Final Project: FengShui Link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ClUd1XMeYCLFDSSppeM9N1dLm-FFyGhO/view?usp=sharing
Slides Link
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dZi8uHn-XrIUgduI5vX768WYvxDQoTywX8skitBO8qI/edit#slide=id.p
Anna Liu's Posts (35)
Sort by
Attached is the link to the podcast.
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-liu96/episodes/Semester-Wrap-Up-S23-e22prvc
In this month, I continued to take iTalki lessons with Karen老师, met with Leyao for our weekly meetings, and read Chinese passages + character practice.
I meet with my iTalki teacher, Karen老师, for 1 hour twice a week to practice speaking Mandarin and Cantonese. Because she is a native speaker of Cantonese and Mandarin, it helps to sometimes switch the conversation from one dialect to the next. The lessons aren’t formal language classes where we read passages from a textbook and discuss. Rather, we have an open conversation about topics such as health, beauty, Taiwan/China relationships, our future plans, etc. I prefer this style of learning because it has helped me gain confidence in my speaking skills in both Mandarin and Cantonese. After the semester ends, I am planning to continue these lessons with Karen老师 to help me maintain and improve my speaking skills.
Meeting with Leyao, my language partner, has always been one of my highlights of my week because we plan fun activities to do from food excursions to doing cultural activities. One food excursion we did for this month was to go to Kokee Tea, which is a milk tea shop. We did some research online and found that Kokee Tea sold egg waffles, which is a popular street food in Hong Kong. We decided to go and try it out, but when we got there, it turned out that they took it out of the menu. We got milk tea instead, which was still delicious, but I wish we could have tried the egg waffles. Egg waffles are called such because the waffle has egg-shaped pieces, and can be eaten plain or with toppings such as chocolate, seaweed, pork floss, etc. You can picture the texture and shape of bubble wrap and that is pretty much what egg waffle is but an edible version.
One of the passages I read this month was about Chinese/Taiwanese/USA's relationship because my other Chinese class was reading about the same topic. These passages around this topic showed that my vocabulary in Cantonese (or Mandarin) is quite limited and when reading or speaking about specific topics such as politics in this case is quite difficult for me. Same with talking about my science research with my iTalki teacher because there are certain things such as the "immune system" or "cytokine" that I just do not know how to translate from English to Cantonese. However, I think as I continue to read more about politics or science in Chinese, I will slowly learn how to express those specific vocab words.
Just this past February, Hong Kong’s Leader, John Lee Ka Chiu, announced that Hong Kong Airlines will collectively give away 500,000 free airplane tickets to travelers all around the world. This comes as Hong Kong begins to lift COVID restrictions including the mandatory mask requirement. By organizing this massive giveaway, it shows how much Hong Kong relies on tourism for its economy. As COVID restrictions are lifted all around the world, many are eager to jump on a plane and explore another’s culture through landmarks, rituals, traditions, and food. Travelers who win a free ticket or are going to Hong Kong this upcoming summer will most likely be swept away by the delicious aroma of food leaking from restaurants and from hawker stands. Food is undoubtedly one important part of one’s culture, and in this month’s cultural post, I will share the most classic and unique foods in Cantonese culture specifically in Hong Kong. This will be a full itinerary from breakfast to lunch and then to dinner.
At the heart of a traditional Cantonese breakfast is dim sum 点心 or more colloquially “yum cha”, which directly translates to “drink tea”. The idea is that drinking tea is an activity that is done with many families and friends together, so “yum cha” is a traditional Cantonese breakfast that is eaten with families and friends. From all the dim sum places I went to, whether in the states or in China, there would be round tables rather than square or rectangular tables. This is to help facilitate conversations with members at the table. The table has a glass Lazy Susan so that dishes could be easily accessible to all members. At dim sum, there are dim sum carts filled with a variety of dishes that are pushed from table to table. The food isn't in large portions, rather they are served on small plates. Some examples of these dishes include the following: chicken feet, rice noodle rolls with shrimp or pork, crystal shrimp dumplings, xiao long bao, bbq pork buns, and fried taro dumplings. When you order the dish, you also hand the worker a long menu, and they will stamp whatever you order. Each dish is around $3 to $5 USD. Then，this menu is then taken to the checkout to calculate the total cost of the meal.
There isn’t really much of a difference between lunch and dinner meals. In America, when I think of lunch, I think of sandwiches whereas for dinner, I would think of pasta. In Hong Kong, foods that are normally eaten for lunch can also be eaten at dinner such as beef brisket noodles 牛腩面. This savory, umami dish is made up of noodles with toppings such as bok choy, daikon, and chunks of beef. The dish can be in soup form with beef broth or without the soup. This dish would be perfect for the winter with the steaming hot soup but can be enjoyed year around. Another iconic dish originated from Hong Kong is Clay Pot Rice 煲仔饭. Like its name, this dish is served in a small clay pot. The chefs use the clay pot to cook the dish and then serve it to their customers. Rice is usually cooked first, then various toppings are added such as Chinese sausages, chicken, beef, etc. The dish is done when there is a thin layer of rice that is slightly burnt on the bottom of the clay pot to give it a crunchy texture. Clay Pot can be eaten at lunch or at dinner.
