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The main task I focused on for this cycle of my language learning experience was eliminating some of my Spanish tendencies when using Portuguese. Some of these include using false cognates, mispronouncing a word and using incorrect syntactic structures. My native Spanish speaking abilities have helped me greatly in being able to read and comprehend most Portuguese texts at a high level, although I do make mistakes when it comes to my pronunciation since the phonology varies significantly.  Although both languages share a lexical similarity of about 89%, some of the most frequently used words are false cognates and can also lead to errors in my speech production. 

The resource I have been using the most to address this learning goal of mine is a language learning book titled “Pois não: Brazilian Portuguese Course for Spanish Speakers”. I thought this book would be a great resource because it is specifically designed for Spanish speakers who are also fluent in English. Additionally the book has lots of activities and drills curated to eliminate some of the Spanish cross over that usually occurs when learning Portuguese. One activity that really caught my attention and helped with my cognate dilemma was a short story called “False Friends: Eu Não Falo Português” by Daniel Samper Pizano. The story synthesizes a lot of humor with vocabulary traps and false cognates to try and highlight the vocabulary differences. I learned a lot from seeing the vocabulary in context and will have to review the word list in the book a lot more in the future to really understand and grasp some of the differences. Although I do generally well in differentiating between some of these cognates now because of the time I have spent learning Portuguese, adding this lesson to my short term goals is a good idea. If I had been in Brazil right now I would have easily confused the name of multiple professions and used the wrong adjectives and verbs for a couple different situations. 

Additionally,  the section of the book that covered morpho-syntactic differences between Spanish and Portuguese was extremely helpful. For one, I learned that the future subjunctive is not used in Spanish anymore, except in some literary expressions of very limited usage, meanwhile it is used frequently and productively in Portuguese, such as in  “Se Deus quiser” (God willing”), Seja o que for (Whatever will be),  and quando eu puder (whenever I can). These are the types of phrases that I try and translate in my head from Spanish but really struggle to construct. It can be quite frustrating trying to express the Spanish equivalent correctly in Portuguese because of the syntactic differences. 

For the future, I think I will keep using this book as a resource in tandem with my language partner, with whom I can practice new vocabulary and sentence structures. This is my first time in quite some time using a textbook to aid my language learning but I think it has been a successful experiment thus far because there is some structure to separating my Spanish from Portuguese, while in other books there is a sole focus on English that doesn’t help my cause much in this case. 

I finished reviewing the book "Integrated Korea - Beginning 2". Last Saturday morning, I had my first class at the Italki app. My professor's name is Jessi (Korean name 보경정). She will help me improve my abilities in writing in Korean so I will be able to do well on the TOPIK exam. The TOPIK exam (한국어능력시험) is the proficiency test in Korean. I had already taken TOPIK 1 and got level 2 in Korean.

Now my focus is to apply for TOPIK 2, which goes from level 3 to level 6. My intended level is level 4. This level is the minimum required for graduate and post-graduate students. The main difference between levels 3 and 4 is the Writing section. If your writing is academic and shows that you know how to articulate all the grammar and vocabulary you know, you will probably do great at universities in South Korea. I think Listening and Writing are the most challenging section of the TOPIK exam. The audios go fast, and you have to read and answer the questions at the same time you are listening. It is a non-stop activity that makes you tired and over alarmed. Writing is always difficult because it implies a good knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, and sentences structure.

I also borrowed a book from the Global Studio called Complete Guide to the TOPIK: II Intermediate - Advanced (new edition). This book explains the different parts of the exam and analyzes them. It shows the types of questions, their patterns, and it gives key strategy solutions and explanations for each one. It also has two Practice Tests. For this reason, it will help me to understand my strong and weak points related to this exam. I will start studying this book next week, and I will try to finish using it in a maximum of three weeks.

I went to New York during Fall Break and I bought two books written in Korean. One of them is "시가 사랑을 데리고 온다". Its name does not have an English version yet, but it can be translated to "Poetry brings love." It was written by Na Tae Joo (나태주), a poet famous for his poem called "풀꽃," (Glass Flower). Here is the poem:

"It starts to look pretty when I look closely
It starts to feel lovely when I watch it long
And so do you."

Korean version:
"자세히 보아야 예쁘다
오래 보아야 사랑스럽다
너도 그렇다."

I bought his recently published book and, for this reason, there is no version in English yet. My Korean friend told me some words Na Tae Joo utilizes are not common since it is poetry. I selected a random poem for us to read together, and she did not know one of the words, even though she is Korean and has lived her entire life in South Korea. I want to read this book slowly. I will not read this one now, but during vacations. The other book I have bought was "그냥 흘러넘쳐도 좋아요." The translation can be "It's okay if it just overflows." I have not searched about this book's content yet. I bought it because it looked curious and I am looking forward to reading it.

