I thought it would be interesting to research what kpop fanclubs were and in the process I came across Sasaengs. Sasaengs are obsessive fans that do not respect the boundaries of their so-called “idol” and would go through any means necessary to get recognized. Their greatest motive is to be memorable to their idol instead of being lumped together with all the other fans. Sasaengs are known to invade the  privacy of their idols and their families. This phenomenon began after the 1990’s as Kpop started to gain popularity. Due to the hallyu wave, kpop idols now have foreign Sasaengs around the world.

 Some of the actions Sasaengs take to be closer to their idol include: house invasions, stalking, harassment of family members, and spreading rumors. Sometimes, they even physically assault their idol because they will get remembered by them. These obsessive fans are very thorough with their research and are able to get ahold of very sensitive information. Though sasaengs have formed a network where they collaborate at times, they usually act alone. There is a hierarchy present in this network where the sasaeng who obtains private information for the first time or who got the closest to their idol is at the top by earning the respect of the others. Aside from sharing information within their network, fans of working age sometimes enter industries that will increase their likelihood of acquiring private information on their idol or coming into contact with. Some of these jobs include working at an airline, phone companies, and banks. Sometimes, they are able to land a job with direct close contact such as a makeup artist, manager, among other staff members. Social media has facilitated their ability to acquire private information as sasaengs sell it to each other. Given that keeping close tabs on their favorite celebrities is very time consuming, it is not uncommon for these “fans” to drop out of school, sleep in internet cafes or resort to non-legal ways of making money. Seeing the extremes that sasaengs are willing to go through for a closeup with the idols, there are people who have taken advantage of it and started “sasaeng taxis”. These are taxis designed for sasaeng purposes as they will closely follow the celebrity without regard to traffic rules. These taxis typically charge $600 a day and approach sasaengs outside of venues. 

Aside from the sasaengs overpassing boundaries to be noticed, Korean fan culture has built in a place a phenomenon called “on the way home”. This refers to “organized events” by a celebrity’s fan club gaining access to information on their whereabouts or the star’s management company releasing such information to allow fans to meet their idols. These events can sometimes be barricaded with fans waiting hours for the chance to see their star in passing. Another popular Korean fan culture phenomenon is when fans rent a cafe to meet other fans and celebrate the birthday of their favorite celebrity. They usually decorate the rooms with the star’s photos, share gifts they’ve made in honor of their idol with the other fans such as bracelets or stickers with their star’s face on it.

South Korea has one of the most prolific drinking cultures in Asia as drinking is approached as a social act. It is very common for Koreans to drink with their teams after work to loosen themselves up and connect with each other - known as hoesik. However, it is not simply drinking - it involves cultural traditions and etiquette too. The consumption of alcohol is deeply rooted in holidays and family rituals such as lunar new year and chuseok (day of giving thanks).

 Koreans began producing their own alcohol during the Koryo Dynasy (946-943) due to the introduction to distilling liquor given the exposure to foreign cultures. During this time, the first prototypes of a popular alcohol ic beverage, soju, was created though it is still uncertain where exactly it originated from. Alcohol became more accessible under the Joseon dynasty and it is when traditional drinks were brewed using rice. Previously, it was mostly the royal family who were able to partake in drinking distilled alcohol but during the Joseon dynasty, the general public also partook. It was under the reign of this dynasty that many of Korea’s traditional liquors were created such as samhaeju and miinju. However, after Korea was colonized by the Japanese, taxes were imposed on the alcoholic drinks and they gained control over the traditional production techniques. This in turn led to the demise of traditional Korean alcohol as the Japanese began to impose their own means of producing alcohol. By the time Korea was liberated and faced the Korean war, traditional Korean alcohol had practically disappeared. In modern day Korean, drinking culture revolves around low-alcohol drinks like soju and beer as opposed to its counterparts. 

