https://drive.google.com/file/d/13s4rUpZP6jaykWFadVSkc3ITBKNPFxbj/view?usp=sharing

For this finally bi-weekly report, I decided to write about the time that Rachel, Aliya, and I decided to go to a local Korean bbq restaurant to get an authentic Korean food experience to close our semester. When I first came to Richmond, I was shocked to find out that there were not many Korean dining scenes available. For instance, they only had a Korean fusion restaurant called “J-Kogi” that I was not really fond of. Back where I live (in Chicago), my suburb is booming with Korean bbq restaurants, so I was very excited to hear from Aliya when she said that she found a new restaurant called “Korean Garden” that we could go experience. For this meeting, we decided to focus on the Korean bbq experience in particular and how this is such a huge part of Korea’s dining culture. When Rachel and I researched the background of kbbq, we found out that this originated in Korean all the way back in 37 B.C. when “맥젹" or fire-roasted skewers can be offered to the king. This was later known as “bulgogi” as well. When we first entered the restaurant, an old female server started to talk to us in Korean as she suspected that we knew how to speak fluently. We referred to her as “아줌마" which vaguely translates to an old lady and we were able to share an authentic conversation about her about my study abroad experience in Korea two semesters ago and if she had any food she recommended from the menu. She recommended us “갈비" which translates to marinated beef and we also had traditional “삼겹살" which means pork belly. We portrayed some Korean culture by having the youngest “막내" aka “maknae” do the cooking because traditionally in Korea, the youngest person on the team would do all the grilling of the meat. It stems from a hierarchy of “hoobae” and “sunbae” and usually the hoobaes/maknaes have do the cooking. Therefore, Rachel being the youngest out of the three, started to grill the meats and we simply had a lot of fun taking turns cooking afterward. We also got to experience a lot of the different “반찬,” otherwise known as side dishes that came with the meat. The lady offered us “계란찜,” “떡볶이,” “된장찌개,” and more. Eating kbbq with Rachel and Aliya brought back a lot of good memories and nostalgia about Korea and it was such a great time being able to eat good food and share a great conversation with them and the restaurant staff. I don’t cook too much Korean food at home, but I hope to change that and cook more authentic dishes this summer. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14IHcaSqSHErfdfU8D1rwZyYmM_yYt4JV/view?usp=sharing

For my last cultural post, I have decided to explore and analyze BIGBANG’s new comeback single, “Still Life.” “Still Life'' is BIGBANG's first song as a band since 2018's “Flower Road.” This is a huge moment for the boy band since they have been on a 4-year hiatus due to controversial scandals, military enlistments, and marriage. Before, BIGBANG was a 5 member group, however, this is not the case as they have made their comeback as a quartet team. The reason is that Seung Ri was kicked out of the group due to his scandal regarding aiding in prostitution and embezzlement which led him to be get sentenced to three years of jail. To be honest, I thought BIGBANG would never be able to make a comeback because all 5 members were highly problematic and were involved in many ugly controversies. For instance, TOP was accused of smoking weed in the military. For context, I learned that weed is a huge crime in Korea and even the possession of it can get you in very serious trouble. In addition, one of the other members Daesung was accused of driving under the influence which led to him accidentally killing someone. Lastly, G Dragon, the leader of the group, was also accused of doing drugs and tested positive for the drug test. All of these circumstances combined led many of the Korean fans and viewers to assume that it would be almost impossible for BIGBANG to ever come back into the spotlight again, however, they were all proven wrong as they came out with a new single 2 weeks ago. The public opinion has been pretty positive as many fans longed to hear music from this infamous group once again. When I heard the song, I was deeply saddened as it was about “seasons passing” and it greatly reflected the members’ somber days as it seemed like they were ready to walk away forever from their flamboyant lives. Although I was really ecstatic about their new single, it seems that the new single is their formal goodbye to the music industry as the members are all seen walking away from their place in the music video. In addition, the music video does not show a shot with all four members in the same location. They are all scattered throughout the scenes and singing separately. They are all separated from each other which netizens are assuming that it means they are all going on a different path and thus disbanding in the near future. I am unsure if this was their intention behind the video, but I really hope to see more of their presence in Korea’s music industry. 