Not much has changed. I have gotten to the point to where I have set my mobile phone system completely into Portuguese. One thing that I found very useful from the lectures in class was the speech accent archive. There are so many different Portuguese accents and the speech accent archive really helps me understand the phonetical inventory between different Portuguese speakers across the world. There was also another resource in class that I forgot what it was called. With this website, you can speak in a language and it will type out what you have just said and talk about your accent accuracy. I think that resource would be very useful in helping you speak correctly. The resources given during the lectures have really helped me a lot to say the least. To improve my communicative competence, I just need to practice speaking a lot more. Language and culture have always been linked to each other. They go together like peas and carrots. Languages are linked to a specific group of people from a specific geographical region. Overtime we have seen languages globalize through conquest and imperialism. 

For my cultural learning this week a lot of information I covered intertwined with my Cultural Anthropology course. Specifically, I focused on Chapters 5 and 6 of the book ‘Cultural Anthropology: A Toolkit for a Global Age’. In these chapters I read and learned about the cultural construction of class, gender and race in Brazil. The book explicitly mentions that Brazil is a good location to explore the cultural basis of such ideas because it is one of two of the largest multiracial countries in the Western Hemisphere, with the other being the United States. My goal then was to try and compare the United States to Brazil and see how each country frames these different identities and social hierarchies. 

One amazing video that I watched to help me understand the Brazil’s system of racial classification was a TED-talk by Brazilian artist and photographer, Angélica Dass. In the video she talks about her photography and how it should challenge the way society views skin color and racial classification. Angélica Dass conducts a portrait challenge in which she takes photographs of different people with different colors of skin, and although some photographs contain members of “different” races, their skin tone and background color are exactly the same. 

I found this project by Dass quite interesting because it challenges the notion of race in great detail by color coding people who one would generally assume to be of completely different backgrounds. The project also speaks on the Brazilian system of racial classification, which has a much more expansive and detailed focus on color coding which in term bodes to a larger collection color terminology than here in the US. The US typically categorizes people into Black, White, and Brown but Brazil encompasses hundreds of different color categories. Some terms that I read about included alva (pure white), alva-escuro( off-white), alva-rosada (pinkish white), branca (white), clara (light),, branca morena (darkish white), branca suja (dirty white), café (coffee colored), café com leite (coffee with milk), canela (cinnamon), preta (black) and pretinha (lighter black). I think these racial categories show a continuum of appearance rather than the very structural and rigid color and race construction we have here in the United States, which was one of the biggest takeaways I had from this lesson.  

The next portion that I focused on was seeing how such racial categorization affects people in society. To do so, I read the beginning chapters in ‘Laughter Out of Place’ by anthropologist Donna Golstein. The book explores the relationship between poor working women of color in Brazilian favelas, and how such workers support the families and homes of middle-class and lighter skinned Brazilians. In general the book demonstrated a lot of similarities to the United States. For one, darker-skinned Brazilians face higher levels of exclusion and injustice, which I find to be a systemic correlation between color and a capitalist society, much like it occurs in the US. All in all I think both Brazil and the US face similar problems across society albeit reaching such problems through different paths. Brazil did not outlaw slavery until 1888, a full generation after the US outlawed slavery in 1863 and I wonder how much of that impacts how physical diversity is viewed across both countries. 

I started my first pair of weeks in the program without a language partner, but I still had 4 very productive lessons with a private teacher through iTalki. I specifically chose a tutor on iTalki who was from Rio de Janeiro, as that is the city where I will be studying abroad. I thought this would be a good starting point to hearing the regional accent and getting a head start on some of the vocabulary specific to the area. 

From there, I had two lessons where the main focus was to compare some of the cultural differences between Brazil and the US. I learned about the openness of most Brazilians and how friendships there work a bit differently than they do here. For one, I learned that simply showing up to someone’s home is acceptable and seen as a good act of friendship and demonstration of trust. I told my professor that here in the US it would be more common to schedule something like that and there is more of a standard for always making sure the other person is available and free to meet. In Brazil it is also typical to arrive at someone's home with a gift or food, as arriving empty handed anywhere is usually a sign of being raised poorly or not having respect for the visitor. I mentioned that such an act is not completely nonexistent in the United States but that it is typically reserved for times of meeting elders or a people who one has not seen in a long time. 

