These last two weeks have been all about wrapping up the final lessons with my language partner and focusing on finishing up my last assignments as the end of the semester arrives. It’s sad to think about how I will be finishing up my last week of my undergraduate career this week and it feels so anti-climatic and abrupt. It feels weird to not officially be able to close the door on the past four years of my life. My language partner and I discussed how unexpected and sad it was to end our senior year this way. It was definitely not something we ever imagined would happen to us. We were both happy and hopeful that we were still getting somewhat of a closing with the possibility of a senior celebration in the future. We also discussed how online classes at home were hard especially when taking tests. I think that the environment in my house is more relaxing and causes me to become lazy especially when needing to study and learning new material. I have always relied on the environment of the library where there are other people around me to study. Surprisingly my teachers have not become more lenient because of online classes. I am having trouble at home studying for exams and learning the material. We also reflected together on how our two semesters of lessons went. Although I am improving in some areas, we discussed how there is still a lot of room for improvement and learning. Specifically the areas of reading and writing are where I can improve the most. I think some ways I can strengthen them is rewriting vocabulary over and over and reading vocabulary lists repeatedly. It might benefit me to make actual flashcards to review which is not something I have really been doing. My language partner suggested that I continue lessons through videos as wells since I am more of a visual learner. 

Although this course is ending soon, one of the benefits of self-directed learning is that I can still teach myself and I can continue to improve and schedule lessons alone especially with the amount of online resources available to me. I will definitely be continuing my education online. The online resources I have mentioned in my last two journals have been really helpful. I think speaking might be harder to improve without the help of a language partner but there is a solution for that as I can always record myself speaking words and listen and compare it to a recording of somebody speaking. Listening will be easy as I can continue watching Korean dramas. I am hoping that at some point I will be able to watch Korean dramas without English subtitles for the most part. I think even if I learn enough Korean, I will still not be able to understand their idioms or word play. The English subtitle translations of those do not give them justice. I think I will continue learning Korean for a while at least until I master it to some point that I am comfortable with. 

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For my last cultural post, I thought I would explore a really popular topic that I have not yet really discussed, kpop groups. BTS is a kpop group also known as Bangtan Boys. They are a seven member group formed in 2010. The seven members include 정국, V or 태형, 지민, Suga, J-hope, 진, and Rap Monster or 남준 who is their leader. They were originally a hip-hop group when they debuted but now they have branched out to other genres with each member contributing to writing of the songs and directing the dances. They debuted in 2013 and became more well-known in the world in 2015 through 2017. They seem to be the most well-known Kpop group known worldwide at this moment. 

I learned that Kpop culture started with a boy idol group called H.O.T. in 1996 and after a slump started up again with the groups TVXQ and BoA who expanded to Japan. Since then Kpop has spread throughout the world. The most interesting thing about Kpop groups to me is that they work so hard to achieve the success and fame they have reached. They practice long hours, and work hard perfecting their singing and dancing for many years before they are able to debut. Some groups aren’t even able to reach the sought after success after working hard for many years. BTS is one of the groups that has been able to reach the success they have worked extremely hard for. Their group is especially special because everything they have produced from music videos to songs follow a storyline of the BTS Universe. Another special thing about kpop groups is that they will make videos specially to their fans which are a major part of the support system to success. Kpop groups will always thank their fans for the continuous love and support because without the help of their fans, it would be hard to reach any success. 

I think I learned about kpop shortly after I started watching Korean dramas. I would listen to their music and wish that I understood the language. The first group that I learned about was GOT7 who are similar to BTS in that they are a seven membered boy idol group. The difference with GOT7 is that they have three members who are from different Asian countries which made them especially special. The members consist of those from South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Taiwan. I think this was a good strategy to make them more well-known in those countries. It seems like the Kpop groups that have gotten the most success are the ones that have something special and unique about them. Kpop is also different from American music in that their music videos and dance have a story behind them or some artistic background to them. American music videos are very different in that aspect. I think the topics that are discussed in the songs are also different. A lot of the songs are mostly about love but American songs can be more about partying and other things like that. For the artifact I thought I would link a music video from BTS to showcase the difference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEeFrLSkMm8  

These past two weeks have been all about adjusting to meeting with my language partner and working on setting aside time to utilize the online resources as much as possible. I have been using the How to Study Korean website a lot and it is very helpful with giving me lots of practice with listening and reading. I find that setting a schedule for myself to practice every day is much easier when I am not on campus as I don’t have so many other things that I have to do while running around campus.  