For this week, Rachel and I just decided to hold one of our meetings at the local Korean church we both attend called Richmond Central Presbyterian Church. I’ve held previous SDLC meetings at RCPC in the past because it was a good cultural experience, however, for this meeting, I wanted to use this time to practice my Korean in terms of singing. For this year, the church asked me to be one of the praise leaders and the lead female vocalist which I accepted. We mostly sang praise songs in English, but for this week, I asked my pastor if I could sing one song in Korean and he approved. I asked Rachel to help me choose a good Korean praise song and we choose “여호와께 돌아가자" because it was originally sung by a female vocalist, so it seemed very fitting. At first, when I listen to this song, there were so many vocabulary words I did not understand. I knew how to read and sing all of the verses, but I knew only about 30% of what it truly meant. I tried to use context clues to figure the lyrics out on my own, but I noticed it was a lot more difficult since it was a song and not a logical flowing passage. On top of that, I think it was harder for me to understand because it was a Christian song and I did not know a lot of the religious terms in Korean. For instance, the song said “백성" which Rachel later informed me that it meant “the people.” Additionally, I did not know what “여호와" meant and my language partner let me know that it translated to “Jehovah.” It was very frustrating at first because I couldn’t necessarily connect the song to my emotions since I did not understand what the song was trying to say. However, as Rachel helped me to translate each word I did not understand, I started to appreciate the song little by little and I realized that this piece was beautifully written. After about 45 minutes of deciphering and practicing, I finally got to perform this song for a Sunday service and was very proud of the work we did. It made me actually want to sing even more Korean Christian praise songs in the future. Not only did this meeting help me to reach my goal to listen to more Korean arts, but it also helped me to learn more Christian terminologies in Korean. Next time, I hope to try and decipher Christian songs on my own without Rachel by using Google Translate and YouTube. Overall, I really enjoyed the experience, and I hope to continue to be challenged in the future with my Korean skills. 

Since I finished watching Uncanny Counter for one of my bi-weekly journal posts, I decided to start a new Korean drama called “Twenty Five Twenty One” with Rachel. “Twenty Five Twenty One” was already trending even before it aired because it had two very famous actors named “Kim Tae Ri” and “Nam Joo Hyuk.” After watching “Our Beloved Summer” for a bi-weekly journal post, I was less hesitant to start another mellow romance drama since I absolutely loved that show. As I have stated previously, I was never a big fan of slow, romantic TV shows called “멜로,” but I can notice that Korean cinematography and their plots have become more complex and sophisticated. Essentially, the show is about two young adults named Na Hee Do and Baek Yi Jin who develop a strong friendship and explore the premises of love with each other. Na Hee Do is a high school fencing prodigy who aspires to be a national fencing player while Baek Yi Jin is the son of a bankrupt CEO who must now start his life all over again. The setting begins in 1998 and goes on to cover the brutal reality of the Asian financial crisis called the “IMF crisis.” Since I was born in 2000, I never really heard anything about the IMF crisis, however, through this drama, I finally got to understand what happened in the late 90s and what my own parents had to experience. The crisis began when South Korea partnered up with the International Monetary Fund to assist the country in managing its financial systems. The structural provisions increased the flexibility of interest rates, tightened monetary policies, and removed features that would stunt future economic growth. However, this ultimately caused interest rates to rise and an entire restructure of the government which greatly affected the South Korean population and families. The drama goes on to cover how unemployment rates affected the households and there were many protests to end this movement. Learning about this part of history really opened my eyes to South Korea’s culture and my parents’ 20s. In terms of cinematography, the first element I noticed about the drama was the use of film and vintage filters. It made the drama even more real and authentic and I really liked how the director incorporated the traditional yellow fonts as well to make it seem like we were really watching the characters from the 90s lens. All in all, “Twenty Five Twenty One” was not only a great romantic drama, but also a great historical show as well.

