Blogs

A couple weeks ago, I saw this vice documentary on Adnan Oktar and found it fascinating. He's interesting to me for the following reasons: he's the first Muslim creationist I heard of and spins Creationism on Islam, claims to be a staunch feminist, and is a famed cult leader in Turkey. He has his own TV network, televangelist form, and has written hundreds of books trying to disprove evolution. He rose to prominence in the 1980s during his higher education in Istanbul and appealed to young wealthy generations. He argued against Marxism, Communism, and the like. He sought to intertwine scientific rhetoric and mysticism in his ventures. Not only has he had multiple run-ins with the law for things such as inciting a theocratic revolt and organizing crime through his cults/following, but he's also spent time in a mental hospital. 

Everything about Adnan is ridiculous to the public- when I brought him up to Arzu, she scoffed and called him a joke. In this short documentary a Vice reporter, Broadly, is invited to his show. She arrives during the day and receives a tour of the house- in which she finds "fossils"that he collects that apparently prove creationism. Before the show begins, she's taken into the makeup studio to be prepared for the show, however, bizzarely, Adnan's men do not allow these portions to be recorded. Broadly goes on to appear on the show and later Adnan's followers join her.

Adnan's followers are mostly wealthy socialites who describe themselves being "liberated" through Adnan and his demonstration of feminism and Islam. They refer to themselves as "kittens" and are highly sexed up in their attire and makeup- it's evident they use lip plumps, most of them have bleach blonde hair, and wear heavy eyeshadow and lipstick, and even have gone under the knife. It seems that these qualities are what make them feel liberated. To give an instance of how strange the show is, on air, dance music would play at random intervals and the "kittens" would begin club dancing in their seats.

The documentary sought to understand Adnan's cult, but at the end of the ordeal, the events were still mystifying- there wasn't an explanation for why his cult operated why it did, what the logic was behind the "kittens'" appearance, and on what level the entire scenario was Islamic at all. In fact, the entire time I was reminded of our very own Hugh Hefner and the playboy mansion.

Adnan Oktar https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/video/inside-the-weird-world-of-an-islamic-feminist-cult

Turkey has numerous beautiful historical landmarks, remnants of the Ottoman Empire's lavish days. The Blue Mosque, or as it is called in Turkish, Sultan Ahmet Camii was my favorite landmark in Istanbul for its architectural style and design. It was planned by the architext Sedefhar Mehmet Aga and included new elements and styles for its era and built between the years 1609-1616 (commissioned by the Sultan Ahmet I). The sultan had commissioned the mosque to assert Ottoman splendor and power after the Peace of Zsitvatorok (which had weakened the empire), however due to lack of funds, it was a move that showed his weakness. Normally spoils from war victories funded grandiose mosques, but Ahmet was not known for his political prowess. In a scandalous move, he paid for the mosque through the royal treasury. Sultan Ahmet wanted this mosque to be at the forefront of all the mosques in terms of imperial beauty and location- which is why he built it across from the Hagia Sofia at the central point of the city. In its time, the juxtaposition of the location was rife with political and religious symbolism. Even today the location is heavy with meaning- it's a beautiful depiction of religious harmony for Islam and Christianity. It is for this reason that I love the Sultan Ahmet mosque as much as I do, it serves a beautiful image of peace and tolerance. 

http://www.bluemosque.co/history.html

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-islam/islamic-art-late-period/a/the-blue-mosque-sultan-ahmet-camii

Since I'm a stickler for pronunciation, my first artifact is reading the Turkish alphabet. Evaluating my pronunciations, I know I got some of the vowels wrong- probably the ö and ü and ı. I need to be practicing with various words to improve making those sounds correctly rather than just repeating the vowel on its own. And obviously reading it with the help of consonants is good practice for where the sound is coming from with the vowel. For example, a 'k' paired with a vowel will have different movements than with a 'p' paired with a vowel. 

Artifact 1- Alfabe

National Holiday: CHUSEOK

What is Chuseok?

It is one of the biggest and most important national holidays in South Korea. Chuseok is the Korean Thanksgiving or the harvest festival and it is based on the lunar calendar and this year it fell on September 27th and is celebrated over 4 days. 