While I practice listening, writing, and reading, one of my major weaknesses is mixing up certain characters especially with the vowel sounds. Because I have this problem, I am sometimes unable to write or read the words correctly. I think for the next couple weeks, I will be working on strengthening this problem by focusing on the differences of the sounds of the vowels. One of my strengths is being able to recognize simple words easily like 사과 or 노래 or 뽀뽀 which are apple, song, and kiss. These are easy words that I can easily recognize. I think writing out the words is harder for me. I think another thing that I can practice over the next couple weeks is writing words down from listening to them in dramas. One last thing that I can do is to practice typing them after writing them down. This will improve my memory with them. 

I think when I practice speaking with my language partner, I am still struggling with pronunciation which is also correlated with my mix up of the different vowel sounds. I think once I am able to fix the major problem of mixing up the sounds, I will be able to fix the pronunciation problems. I think I enjoy practicing in person rather than through a webcam. 

One thing we talked about was the current pandemic and how much it is affecting the world. I think it’s interesting that South Korea is the “model” country for this pandemic. Their healthcare system seems to be something the United States should aspire to follow considering they were able to get through this coronavirus pandemic easily with many resources. One thing that we discussed that South Korea did was that they sent out a notification whenever a new case happened and you were able to get alerts from an app whether you were in the area of someone who had coronavirus or not. Earlier on they retraced the steps of those who tested positive and those who might have had contact with someone who tested positive using security camera footage, credit card records, and GPS data from cars and cellphones. Once there were more people who tested positive, they had to rely on the app to send out mass notifications to people. I thought this was interesting and something that the United States would probably not do because privacy was given up. But I think considering this pandemic is a serious issue, I’m sure that sacrificing their privacy was worth it. 

    Since we are not returning to campus, my language partner and I have decided to have lessons through Facetime. This past week we decided to discuss what the rest of our plan for the rest of the semester is moving forward. The plan is to utilize the most of online resources because it’s not really something we have done so far. A couple websites we were looking at using were talktomeinkorean.com and howtostudykorean.com. This is on top of a facetime session each week which will practice my speaking. Both of them are popular websites that people use to learn Korean. I have been continuing with the usage of Duolingo which has been really helpful. The online resources are more ways to strengthen my reading skills. Other than that, I always use watching kdramas as a way to strengthen my listening skills.

  So for the past two weeks I have been using these online resources to strengthen my reading and I think they are actually really helpful. How to Study Korean is really helpful where it divides everything into different units so starting at unit 0 is the Korean alphabet. Unit 1 is basic Korean grammar and the level advances every unit. With the units, there are also workbooks, practice worksheets, and vocabulary lists to help. It was really helpful for me to learn more about Korean grammar because I think that is an area that I have not really learned much about. Overall, the website really impressed me. The other website Talk to Me in Korean is more of what I focused on last semester. Each lesson has conversation vocabulary with audio, an explanation, and a quiz. I think this website will be helpful for me with reviewing and learning new vocabulary. This website seems to be more popular because they have a free set and a premium set where you have access to more resources if you pay a certain amount of money.  

   A new Korean drama that I am watching currently is Hi, Bye Mama! It’s a really heartwarming and sad drama. It is completely unrealistic but the concept is really interesting. The main character is a girl who died in a car accident and before she died, she was pregnant with a baby girl. During the accident, she made sure to protect her baby so that it was safely born. For five years, she has followed around her daughter and husband as a ghost not knowing that her daughter actually can see her. During this time, her husband remarried as well. When she finds out that her daughter can see ghosts, she curses out the deity or God above and ends up alive on Earth not a human but not a ghost. Her journey through saying her last goodbyes and making the last memories with her loved ones is sad to see especially when her daughter doesn’t recognize her as her own mother. From this drama, I learned about Korean shamans who can see ghosts or are connected with their spiritual side. Overall, I can finish off my semester strong with the plentiful resources that I have. 