For the weekend, Rachel and I decided to finally start on the K-drama called “Our Beloved Summer.” Rachel created a simple worksheet for me to fill out with basic questions as I watched the first episode. The paper consisted of questions such as, “what do you think about the main characters,” and “what are your initial thoughts on the drama,” and she instructed me to answer them in Korean. At first, I was kind of bored of the drama because it was a genre that Koreans called “멜로" which literally translates to “mellow romance.” I chose to watch this show because I wanted to start a truly romantic Korean series for the first time. However, I could tell that this was very different the the “romantic” American shows. The show starts off with two characters, Choi Woong and Kook Yeon Su, who end up featuring in a documentary together during their high school days. Interestingly, this documentary was made to showcase the top-performing student (Kook) in the school and the lowest-ranking student (Choi). They wanted to create a documentary and see how the two interacted with one another. Just this background scene, made me think about how strict and punctual Korea’s education system is. My mother used to tell me that it was true schools would post every single students’ academic ranking to be publicly seen. Therefore, it not only created immense pressure for the top-performing students, but embarrassment and bullying for those who didn’t score as well on the exams. Therefore, when they start off, they are seen fighting and Kook Yeon Su seems to look down on Choi Woong for his poor academic stance. Although the documentary shows them fighting and arguing, in 10 years, the viewers realize that these two actually ended up being in a relationship and they were in love. However, we also realize that these two had a terrible breakup and we do not necessarily get to find out what happened yet. Apart from the storyline, I was more drawn in by the cinematography that this film expressed. It absolutely screamed “summer” with its warm colors, nostalgic scenes, and desaturated color palette. Summer reminds me a lot of youth, living, and life, so it was refreshing to see this portrayed in such a soft, mellow way. Overall, this drama got me to think a lot about relationships, work life, and my 20s. It also helped me to see a shift in Korea’s work culture mindset. Before, academics were everything in Korea. You had to be book smart to get by. However, now, society has shifted more towards wanting a balance and living comfortably (portrayed by Choi). This drama got me somewhat hopeful again because one day I would love to professionally work in South Korea, but I always have this fear that I am not cut out to assimilate into the tiger culture. But, I was excited to see that Korea is slowly, but surely starting to change and emphasize a holistic working experience.

For this week’s cultural post, I decided to watch “놀면뭐하니" which is a highly popular Korean variety show hosted by Korea’s most famous M.C. named Yoo Jae Suk. This show arose after the termination of the most popular Korean variety show of all time called “Infinite Challenge.” Many people did not expect “놀면뭐하니" to be very good since the pressure and expectations were so high, however, this show shocked the Korean viewers when it hit #1 on streaming. I chose to watch one of the episodes that had 2 of the most iconic 90s singers, Lee Hyo-ri and Uhm Jung Hwa pair up with this year's hottest singers named Hwasa and Jesse. Together, they formed a band called “Refund Sisters.” Before, it was unthinkable to see such old icons come together with the recent pop stars. In equivalence, it would almost be seeing Beyonce banding up with Fifth Harmony and performing together as one unit. When I was young, I remember seeing Lee Hyo Ri and absolutely fangirling over her and her dancing skills. She was the greatest icon in Korea’s girl group history and her humor just put her on another level. I didn’t know Uhm Jung Hwa too much since she was more popular before my time, but I remember listening to her song “DISCO” and jamming out to it during karaoke nights with my family. It was not only very cool, but nostalgic to see them come back out on variety shows and dance once again. Just watching these nearly 50-year old women dance to very demanding music and choreography made me grow a lot of respect for both of them. Another reason why I liked Hyo Ri is that she defied Korea’s beauty standards of having to look white and pale and she was always tan and careless. Even on “놀면뭐하니" she once again came out on the show looking very tan, and it made me feel more confident seeing an icon defy traditional Korean beauty standards. After their performance, they actually won #1 in the music charts, and it just once again proved how much of an influence they still have on the Korean public and the viewers. I really enjoyed seeing my old nostalgic performers pair up with some of my new favorite performers and this is something I hope to see often in the future, even outside of variety shows. 

For the first week of class, Rachel and I met up over Zoom and went over the syllabus together. I was very excited to have her as my new language partner since I felt like Rachel spoke more formal Korean while I was more experienced in conversational Korean. Since we have both taken Korean and have taught Korean over the past few years, we were both pretty familiar with the content and requirements of SDLC. This is my 3rd time taking Korean and for this semester, I took on a pretty heavy academic workload, so I wanted to simply use these class times to read and watch as much cultural content as possible. In Korean I and Korean II, I mostly focused on practicing and speaking Korean and having basic conversations with my language partner, but for this semester, I wanted to listen and observe more of the diction, vocabulary, storyline, and visual aspects used in Korean films and dramas. The main reason is that I’ve always been interested in videography and film my entire life. I still visibly remember when the film “괴물" first premiered in Korea back in 2006 and it was a revolutionary moment for Korean film history because of its use of CGI and digital graphics. I was only 6 years old back then and “괴물" means monster in Korean, so I was way too afraid to properly enjoy the show, but I hope to rewatch it this semester and enjoy it with a fresh perspective. Previously, Korea was not as well known for its movies, but they have truly progressed into a country known for its arts and culture. I’ve always enjoyed Korean TV shows in the past, but I never got too deep into the storyline, motifs, symbolism, e.t.c. I mostly watched it because my favorite actor was in the show, or because my sister always asked me to watch it with her. Over the past few years, I’ve noticed how much Korean filmmaking has progressed. From being a worldwide sensation to becoming internationally recognized even by the Oscars, it made me want to really study and analyze this phenomenon. Therefore, for Spring 2022, my goal is to observe as many Korean artworks (such as films, music videos, poetry) and take a deep dive into how this reflects back onto Korean culture and society as a whole. I will continue to practice my Korean speaking and reading skills with Rachel but make sure to have an emphasis on the Korean Arts when doing so. For the next few weeks, I hope to watch and unpack some famous films and dramas such as “The Uncanny Counter,” “25/21,” “Our Beloved Summer,” “Business Proposal,” and e.t.c. If I have additional time to explore, I would also like to dip my toes into Korean sports as well, more specifically, get to know more about Kim Yeon Kyung, an infamous female volleyball player in South Korea. All in all, I am very thrilled to start this semester and I’m excited to see what I learn. 

