Cescribe a cultural product or practice and reflect upon the cultural perspective(s) it illustrates.
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Cescribe a cultural product or practice and reflect upon the cultural perspective(s) it illustrates.
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I intend to talk about the development of languages in South Asia starting from the events that took place 4,500 years ago. In 1890, British intellectuals were able to establish that English and most South Asians languages share common structure. In the coming years they were able to come across evidence to suggest that Western and South Asian people shared common ancestors, the Aryans. The Aryan migration that began 4,500 years ago brought them eventually to South Asia. This process was aided by the invention of the Chariot. The Aryans came to South Asia as invaders. They pushed aside the Dravidians, the natives of South Asia and took over theirs fertile lands. Over thousands of years, these original Aryans expanded more and more into South Asia. Their language, slowly yet steadily, changed to become multiple languages. Although, these languages look completely different on the surface, yet share common structure.
This process that took place over millennia fascinates me immensely. I feel not manly people know about the Aryan migration into what is now Pakistan and Northern India. Therefore, I wished to bring this knowledge forth to the classroom.
Korean makeup is a big part of Korean culture, arising from Korean people’s attention for appearance. I will focus on Korean cosmetic market. Specifically, the growth of Korean cosmetic market and the reasons of the growth , as well as its cultural impacts in male makeup.
It is foreseeable that Asian cosmetics market will be the next market to look at. It is predicted to generate over half of total global revenue by 2019, due to Euromonitor estimate. The innovative products in South Korea drew the sales. International brands also regard South Korean cosmetic products as a source of inspiration for their new products. More importantly, the rise of popularity of K-pop and Korean dramas across the world has helped it expand it market beyond its country. For example, IOPE air cushion was sold out worldwide especially in asian countries due to its appearance in a popular Korean drama “My love from another star”.
Not only the development of the Korean cosmetics markets causing the growth in economics, but also male cosmetics market is expanding in South Korea. When it comes to spending money in male cosmetic and skincare, Korea turns out tops. 20 percent of Korean man wear makeup regularly. The cosmetics stores in South Korean carry a full set of male makeup products. According to my Korean friends, some of Korean men even carry makeup to improve their looks throughout the day.
I am going to talk about observations I've made of the way women dress in Korea. I've pretty much only been to Seoul, and there women are extremely trendy, and dress very well. However, something I've noticed that was very odd is what is acceptable to wear and what is not.
When I returned to Korea for the first time after moving here, I was in middle school, and wearing spaghetti strap tank tops with short denim skirts were popular in the US. When I was wearing this outfit, I got scolded by my grandma's friend for showing my bra straps who told me this is unacceptable in Korea, and she demanded I change automatically. However, she said nothing about my denim skirt which was well above my mid-thigh.
It was then that I started to realize an interesting trend in the way that young Korean women dress: you can wear the shortest skirt there is, but it is unacceptable to show a lot of skin in your upper-body. When you walk around the streets of Seoul, you'll see people wearing extremely short skirts (even in the middle of winter), but very little tank tops or low-cut shirts. They even have a different word set out for the trend of minimal skirts.
I also think it is also interesting to see the way K-pop stars dress during their performances. Their outfits are more often than not extremely provocative, and something that most people would not wear outside of a club or maybe a bar. One Korean once told me that the way K-pop stars dress is a way Koreans let out the built-up resistance of having to dress modestly (on the upper body), which I thought was interesting.
Cultural Post 3: Korean Drinking Culture 110
Drinking is very important in Korean society. It is seen as a time of communion between friends, families, and co-workers. It is most importantly seen as a sign of respect. Drinking is a time where you show respect to your elders and where your elders get the opportunity to show you respect. Some drinking culture etiquette includes: holding a glass with both hands when being offered a drink, allowing the superior to sit in a spot nearest the fireplace or before a wall that is facing the entrance way, offering a drink to the oldest person at the table first, and never filling your own glass. It is also important to note that one of the most commonly used alcoholic drinks in Korea is soju, a distilled vodka-like rice liquor. Beer is also commonly drunk here as well. A rule of thumb to note when wondering how much drinking is appropriate amongst others in Korea is that three glasses are expected and more than seven are too many.
I'm going to touch on cultural aspects popular among Korean teenage girls. It is very common for young Korean girls to tend toward acting cute and delicate, and this manifests itself in language, body language, and fashion. While not a particularly important aspect of Korea as a whole, as a teenage girl who is interested in Korean pop culture, I think it is important to recognize these trends and how they shape Korean pop culture in comparison to American pop culture. Obviously, not every Korean girl plays into these trends, just as not every American follows pop culture, but the two styles of how teenage girls act are very different due to Korean girls generally being seen as weaker and cuter in society.
Language: This is hard to explain from an American perspective, but there is a tendency to add -ng sounds and otherwise muffle the pronunciation of words in text speech. As a common example, a more formal way of saying "I love you" is saranghaeyo; to make it cuter, it can be spelled in Korean as saranghaeyong. Along with that, it is common for Korean girls to use a whiny voice, or sometimes even a baby voice. Both of these add to the image of trying to seem cute and weak.