My next two lessons dealt with a lot more conversation and I really got to put my speaking abilities to the test. My professor brought in a local college student to teach me more colloquial speech, slang and day to day words that locals shorten in conversations. At first it was tough to understand the slang words the college student was saying without context, but once I heard them in a conversational setting they made much more sense. One of my favorites was “Dar um bolo” which literally translates to “give a cake” but it means to miss a compromise or get stood up at a date or event. I thought these lessons were extremely helpful because I felt like I had been engulfed in formal and academic speech this entire summer as I did my Critical Language program. Improving my informal speech and general speaking skills is one of my long term goals and I am glad I was able to practice that with two native speakers from Rio de Janeiro. 

After my iTalki lessons,  I was fortunate enough to begin communicating with my language partner, who is an exchange student from Brazil studying film studies here on campus. For our first couple encounters, we went through the basic acquaintance process and tried to figure out the best times to meet and what I wanted to get out of the language partner portion of the program. I was ecstatic to finally have the opportunity to speak Portuguese with someone in person. After months and almost a year of traversing through my language learning process via Zoom and other online platforms it was rewarding to hold a conversation with a person in real life. Meeting my language partner was definitely one of the proudest moments I have had in my language learning journey and I am thankful to have a friend that will be able to help me learn more about Brazil, its culture and the language. Funnily enough, I am also proud that I knew enough Portuguese to help my language partner during our first meeting. She was having trouble with cashing in a check through her mobile banking app, so my first ever conversation with her was about checks, signatures and bank apps in the United States. All the more reason to never skip specific vocabulary sections on Duolingo. 

We did more speaking exercises in week 4. We started by catching up with each other, and then we did a conversation exercise on the issues that recently happened in Korea. Vivian mentioned a Korean artist's scandal lately, so we discussed our opinions and feelings towards it. We then moved on to a culture in Korea - mukbang, which refers to the YouTube channels where the YouTuber eat a lot of food in one video. Some eat only one kind of food in one video, and some eat a variety of food - but in common they eat a huge amount of food. I've watched few mukbang videos before, but Vivian has watched it a lot for 대리만족, which means gaining a sense of satisfaction by seeing somebody else doing it. I didn't know before Vivian told me that mukbang started in Korea at first and then went popular around the globe.

Vivian introduced me the concept of mukbang and showed me a channel that is really popular on YouTube. It is a girl who looks pretty and slim but eats a lot. She eats the amount of my three meals in that one video. We discussed the message that this type of video is conveying - that you need to eat a lot but stay slim and pretty. This is a very unhealthy but common idea in Korea but also in many East Asian countries. There are also scandals about the mukbang channels. People have found that quite a few mukbang YouTubers have been advertising for brands without telling their audience, which is illegal in Korea. In Korea, if you are advertising something, you have to let people know, either explicitly or implicitly. Another scandal about the mukbang YouTubers is fake eating, that they put the food in their mouth, chew it, and spill it out. And they edit the videos so the swallowing or spilling out part is not included in the whole video. These two scandals raised an issue of untrust in YouTubers in Korea, and some YouTubers just shut down their channel because of this.

I then read through a news article on the mukbang issue that Vivian found. It was still very hard for me to read - there were quite a few phrases that I've not encountered. What we did was I read it first, Vivian read it again, we went over the vocabs or phrases I don't understand, and then I tried to translate the whole sentence into English. It was a struggle for me, but I did learn a lot of new phrases from the passage.

For weeks 5, 6, and 7, we each picked an episode of Korean drama we wanted to watch and watched them together. I started with the last episode of Hospital Playlist, which is my favorite drama of the year. Then Vivian recommended the Squid Game, which ranks first on almost all regions on Netflix right now, but it was too scary for me. This week, we watched Hometown chachacha, which is a comedy romance drama that I really enjoy. During each class, we would turn off the English subtitles and have the Korean one. I could understand most of the plots, but there were times when I was just lost and couldn't guess out the phrase I didn't understand. We would pause in the middle and Vivian would explain it to me, either what is going on or what the important phrase was. I was really motivated by this type of class because I always want to know what happened so I would really focus on listening and reading the lines. I've been taking notes about the words I didn't understand and I need to review them frequently so I don't forget.

For the first week, I just filled out the form for our preference for language partners. I did watch a few episodes of variety shows in Korean to help me get used to listening to Korean.

Starting from Week 2, I started studying with Vivian, who is my language partner this year. On our first day of class, Vivian did a self-introduction about her family, hobbies, and her study abroad experience in Korea last year. She talked mostly in Korean and I was able to understand most of it. When I met words or phrases I didn't understand, I would guess them first and then ask Vivian about them. Then I would jot them down on my notes. I was quite surprised by myself - I couldn't take Korean last year because I was studying abroad, but I could still understand most of it. I then tried having a conversation with Vivian about my study abroad experience as well. I stumbled and had vocabs that I didn't know how to say, but Vivian helped me with them. She also asked me what kind of practice I wanted to focus on the most, my concerns if I have any, and of course, the topics that I am interested in. I really liked the introduction and I was very excited about the coming classes.