Drinking rituals are heavily laced with respect for elders and/or your superiors. Some of the customs when drinking include serving everyone drinks first and then waiting for someone to offer you a drink as it is viewed as taboo to pour your own glass. When you are accepting or pouring  a drink, bow your head slightly and you must also use both hands to sustain your glass - typically your right hand holding the glass or bottle and the left hand slightly holding your other wrist.  As a sign of respect, when drinking the glass, the younger ones should face away from the elders and use their hands to cover themselves while drinking. As a rule of thumb, the first drink should be drunk all at once. It is regarded as distasteful if you reject a drink that is offered especially when drinking with your coworkers, resulting in a culture where you drink until drunk. Studies have shown that the biggest reason why Koreans drink is to relieve stress. 

Given the high alcohol consumption rate, liver cancer along with other liver related diseases  are the leading causes of death for Koreans. Due to the heavy drinking culture, the government has started several well-being campaigns in 2007 to reduce the amount of alcohol consumption. However, these initiatives have yet to be successful.

Train to Busan is Korea’s first zombie blockbuster film that led to zombie horror becoming a well-established genre in South Korea. It premiered at the Cannes festival and was also a turning point in the careers of many well-known korean actors like Gong yoo and Ma Dong-seok. It was a box office hit garnering 80.5 million dollars in South Korea and a total of 98.5 million dollars internationally. Train to Busan was unique because it featured a zombie apocalypse on a moving train, increasing the tension and suspense throughout the film. The movie’s success aside from its sophisticated cinematography, is due to its well-developed characters and its allegories to Korean society’s issues and the Sewol Ferry national trauma. 

Some of the themes explored in this film include class divisions, capitalism, and self-destructive human behavior. These topics are most notable when the group of capitalism’s elite in business class immediately seclude themselves from those who do not appear to be at the top of the social hierarchy. The class divisions are highlighted when they refuse to save the lives of others in order to save themselves - an allegory for corporate greed ignoring their detrimental impact on the lives of others if it means they can remain at the top. The unfortunate effects of capitalism are also seen in the relationship between the main character Seok Woo and his daughter. Seok Woo is introduced as having a very successful career and then his poor relationship is unraveled since he is disconnected from his daughter and has a failed marriage. While all the daughter seeks is his love and attention, he presents her with gifts - ones she already has in their original box. After realizing his daughter’s biggest wish is to see her mom, he finally allows it and it is when they board the train. 

The film is also believed to allude to the 2014 Sewol Ferry national tragedy that occurred when a high school class was on their way to Jeju Island as part of a school trip. The ship sank due to the overloading of the ship by its owner to save money. Out of the 476 people on board, 325 of them were high school students and only 172 survived the sinking of the vessel. The majority of the victims were highschoolers as only 75 of those students made it out alive. This tragedy is particularly imprinted in Korean history due to the fact that the captain and its crew survived by escaping in lifeboats without notifying the passengers of the situation nor attempting to rescue any of them. It is also especially controversial how the aftermath was handled since the news media in accordance with the government initially reported that there were no casualties. This was alluded to in the film when the government is not actively present and power is thus concentrated in the hands of a businessman who manipulates the situation by ordering the crew around in efforts to save himself.  Koreans have noticed the connection between the blatant miscommunication between the people and those in power.

I have realized that language learning comes naturally to me but I do not progress rapidly because I am often impatient and typically avoid reviewing because I want to know the material as soon as I take notes. Though I do grasp the concepts relatively quickly, I forget just as fast because I move forward onto the next concept without reviewing the previous thereby not building a solid foundation. I have attempted to learn various languages on my own over the years and once almost reached A2 in Turkish but I lack self-discipline and ended up losing all of that knowledge just as fast. This is why I am actually proud of myself for learning all that I have and I was astonished to see just how much tangible progress I can make by simply setting aside a couple of hours a week to study the language. 

I choose a language to learn based on the entertainment that I am consuming. Growing up in a Mexican household, I valued watching tv shows and listening to music not in english early on and recognized the talent that goes unseen in mainstream American culture. This is why I am always watching foreign tv shows and listening to foreign music. I have sat down and studied a bit of Norwegian, Turkish, Italian, Tagalog, and Korean on my own after becoming engrossed in their entertainment. I have only held onto my Korean knowledge because their media is a lot more accessible internationally, allowing me to keep up with the language. However, I found it kind of shocking how as soon as I sat to learn Korean officially for a class, I watched the least Korean dramas since starting college. 

