Annalee Yin
Reflection paper#2:
Culture is way of life. I found this quote in the chapter. I think it really binds a group of different people together. I am glad that I have the chance to self-study Korean as a second language. At the same time, I have learnt so many cultures about Korean. Now, sometimes I feel like I am half-Korean! Based on the chapter, I decide to write a analysis on Korean cultures and how it helps me learning the language.
Koreans are highly in-group collectivism. People value family life, and each family member has her/his own role and duty. Korea is a very high power distance society. Women usually stay at home doing cooking and cleaning, children study in the school and men has the most pressure and burden to go out and work in order to feed the whole family. From the research, it says that Korea has big families, so even after marriage, wife and husband still live the with the husband’s parents. Husband’s mother is always very crucial to the wife in order to teach her to serve the whole family better. Men always have higher social status than women. Old people just rest at home and take care of the next young generation. However, I learnt that Korea is different than what we thought from a friend comes from Korea. It is not as that high on power distance as it was before, and actually try to maintain equality between genders. Women still go out and work after marriage and pregnancy, and lots of women refuse to live with their husbands’ parents and move outside and build their own family. Another unique aspect is that Koreans value friendship as one of the most important culture. As some Koreans said: “we always hang out together and play at weekends, and friends are always the ones who can help you when you are in big dangers outside”. However, there are negative side about their friendship, there are lots of on campus violence happened in South Korea due to its high power distance. Youth graders should always show their full respect and even bow down to people who are older than them.
In Korean language, there are specific honorific languages for elders when they communicate. Once someone who fails to do so, the people who are younger can be in great trouble. And whenever, there is a flight between people in the same age, friends will get together and help, so a group-fight is normal and very easy to happen in Korea.
Korea has its own traditional clothes; on special days, women wear a traditional dress called a hanbok, a short jacket called a jeogori and a long skirt called a chima. Men also wear a jeogori. Koreans like spicy food, rice is eaten with almost every meal, and another traditional food is called kimchee, which is a spicy food made of vegetable and garlic sauce. Kimchee is stored and fermented in large jars outside of the home. Meals are served and look differently in Korean than do in the United States, everyone gets their own rice or soup dish, and everyone share many different side dishes, the side dishes are spread over the whole table. Bibimbap is traditional food in Korean with plenty of vegetables including bean sprouts, spinach, mushrooms, cucumbers, onions, carrots, and one fried egg, people eat it with garlic spicy sauce as well. In Korea, friends always get together and eat noodle and kimchee in one big boiler. And we “fight against” each other to get the pot cover, because it is an old stereotype that eating noodle on a pot cover is more delicious than do in a normal bowl”.
In Korean, all boys are responsible for two year mandatory military training; it is not only good in building strong characters, but also being ready to serve the country anytime. Plastic surgery in South Korea is famous and is considered the best in the world, so there are lots of people from lower classes become stars, such as singer, actors and actress in order to make more money. However, stars in Korea do not earning that much income than other countries, and it is considered a normal career and job because of the huge supply trends. Korean and English are different types of language, but many words pronounce similar, such as the “menu”, “coffee” and so on, so she has strong Korean ascent. Another challenge is that people try to make friends in the US. Americans are very independent, and people always go to class by themselves, and crab lunch fast when they are busy. Koreans always be around with friends.
I think learning a new language is important to help participating with local people around, building experience, knowledge, and be patient when she builds her friendship and networking. There is an old phrase: “walk a mile in someone else's shoes." There is no way that we can get involved into the new society unless experiencing what life is like in another atmosphere, and get to taste the different cuisine, enjoy music, and interact with citizens who are dissimilar. I think staying motivated and getting rid of all the stereotyped ideals are important. We should be curious and eager to learn new things. It is a country with a combination of people from different and diverse cultures and become unified. Citizens will learn tolerance and respect for difference. They will be privy to information that others do not have.
From my personal standpoint, I leant lots of thing from this.
It is a way to interact with individuals, who are diverse, and also an opportunity to build and strengthen a better understanding of people worldwide. In conclusion, I think students are essential to have worldviews when we move from a different cultural background into a new diverse culture, and learn to acquire a new worldview and apply critical thinking to become pro-active learners.
As new century students, gaining knowledge through our life experiences within the culture, as well as deeply engage and assimilate with the knowledge we learn and appropriately applying to recognize situations in reality. Cross-culture is a shared mutual respect for the world in which we live and is a valuable experience we had in our lives!
Comments