Body language: One thing anybody interested in Korean pop culture knows is the concept of aegyo. Aegyo, for lack of a better description, are cute actions. They include peace signs, making hearts, pouting one's lips, and reaching one's arms out in a baby-like fashion. They are used to be more expressive, and to act younger, which can also be seen as cute. As these are also presented in a bubbly manner, they make girls seem happier and more youthful. Just as there are very typical "American sorority girl" poses, there are some common poses shared among Korean teenage girls' pictures. In pictures, peace signs and hearts are very common, and actions such as the former can be used to frame one's face, accenting eyes or making one's face appear smaller/more well-defined, as those are very important in terms of Korean standards of beauty. Korean girls also, as compared to American girls, use less assertive movements, or movements that show strength, as it is more common to be seen as being weaker.
Fashion: In general, Korean girls dress more conservatively than American girls. I will only be touching on street fashion, not necessarily high-end or professional fashion, and my answer is heavily influenced from what I saw during my short visit to Korea during the summer. It's not very acceptable to show cleavage in Korea, and as such, most shirts have high necklines. To make their bodies appear smaller, many Korean girls wear boxy, loose-fitting shirts. High-waisted short and skirts are popular among teenage girls, and are usually paired with the aforementioned style of shirt or with a loose-fitting button-down shirt. This "look" cinches at the waist, giving the appearance of a small waist, and accents long legs, while conservatively covering the upper half and arms. Dresses are also commonly worn, especially skater-style dresses that are tight at the waist and flare out at the bottom half, which has the same effect. Wearing clothes to accent how skinny you are and to look skinnier also has the effect of making you look weaker and more delicate than clothes that may fit girls in a different manner.
I would say that those styles tend to be commonly worn in public, whereas American teenage girl casual clothes are not as feminine fitting on average, are often tighter, and also encompass a wide variety of styles. I saw very little variety of styles while in Korea. Another thing to note is that with street fashion, most clothes are one size, so loose-fitting shirts and pants with stretchy are more prevalent because they fit a wider range of sizes. Also because of this and because of Korea's strict standards on being skinny, cheap clothes are not as accessible to those who do not fit into one-size clothes. Shoes tend to include sneakers and basic sandals for comfort, but most shoes have some wedge or platform added to them to make girls seem taller and have longer legs. For casual wear, tall shoes are more common in Korea than in America, and the platforms are much more obvious in Korean shoes than American shoes, in my opinion.
I'm going to talk about beauty in Korea. Granted, the concept of beauty and its ramifications run rampant in all countries but I find that in Korea it is especially intriguing.
I'll first start off with skin care. If you've never heard, there exists the 10 step Korean skin care routine. I'm not going to actually spell out each item, but this intense and long skin care in Korea is something that is normal. I'm actually partaking in a Korean skin care routine and I won't lie, I've found my face to glow more and have less acne. Skin care is crucial against aging and is something take Koreans take a lot of care in.
Next, I'll talk about plastic surgery. Korea has one of the largest percentage of plastic surgeries done in a country. It's very common to change something about your face or body if you are dissatisfied about it. I feel from a third person perspective that plastic surgery is kind of a part of the culture. I've noticed that they don't shame plastic surgery (usually) but more so are awestruck at the results of the plastic surgery. There are certain looks such as double eyelids, v shaped face, bridged nose and what not that are deemed very beautiful in Korea and thus many change their looks to fit the current image of what beautiful is.
Lastly, fashion is a big thing in Korea. I've heard there's no such thing as sweatpants in public or else you'll be harshly judged upon. This makes me really sad cause I love sweats. Especially in the winter. There's a thing called airport fashion in Korea and it's kind of hilarious in that airport fashion can be accepted on both extremes of wackiness to elegant for celebrities. Otherwise, for the most part Koreans are always composed and dressed to impress.
I'm going to talk about two aspects of ASL that are not too well known, but are very important to learning ASL and the culture surrounding it.
Pidgin Sign English (PSE): PSE is an established that is similar to ASL, but uses some elements of English. There are many forms of PSE and the level of English used is typically dependent on how well the speaker can hear. The deaf tend to use the grammatical structure of ASL, but hearing people will normally use the grammatical structure of English (like using articles and forms of "to be"). PSE is typically easier to learn than ASL (at least at the beginning) and is useful for someone who used to be hearing and was accustomed to the grammar of English. It is also used to help deaf children learn how to write in English.
Fingerspelling: Fingerspelling is incredibly important in ASL. Basically, there are so many words and not enough signs for all of them, so some words always need to spelled out. For example, there is not a sign for every single item of food that exists. so more uncommon foods always need to be spelled out. Name's, places, and brands also need to be spelled. It is also helpful if you don't know the sign for something and you need to ask. Fingerspelling uses the 26 letters of the American Manual Alphabet, which consists of the same 26 letters as the English alphabet. Each letter has its own sign and you can sign any word once you learn all the letters of the alphabet.