Besides breakfast, lunch, and dinner dishes, Hong Kong is quite known for its pastries and sweet delicacies. For tourists, when in Hong Kong, their egg tarts 蛋挞 are a must try. Egg tarts in Hong Kong are well known because of their crispy, flakey pastry skin with soft, sweet egg custard filling. Another delicacy that is unique to Hong Kong is their egg waffles 鸡蛋仔. The shape resembles bubble wrap while the taste is closer to a waffle. Egg waffles can be bought from street vendors, and oftentimes there are different fillings that customers can choose to put into each bubble. For example, one popular and delicious flavor is 紫菜肉松鸡蛋仔, which seaweed and pork floss filling. There are many classic flavors as well such as chocolate 朱古力。
This isn’t a comprehensive list of foods in Hong Kong, but instead highlighting some of the most popular dishes in Hong Kong from morning meals to desserts. One of my favorite items on this list is the egg waffles. I had them when I visited China in 2014, and the flavor and texture blew my mind. It was crunchy on the outside but warm and soft on the inside. I hope in the near future I will be able to eat some！
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_cuisine
https://expatliving.hk/classic-hong-kong-food-local-dishes-street-food-snacks/
The highlights for the month of March were the language meetings with Leyao, continued with practicing Chinese characters and reading passages, and reading upon literature about the population crisis and growing prevalence of type 2 diabetes in China.
This is by far the most productive and enjoyable month of language learning in this program partly because of the fun activities that Leyao and I do and the rewarding conversations we have about Chinese culture while practicing Cantonese. For the first week of March, we went to Fat Dragon which is an Asian fusion restaurant on Cary Street. We ate deep fried squid and shrimp, and we both got lunch boxes with a variety of dishes including white rice, spring roll, assorted vegetables, and the main dish. Then, the following week was spring break, so we did not meet. After spring break, we regrouped and planned out what we should do for the remainder of the time and additionally discussed marriage in China. I found this topic intriguing and was something that came up during my discussion with my iTalki teacher, Karen 老师, so I wanted to get a student perspective. This past week, we practiced Chinese calligraphy and painting on a special type of paper called 宣纸. The paper is more absorbent than traditional printer paper because it is made out of rice, so it holds the ink and water much better. I never did Chinese calligraphy or watercolor painting before, so it was an unique experience to use the brushes, ink tray, and ink stick. There was a process to get the ink on the ink tray, and the first step we had to do was pour a small amount of water onto the ink tray. Then, put the ink stick perpendicular to the tray and rub against the tray in a circular motion to mix the ink with the water. The longer it is mixed, the darker the ink becomes when writing on the paper. I did not realize how messy it was because the ink was all over my fingers. Overall, I had a wonderful experience practicing calligraphy and learning about the whole process. Next month, Leyao and I planned some exciting weekly activities along with much more meaningful discussions surrounding Chinese Culture.
Continuing from last month, I read passages on the migrant population in China, food and culture, and Chinese television and drama. These were passages used in my CHIN 401 class. I found that there is a heavy government influence particularly among the migrant population and television and drama dictating what can be broadcast and the whole ordeal with the Household Registration System. In addition to reading, I continued practicing writing basic Chinese characters for everyday conversations. Handwriting Chinese characters is much harder than English because it is all about memorization rather than in English. In English, I can sound out the words and spell them out while in Chinese, there is no system like that. I write and practice Chinese characters 30 to 45 minutes three times a week, and this is a consistent schedule I am able to keep up with.
Lately, I have been reading articles about the growing population decline in China and the prevalence of type two diabetes. The articles were written in English, and because I am fluent in English and know it much better than Mandarin or Cantonese, I had a deeper understanding of the material. It was interesting to learn about the population decline and how the Chinese government abolished the One Child Policy and expanded it to two children and now three children per family because of this alarming trend. Not only China, South Korea and Japan are also facing a growing older population while the birth rates are declining.
The other topic I was alarmed by was the prevalence of type two diabetes in China. The prevalence of diabetes in China is 12.4% of their population, and that is quite a lot because China’s population is 1.4 billion (Wang, 2018). The articles that I read claimed that the prevalence in diabetes increased due to sedentary lifestyles, eating diets high in red meat rather than fruits and vegetables, insufficient exercise, and smoking (Wang, 2018). This information makes sense since many Chinese citizens are now experiencing a more financially secured lifestyle than before, so this may be fueling the increased cases of diabetes in China.
This month was quite productive, and I hope to continue that productivity into April. One major goal I want to accomplish in April is to take some type of proficiency test in either Mandarin or Cantonese.
Sources:
Wang L, Peng W, Zhao Z, et al. Prevalence and Treatment of Diabetes in China, 2013-2018. JAMA. 2021;326(24):2498–2506. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.22208
In this month’s cultural post, I wanted to explore marriage in China from the past and current policies in place and the pressure that young couples, especially females face regarding marriage. Marriage, in simple terms, is a union between two partners that formally recognizes their relationship with each other. Marriage in China has evolved over the course of many generations from being restrictive towards women to allowing women to freely choose their partners. However, there are many factors that play into marriage laws including the involvement of the Chinese government. In 1950, a marriage law was passed to abolish arranged marriages and guaranteed the right to free marriage. Thirty years later in 1980, another marriage law passed to forbid third parties from deciding the marriage decisions including family members or matchmakers. In other words, only the two partners in the relationship can decide if they want to get married or not.