I recently finished a Korean drama called Itaewon Class. It’s a drama about a guy who wants revenge on the owner of a big company so he opens a street bar in Itaewon with people he encounters that help him make it successful. Street bar or pub in Korean is called Pocha or 포차. I thought it would be interesting to look more into street bars in Korea because it’s a major part of their drinking culture. 

Normally in Korea there are food stalls or carts outside called Pojangmacha or 포장마차. These stalls are tented spots where people eat while drinking late at night. The literal translation of Pojangmacha is covered wagon. Pocha is the abbreviation for Pojangmacha. Many of them have evolved to become indoors now. Both the outdoors and indoors Pocha have shown up often in Korean dramas. Itaewon Class is all about the newer indoor Pocha in Itaewon that is opened by the main guy and his obstacles. The newer indoor modern Pochas are very aesthetically pleasing compared to the older outdoor Pochas. 

I was looking up more information about these Korean pubs and found this very helpful article from people who visited Korea as tourists with tips and also learned some new Korean words. Typically when you go to a Pocha hungry with a group of people, you should order anju or 안주 based on how hungry you are so if you are really hungry, you could order spicy rice and fish cakes because those don’t last long. If you want to order a small snack cause you’re not hungry, you would order dried squid. A good choice of food to eat with soju and beer is some sort of stew like kimchi stew or jjigae (김치 찌개) because they are kept on a burner so it’s kept warm. The two common alcoholic drinks that people usually drink are soju and beer. People will play Korean drinking games with both. The drinking culture in Korea is big where there might be societal pressures to drink because most people do and a lot of times you might have to drink in a work setting. The article that I found also gave tips on avoiding drinking if you are not in the mood or it’s just not your thing. The first tip is to pour water in your shot glass when you’re pouring water into your water glass. Another tip is to throw your shot over your shoulder or on the ground when everyone is throwing back their shot. The last option is to throw your shot in a water glass before anyone notices. 

I find the concept of Pocha to be really interesting and the evolution was also really fascinating. I actually went to a Pocha in New York City in Ktown. It was pretty nice and everything that I had thought it would be but I think I would like to go to an authentic older outdoors Pocha one day in Korea. 

Here is the link to the article: https://www.eatyourkimchi.com/how-to-survive-a-korean-bar/

Sadly I was only able to see my language partner once before spring break. We used this time to discuss current events happening in the world and the major hot topic currently, the coronavirus. The week before spring break, we were still discussing what we would think would happen for classes and whether or not the virus was really that serious. Turns out our predictions were pretty accurate. We thought that it was gonna spread even more in the United States and that we would probably not be able to come back after spring break. The virus is now a pandemic which means it is a disease prevalent all over the world. The spread started slowly in China but developed into a rapid spread over many Asian countries, South Korea being one of those countries. 

I think this pandemic kinda shows how good a country is at handling a crisis. It seems like the United States was not ready for this pandemic even though we had months to prepare for the arrival. In many of the Asian countries, it seems like it is stabilizing. In Taiwan, there were only 67 cases with 1 death. Sure this might be because it’s a small country in comparison to other countries like China and the United States but I think it speaks volumes to how ready and well prepared the country was for the arrival of the virus. I think that it’s concerning to see how unprepared the United States was. Almost as if the United States thought the virus was a joke. I do understand that the United States is a really big country and that it might be much harder to control but we had so much time to prepare for it. 

Just a couple days ago, news reports show that South Korea is stabilizing the coronavirus outbreak. While there are large numbers of infections with the coronavirus in South Korea, there is aggressive testing for the virus which allow them to quarantine those who test positive. They also have really fast testing. I think this is also due to the faulty healthcare system we have in the United States as well. To be ready for a serious pandemic outbreak this big, there would have to be large amounts of supplies at the ready as well as enough employees and resources. It’s a known fact that the United States healthcare system is very faulty and lacks a lot which is why I suspect that our faulty healthcare system might be a large reason for the rapid spread of the virus. 

It’s hard to predict how much longer this outbreak will last and whether or not we will return to school but I don’t think a remote education is the best way to learn. Although this self-directed language course is partly online, the other half relies on person-to-person interaction which will be hard to do now. Hopefully, we will be going back and the coronavirus will be stabilized by April 3rd. 