I struggled with pushing my pride aside and allowing myself to freely speak and write because we learn from our mistakes. Throughout the semester, I found it difficult to believe my language partner and Korean friends that I had said/written something correctly. I kept thinking they were just trying to be nice when I wanted constructive criticism. As I gradually eased up, I began to read more naturally and speak a lot more than I thought I could. 

I began to focus more on communicating with native speakers and practicing what I was learning with them. I think since my listening skills are better than any other skills in Korean, I spent more time attempting to read more fluidly and writing more naturally. I will continue to use TalktomeinKorean because I learned a lot of grammar from there, reading short stories. Since it helps me familiarize myself with sentence structure and spelling, but also using the little speech I have as much as I can with my Korean friends. I will also be reviewing our class notes on aspect and morphology because it helped me understand Korean grammar a lot more. I would like to learn more about the different dialects that exist in Korean, particularly the difference between North Korea and South Korea but also among Koreans and Korean-Americans. I find it fascinating how dialects can vary so much despite being so geographically close to each other (Korea as a country).

Personal appearance is very important in Korean culture so it is no surprise that skincare starts at a young age. Historically, the goal of skincare has been to promote inner beauty so as to be beautiful on the outside as shown by the coined phrase “영육일치사상” means “within a beautiful body, lies a beautiful soul”. During the Joseon dynasty, confucian values of humility were demonstrated by a clean and natural face as women’s beauty focused on having inner beauty. As of right now, the beauty standard is a soft, dewy, and youthful looking skin hence why moisturization and spf are incredibly prominent in their industry. 

The emphasis placed on protecting one’s skin from harmful chemicals and UV rays has allowed South Korea to become the third largest exporter of beauty cosmetics. Korean beauty products and treatments differ from American ones because they incorporate more organic and organic  ingredients and are known for their cutting edge technology. Some of the ingredients that are often found in their skincare are rice water, snail mucin, and ginseng. Ginseng is known to rejuvenate and restore skin barriers. Snail mucin is also used to rejuvenate the skin, moisturize it, and reduce the appearance of acne scars, fine lines, and discoloration. Rice water decreases hyperpigmentation, reduces redness, and brightens your skin. By contrast, western cosmetics are based on harsh ingredients such as vitamin c, retinoids, and acids which can further cause inflammation and damage one’s skin barrier after prolonged usage. 

Another stark difference between the Western skincare industry and Korean’s is that Korean skincare is aimed at preventing skin concerns. By focusing on creating a healthy skin barrier early on, it is a lot more accessible for Koreans to take care of their skin later on because they are mostly maintaining it instead of treating it. The west, however, is more concerned with treating skin concerns after they have appeared thus encouraging people to spend more money as they identify which products work best for their skin. It must be noted that some of the ingredients in American cosmestics are prohibited by the Korea's Ministry of Food, Drug, and Safety as they are harmful to our skin. Therefore, if your skin has already developed a resistance/ gotten used to harsh American products, Korean ones will no longe be helpful for you.

There is a 10-step Korean skincare routine that is marketed but from my research, Koreans don’t typically follow this regimen completely. There are multiple steps in the Korean skincare process because it is focused on the layering of the products to maximize its effectiveness. The guide is meant to be tailored to your specific needs and it is stressed that the most important steps are deep cleansing, applying a toner to balance pH levels, moisturizing, and sunscreen. Depending on the season, skin type, and age, the products used will vary. Whereas the American skin care regimen prefers to have a few steps to maximize convenience by using products with multiple intents/benefits. Since the American industry concentrates on fixing existing problems, people tend to damage their skin more by relying on harsh products to fix a skin concern that can rarely be cured. It is more difficult to repair the damage than to prevent skin concerns and protect our natural barrier. 
 