Between 1979 and 2015, the Chinese government created a family planning policy or popularly known as the “One Child” policy to suppress population growth. Under this policy, couples are restricted only to have one child per married couple, and more than one child would result in hefty fines. Because traditional Chinese culture favors males rather than females, as a result there are more males than females during this time. Favoring males over females is thought to arise from males being able to continue the family last name rather than females when they are married, they adopt their husband’s last name.
In 2015, the “One Child” policy ended as the government saw a decline in population growth, so by expanding the policy to two children per married couple, the hope is that this would boost the population growth. Giving birth and raising a child is extremely expensive, so many young newly wedded couples don’t have plans to have children, at least not for the near future. Additionally, more females are receiving higher education than in the past, so they are working their way up to positions as their male counterparts. Females are now more career oriented rather than wanting to get married at an early age and becoming a housewife. Therefore, they fear their position will be jeopardized if they go on maternity leave, which would cause the company they work for to find a replacement. Unfortunately, in recent years the state media and the government has pushed the concept of “剩女” （sheng nu) which translates to “leftover women” to pressure women to marrying earlier, which would subsequently make it more appropriate to have children. Those that are over the age of thirty and not married is considered a “剩女”. This concept greatly stigmatizes women that they are unfeminine if they are not married by the time they are thirty years old.
Parents that are anxiously wanting their children to be married oftentimes seek relatives or matchmaking agencies to find the right partner for their children. Interestingly, matchmaking agencies or parents will post their children’s CV in parks or centers, often without their consent, in hopes to attract any interested partners. This CV would include information such as yearly income and number of cars or homes they own. This appears quite materialistic, but the main purpose is to let the other person gauge how wealthy the owner of the CV is. However, some could manipulate the system and post whatever that makes them look attractive leading to many lies and scams. It is uncertain what the future may have for young adults that are not looking to get married, but one thing is certain is that marriage in China became a decision between the two partners rather than become restrictive in the past. Even though there is free-choice marriage, many adults do seek permission and advice from their parents as filial piety is a big part of Chinese culture.
Sources:
The highlights of February include the following: meeting with my iTalki tutor, meeting with Leyao, practicing reading and writing Chinese characters, and making a list of common illnesses with English and Chinese translation. January was the month to figure out my schedule and settle into the new semester while February became much more productive with coursework and further educating myself on Cantonese and Mandarin. Even though this class is dedicated to further deepening my understanding of Cantonese in writing, reading, and speaking, Cantonese and Mandarin overlap in many ways, so oftentimes I am learning both dialects simultaneously. For example, some phrases in Mandarin would be the same in Cantonese only the pronunciation is different but the meaning stays the same (e.g. 糖尿病 = diabetes in Cantonese and Mandarin).
During my iTalki tutoring sessions, I practiced speaking with my tutor, and we would talk about a range of topics from Chinese and USA relationship to Taiwanese food and culture. The sessions help me become more comfortable describing what I want to say by using a variety of grammar sentence structures and vocabulary. We meet for thirty minutes three times a week, but it varies based on her availability and my availability. We sometimes converse in Mandarin and in Cantonese. Some topics I hope we can talk more about in the future would be the medical system in China versus the US, management of diabetes since China has one of the largest populations of type two diabetics, and the opioid crisis. Because I am currently taking a pharmacology class right now, I think these topics will be very fitting to link different disciplines together.
It is always a wonderful time meeting with Leyao. Her dual experience being educated in China and the United States gives her an experience I never had, so it was quite interesting understanding the private sector in education in China and the United States. We had a productive conversation about the education system in China and the United States, and her experience in both countries. One thing that surprised me during that conversation was that she went to boarding school in grade school! Given how young she was, I didn’t think it would be possible to send kids at that young of an age to go to boarding school. During February, we also watched shows and discussed their significance and discussed the cultural holidays celebrated in mainland China and Hong Kong such as the Dragon Boat festival. For March, I hope that we can discuss Chinese work culture, things unique to China, and hopefully go on a food excursion!
This semester, I am also taking CHIN 401 Advanced Intermediate Chinese, so in terms of vocabulary and grammar, I use their material to also practice Cantonese. I don’t know how to write in Chinese, so based on the textbook from CHIN 401, I practiced writing weekly vocabulary for CHIN 401 and for this class. I now have a deeper appreciation for those that can write beautiful Chinese characters or 汉子, because my characters look like an elementary student wrote it. The characters were based on the readings for CHIN 401, so they mostly were for day-to-day conversations or culture related. For March, I hope to continue with writing Chinese characters on a weekly basis and read the assigned Mandarin passages in Cantonese.
For this month’s cultural post, I wanted to focus on holidays that are celebrated in Hong Kong as well as holidays that are shared with other provinces in China. Through this research, I learned about what festivities people in Hong Kong do on these holidays and their purposes. I found that many of these holidays honor a specific person in the past that has contributed to their society . Similar to the United States, many official holidays celebrate the works and legacy of a particular person such as Martin Luther King Jr Day or Veteran Days. In Hong Kong, there are additional holidays that aren’t classified as official but are generally celebrated to provide the community with something to look forward to celebrating.