For the past two weeks, it has been a time for my language partner and I to destress right before the start of spring break during the midterm season. We have been watching Parasite together and this is actually my second time watching it. I think it gets better each time you watch, mostly because you see little details that you had missed before. It’s also a movie that really makes you think. The plot is relatively easy to understand but there are resulting underlying messages that are important to the movie as a whole. 

I think Parasite is the perfect movie to watch in every aspect. In regards to social, culture, and education, it hits in all three of these categories. With the social aspect, you can really see the divide and inequality between the rich and the poor classes in the movie. Parasite is a movie about a family of four that is really poor and soon cons their way into a rich family. The poor family lives in a basement apartment in conditions that almost seem unliveable. They have a window that looks into the alley where sometimes people come to pee. Their apartment even flooded at one point when it poured outside. There was no way anything in the apartment survived. 

The movie highlights a term, Hell Chosun, which describes the socioeconomic conditions that make it a nightmare to get a job even after receiving a degree. This is common in Korea where the unemployment rates of college graduates are high. Another interesting part of this movie was greed. The poor Kim family was able to get a tutoring job with the rich Park family. This wasn’t enough so they had to introduce their daughter as an art therapist. Even that wasn’t enough, they had to have their mother work as the housekeeper and their father work as the driver. If the Kim family was able to stop themselves at the beginning and wasn’t greedy for more, maybe the tragedy would not have happened. Interestingly, it is also a story about greed. The most interesting part about the movie that makes you think is the title. It’s called parasite and I think it’s really up to your interpretation but the title really highlights the way the rich live. The rich rely and depend on the lower class to live comfortably. They aren’t able to do things like cook, clean, and drive without hiring the lower class which makes them the parasites of the population. Some people might think that the lower class are the parasites because they rely on the rich to provide them their money but I think that the lower class doesn’t specifically rely on the rich to provide them money but really they can get money from other sources as well.  

I was not able to watch the movie without english subtitles but I felt like it was still an important learning aid for me especially for listening and learning more about Korean culture. This is my second time watching the movie and it amazes me every time. I think it’s a movie that everybody should watch. It deserves the awards and recognition it has gotten.

Valentine’s Day just passed on Friday and there was so much love in the air. For this cultural post, I thought it would be interesting to focus on discussing and exploring Valentine’s Day in Korea and how it is different. I thought that Valentine’s Day in every country would be about the same but it’s a little different in Korea. After doing some research, I found that there are 12 “love days” celebrated on the the 14th of every month in Korea. The traditional Valentine’s Day in Korea is a little different where the women give chocolates or gifts to the men. Then men will show affection to their women in the following month on March 14th and it’s called White Day. On White Day, the men will have to reciprocate the gift they got the previous month but are expected to follow the Rule of Three which means they have to give a gift that is three times the value of what they received in February. In April, Black Day is a day to celebrate singles. Singles will get together and eat Jajangmyeon (Black bean noodles). It sounds like a pretty depressing day and to be reminded of your single status is rough which is why there isn’t really advertising. But it has been developing in recent years. Instead of being a depressing day, it’s more of a self- appreciating day now and a celebration of being single. The other days in the other months are called Diary Day (January), Rose Day (May), Kiss Day (June), Silver Day (July), Green Day (August), Photo Day (September), Wine Day (October), Movie Day (November), Hug Day (December).

I think that this is a really interesting cultural aspect. Especially when I did some more research and found that in other Asian countries, women give gifts on Valentine’s Day and White Day is a pretty big deal as well. White Day actually originated in Japan in 1977 when a Japanese confectioner decided that March 14th was Marshmallow Day. It didn’t really stick so they changed the name to White Day. It’s basically a day where men will reply to their gifts given to them on Valentine’s Day. White symbolizes the purity of love but it is also associated with sugar. Another really important part of White Day is that it’s important to include white into your gifts as much as possible. I really like the idea of women giving gifts and receiving even better gifts the next month mostly because I feel like it’s good to celebrate each other's love. I also think it’s interesting that these days exist and I think it’s something that could also be celebrated in Western culture as well. I feel like celebrating love is such a hallmark holiday for industries to make money but at the same time and it seems to be about the same in every country, it’s a really nice time for couples to be reminded and celebrate their love on these days. Although, it can be sad to think more about your single status when you are single on Valentine’s and White Day, it can also be a time to appreciate yourself and your friends more than you have had in the past. 

