Journal Entry # 3: Linguistic Aspects
I was researching some interesting facts relating to Korea and found an intriguing section about holidays. I am primarily focusing on the holidays Valentine’s Day and White Day in Korea. Firstly, Valentine’s Day is a big deal in Korea and is also celebrated on February 14, 2014 similarly to the U.S. While countries like the U.S. usually have guys running around to buy chocolate and flowers for their significant others, it is interesting to note that this is a holiday which focuses mainly on the men in Korea. This is a day in which women show their love by giving chocolates and gifts to their husbands/boyfriends. Then there is March 14 to consider. In Korea, March 14th signifies White Day which is a holiday where men buy gifts for the girls. An extreme aspect of this holiday relates to the fact that the guy is supposed to spend three times the amount of the gift he received on Valentine’s Day apparently. These gifts are in always in the color white. Although these are some of the more important romantic holidays in Korea, there are also many others to consider. The 14th day of every month is a romantically themed holiday as well as a day for reminding people who are single of how unlucky they are. There is Kiss Day in June and Hug Day in December. There is also Photo Day in September when couples take photos of each other as well as Yellow Day/Rose Day in May when lovers dress in yellow and give each other roses. The saddest holiday is April 14 which is known as Black Day. This is when singles mourn their lack of love by eating “jajyangmyeon,” which are sticky, black noodles. All of these holidays illustrate how the culture in Korea revolves a great deal around love, couples, and celebrating one’s love in public displays. Adversely, it seems to stigmatize the idea of being single and thus “miserable.” These are such interesting parts of the Korean culture which I found in my research.
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