One prominent holiday celebrated in Hong Kong is Lunar New Year 春节, but this is not unique to Hong Kong but shared with many Asian countries. This is a 15 days celebration that has a unique theme for each day, and most workers get the first three days off then resume back to work.This official holiday allows people to spend time with their families and friends while eating all sorts of delicious foods such as dumplings. However, during this time many southern provinces in China such as Guangdong don’t emphasize eating dumplings as a big part of tradition. Rather, foods like fish and thin rice noodles are more prominent for Lunar New Year dishes.
One interesting holiday celebrated in Mainland China and Hong Kong is called Ching Ming or tomb sweeping holiday 清明节. This holiday is dedicated to visiting and cleaning ancestral tomb sites. Additionally, people usually pray, make ritual offerings, and burn incense and paper for the deceased. The purpose of the festival is to offer sacrifices in exchange for wealth and peace. Another holiday shared between Mainland China and Hong Kong would be the Dragon Boat Festival. This exciting holiday is set on the fifth month of the lunar new year. People celebrate this holiday by watching teams race in large canoes or “dragon boats''. Teams on the boat have to paddle in unison and use the leader of the pack’s drumming to guide them. There are 20 paddlers and 1 drummer on the boat. In addition to this event for Dragon Boat Festival, one prominent food that people eat during this time is called “zong zi” 粽子. It is made of sticky rice and various fillings such as salty egg yolk, meat, beans, or Chinese sausage and then wrapped in bamboo leaves then boiled. The Dragon Boat Festival honors a Chinese poet called Qu Yuan who jumped into a river to protest against the corruption of government officials. Citizens during that time would throw in foods such as zong zi 粽子 into the river so that the aquatic creatures don’t consume his body. This festival is also honored and celebrated in Taiwan as well.
One last holiday I want to highlight that is unique to Hong Kong is called Cheung Chao Bun Festival. This festival is used to honor the patron deity Pak Tai who helped the local community drive away pirates and evil spirits. One of the highlights of this festival is the massive bun tower that twelve trained individuals must race to collect buns. The higher the buns on the top, the more fortune it is suppose to bring. However a bun tower collapsed in 1978 that injured more than 100 people on site, so the bun tower racing competition was halted until the public demanded that the competition resumed. Previously the bun tower was constructed out of bamboo, so that may have contributed to its collapse given the weight of buns plus the weight of the competitors on the tower. Because of high public demand, the bun competition was brought back in 2005 with criteria put in place to make the competition safer such as only one bun tower was allowed, steel was used to construct the tower instead of bamboo, and only twelve well-trained competitors could climb.
From this research, I admire that communities all over the world have their own celebrations to honor those who died and famous figures. Festivals and holidays are created to help people take a break from this fast-moving world and spend time with those closest to them. Out of all the holidays celebrated in Hong Kong, I found the Cheung Chau Bao Festival to be the most interesting because of the massive bun tower.
Websites Used:
https://www.hong-kong-traveller.com/cheung-chau-bun-festival.html
At home, I speak “Chinglish”, which is the combination of Chinese and English, specifically Cantonese. Cantonese is a dialect spoken in the Southern parts of China such as Guangdong Province and Hong Kong. This language has nine tones compared to Mandarin, which has four tones. Through this class, I took my first formal Cantonese class through iTalki, and it was eye opening. Many native speakers who learned how to speak their mother tongue at home through conversation don’t realize how much detail and grammar rules are involved in their specific language. I told Stephy, my iTalki tutor, that I would like to focus more on medical terminology。 I expected that we would dive deep into terms used in the medical field, but I actually had to start learning the basics.
In Mandarin, we used the pinyin system to get each character’s romanization. In Cantonese, there is a system called jyutping, and that includes the tones, which is a total of nine. Stephy showed me what the tones sound like on a musical note scale, but I couldn’t differentiate sounds right next to each other on the musical note. I could easily differentiate the tones that were further apart. Nevertheless, I never thought about the tones for speaking Cantonese because I hear the sounds and I mimic them. This is the reason, I think, it is much more difficult to learn Cantonese than Mandarin because of the nine tones. During our sessions for this month, I learned how to say body parts, abnormalities in day-to-day conversation and what is professionally appropriate. The other aspect I want to improve on is recognizing traditional characters. Places that speak Cantonese like Hong Kong use the traditional character system rather than the simplified version. Traditional characters are more complex with more strokes. While some characters are more obvious than others , it takes more practice to recognize the ones that are not that similar.
I enjoyed meeting with Leyao for my language partner meetings. It was interesting to hear how she speaks Cantonese because I only speak Cantonese with my immediate family. There is not a large population in Richmond that speaks Cantonese as compared to Manhattan, New York. Therefore, speaking to someone for the first time in Cantonese in Richmond was a new experience for me. It also made me realize that my vocabulary is limited, and I don’t speak as fluently and eloquently as compared to English. Because I want to focus more on medical terminology, Leyao and I watched a Hong Kong TV Drama called “Kids’ Lives Matter”. This way I can expose myself to more medical terminology and take a glimpse of the medical system in other countries. We also discuss these differences between Hong Kong and USA medical systems.
For the month of February, I hope to learn more medical terminology involving specific diseases such as diabetes and recognize more traditional characters. My plan is to take my previous Chinese textbook from other courses and read the traditional character version of the text. I would also like to start learning how to write Chinese characters as I do not know how to write in Chinese. For this goal, I have the character workbook, so I will use that to practice at least three times a week.