History of Chuseok

There are three different theories behind the origin of Chuseok. The first one is that Chuseok is used to offer tributes of the harvest to the dieties and ancestors. The second theory is that Chuseok came from the Silla dynasty (57 BC - 935 AD). Chuseok used to be a month-long weaving competition between two teams. The winning team was served a large feast by the losing team. The third theory is that when the Silla won over the Baekje dynasty (18 BC-660 AD), they had a celebration with weaving, wrestling and archery competitions which was later turned into Chuseok. 

Chuseok Customs

Ancestral Memorial Services (Charye)

On the morning of Chuseok, all the family members gather at the ancestral homes to perform memorial services in the honor of their ancestors. After the services, the family has a big feast together. Traditional food served is songpyeon, which is a type of halfmoon shaoed rice cake stuffed with sesame seeds, pine nuts or chestnuts. There are many other dishes served such as broiled fish, fish fritters, beef, seaweed and fish curry, pancakes, gosari, jeok (skewers) to mention a few. The rice cake is made by the entire family. There is a saying that those who can make nicely shaped rice cake will meet a beautiful spouse or give birth to a beautiful baby. 

There is usually a controversy concerning the food preparation for Chuseok. Usually the daughter-in-laws of the families are responsible for the preparation of the food. Due to the large number of dishes served, the holiday most dreaded by the daughter-in-laws. I have seen in multiple Korean shows that the wives stay up all night cooking and would often be bullied by the mother-in-law and criticized by the in-laws while no one would lend a helping hand. 

Beolcho and Seongmyo

The family members visit ancestral graves (seongmyo) and clear the weeds around the graves (beolcho). This is done in order to show devotion and respect to the ancestors. 

Ssireum (Korean wrestling)

This is usually a custom that takes place in villages. Two competitors face each other in a sandpit and try to pin the opponent. The last wrestler standing is the winner and is considered the strongest man in the village and takes home cotton, rice or calf as the prize. 

Ganggangsullae (Korean circle dance)

Women dressed in handok (traditional Korean clothing) join hands in a circle and sing together. One of the most well-known stories about the origin of the dance is that during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) the Korean army used to dress the young women of the village in military clothes and had them circle the mountains to look like there were more of the Korean military and thus scare the enemy. 

Liquors

At the memorial service for the ancestors, families and relatives gather to enjoy liquor made of rice. 

Shuyi Chen

Dr. Scinicariello

SDLC 105

10/29/2015

SDLC 105 Reflection Paper#2

My learning journals posted in Ning map my learning progress and goals.In my learning journey with Korean language, I made my own study plans and followed my specific tasks such as roleplaying with language partners and watching tutorials to get improvement step by step depending on my own interests instead of leading by a fixed and general construction.  I have a clear communicative goals such as carrying simple conversations with Koreans for 4 minutes by the end of this semester. Hence, I have control on my language learning.I can understand a few repetitive phrases and words  in Korean songs and Korean dramas now.  However, it’s certainly acknowledged that learning a language is a lengthy progress and I cannot wish to speak as a native speaker in a few months. But I really feel comfortable with my learning plan and current progress.

Understanding a culture, albeit slowly, enhances the effectiveness of my language learning process future-orientedly. I learned that Korean culture even directly appears in daily conversation. The hierarchy in Korean is reflected in how we address people on the ways and content people speak. For example, in comparison, the hierarchy extent in South Korea is higher that in the States. I have to clearly consider before I intend to  talk to someone in Korea regarding his/her social standing, age, occupations. If I fail to do so, I might be regarded as impolite and rude. In the future, I would like to delve in the concrete words related to the formality and informality on volume of speaking, intonation and pronunciation in a sentence.  

Due to my longtime interest in Korean language, I tried to get immersed in Korean by watching Korean dramas and listening to Korean songs in a daily base.  It is a good way to recognize the appropriate attitudes and conversations under different scenarios. Then based on the questions I generated from Korean dramas, I would inquire my language partner to get answers pertaining to sending and receiving intended meanings  in order to enrich my knowledge of sociocultural rules of Korean language.