I decided to watch the Korean drama “Uncanny Counter” on my own time to write for this week’s cultural post. My mother actually recommended me this show and she wanted me to watch it because it was quite different from previous k-dramas she saw in the sense that it was very fictional and CGI-heavy. In the past, Korea’s cinematic capabilities were not as advanced as now, so they did not try to attempt dramas that were heavy with CGI and FX. On the other hand, with the advancement of their digital technologies, they have taken on a challenge to film this show and I absolutely enjoyed the entire plot and its execution. “Uncanny Counter” is essentially a group of people called “Counters” that hunt down evil spirits. Each one of the counters has its own special abilities such as the ability to heal, hear someone’s thoughts, and have strength 3x stronger than an average person. A humorous aspect of the show was that all of these Counters disguised themselves as the owner of a traditional noodle shop and acted like normal people going on with their everyday lives. The first thing that I noticed with this drama is its similarity with “Squid Game” in the sense that all the counters also wore a tracksuit (not green but red). Tracksuits are an infamous symbol in Korea that really sets an individual apart from the mass. It usually means you have no job and are of lower status. On the other hand, it was interesting to see superhuman individuals wear these tracksuits to fight off evil spirits which also made the story a lot more humorous, relatable, and down to earth. In addition to the plot, it was refreshing to see another singer take on a difficult acting role. Kim Se Jeong came out as Do Ha Na who can sense evil spirits from miles away and who also has the ability to read memories. Kim Se Jeong making an entrance in this drama showed a cultural shift and acceptance for singers to make their debut as actors. In the past, the Korean public did not like it when singers or celebrities with other occupations from joining the acting field. The reason is that many did not have good acting skills and people felt that singers did not deserve to be in this cinematic spotlight.  However, with the introduction of Se Jeong, a highly popular girl group member, this K-drama goes on to further show that Korea is advancing towards a more diverse set of actors. I was also pleasantly surprised at how competent of an actress Se Jeong was and almost forgot that acting was not her first job. This made me want to see even more idols and Korean singers try out for acting gigs like “Uncanny Counter.” 

Podcast Link

          For my last cultural post, I came across a video on my YouTube recommendation page called “Korean Language Professor Breaks Down Squid Game’s Subtitles.” Since I am Korean, and I am proficient in my listening skills, I watched the drama without any English subtitles. In fact, I actually turned on the Korean subtitles, so that I could hear as well as read every word the characters were saying. I chose to watch this YouTube video because I thought it would be interesting to hear what other non-Korean speakers thought of the subtitles. I also wanted to see if there was a difference in how we interpreted the meaning of the show and our understanding of the different scenes depending on how the script was translated. According to Professor Joowon Suh, English speakers were definitely missing out on deeper meanings throughout the series because the translations were sanitized to be less vulgar. Squid Game itself is a very harsh, symbolic,  and satirical show that depicts a very dark view of human nature in an ironically childish-looking game zone. The contestants are fighting for their lives as they try everything to win the games against each other. Therefore, there are varying levels of profanity used in the show, however, many of the cuss words are incorrectly translated into English. The reason why this is important to note is that the mistranslation of these cuss words results in a different tone and meaning of the plot. There is a scene where one of the characters gets betrayed by another character, and she says one of the most hateful swear words, however, this is translated into “asshole” which is a very minor cuss word in the English language. 