Lunar New Year is just right around the corner, and this year, the first day of the lunar year begins on January 22, 2023. Each year, the beginning of the lunar year is different, and starts later than the Gregorian calendar, which is what most parts of the world including the United States uses. Lunar New Year is sometimes also known as “Chinese New Year”, but many other Asian countries such as South Korea and Japan celebrate this holiday as well. Lunar New Year in China and some other countries treat this holiday similar to how the United States celebrates Christmas. This popular holiday is celebrated for 15 days in China, and is quite highly celebrated because Chinese people wish to bring in good luck for the new year. There are many festivities that occur during this time such as lion dances, musical performances, prepping for the new year, and meaning of certain dishes. There are a tremendous amount of activities in the Lunar New Year that would be difficult to cover, but some of the most important and interesting ones are highlighted in this post.
The first day of the Lunar New Year celebrations (also called “Spring Festival” 春节) are the most highly anticipated and requires the most prepping. On this day, many people don’t hold knives or brooms because it would be a sign of bad luck. Brooms are not used for cleaning because it was known in the olden days that using the broom would sweep away all the good fortune that would or have already made its way into the home. Using knives on the first day is taboo, so most of the cooking is done the few days leading to the first day. Additionally, to get rid of the bad spirits that may be lingering from the previous year, there would be lion dances, firecrackers, and lightening bamboo sticks to ward off bad spirits.
Probably one of the most anticipated aspects of the Lunar New Year is the giving and receiving of red pocket envelopes also known as hong bao 红包。These red pocket envelopes are filled with cash given to children and the elderly. The cash amount would be in multiples of eight because “eight” in mandarin and cantonese is phonetically similar to the word “prosperous”. On the other hand, people usually never give cash amounts that end in the number “four” because it is phonetically similar to the word “die” in both mandarin and cantonese. Therefore, people do not want to wish death to the receiver at the beginning of the year. Red pocket envelopes are not the only items that are given as gifts during this time. Other gifts would be assorted nuts and fruits, especially tangerines, pomelos, and oranges because their Chinese characters are related to the character “luck” in Chinese. Gifts that are not acceptable to give during this time are clocks or watches because they are phonetically similar to the process of funerals.
Day 2 of the Lunar Year is called 开年 (kai nian), and the main focus is to worship the God of Wealth 财神(cai shen). Most red pocket envelopes are given out, and interestingly, only married men and women are allowed to give and receive red envelopes while unmarried, single individuals can only receive. There is a popular song sung in cantonese called “财神到”, and it is used to celebrate and welcome the God of Wealth into the living space. This day is dedicated to maximizing the chances that the household/personels will be prosperous in the new year.
Usually after the 3rd day of celebrations, businesses almost return back to normal while people continue to celebrate the new year. School-aged children get this time off, but the length varies depending on the region. The official holiday is seven days long while some children depending on the area get the full 15 days off.
This is a brief overview of what the festivities look like for the first two days of the Lunar New Year in China along with traditions and customs that Chinese people follow during this time. The types of dishes and festivities may vary region to region, but one thing that can be said for certain is that the main theme of the celebrations is the importance of family gathering.
Resources:
One ceremony that foreigners could quickly learn about another culture is the elements to a wedding. In modern day, many Korean weddings have a mix of Western and Korean elements to allow the couple to connect with their Korean heritage and bring a modern aesthetic to the wedding. There are quite a few interesting things involving a traditional Korean wedding and the first aspect would be the type of clothing.
One iconic piece of clothing in Korean culture is the hanbok. The hanbok was worn daily in the past, but in modern times, the traditional clothing is reserved for special holidays or ceremonies. The hanbok is made out of silk and consists of many different garments depending on the style that the wearer is going for. For example, in a traditional Korean wedding, a bride could wear a basic hanbok consisting of a chima (a long skirt) and a wonsam (intricate long sleeved upper garment). On the other hand, the groom would wear a samogwandae that is similar to court attire in the chosun dynasty. In addition to these beautiful garments, the colors that the bride and groom wear can have significant meaning. The colors red and blue in Korean culture symbolize the confucius ideas of yin and yang, a balance between the two forces. Therefore, the hanbok colors that some couples may wear are red and blue to signal unity and balance in their relationship. The mother of the bride would wear warm, light tones such as pink or purple while the groom’s mother would wear cool tones such as blue or gray.
One important traditional element in a Korean wedding is the paebaek. The paebaek is a traditional tea ceremony that is part of a Korean wedding itinerary. In the paebaek ceremony, the groom and bride wear the traditional hanbok and they are seated in front of both sets of parents. The couple conduct some bows to signal respect and give warm tea to the parents. Both the bride and the groom hold a piece of white cloth to symbolize unity and catch dates and chestnuts thrown to them from the parents. The dates and chestnuts supposedly represent the number of children the couple will have. The chestnuts represent daughters and dates represent sons. Additionally, there are quite a few foods placed on the table in front of the parents including beef jerky, little appetizers, and a tower of chestnuts and dates. Those three platters of food were found traditionally, but in modern day, the low table would be filled with food. One of the interesting things that the groom does towards the end of the ceremony is the groom piggy back the bride two times around the table.
