Languages in LA

Well, maybe not only in Los Angeles, but I’ve never seen such things anywhere else. While driving to Downey for another of those dreary required professional development seminars (which never seem to develop anything in me but a hatred for driving on the interstates) I encountered more big city weirdness.

It’s the layout of the place that gives me those culture-shock moments. In Los Angeles, you can get culture-shock three miles from home. I was heading east and passed an exit sign informing me that the upcoming neighborhood was named the Byzantine-Latino Quarter. The very thought is byzantine, and as I was struggling to mentally accommodate this new flavor—new to me, anyway— the next sign informed me that I was also approaching a Hebrew college.

Yes, of course. Where else would you put a Hebrew college but near the Byzantine-Latino quarter??

I took a different route home and ended up on the southern part of Western … a description which only now strikes me as amusing because what I saw on south Western was so distracting it prevented me from mulling over it. I believe I was in the Korean section of Los Angeles because I couldn’t read any of the signs. They were all in Korean.

All except one was in Korean, that is. The post office I passed was in English. It was the Nat King Cole Post Office. In Koreatown. Yes, of course, where else would you put the Nat King Cole post office but in Koreatown?? That’s Los Angeles for you. If there’s ever a Jackie Chan library they’ll probably put it in Little Ethiopia, near where the Sino-Aztec shopping center would have to be built. It’s a small world, after all.