         Additionally, the professor also mentioned how there were translation differences in the address terms or honorifics. For instance, a character named Ali meets Sangwoo, a posh, well-suited gentleman for the first time, and calls him “사장님.” It was practically impossible to translate a lot of the honorifics because they were so ubiquitous which is why all of the translates use the word “sir” instead. However, the way the characters address each other shows the evolution of their relationship. For example, later on in the episodes, Sangwoo actually asks Ali to not call him “사장님" and actually “형” which means “older brother,” an intimate language side of Korean. This shows that Ali and Sangwoo have gotten closer. This is why the marble scene where Sangwoo betrayed Ali was so heartbreaking because Ali kept calling for Sangwoo as “형.” This meant that Ali considered Sangwoo as family and like an older brother who has protected him throughout the games. In this sense, it is more heartbreaking if you know what “형” and  “사장님" mean. It is these minor linguistic details that truly transform the film from a good one to a great one. However, with subtitles, there are words that just do not exist in another language, so it is very difficult to 100% accurately translate these kinds of films.

For our last meeting before Thanksgiving, Somyung and I decided to have an easy day by watching Korean Englishmen videos. I actually was well aware of the Korean Englishmen channel before. I knew all of the hosts including “조쉬”, “올리", “가비,” and e.t.c. For our meeting, Somyung asked me to choose any video I wanted to watch. I chose the video with “하하.” The reason is that I knew “하하" also known as “HaHa,” from an extremely popular variety show called Runningman. HaHa was one of the casts in Runningman and he was one of my favorite comedians in Korea which is why I chose this video to watch. The setting of this video was in HaHa’s own barbeque restaurant and it was cool to see a famous comedian own his own restaurants as well. Somyung and I searched up to see if other famous celebrities owned their own shops and we discovered that this was a very common thing for Korean celebrities. For instance, a famous rapper named “로꼬" owned a famous burger joint and kpop stars like G-Dragon and Kim Jong Kook also owned their own cafes. I do not think this is a common thing here in the States. We see very few celebrities opening up their own restaurants/cafes, so it was cool to see that such a famous celebrity like HaHa had his own restaurant that he carefully managed and oversaw. In the video, HaHa was also talking about this idea of “정" pronounced “Jeong.” Somyung and I tried to find a translation for it but realized there was not a direct translation to this word. It is similar to “aegyo” in a way that it also does not have a direct translation in English. From the video, they describe “Jeong” in a way that means affection and caring. It is something different than love. 

I used to watch a lot of variety shows while growing up because it helped me to learn a lot of Korean used for casual conversations as well as catch up on slang. Without variety shows, I do not think I would know a lot of the slang I know today. On Runningman, HaHa always came out as a childish character who always made jokes and was never serious. I always thought HaHa would be the same in real-life but by watching this video, I realized how different he actually is outside of the screen. He was very mature and grounded and the way he talked about certain topics was extremely poised and well mannered. Something I also learned is that Korea has an even more 2 faced tendency than the U.S. culture. Celebrities are set to the highest standards, so they cannot run into any scandals or problems or they will be permanently “canceled.” This is why I think it was even more interesting to see that HaHa was so completely different from his character on Runningman. 

          My cultural artifact for this week consisted of watching mukbang videos. I am an avid mukbang watcher mainly because I love food. After coming to Richmond, I think I started to watch a lot more mukbang videos than before because my food options were now significantly limited. Back at home, I would cook and bake myself everything I wanted to eat, however, that is a luxury I do not have, so I fill that void by watching mukbang videos of my favorite YouTubers eating the foods that I miss the most. In a way, I also use mukbang videos as a way to track the foods I want to eat right away when I go home during break time. Additionally, I find it a good way to stay on top of the foods that are trending in Korea right now. For instance, I would have never known about mint chocolate flavor craze if I did not regularly watch mukbang videos.  

          As I was googling my favorite mukbangers, I discovered that many of them were involved in scandals regarding product placement and ads. I looked more deeply into it and I realized that many of them were in deep trouble because they were essentially advertising different food brands and companies to their viewers and “influencing” them without explicitly stating that the video was an AD or that it contained a gifted product. At first, I did not really see what the entire fuss was about since it was just food and the entire situation just seemed overscaled. However, as I dove more deep into the topic, I realized just how much power and influence these mukbangers have and it was wrong of them to use their platform in a deceitful manner. Therefore, many of the mukbangers uploaded an official apology video while also taking a break from YouTube for months. Apart from this entire AD controversy, the scandal that shocked me the most was about one of my favorite mukbanger named “Bokhee.” She was known to be a pretty, small-figure mukbanger who ate the biggest spoonful in a clean manner. Many people always wondered how she was able to stay so lean while eating such large amounts of food. Well, it turned out that she was involved in a scandal called “먹뱉" which translates to “eating and spitting out.” Many of her videos were not 1-take videos but were instead highly edited in between scenes. In one of her videos, it can be seen that she actually never swallows during the clips. Therefore, this caused a lot of controversies and this kind of cancel culture forced her to go incognito for 6 months until she recently made a comeback. 