From this research, it gives me a sense that in modern weddings, some elements of a traditional Korean wedding may be left out or modified based on the resources available. This demonstrates that the traditional aspects such as wearing a hanbok and the paebaek ceremony is used to honor the bride and/or groom’s Korean heritage and to celebrate the couple’s now established unity and status. Therefore, not all the small details that were once in a traditional Korean ceremony must be applied, but instead, do as the couple wishes.
The highlights of this month include learning about iconic places in South Korea as part of my cultural presentation, freshen up on previous language topics, continuing with TTMIK textbook and notebook, listening to a weekly podcast, and creating a podcast with Somyung and Peace about the activities that we did over this semester.
South Korea has numerous tourist places that capture their fast paced culture and their traditional side. The traditional sites are attractive to tourists because the building architecture is unique and reveals South Korea’s history along with it. For example, one of my favorite places that I researched about was the Jeonju Hanok Village. This village was situated behind a busy city, but the village itself was quiet and with traditional architecture. One of the most noticeable parts of this village was the type of roofing the shops have. The roofs are made with thin rectangular cement bricks laid over top of each other and the corners of the roof are curved up. This type of roofing style gave a traditional aesthetic and was depicted across many historical buildings including Gyeonbukgung palace.
I reviewed Sino and Native Korean numbers, present/past/future tense, and days of the week. Sino-Korean numbers were easier for me to understand because they sound similar to Cantonese/Mandarin characters and forming numbers higher than 100 is a similar format in Chinese. On the other hand, native Korean numbers are still the system that I am still having trouble with remembering the pronunciation for the higher numbers such as 7, 8 and 9. One, two and three are easier to understand because I hear them in Korean reality shows. For example, when the actors are taking a photo, they often say, “One, two, three!” or when they are starting a game. Therefore, I believe I need to hear the number system being used in order to remember it better. The tenses and days of the week were topics that I learned a few weeks ago, so I didn’t have a hard time recalling them from my memory. However, I still get somewhat nervous when conjugating the verbs to match the tense because there are some verbs that don’t follow the structure sometimes for easier pronunciation.
These past couple of weeks, I learned Korean counting units, how to do self-introductions, and months of the year. One of the grammar topics that I think makes learning Mandarin hard for beginners is the concept of counting units because it feels unnatural when coming from an English background. Therefore, I was surprised when learning that Korean had counting units as well. This topic adds an additional layer of complexity to learning Korean. “Ja lu” or “gae” can be used to count objects such as pencils, pens, and knives. For self-introductions, there weren't many new topics to learn, rather, the TTMIK book organized the list of topics to talk about when introducing yourself. The months of the year weren’t difficult to understand either because they follow the Sino-Korean system. The names of the month correspond to their order in the year. For example, January is the first month of the year so it is “i-rwol” because “i” (pronounced “ee”) is one in Sino-Korean.
This has been a very productive semester because I had a structured syllabus that guided me week-by-week on what to focus on and identified valuable resources to help me learn Korean. Thank you Dr. Soloway for this opportunity!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14Q1o0ZFP4dPrPLLtUv-9PJcpebkqpk77NUGFVaV0IbY/edit?usp=sharing
The highlights of this month include eating Korean BBQ, listening to a Korean podcast, and finishing TTMIK Level 1 and starting on TTMIK Level 2. The Korean BBQ experience was unique and memorable. Not only was the food scrumptious, it was a nice get-away from Richmond, VA and explored Northern Virginia. Our group decided to go to SO BBQ and it was located in a small shopping center with a variety of Korean shops including a herbal shop, milk tea shop, a bakery, and other American shops as well. We made a reservation at 5:30pm on a Saturday evening, and I was not expecting the place to be busy. However, the place was packed with BBQ smoke filling the air and happy faces all around. When we arrived at our table, there were bonchon (small side dishes) arranged neatly, and we were ready to feast upon them. My favorite side dishes were the pickled radish and pajeon (Korean style pancakes). Our goal during this meal was to try a variety of meats including bulgogi, samgyeopsal, squid, shrimp, and even intestine! My favorite was the squid and the bulgogi because I love seafood and the marinated beef was delicious when paired with rice. I was not a huge fan of the intestine because it was difficult to chew, but at least I tried. Overall, it was a great experience and I had a great time with Somyung and Peace. The best part of the trip was that the University generously reimbursed the meal and the drive!
This month, I learned the conjugation for future tense, and surprisingly it was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be. The conjugation was consistent depending on if the word stem has a batchim or not. Compared to past and present tense conjugation, the future tense is a lot simpler to conjugate. However, the one part that I am starting to get confused on is the order arrangement of the sentences. I know that the Korean sentence structure follows SOV (subject-object-verb), but where does time and location fit into the sentence structure?
Additionally, I learned the characters for “and”, “with”, “and then”, and “but”. These were helpful characters to learn because they exist in daily conversations. Furthermore, I hear these words the most when I listen to Korean youtubers, podcasts, and movies. Therefore, these are helpful words to learn to speak conversational Korean. The most recent lesson I learned is telling time and learning the days of the week. The days of the week were not difficult to learn, but the pronunciation is a bit harder for me. The reason was because most of the names I had to bring the batchim over were combined with the character (yo). The pronunciation isn’t natural to me so it takes me a few tries. Telling time in Korean combines their native Korean numbers and sino-Korean numbers together. The hour number uses native Korean while the minute number uses Sino Korean.