From the reading, lyle Bachmans divided language competence into two node(s): Organizational competence and pragmatic competence. As a starter in Korean language, I might focus on Organizational competence including grammatical competence and textual competence. Although vocabulary and sentences are only  parts of language, they are still the base of language as we build up our knowledge from words and sentences.  In this semester, I will stick to my learning plan and continues my self-directed language learning progress.  Combining the practice with language partner outside of classroom and the Korean drama, I try to move forward to understand the functional aspects of communication on my Korean language learning journey step by step. Hope I can successfully master the linguistic code of Korean such as the Korean alphabet, Korean characters on sentence-level grammar this semester.Then I will try to learn to conduct few interpersonal conversations. I wish to achieve my goals in my learning plan and overcome the difficulties in my language learning journey.

As an international student from China, culture shock is a real thing that I experienced/still experiencing. Everything people talked about in the video, I had the same feeling and experience at some point during the four years I am here. I actually never thought about why was I here. I knew I came to the States to study. People kept telling me that education is much better in the United States than what we have in China. So I never thought about going back since I was already here, but I did doubt whether I made the right decision to come.

                I had the issue of being afraid to speak. The orientation was stressful. I understand that orientation is for people to make friends, to get to know your peers and learn about the school, but forcing the international students (or maybe just me) to do it in just one week is simply too much. I come to be slow in making friends. It takes me time to get comfortable around others. During the whole week, I was literally scared. I was scared of the ice breaking games, I was scared of group discussions, I was even scared of self-introduction. One thing that I remember, I had been told that Americans don’t expect any real answer when they ask “how are you” or “what’s up”, so when I ran into a girl in my orientation group the second week of class, I didn’t respond to her when she asked me “what’s up”. Actually, I didn’t know what was the “correct answer”. She told me one day last year that she though I didn’t like her. The cultural differences, the misunderstandings, make things so difficult for international students.

I was not able to attend the regular 105 class because of time conflict, but watching the video Dr. Sharon posted on blackboard allows me to learn from other students in the class. I like all of the presentations. The use of pictures and videos in the presentation help people understand the subject. I really like the video “100 years of beauty”, it is interesting and grabs people’s attention, make you want to listen to the speaker and see what she has to say about it. Using data and graphs improve the credibility and reliability of the presentation content. Shuyi’s presentation contains lots of data, which make her presentation more interesting. Nobody wants to listen to a presentation that contains false information. The subjects are so diversified, listening to presentations allow people to learn the key point of each subject and further, learn about the culture. 

There are some key factors we should keep in mind when we learn Korean language. Most importantly, the sentence structure is very different. In English, we put verbs between subjects and objects while Korean always put the verb at the end of each sentence, which means they put “subject + verb” or “subject + object + verb”. As the result, we have to listen to the whole sentence to understand what the person is talking about.

                I learned English at school in China. We take two English classes every day, recite the texts, memorize vocabularies and listen to recorded tapes repeatedly. This way of learning helped me build a strong foundation of English learning. So at the beginning stage of my Korean learning, I am trying to do the same thing. There is no class for me, but I am still using a Korean language textbook that I bought online. As I mentioned in an earlier journal, grammar learning is really important to me. The textbook can help me with that.

                After I build the foundation, I plan to proceed to spend more time on listening. Watching Korean dramas is a very helpful way. I watched lots of American TV shows when I was in China. Although I did it out of my own interest, it is undeniable that the TV shows improved my listening ability much more than listening to the recorded teaching tapes. I think this way should work for Korean learning as well.

Korea, as an Asian country, has a very different culture from what we have in the United States (Western culture). Korean people use body languages so differently that we should pay attention to it to avoid misunderstandings. One particular thing that I notice in my research is that Koreans bow a lot. Traditionally, Chinese people bow to greet others, but the Chinese bow by putting hands together and gently nodding their heads. Koreans bow more “seriously”. They bent their body and look at the floor. The degree of the bent depends on who you are bowing to. Nowadays, they still bow to elders and people that they respect while neither Americans nor Chinese do it anymore.

                Most of the body languages are used and understood the same way in Asian countries. Grown up in China, I had always been told to avoid body touch and direct eye contact with others. Korean share the same culture with China in this aspect. Making direct eye contact is considered a challenge to others. In contrast, Americans like to shake hands and hug people as greeting and to show their kindness, and they take direct eye contact as a form of respect.