Towards the end of the semester, I got to the chapters on verb conjugations and was really excited because it facilitated conversations. I now had a lot more verbs to work with and after discovering I could practically create verbs just by adding a specific ending to the noun, I had a lot of fun doing so. I covered the three basic tenses: present, past and future tense. I thought I would struggle a lot more with the conjugations and tenses since I learned all three almost back to back but was pleasantly surprised to see that it was not nearly as difficult as I had expected. Unlike Russian, French, or Spanish, their conjugations and tenses tend to fit their rules and established patterns. At least, at the level I currently am, it seems to be this way. This is the part of the semester where my goal grew into being able to hold a basic conversation with the Korean students at the University of Richmond. I went to a lot of the Korean American Student Association events this semester and realized I knew quite a few Koreans who were excited about me learning their language. This realization further pushed me to really try to improve my pronunciation and practice my ability to speak spontaneously. As a result, I began to simply chant the sentences I worked on for practice previously so that I am reviewing the structure of the sentence while simultaneously working on my pronunciation. This proved to be very helpful as it made me a much more enthusiastic language learner especially now that I had developed some go to lines to demonstrate my Korean. As time went by, I noticed that I was not just reciting sentences I had almost memorized by heart, I had subconsciously begun to use Korean exclamation words/phrases. It was starting to sound natural for me to just say [a-ra-seo] to get myself to refocus on the task at hand. I brought this up to my language partner and met with my Korean friend to learn more casual phrases that I could use with people my age. Inadvertently, I also learned a few slang words and even how to text. I found out the equivalent of emphasizing a word through text messages like “Noooooo” . In Korean, they also just repeat the last character to emphasize it.  Hand in hand, I asked both my language partner and my friend to help give me ways to express myself as I would in English. They had to ponder some of the phrases I wanted translated like “I see” (in the informal context) given that it is not simply translating every word but also figuring out how to convey the meaning as similarly as possible. These past lessons have been fundamental to my language learning as I have found ways for me to feel comfortable speaking the language and also made it so that it flows more naturally. In the future, I will continue to practice reading the short stories out loud, conversing with my friends in Korean as much as I can, and using the talktomeinkorean website to learn more. 

For the month of November, my goals were to elaborate on speaking about plans by adding specifics to the mix. I learned how to tell time and realized it was a lot more complex than I was expecting. I remembered learning this topic in French class and how my teacher at the time apologized for all the confusion caused from it. Looking back now at that moment, telling time in French is actually so simple and I had taken it for granted. Telling time in Korean ended up taking more time for me to fully grasp because it involves both its native Korean number system and the Sino-Korean system. Before this concept, I knew a few numbers but I was not able to determine which number system they belonged to. Therefore, a big chunk of my time was dedicated to getting comfortable counting in both systems and being able to recognize which system the numbers belong with. Aside from the number system portion of telling time, I had to learn the order of words. In latin languages and in English, the “AM” and “PM” come after the time is said yet in Korean, it is placed before the time. This took a bit of time to get the hang of since I was still translating from English to Korean. My language partner has been very helpful in reexplaining concepts and catching my mistakes which further improves my understanding of the concept. Aside from telling time, my language partner and I began focusing on how to ask and answer the 5 W’s (Who, What, Where, When, Why). We naturally fell into this objective by exploring time given that it answers the “when”. I am still not yet to the “why” but I have been using TalktomeinKorean platform to learn how to discuss the “who”, “what”, and “where”. This online platform has proven to be extremely helpful in learning grammar since I needed to learn several particle endings to denote the “where”, “who” and “what”. Aside from particle endings, I learned the appropriate contexts for each particle. I practiced writing sentences with my language partner, asking any lingering questions I still had after talking notes from the platform and doing their respective activities in the workbook. I continued to practice my pronunciation by reading short stories and it has definitely improved my ability to read hangul. I am now able to read Hangul a lot faster and pronounce characters a lot more correctly. My language partner also suggested I try to listen to a Korean song I really like and attempt to read their lyrics out loud with the soundtrack. I thought this was a very smart idea since I kind of already know what sounds to expect throughout the song allowing me to read the lyrics without as many pauses. It is also very intriguing to understand what is being said in between the lines that I otherwise would not have understood. After going over a couple of verses with my language partner, I will be attempting to finish the song on my own because I should focus on my speech fluency too. 