In this month, I also tried listening to everyday Korean conversations through a podcast on spotify to help me with listening skills. The beginner conversations were incredibly helpful, but I wish they were a bit longer. I listened to Real Life Conversations in Korean, which I found out was produced by TTMIK!
I thought March was quite eventful, and the most memorable Korean-related activity during this time was eating KBBQ with Somyung and Peace. I hope that we can do more social activities in the future to engage more with Korean culture and not only the language.
For our SDLAP meeting, we decided to watch Midnight Runners, which was a Korean comedy film. This movie is about two young students in Korea’s Police Academy to train as officers. They have a hard time taking some of the training seriously because some of the movements the professors teach them seem childish. For one night out, these two young trainees witness a young woman being kidnapped in a dark alley way, and chases after the car. They were unable to catch the car, so they thought about their police training and returned to the place where the crime scene occurred. The young woman was carrying a bag of tteok-bokki on her way home, and she dropped it when she was kidnapped. The two trainees investigated origins of the tteok-bokki, notified the nearby police station, and contacted their professor. They were told to stop investigating privately and let the higher ups take care of it, which would take a couple weeks before an investigation begins. The two police trainers could not way that long since they were told during their training that the first seven hours of the crime is the most crucial in saving the victim.
They continued their private investigation and found that the incident was part of an illegal egg harvesting farm where young women were kidnapped so that their eggs can be harvested. They found the hiding spot of the kidnappers and attempted to rescue the women held hostage. However, they failed to rescue them because the kidnappers found out and a fight broke out. The two police trainees returned to the academy and decided to train relentlessly because they know the women are in danger. Once it was time, they decided to confront the kidnappers, but this time, they are in a hospital parking lot. The kidnappers are delivering the girls to a fertility clinic that was also part of the illegal act, and now the eggs are going to be harvested without their consent. Just before the surgery, the two police trainees broke in and halted all operations and managed to knock out the boss unconscious.
The two police actions’ must be reviewed by the police academy since the trainees were not officially police officers and did not have the legal right to try to catch the kidnappers. However, the police academy took the trainees’ bravery and courage into account, and they held them back one year and assigned 500 community service hours for both the police trainees.
This movie allowed me to examine aspects of Korean culture such as the food, Korean police academy, other cultures within Korea, and city-wide surveillance. The bag of tteok-bokki that the woman was holding is a famous dish in Korean culture. It is commonly known as “rice-cakes” for Westerners. This is a dish that is commonly served during special occasions or on a regular basis. They are normally cylindrical and soft mixed in with an orange sauce, and other toppings can be mixed in as well.
When the two police trainees were trying to locate the illegal egg harvesting farm, they found themselves in a small nook where the words on the signs of shops had Chinese characters. This area was sketchy, and the taxi driver warned them to not enter this area because it is known for crimes. This scene shows that there are other cultures present in Korean society and may have in influence in Korean culture. For an example, the delicious dish called jajeongmyeon is a fusion dish between Korean and Chinese culture. In Chinese, this dish is called zhajiangmian.
Overall, I quite enjoyed this movie because it was hilariously and serious at the same time with a beautiful ending. Korean movies and entertainment system is gaining popularity all around the world, and I hope to do a cultural analysis on other awesome Korean movies in the future.
The highlights of this month include finishing TTMIK Level 1 book and textbook and watching a Korean thriller called “All of Us are Dead” on Netflix. The TTMIK workbooks arrived mid-February and I did the older lessons in the workbook to catch up. I am glad that I came across TTMIK because they have a variety of resources online including textbooks, workbooks, grammar workshops, and audio recordings for beginners. Working through the workbook helps reinforce and apply the lessons that I learned from the textbook. This is definitely a resource I would recommend to beginner learners because TTMIK is comprehensive and makes it easy for the average student.
This month, I learned present and past tense conjugations of verbs, “I want to …”, interrogative words such as “Who”, “What, “How”, “When”, “Where”, “Why”, the native Korean number system, and how to negate sentences. My structured syllabus this semester has really helped me stay on track and utilize my time wisely. Since I plan out what I want to do per week, I can adjust the weeks accordingly if I feel I need more practice on a particular topic such as present and past tense conjugations. I can recognize sentences in past and present tense, but to be able to write them out myself is a bit challenging because some verbs have changes depending on other characters that are attached. The interrogative words were the easiest to understand and applicable to daily life conversations. For example, I watched the Korean thriller “All of Us are Dead”, and I heard many times “nu gu” or “nu ga”, which means “Who”. This was in the movie lines, “Who was bitten by the zombie?”. Compared to the Sino Korean number system, the native Korean system was more difficult to understand. I remember the Sino Korean numbers better because the pronunciations are similar to that of Cantonese and Mandarin. This makes sense because Sino Korean numbers are derived from Chinese. One to ten in native Korean is not difficult to understand, but when you get to higher numbers such as 30, 40, 50, and so on, each ten has its own distinct name. In Sino Korean numbers, 30 is “san sip”. 40 is “sa sip”.