The three chapters from Crystal, D’s book remind me that languages are different in many ways. The same onomatopoeia may have different meanings in different languages. When learning a new language, we cannot just assume the native speakers can understand us just because we are imitating the sound. For example, we use “wang” in Chinese. Naturally I would expect people to understand me because I am simply imitating the sound, but in fact, people use “woof” in English. The two words and sounds are so different that no one would be able to guess they refer to the same sound. Another thing that I think important is the distinguishing between naturalist view and conventionalist view. I definitely agree with the latter one. During my study of a foreign language, I tend to focus on the sound, the listening and speaking part. It is not a problem if I am just trying to speak a language. But when I want to become a higher level learner in the target language, vocabulary becomes really important. My target language this time is Korean. As far as I know, Korean is not like English in the way that the spelling of the word is not so related with the sound. Simply focus on listening and speaking would make me an illiterate person to Korean people. That is definitely not my goal of learning, so I really have to keep in mind that I should spend more time on vocabularies during my study.

When the language of a people die, so does the cultural identity of a people. Their history disappears because they can no longer identify with their past traditions because they can no longer understand the significance of them. They will, in a sense, become extinct. However, as was seen in the assigned reading, a dying language can be revived even when there are only a handful of people speaking it. In this day and age, the way to do that is to be creative and to make use of available resources. The indigenous people of America, in this reading, made use of the internet by creating an online dictionary filled with the words of their native language, Siletz Dee-ni, to revitalize the use of the language amongst their younger generation. In doing this, they have made it possible for their history to continue within a land that is now dominated by English and Spanish, languages completely foreign and threatening to it. As long as there are people dedicated to prolonging the life of a language and doing it in effective ways, that language and the history of its indigenous people will be passed down from one generation to the next.   

Learning a language’s history can help me to learn the language because through learning about the history, I can learn about what aspects in life are considered important to that society. For example, through the Korean hierarchical treatment of people, I can deduct that respect for one’s elders and those who hold a superior ranking to one’s own is considered very valuable. I can also deduct through the familial dynamics of Korean culture, that family life is very important. Gender roles are also very important as can be seen in the speech of both men and women. Males call their older brother ‘hyung’ while females call their older brother ‘oppa.’ The same can be seen when addressing an older sister. Males call her ‘noona’ while females call her ‘unnie.’ These differences are all reflections of Korea’s past history and are unique when considering the use of the word for brother and sister in English. There exists only one description for both, whether one’s sister or brother is older or younger. In this regard, I guess it can be accepted that hierarchical respect is not as pronounced among those living in English speaking countries as much as it is in Korea. The histories of these countries were very different.

As of now in my Korean language learning journey, I am no longer taking the SDLAP 110 course. I have decided that the amount of coursework that the class required was a lot more than I had expected and that I probably would not have been able to expend as much energy into the class that was needed. As a result, my progress in learning the language afterwards has been limited to watching Korean TV shows, such as The Return of Superman, Korean dramas, such as Oh My Ghostess, and Korean music such as K-pop and ballads from dramas that I have finished watching. The Return of Superman is a reality show that focuses on the life of Korean celebrity fathers and the roles they play in their children’s lives. They are tasked on a regular basis to spend 48 hours with their child/children without their wives being around to help them. Since this is a television show that reflects the average life of Korean families, I am able to pick up on common words and phrases used in everyday speech. This is very helpful, especially in the process of learning when and how a particular word or phrase should be used. In addition to this, in the Korean drama Oh My Ghostess, these conversational expressions are further reinforced. However, the difference between the two is that in The Return of Superman, I am in a way learning the language the same way the children are learning, because there are daily instances where the parents are teaching their children new words or phrases, which in turn teaches me something new also. In the case of Korean music, I listen to it every day and each time I find myself picking up a new word every now and then, even if I have been listening to the song for weeks at a time. Through these different media platforms, I am not only learning the language over a period of time, but I am also learning a lot about the Korean culture and their cultural values. In k-dramas and television shows, for example, I am able to learn about the Korean hierarchal society based on age and experience through their use of either formal or informal speech. In addition to this, I am able to see how Koreans would act in everyday situations. I learn about various traditions that are done on special days, such as birthdays, where it is expected for people celebrating them to eat seaweed soup. Korean music, on the other hand, reveals just how conservative Korean society still is even when there are tons of k-pop stars showing lots of skin and dancing in provocative ways. Even though they outwardly appear this way, the lyrics to the songs they sing, for the most part are not explicitly stating that the topic is sex. If sex is the topic, it is often talked about and alluded to in very subtle ways. In order to improve my comprehension skills, I think that I should have a more orderly schedule set aside for just focusing on learning Korean and not trying to do it while multi-tasking with other subjects.  