Ultimately, I love watching mukbang videos, but I am not too much of a fan of the psychological effects it has on the viewers. Moreover, since South Korea has a society that is very much focused on the “perfect” shape and body, and is very geared towards outer beauty, having a mukbang culture like this just does not sit right with me. 

          For this week, Somyung challenged me with the task of translating English songs into Korean lyrics. One of the things I wanted to accomplish was further expanding my Korean vocabulary. While studying abroad in Korea, I listened to a lot of pop music. However, when someone asked me what this English song meant or asked me to translate the meaning, I could never correctly figure out the lyrics. Some of the song selections included Justin Bieber and Bruno Mars songs. My initial thought was that this was going to be a fairly simple task since song lyrics tend to be self-explanatory and consist of simple phrases. The first song I tried to translate was Justin Bieber’s song “Monster.” The first lyrics started off with “You put me on a pedestal and tell me I'm the best.” The moment I tried to translate this, I realized that I did not know the word “pedestal” in Korean. Somyung gave me a couple of tries to try and figure it out with prior knowledge, but I could not think of the correct vocabulary word. We used google translate to find out and it was “받침대." From this moment on, I knew that this was definitely going to be a difficult task. As the song went on, there were so many words that I never knew that I didn’t know. For instance, I did not know how to translate “responsibility,” “unforgiveness,” “intentions,” and “confidence.” With just this one song, I was able to learn a lot of the essential, everyday Korean vocab words. 

          Similar to how I wanted to translate English songs into Korean, I also wanted to get better at translating Korean songs into English. In Korea, I unconsciously listened to so much K-pop in the streets, malls, restaurants, and e.t.c, however, I just listened to it more for its rhythm and energy. I never really dove deep into thinking about what the songs meant. Therefore, for this meeting, Somyung and I also took a Korean song called “HOLO” by Lee Hi and tried my best to translate this as well. The first set of lyrics started off as “홀로 있는 게 가만히 있는 게 어려운 일인가요 홀로 있어도 같이 있어도 외로운 건 같아요. One day it will stop.” One strategy I used to figure out the general meaning of this song was to use context clues, especially at the end when it had an English lyric. I ended up guessing correctly that “홀로” translated to alone. The word “홀로” also came up a bunch of times so I knew this song was about solitude and being okay with being alone. 

          I found this exercise to be very fun since it took the songs that I listened to on a daily basis and really challenged me to think deeply about its meaning and words. I feel like this would be a very good practice for me in the future to always try and translate songs I listen to and see how they translate in the other language. 

          My cultural artifact for this week was a Korean Netflix drama called Record of Youth starring Park Bogum, Park Sodam, and Byeon Wooseok. Somyung recommended this drama to me because she thought it was something I would find interest in since I was a huge fan of Park Bogum from a lot of other K-dramas. Park Bogum was previously in Love in the Moonlight, Reply 1988, and The Encounter. This is why I was really excited to give this Korean Drama a try. Record of Youth tells the story of young individuals who are working very hard to achieve their dreams and passions. It shows a lot of scenes regarding the uncertainty and pressure the youth feel when they are struggling to navigate their journey towards their future. For instance, Park Bogum is a model who is not as popular and successful in the beginning. His parents greatly disapprove of his occupation, especially his father who thinks he is wasting his time and money, and believe Bogum will not succeed since he has failed many auditions in the past. There is a scene where his father actually slaps him on his face which shocked me a lot. Compared to the U.S. culture, I think Korea has a much stricter level on how much parents control their children’s lives - occupation, social life, academics, e.t.c  

          The drama then goes on to explain the story of Sodam who is a makeup artist also struggling to make ends meet. Despite all her struggles, she is a positive individual who is very optimistic about life and is overall a very good person. While working for a high-status client, she ends up making it into a prestigious makeup shop as the youngest member on the team, but runs into a lot of jealousy and hate from the older makeup artists. Coincidentally, Sodam and Bogum end up crossing paths at an event with Sodam being assigned as Bogum’s makeup artist for a fashion show. Before even meeting Bogum, Sodam has been a huge fan of him, but she hid her excitement when she met him in person and worked professionally to get her job done. She did not want to reveal to him that she was a fan because she didn’t want to ruin her fantasy of him as her idol she looked up to. After, the two end up getting to know each other and get into a relationship. The drama goes on to follow them on their journey to both find their passion and career. I thought this drama was very interesting and I related a lot with the topics they were struggling with - job search, self-identity, self-worth, the uncertainty of where of what I want to do and who I want to be, and e.t.c. Additionally, the drama was very easy to watch, listen to, and understand since the language they used was very simple and conversational. I understood 99% of what they were saying and the vocabulary used in this show was extremely easy to decipher. 