During our language partner meetings, Somyung does a great job at preparing material for Peace and I to practice speaking and give immediate feedback afterwards. We read Korean children stories and wrote our own introductions. While the Korean stories were a bit hard for me to read, it was a great exercise to improve my reading and pronunciation skills. I read “The Lion and the Mouse” and we all read “The Rabbit and the Turtle” together. The plots were easy to understand since I heard the stories when I was a small child.
My plan for March is to start TTMIK Level 2 textbook and TTMIK Level 2 workbook. I hope to make a comprehensive list of all the verbs and vocabulary words in TTMIK Level 1 book in Quizlet or in google docs. This way I can easily review the essential verbs and vocabulary.
Winter Olympics 2022 has been ongoing for a few weeks now, and I’ve always admired the skills and bravery these participants have to compete against the best of the best. My favorite events to watch are figure skating, speed skating, and a new favorite, free-style skiing.
What captivated me to figure skating was the amount of grace, technique, and artistry the skaters must put in to impress the judges in order to gain a high score. Yuna Kim, a South Korean figure skater, won gold in the winter olympics in Vancouver of 2010 due to her magnificent short and long programs. A short program lasts two minutes and forty seconds and a long program or free skate lasts 4 minutes long including various tricks such as jumping and spinning. It is not enough to just deliver the jumps and the spins, but incorporating them into an artistic fashion enhanced by the music selection. Yuna Kim’s jaw-dropping performance in the Vancouver Olympics won her a gold medal because she delivered beautiful jumps and spins and incorporated artistry. Yuna Kim tried again for the gold medal in the Sochi 2014 olympics but her performance resulted in a silver medal and that was the end of her skating career. In addition to figure skating, this young athlete also does modeling and is in various advertisements.
Another sport that South Koreans do well in is short track speed skating. I discovered speed skating this year from scrolling through the Chinese social media app called Weixin or known as Wechat. Figure skating is beautiful to watch and with music in the background makes the sport even better. On the other hand, watching speed skating is like watching the climax of a horror movie. The moments towards the end of the race are nail-biting and my eyes are glued onto the screen. Like most races, whoever crosses the finish line will claim gold, so on the laps closer towards the end, the skaters move faster and quicker to try to grab the gold title. The best chance a speed skater has to be the fastest is to optimize their position by bending their knees and maneuvering sharp corners carefully. The roundings on the ice tracks are so sharp that the skaters have to put their hands on the ground when turning the corners to keep balance because they are going at high speeds during the straight parts of the ice track. Crashes and falls are very common as well if the athlete doesn’t control their speed well when turning corners since many of the skaters are back to back to each other.
In this winter olympics, athlete Hwang Dae-heon won gold in the men’s 1500 meter and olympic athlete Choi Min-jeong won the gold in the women’s 1500 meter. Impressively, Choi Min-jeong won the gold in the 1500 meter and 3000 meter relay in the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics. Not only in these past two winter olympics, South Korea is the nation that dominates this sport in the olympics racking up 24 gold medals throughout winter olympic history.
https://olympics.com/en/news/south-korea-women-short-track-speed-skating-beijing-2022
SDLAP 110 was an interesting experience for me because the structure of the course provided me with a lot of flexibility that I wasn’t used to in past courses. Therefore because of this, sometimes my schedule was inconsistent with studying Korean. This was also due to the fact that I did not have a detailed syllabus that planned a week by week schedule. It mainly consisted of goals and what tasks I wanted to accomplish. This semester, I created my syllabus on google docs, and there was a feature where the bullet points could be used as check boxes. I enjoy checking boxes off once I complete my tasks, so my syllabus for this semester consists of a week by week schedule of what I am going to do. I only want to plan out two weeks at a time since I don’t know how far I am going to go with the textbooks.
I have identified some new resources that I am going to use to learn Korean this semester. I mentioned about a podcast called Talk to Me in Korean last semester, and I found their Youtube channel as well! The teachers on the channels are clear and helpful with their bite-size lessons, so I hope to utilize this channel more. The Yonsei University textbook was a great resource that mimicked traditional language textbooks with lots of colorful illustrations, but one thing it lacked was how to pronounce the characters. The Talk to Me in Korean book (from the Global Studios) has the phonetic pronunciations written alongside the characters so it helped me make sure I was saying the characters correctly. I don’t think I will be using the Yonsei University textbook this semester, but rather the Talk to Me in Korean textbooks. Another resource I used last semester was iTalki, and I think it is a wonderful service to use for beginner learners! Unfortunately, it has been suspended for use due to some limits on business account users, but once this problem is resolved, I will be continuing to use this amazing resource.
The past two weeks I have been constructing my syllabus, listening to Korean conversations on Talk to Me in Korean (TTMIK), and solidifying/reviewing what I have learned in SDLAP 110. I listened to the Level 1 conservation on TTMIK and I was able to understand 90% of the conversation without looking at the transcript! Additionally, I worked on a workbook that I purchased last summer, and I reviewed subject, topic, and object particles which are unique to Korean and a select few other languages. The concept of these particles makes sense because it can emphasize which is a subject or object, but I am not comfortable with applying them when forming my own sentences. However, I think once I get more practice with the particles, they will make more sense to me. In addition to reviewing, I learned a few phrases such as “Please give me _____”, “I will eat well”, “Do you have ____”, and “This is ___”. These are common phrases to use in day to day conversations so learning them now will help me better recognize them when I hear it in the future.
