For the past roughly month of SDLAP 113 lecture, I met with my language partner Somyung and Warren Chae over Zoom. We started off our lessons and returned to the same concept of speaking in only Korean with occasional English only for words that we do not know with the intention of increasing our vocabulary and comprehension skills as well as helping to retain the language and practice our Korean language skills. This time we practiced in Korean with more of a focus on holding conversations such as conversation starters, and also decided what k-drama or entertainment show to watch for the last month of class. One other thing that I have consistently done is write one diary entry a week in Korean or responding to writing prompts in Korean and then I send it to my language partner who corrects it and adds comments afterwards. This has helped me to think and apply more of my Korean and practice my writing which helps improve my Korean and my thinking in my target language as well.
We delved deeper into culture this month where we explored the tradition of making yeot. Yeot is an old school Korean treat that is popular today. It is like a taffy type of candy that is not too sweet. We basically were able to see the recipe and the long lasting tradition of how Yeot has been made since the Goryeo dynasty which was roughly 1000 years ago. The recipe we watched was a hand-made recipe that has been passed down from generations for 140 years which was phenomenal to watch and learn. Yeot consists of white rice with ginger, bellflower, or pumpkin seasoning. The malt for the yeot is then made by moistening the barley seeds and the white rice is rinsed thoroughly afterwards. Next, the rice is mixed with the barley malt and water to become lightly fermented to create saccharine. Then, a sweetening mixture is poured into the pot and allowed to simmer for a while. Then a post is used for the pulling process which makes the yeot batter turn more translucent and makes the final texture of yeot not too dry or too hard. This then allows for the yeot to have an authentic taste. For a better visual representation, I have added the link here.
One other big activity that we did was watching a Koran documentary called “울지마 톤즈” which followed the story of a priest by the name of Lee Tae Suk and his story for becoming a missionary. Afterwards, we were tasked with responding to the prompt “울지마 톤즈'를 보면서 어떤 감동을 받았습니까? 받은 감동과 느낀 점을 쓰세요. This translates to while watching the documentary what kind of feelings and thoughts did you experience? Please write what you felt during the documentary down. I responded and said in Korean that I found the priest to be a very amazing person, he devoted himself to help 200 patients a day with his former medical background while serving as a priest and getting involved within the whole community. He also helped teach in schools, started a music program, and made sure the kids always had enough to eat before himself. But unfortunately he died within a year due to malaria which was very heartbreaking because of how big of an impact he had on the community and the amount of hurt the African community that he influenced was hurting once he passed away. He also helped create a lot of hope for people which was amazing to see in this sad documentary.
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