         For this week, Somyung and I decided to conduct our weekly meeting at our local Korean church called Richmond Korean Central Presbyterian Church. I hoped to accomplish speaking as much Korean with her as possible especially in a solemn setting, so it would force me to use formal language like 잘 지내셨어요 instead of 잘지냈어? The “요” added at the end of words and phrases turns the informal sentences into formal ones to use for adults and elders. Since I only really use informal language with my parents (because my parents do not want me to use formal language with them), I realized I was using this type of language in places that were not totally appropriate. I also wanted to practice praying in Korean since this is something I never really tried to do. During our small group, Somyung and I got placed in the same Connect Group. Since all of the members were Korean American students, Somyung asked the group if we could all try and speak in Korean. First, we all one by one took turns saying out loud our prayer requests for the week. When it was my turn, I did not expect myself to hesitate much, however, it was very difficult to convey my prayer request because I had to translate religious terms I had never used before. For example, I never knew that Matthew was 마태복음 and prayer request was 기도제목 in Korean. After a few seconds of shuffling around my thoughts, I was finally able to say 이번주 하나님께 저의 기도 제목은요 학교에서 좋은 성적 받고 집중할수있는거에요. In English, this translates to, “my prayer request for this week is to get good grades in school and I also hope God helps me focus.” Another thing we tried to do was to read together with the Korean version of the Bible. For my entire life, I have only read the English versions (which is already hard to read with all of the difficult names and pronunciations). However, I thought this would be a fun challenge to give to myself. When Somyung got me a Korean version and we all started reading it, my tongue started twisting and I mispronounced words way more than I pronounced them correctly. It took almost 5 minutes for me to read a single scripture, so for my next bi-weekly meeting, I hope to have gotten better at reading the Korean Bible and also speaking with formal language. 

          Although I am pretty proficient in my target language, it still gets very frustrating when I try to fix the small mistakes in my technical skills. Sometimes, the progress seems slow because I am trying to improve things on a micro-scale. However, I will still persistently work to try and always improve because I want to get to the level where I can talk like a native speaker. I understand that in order to do that, I have to verbally practice it as much as I can and try to learn from other native speakers like the elders from my church. 

DISCLAIMER: SQUID GAME PLOT SPOILER 

I was quite skeptical about this new Netflix show since I felt that it was going to be just another over-hyped production, however after I watched the first episode, I knew this was going to be a worldwide hit. This new Netflix show I am mentioning is the one and only Korean TV show called “Squid Game.” 

The tv show starts off by following a lazy man called “성기훈" or Seong Gi-Hun. He lives under his old-aged mother and is immature as to steal money from his mother’s hard-earned savings and use it to gamble it all away. He ends up getting into some deep trouble and they make him sign a contract to sell his organ away if he does not pull through with the payment he owes them. While on his way home, he ends up meeting a gentleman in a suit who offers him money if he wins a very simple children’s game called “딱지” that involves flipping your opponent’s card with your own card by hitting it on the ground. Gi Hun wins the game and wins $100. He gets a small taste of victory and the gentleman makes an offer by asking him “would you like to play a game” in which he can win millions of dollars just by playing simple games like he just did. 

After he agreed to participate, he later wakes up in a room full of beds with 455 other people who are wearing the same tracksuit as him. Suddenly, a group of men in red tracksuits enter the room and tells them that they will get the opportunity to play 6 games and if they are able to win all of them, they can get millions of dollars. The men also remind them that this is probably their best bet for survival since all of the participants are in heavy amounts of debt- impossible to pay off no matter how much they work. All of the participants are eagerly waiting to play the game now. 

The first game is called “무궁화 꽃이 피였습니다" which is “Red Light Green Light,” a classic children’s game that I also used to play when I was little. All they had to do was to get to the finish line without getting caught by this giant girl robot. At first, it seemed very light and easy. However, when one person got too greedy and started to run for the finish line without being careful, he got caught by the robot and was shot on the scene. This caused entire chaos and panic which got even more people killed because their movements were being detected by the robot. It was only the people who stayed calm and absolutely still that were not eliminated. By the end of the game, almost half of the entire participants have been killed and the rest are in utter shock of what they have signed up for. 

