shape of the clouds and temperatures), current events, to name a few, are also signs to me. Look at the white bicycle above. I mentioned it in other post about the ghost bikes , and the first time I saw it, I see no sign providing the name of a person who was killed by a car. Just a white bicycle which reminded me that someone had died. That person remained nameless to me until last Monday when the spot happened to be in my way to Rockefeller Center. The sign was posted after I took the photos last December.Now I know the name, the age, the date, and what killed him. It is sad, but it would be even sadder if no one knew.
The metal sign in the photo left tells the name of the family residing in the house. I made the sign in the metal shop of my school when I was in seventh grade. My father took the metal plate to work and had some hand-lettering the surname on both side. It's now forty years old and I am seeing the signs of rust - telling me that it needs to be repainted. I am planning to buy special brushes for the lettering. I am also thinking of putting a coat of arms somewhere near the family surname. As part of the genealogical project, I went through the papers and found information on the grave lots in two cemeteries. With the information in my hand including a map of one cemetery, I went to both of them yesterday. Since I have never been to both cemetery, I went to the office of the first cemetery. I was trying to find out about my paternal grandparents whom I never met. When the woman looked up in the files for Borloz, no records exist. I had to tell her that the plot was purchased under another name. I also explained that five people were buried in one spot. She found the record, and told me that there were no stone markers. I was very surprised to hear that and wondered why.
No signs of where my grandparents and great-grandparents were buried? The kind woman looked up on the map, and went outside in the cold freezing weather to lead me to that spot. She had a lot of trouble finding it, and I had the map in my hand. She went back to the office to get information on the other graves. While she was getting them, I walked around, studied the map, and studied the layout. I found it. The woman came back, I waved at her and motioned her to come to the spot. She was very surprised to see that there was a marker. And I was pretty upset to find that only one of the five people was identified. No signs anywhere to indicate that four other people were buried in the same place - my paternal grandparents and my great-grandparents. The name on the marker above belonged to my grandaunt. I thanked the lady and left the cemetery with a determination to find ways to get a new marker for this grave.
I later went to the second cemetery. Unfortunately, I did not bring the papers. When I went to the office, I was asked for the date that my granduncle was buried. The names were recorded and sorted by year not by names. I will have to go back with information that I have at home. Before I went to the first cemetery, I noticed a large sign and quickly scan the whole sign to look for a specific store. I noticed that there is a Japanese dollar store in this Korean shopping center. I decided to come back and check out the dollar store. I left it disappointed - I did not find what I was looking for - decorative tapes.
I was going to leave the center right away, and I was looking at this building thinking it was just a giant store. I decided to check it out, so I parked my car and entered the store .
What a big surprise! It's not one big store, but it looked like a shopping mall! The sign is somewhat misleading - it gave me a wrong impression that it was huge food market. Yes there is a big supermarket, but I didn't realize that there are that many stores in there as well. It was like going into another country! And I have to admit that I was a bit confused by my unfamiliarity with the Korean writing system. I have been to many Japanese stores both here in America and in Japan. I felt comfortable with the Japanese writings, but Korean is different. I will write about various writing systems in the future posts. I walked around and studied the clothing, displays, colors, materials, etc., etc. I was very fascinated with the floor plan and signs. One of the stores I went in happened to be a bookstore (Nobel Bookstore in Ridgefield, NJ), and I walked in. I was a bit confused and had to orient myself first before I finally got to the arts & design section that I wanted to browse. One is a bilingual (English & Korean) architectural magazine (left) and the other one is a book on signs in all over the world - storefront, highway signs, road markers, commercial, neon, wooden, mailboxes, signposts, and many others. Even though I can not read Korean, I still find it to be very fascinating - it is loaded with lots of photos. Signs are indeed everywhere!
&rew