https://asiasociety.org/korea/valentine%E2%80%99s-day-korea

Every week goes by so fast but I feel that the past two weeks, my language partner and I have made a lot of progress. I have been consistently using Duolingo every day but not exactly for the same amount of time each day. The Duolingo app really helps me review and go over things every day so that I don’t forget the basics which is integral for my learning since I can’t meet with my language partner every day, it’s a good replacement. It communicates with me and tells me when I’m wrong or right and it also strengthens my listening skills at the same time. My language partner has been slowly easing me back in and we have started to learn new vocabulary. These past two weeks, we have started to learn household vocabulary which I think will be really helpful for everyday usage.

The household vocabulary is not too hard to learn. I learned words like 집 (jib) which means house, 아파트 (apateu) which means apartment, and 방 (bang) which means room. I think that I am strengthening in reading and listening to Korean. My weaknesses are still writing and speaking. I think that I am getting better at speaking but writing is still a major weakness. I think that the main reason it is a major weakness is that I don’t practice writing as much. For speaking other languages, I have noticed that the barrier for me is having that American accent that doesn’t disappear. It’s mostly because I don’t really know what I am doing wrong when I am speaking so it becomes a habit. Like when I am speaking Chinese, I didn’t notice my American accent at first but it gradually became apparent especially when I went to Taiwan and noticed that my Chinese sounded different from other peoples. I think a major goal for me is to strengthen my weaknesses so definitely focusing more on my speaking and writing skills. 

I think for the next two weeks, my plan will be to focus on practicing the new vocabulary that I have learned in all aspects of skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. I will write the vocabulary down and practice writing as much as possible. I will practice reading the new vocabulary and utilize a quizlet for that and utilize the quizlet for listening as well. I will practice speaking with my language partner and repeat the words aloud many times to myself. I think that my language partner and I will also move onto more new vocabulary once I am ready. I think that was something that I didn’t do as much last semester. I didn’t practice the vocabulary in all aspects and moved on to new vocabulary when I wasn’t actually ready yet. I think that I am improving a lot more with Korean especially because I have more time. I will also continue to use Duolingo to practice daily and maybe be more consistent with spending the same amount of time each day. 

It’s been a great couple first weeks. It’s crazy how fast three weeks will fly by. I think that my language partner and I have started off strong. This past week my language partner and I worked on reviewing the past semester material and starting out with practice worksheets that worked on writing the hangul characters. I think that with writing, I just need more practice but I think that it can be one of my strengths. We discussed more of my goals for the semester and what I wanted to do specifically. 

Another thing that my language partner and I did together for our lesson was going to New Grand Mart for practice and learning more about South Korean culture. It always amazes me how much I learn about the culture just from learning about their food. Food is an integral part of each culture. I ordered Soft Tofu Stew which is Soondubu Jjigae (순두부찌개) in Korean and it was really good with rice. It was spicy which is something that is common in a lot of Korean dishes. Korean dishes are really spicy and usually contain a lot of onions. 

The last thing that we did together was watch and discuss an episode of a currently popular Korean drama called Crash Landing On You which is currently on Netflix. Unfortunately I am still not able to watch Korean dramas without subtitles. At some point, I will be able to. I think that my Korean has improved because I am able to recognize more Korean words and phrases when I am listening sometimes. The drama is really good and something that I look forward to every weekend mostly because the lead actor and actress are so good together. I also think the plot is really interesting, it’s about a successful South Korean woman who accidentally lands in North Korea after a paragliding accident and needs to find her way back to South Korea. She meets the main actor and he helps her out the whole way. I think the most interesting part about this drama is seeing the differences in North and South Korea. They are so different as neighboring countries. 

 I have also started using this app called Duolingo, which I have used before for Spanish so I am familiar with how it works. The last time I used it, it was when the app first came out and the only languages on the app were French and Spanish. Now, I feel like Duolingo has really advanced their app. I think that Duolingo will be super helpful to learning and practicing especially since it’s an app on my phone that I use all the time. It also sends me notifications everyday if I miss a day of practice. I will improve a lot with this app.  

For the next two weeks, I want to continue my Duolingo adventure and advance to new levels. I also want to start learning new vocabulary to add to my knowledge. I think that my language partner and I are off to a great start. 

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