Throughout October, my focus was on learning vocabulary to discuss plans and traditions. Since it was October break and holidays were quickly approaching, I was keen on learning more about what breaks were like in South Korea. Particularly as a student, I wanted to at least be able to ask my Korean friends at the University of Richmond what their plans were for fall break and later on for Thanksgiving and winter break. I did end up learning some vocabulary to talk about my plans and with that, learned the seasons and some of the key holidays in Korean culture. With my language partner, we continued reading a short story that we had started in September, role playing realistic scenarios, and more grammar aspects such as topic/subject/ and object particles. I further reinforced this by rereading the short story on my own, studying on the TalktomeinKorean platform. I found this theme especially exciting because I was finally reaching a level where I was beyond the basic introductions and could now have a more interesting conversation with Korean students. I find I am still lacking significant vocabulary since I am not getting enough person-to-person practice. I definitely think it also has to do with the fact that I immediately gravitate towards learning the grammar of the language versus learning how to actually use the language. I think this is the case for me because grammar (while writing and reading) I can typically control since I have time to think through my responses. I stray away from practicing speaking because I am most insecure about my inability to produce certain sounds and my poor detection of subtle pronunciation differences. My language partner has definitely noticed and is thankfully pushing me to practice with him and is patient with me as I struggle to imitate him. My biggest issue with every language I learn is that I gravitate towards a Spanish accent since I do not want to have a thick American accent when speaking the language. I am struggling with keeping my tone of voice in a neutral level because it is my instinct to speak using a variety of tones where I constantly go up and then down. Since I speak Spanish, though partly because of my personality, I am used to speaking very animatedly. Now that I have realized this is holding me back from speaking Korean in a more accurate manner, I will be focusing on speaking more slowly so as to calm myself down and not rush through the sentence with a rollercoaster of tones. I only learned about this habit of mine because I started to practice having very short conversations with Korean natives/speakers. Given the revelation I had after speaking Korean a bit more compared to my last reflection post, I will now avoid ruling out speaking during sessions with my language partner because I have learned how valuable they are. Most importantly, I just need to let go of my pride and simply allow myself to make mistakes as a language learner and remind myself that speaking is a crucial part of learning a language. 

I was focused on the planning of what I want the semester to look like for a few weeks in the beginning. This included researching online resources, tv shows , physical textbooks that I can use to immerse myself in the Korean language and culture. After gathering several resources, I then went through them to determine which ones I wanted to use as my main source for learning and categorize the others as either optional for extra work I may want to do or supplemental resources which were designated in my plan as simply a source to use for alternative explanations or practice. I hoped to have gotten through almost half of talk to me in korean as it is a relatively short textbook. I was clearly overestimating my capacity and ability to retain the information. Though some of the concepts were relatively straightforward, I still had to practice being able to withdraw the skills from my brain spontaneously. This has proved difficult to do as I am getting all of the languages I am learning confused.

 One of my main priorities for this section of the semester was to learn hangul well because I know some of the sounds do not have an equivalent sound in our GAE phonetic inventory making it difficult to really produce the same sounds as native korean speakers. I think my solution for the time being at least, has been to sound out the characters using my Spanish accent since the characters are not stressed as much as the english vowels are. By doing a soft trill of the r, I am starting to pick up how to make the ㄹ character as it is between an r/l sound. Overall, learning a language at my own pace is forcing me to learn how to be patient and actually focusing more on the over process than on the objectives as I will learn more from my mistakes. It is definitely nerve wracking though to practice pronunciation with a native korean speaker and frustrating when I can replicate the sounds as it is still hard to really differentiate some of the sounds like the three variations of their [k] and [b] sounds. 

Another challenge I have been facing is simply writing by hand since I do not have the neatest handwriting. Since I need to be able to read the characters, I have been taking longer to write. I am generally a very impatient person so having to take my time with each stroke and making sure I am aligning the characters correctly within their blocks, has been delaying my progress. With my visually unappealing handwriting, it has proven terribly difficult for me to organize 4-character syllables into a single block. Personally, I feel like it is more complex than it seems because the characters are different widths/lengths so it is similar to piecing a puzzle together. As I start to become more familiar with hangul and the characters naturally fall into place in their block, writing full sentences will no longer be a hurdle in my learning process.

