Feb 16 biweekly journal

[Jiwon Kang]

This week we looked at and studied Chuseok in Korea. Chuseok is known as Korean Thanksgiving. Chuseok is usually celebrated on September 19^th but it lasts for three days. Traditionally, Koreans go to their ancestral hometowns to spend time with their family. They usually celebrate by making a lot of food. One desert food in specific that is popular is songpyeon. Songpyeon is made of rice and dough filled with sesame seeds and red bean paste. Chuseok is also a day of gift-giving. Koreans give gifts to family members and friends to show appreciation and respect. Some examples of gifts include fruit, meat, and gift sets of beauty products. Chuseok originated to bring luck to the annual harvest for farmers in colonial Korea. Jenna and I learned fifteen words this week that is related to Chuseok. We also watched a video on Chuseok. It was really cool to see the tradition occur as a documentary film. I was happy to learn about Chuseok and it will definitely help me understand my Korean culture better. I will be able to talk to my grandma about Chuseok in Korea and she will definitely tell me her stories. Jenna and I also had a discussion on the stuff we learned so far. We took around 20 minutes talking about the video we watched about Chuseok. There were some questions I had, like what a specific phrase during the video meant in Korea. We also took time to share what we found interesting from the documentary and how Chuseok was similar and different from Thanksgiving in America. Both holidays celebrate a historical event or tradition. I hope to continue learning new traditions and holidays every week with Jenna. She has done such a great job in helping me understand and learn new traditions in Korea. The other lesson during these past two weeks, we took it easy and watched a video about the basics of politics. We saved most of the details in politics of Korea for next week, but we went over the current parties in Korea and the current president in Korea. We also talked about conservatives in Korea, similar to republicans in America. Because a lot of Korean ideals are based on democratic ideals of America, the political system in Korea is similar to ours. I hope to learn more about the political system in Korea next week with Jenna in class. I will report on more in the next bi-weekly journal. So far, I am proud of what I have learned about Korean culture. I remember when I was young, my family would celebrate some of these holidays, but I would never really know what it was based on. Learning about traditions and Korean culture has taught me a lot about myself and my family. It is amazing to see how all of it connects. One thing I want to add as a goal for this semester is to learn more about the healthcare system in Korea. I currently take HCS100 and that would connect well with learning about healthcare in Korea.