I really enjoyed watching the culture shock video featuring University of Richmond international students. I have always wondered what it was like to leave the comforts of one’s own cultural surroundings for four years to study in another. Although exciting and new, it can also be very difficult and frustrating to readjust one’s cultural behaviors in order to adapt to those of a new society. Personally, I have never experienced an extreme amount of culture shock since I have never travelled outside of the United States. However, the little culture shock that I have experienced has been from meeting people of different upbringings here in the States. These happened in both high school and college. In high school, my culture shock experience occurred when I was suddenly surrounded by a predominantly white population, the exact opposite of what my elementary and middle school experiences have been. Not only did I look different from my classmates, but I talked differently. We grew up in different neighborhoods and for some time and it took me many observations of their speech patterns before I finally felt comfortable enough to speak my mind. In addition to this, in college not only was I introduced to people of regional and socio-economical differences, but I was also able to meet people from all over the world, something that I have never experienced personally before to such a great extent. These are my cultural shock experiences, but I one day hope that I can relate to the experiences of the international students in the video by saying that I too was immersed in a completely new culture different from my own. 

When a language is lost, we lose the ability to talk about something in a particular way. Certain ideas only exist in certain languages and when a language is lost, that idea is lost as well and it may never be recovered. A culture is lost as well as a language. We always have the opportunity to learn from other cultures and it can become difficult to learn about a culture if the language is lost. There may also be people who are forced to learn another language in order to communicate, when they really only know how to communicate in the language they learned first.

This is slightly off topic, but I think it is really great that they're teaching Siletz as a foreign language in school. That is a great way to make sure a language doesn't die. 

The knowledge of a language's history can be extremely helpful when trying to learn a new language. A language's history has many parts to it such as the language's roots, its origins, and its variations through time. The ability to learn these different aspects can be beneficial to language learning for a number of reasons.

Firstly if an individual learns the origins of a language, they may use this to better understand different roots of the vocabulary. Often times, the roots of a language appear in many different forms. Another reason knowing a language's history helps the language learning process is because of outdated vocabulary. It is possible that a word that used to be used is no longer applicable. The knowledge of a language's history will allow you to differentiate between the vocabulary that is still relevant. 

I learned the vocabularies of at least ten colors and different clothing.

I can tell others what color I like, and ask others what color they like.  

I can ask why color is their clothing. 

I can tell what clothing I am wearing and they are wearing. 

I can ask the price of a cloth. 

I can count the number from 1 to 100, tell others my phone number.

I can speak at least 10 country names and several city names, how to ask directions, understand how to say left and right and go straight.

I can speak the date and day of a week, as well as seasons and moths.

I can ask what they do, where they work at, how do they like their jobs. 

I can speak at least ten job names, what I would like to do and where I would like to work at. 

For Reading and Writing Part. 

I am learning the handguns, because I believe that it is the foundation of learning Korean. It will take a big part of time to remember each combination of different hangul. A summarizing report of learning hangul will be upload later. 

The first cultural project that I am going to explore is Korean movies culture and how Korean movies develop? Based on these Korean movies that I have watched, I think there are three main topics often involved in Korean movies, which are healing, family and social accusation and injustice. No matter what kind of Korean movies, audience will be easy to find one of these three topics.

1) Healing Topic,

Firm is closely associated with a contemporary context as a cultural content. My favorite Korean movie is “Miracle in Cell No.7,” which shocked the Asian filmdom. This movie narrates that a father and a little daughter overcome many challenges and make their life in prison happy warmed the hearts of other people. Actually, the story reveals the truth that this father who goes to jail because of a false accusation, but he still consoled people by giving faith again in the triumph of justice. Healing through a story of specific characters such as the story of the father and daughter has stronger effect than teaching in the textbook, and this is the way to govern people mind efficiently. In recent years, there are more and more heeling movies, because Korean is a rapid developing country and has been suffered by the Second War. Most Koreans feel stressful in their living and the gap between the rich and the poor. Under this situation, movies around healing topic could have big influence in society.