I tried to create a study plan that resembles what a traditional language class would look like. If I don't have specific assignments to complete and deadlines to abide by, I know I will not follow through with the plan. Creating an Excel was the simplest method for me to organize my goals. I have a good foundation of Hangul so I started the plan by just jumping immediately into content. I knew Talktomeinkorean was a very useful resource to learn the language so I have purchased a subscription of that and am also using Memrise to learn vocab. I think grammar carries the country's culture so I made that one of the main components of my learning plan. By watching kdramas and speaking with my language partner, I will also be exploring more cultural topics that are outside of the language. I want to learn korean because I watch a lot of foreign tv shows and was planning on studying abroad at Yonsei University because their business school is really good. My classmates thought my plan was very well thought out and I was encouraged to keep a journal so I could get in more writing practice. I only created three weeks because I know it is subject to change depending on how i progress.

I grew up in a Spanish-only household so it was effortless to learn Spanish in a very immersive environment. I think growing up in that household, my survival skills kicked in forcing me to absorb the language making it easier to learn the language. I learned English in kindergarten but had to repeat it since I did not know the language. I was able to become fluent in about a year and a half which I attributed to my young age but after reading one of the required articles, I realized it has more to do with the immersive environment and the lack of an "escape route". I learned a bit of Chinese in the fifth grade but it was at a new elementary school where the students had commenced learning in kindergarten, I could not catch up and was thus, demotivated. However, I started learning French in the sixth grade and have stuck through with it since it flowed so easily and I received constant praise from classmates and teachers. I started Russian at the university because I really enjoyed the history and wanted to understand their films/literature in its original language. Informally though, I have learned a bit of Turkish, Italian, Norweigian, and Korean as I really like consuming foreign entertainment without dubs. For the informal languages, it has been significantly harder to retain and persist since I have no accountability layer to it. I have liked being able to pick up on conversations and seeing how the history/culture of a country influences its language. However, I hate how slow the process is since I am not the most patient person. 

According to the surveys, I am a visual learner and should try to visualize my learning for it to actually stick by creating a mnemonic, color coding stuff, or creating flash cards. I will attempt to insert more images into the online flashcards I create, and physically write out my notes using colored pens to make it more aesthetic and for myself to remember the content better. Trying to connect the pieces using the root of the words with their meaning using diagram also seems to be like a good idea. I think the most helpful part of learning a language through this class, though it is self-motivated, is that I will still have more of an accountability factor and someone with whom I can practice what I've learned and help correct any misconceptions I have. 

I am also an auditory learner so repeating words out loud is how I usually engrave new vocab into my brain so I will continue to do so but will also be speaking in the target language with my language partner. i recognize that making mistakes, however embarrassing or big of a setback it feels like, is essential to learning. Whenever my pronounciation or sentences are corrected, I am more likely to remember it and less likely to commit the same mistakes. I know at least for me, it is always easier to remember the negatives. I think that's why I prefer to do textbook activities like matching or filling in blanks because it's both visual and auditory when I am sounding out the words or reading out the instructions. I like straightforward activities since I am so impatient hence why I'd rather do grammar practice, written activities, and quizzes. I think I want to incorporate weekly quizzes into my study plan to make sure I am still on track and to narrow down the concepts that I am struggling with and adjust accordingly. That being said, I also agree with what the article said about needing to be intentional about our goals when attempting to learn a language. I think it was much easier to learn languages formally taught in school because my goals were always to do well on the assignments, assessments, and to communicate in class. Yet, with the languages I tried pursuing on my own, my mentality going in was always "i'm going to learn this language" and that proved to be unsuccessful. That is why I want to carefully consider my schedule and the amount of time/effort I can realistically spend on learning Korean without burning out or quitting midway. Though I also know that I am overly ambitious in the beginning so I will also have to heavily reflect throughout the first few weeks so I can adapt my schedule as needed to fit the speed I actually end up going at. I know it will be trial and error so I want to only plan out my first few weeks and then go from there once I've examined what worked and what didn't.