After watching the first episode, I was also in complete shock, but I was also completely hooked on the storyline and the motifs that were touched in this show. It reminded me so much of the oscar-winning movie “Parasite” in a sense that it also covered the subject of the socioeconomic divide in the world. Overall, the first episode was a killer opening which is why I think it got everyone addicted and wanting for more. 

       During this spring semester, I went to study abroad at Yonsei University in South Korea for 5 months. I have always been bilingual in both English and Korean, with Korean being my first language. However, I moved to the U.S. when I was only 6 years old, so I always carried this imposter syndrome in which I felt like I was neither Korean nor American. Fortunately, this kind of mindset only lasted until the end of elementary school where I really adapted to American culture and also the English language. I was beyond elated that my English speaking abilities drastically improved and I felt like I finally belonged in the States as a valid American citizen. On the other hand, I now felt like I knew nothing about my motherland’s culture. And since I came to the U.S. when I was so young, I never got to attend school there or make any Korean friends. As a result, this is mainly why I decided to go study in South Korea (even during a pandemic), and I have absolutely no regrets. Following my experience at Yonsei, I have decided to not only be a Korean language partner for this semester, but to also take SDLC Korean II myself. Even with a very hectic academic semester, I have decided to make this work because I wanted to almost force myself to speak Korean at Richmond. In Richmond, there is an extremely limited number of Korean American students, so I end up not using Korean for a very long time. However, by teaching and also learning Korean at the same time, I hope that I can retain the Korean vocabulary and phrases I used back at Yonsei. Somyung, my language partner, and I held our first meeting last Saturday over brunch at her dorm. We first went over what my objectives were for this semester. I informed her that I would like to work mostly on conversing and putting my Korean to use as much as possible. Additionally, I informed her that I would also like to read some real-time news articles since improving my reading skills is another one of my goals this semester. I have always been an adequate reader, however, I was never good at reading very technical news articles or understanding complicated television broadcasts. This semester, I hope to be able to read and interpret many different news articles pertaining to social and political issues. For the next hour, Somyung and I competed on who can speak the least amount of Konglish (which is when someone uses English and Korean simultaneously in a sentence). As Korean Americans, code-switching is such a natural phenomenon that I do not even recognize that I do it so often. Therefore, it was great to practice with Somyung next to me since she could always inform me when I used Konglish. After that, we looked up some potential Korean dramas on Netflix that we both could watch without subtitles for the next class. All in all, I am very excited about where my Korean skills will be at by the end of the semester. 

Through the self-directed language learning program this semester, I have learned that learning a language takes persistence and constant effort. I came into this program with a good deal of knowledge about Korean. Although I have never received proper Hangul education, I have still spoken Korean with my family and friends in our daily conversations. As a result, I set one of my goals this semester to go beyond simply learning vocabulary words and basic phrases. I wanted to push myself to be a better, all-rounded Korean speaker. 

Specifically, one of my goals this semester was to be able to read analytically and fully comprehend Korean news articles and broadcasting channels. Since I plan to be a business major and work in the business field in Korea in the near future, I wanted to be able to learn technical vocabulary words that pertain to business and the economy. This is why Jenna and I worked persistently to try and read different news articles to improve my linguistic knowledge. At first, we started off with simply reading the weather forecast in Korea. Initially, I thought it was going to be a breeze reading this article because in my mind, “it was a weather forecast, how hard can it be.” However, the moment I finished reading the first sentence, I had no idea what it said or meant at all. I don’t know why but I believed that it would come to me very easily and quickly. Therefore, I decided to slow down and read sentence by sentence, word by word out loud to make sure I grasp exactly what I was reading in my head. All in all, it took me almost 30 minutes to read a 2 page weather forecast article. From this moment, I realized that learning a language takes time and patience. I think I need to stop having the mindset that learning will come gradually and naturally. I need to make a conscious effort to try and improve my Korean skills everyday whether it be through reading more weather forecasts or challenging myself to listen to Korean news. 

The most interesting reading from SDLC 105 was the reading about collectivism vs. individualism. I always knew that Korean and American culture were vastly different, but I could never actually point to what was the main difference. However, when I read that article, it really resonated with me because the way in which the entire culture thinks is almost polar opposite. And, I think that also reflected back into how different cultures reacted to COVID-19 pandemic. In Korea, since it is a collectivist society, every member worked unitedly to quarantine themselves out of their own will (without the government having to push them) to stop the spread of coronavirus as fast as possible. However, the United States, which is an individualist society, acted in the mindset of “every man for themselves” in the beginning. In the future, I would definitely want to explore more about the underlying cultural differences between the U.S. and South Korea.