2) Family Topic,

The most frequently and importantly theme used in Korean drama and movie is family love. Among many kinds of love, family love is a resonant theme because it can touch people’s emotion universally. “Miracle in Cell No. 7” explain this cultural theme well. In my opinion, the main audiences of this film are children who watched together with their parents, so family culture is a high effective strategy. Collectivism and respecting to higher hierarchy is most important culture part in Korea. The Korean honorific is the grammar system in order to reflect the speaker’s relationship to the audience. Especially, when talking about someone superior in status, this person must indicate the subject’s superiority by suing special nouns or verb ending. The use of wrong speech level will be considered as insulting and unrespect. Therefore, the topic of “family” helps spread Korean etiquette.

3) Social accusation and injustice topic,

This topic is kind of controversial. The plots of some movies comes from the real stories. Among several Korean movies I have watched, social accusation has mentioned a lot. In addition, social injustice has become main topic among the world. The movie "Silenced" “Crucible” and “Broken Arrow,” it related with the issue of social accusation problems. People with higher hierarchy have the power to make decisions and commit crime. Unfortunately, people with low social status and hierarchy feel difficult to get their own justice and disclose the truth. The movie "Silences" tell a true story that "Gang In-ho, who is working to earn money for his daughter's surgery, is appointed to a school for hearing-impaired children in Gwangju. But what he discovers there is an ugly truth: the children are being physically and sexually abused by their teachers. When he decides to fight for the children's rights and expose the crimes being committed at the school, In-ho teams up with human rights activist Seo Yu-jin. But he and Yu-jin soon realize the school's principal and teachers, and even the police, prosecutors and churches in the community are actually trying to cover up the truth." In recent years, there are more and more crime movies that come from the true story; these movies are aiming to disclose truth. For the public. Korean movies are considered as a medium to spread various social phenomenon and movements, not simply as a fiction.

I will explore what kind of Korean factors and systems influenced society, and how people behave based on these cultural factors. 

Citation: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2070649/ ;

Thus far, I have enjoyed learning about the culture and language of Italy. I have been able to use a few techniques which have allowed me to get a better understanding of Italian. Firstly, I have talked with a few of my friends who have taken Italian at Richmond. They have been able to offer me some guidance about how they most effectively learned the language. Also, I have been able to turn to them when I have needed help learning the language or if I was just curious about a particular aspect of Italian. Secondly, I have been able to watch some Italian television. This technique has proven most effective for me because I have always considered myself an oral learner. By listening to the programming, I have been able to pick-up common words and phrases of the language. Another reason why watching Italian television has been effective is because of repetition. The more and more I hear a particular phrase of Italian, the more likely this phrase is to register in my brain. 

One of the most interesting aspects of class has been looking at the culture of Italy. Through my research, I have found that Italians pride themselves on their families and their cuisine. During our first in-class presentation, I was amazed at how customary it is for Italians to have family-owned business. In America, corporations seem to only be considered with making a profit at all costs. While in Italy, even large corporations like Fiat are family-owned. This is attributed to the fact that Italians consider themselves extremely close with their families in all facets of life. The idea of "family time" and "family meals" is very common in their culture. Italians are also very well-known for their delicious foods. Through my own experience in Italy, I can understand why this is a main theme of Italian life. This research has allowed me to get a better grasp on the Italian language because it directs me to how I should tailor my studying. I want to focus on vocabulary of families and food because they are two central themes in Italian life.

Communicative competence is broken down into four parts: linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic. In order to improve my communicative competence, I need to focus particularly on the linguistic and strategic aspects. For linguistic competence, I am focusing on the syntax and vocabulary of Italian. I am going to improve this dimension by working with my friends who speak Italian and also by continuing to watch Italian television programming. For strategic competence, I am focusing on the context of Italian and the background of Italian. I can improve this aspect by researching Italian culture and learning certain Italian mannerisms. 

Overall, I feel my language learning thus far has been going extremely well. While I can not effectively speak in Italian, I am beginning to pick up on some simple Italian phrases. Also, I have started to learn more about Italian culture. I have found this learning to be incredibly interesting because I rarely have had the ability to look at another culture during my studies here at Richmond.