In week 3, we had a conversation practice. We started by talking about our past weeks, and we discussed the d hall food as well as the new building on campus. Vivian prepared some fun questions for us to discuss, such as the type of animals you wanna be, our 이상형 (ideal type), and so on. We then went over some Korean slang that is commonly used when people type, and that was a fun exercise too. Then to learn more about Korean culture, we watched an episode of Korean Englishman on drinking in Korea. I enjoyed the class with Vivian overall and I like that I am able to practice speaking a lot through our conversations.

     I recently found a new podcast called “Talk to Me in Korean – Core Korean Grammar”, and I regret not using it earlier for my Korean studies. The podcast has two hosts that explain various Korean grammar points that are used on a daily basis such as “This” versus “That”. What I appreciate about this podcast is when the host introduce the grammar point and put it in context, they repeat the phrase or sentence in regular speed and then slowly. As a new learner, it is imperative that I am able to pronounce the characters accurately, and so the slower speed helps me. Unlike the other podcast called “Real Life Korean Conversations”, “Talk to Me in Korean” is more suitable for new language learners like me. The other podcast is more appropriate for intermediate learners. Another point I wanted to point out was how the two host explain the grammar points in detail and often add in words of encouragement throughout the lesson. For an example, I listened to the lesson about “This” versus “That”, and they put those words into context by using examples such as “This book” or “What is this”. With my Cantonese and Mandarin background, this grammar point was not too difficult for me to learn since the pronunciation of “This” is almost identical in Cantonese. Nevertheless, this is a valuable resource that I wish I discovered earlier to help me.

     My language partner, Somyung, and I went over family pronouns and the Korean number system for the past two weeks. The family pronouns were fun to learn because like Chinese, there is a different pronoun for those that are older or younger. The Korean number systems has two number systems. One is based on Chinese characters and is used for money and the other is used for possession such as your age. The Sino-Korean system characters are derived from Chinese characters, and some of the pronunciation is like that of Cantonese and mandarin. For an example, “ten” in Korean is 십 (ship) and “three” is 삼 (sam). In Cantonese, “ten” is 十 (sup) and “three” is 三 (sam).

     The discovery of this podcast came just in time when I am beginning to learn grammar with my iTalki teacher. We learned about the difference between “This” and “That” and the addition of “이” or “가”. “이/가” was somewhat difficult for me to grasp since there is no meaning in those characters just like other characters such as “십니다”or “합니다”. On the other hand, “This” and “That” can be applied to many situations and has meaning, so grammatically, it makes sense to use in one situation or another. My iTalki teacher assures me that grammar is difficult, but we will take it slowly because there are a lot of changes in terms of pronunciation and the structure. I am quite surprised at how much I have learned already in terms of introductions, family pronouns, simple sentences, and a handful of vocabulary. It amazes me how many resources are out there on the internet that can help me with learning Korean or any language. My perception of learning a new language are a teacher, classroom, and textbooks, but nowadays with advance technology, a self-directed language study is highly achievable.

One thing that interests me about my target culture of Brazil is the lifestyle in the favelas. Favela life is a completely different world from the city life. The people who live in the city typically have a lot more money than the people who live in the favelas. Favelas are made up of the lower class people. I can say, from outside looking in, it seems that the favelas have a much greater since of community and typically the people look out for each others well-being. Another part of Brazilian culture that I would like to explore is the martial arts. Brazil has some of the most world-renowned martial artists and has some martial art forms native to Brazil. These are capoeira and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I do not believe there is any type of special vocabulary or linguistic knowledge necessary other than knowing Portuguese.

During this past week, I learned about Nam June Paik (남준백), the Korean artist known as the father of video art. He was born in South Korea in 1932 and had his first art exhibition, called “Exposition of Music - Electronic Television,” in Germany in 1963. He dedicated one of the exhibition rooms to new inventions with the TV equipment. At that time, no one had ever thought that TV could be used for any other purpose than mass transmission. He used 13 televisions and manipulated them to present deformed images or sounds in the form of an image. At the time, television was still an object of luxury and its use was only for mass distribution. The idea of ​​using TVs as a kind of art was not even imagined by the most revolutionary artists of that time. At a time when live global broadcasting was not possible, Nam June Paik was directing “Good Morning, Ms. Orwell,” a live show for the cities of New York, San Francisco, and Paris. In addition to being an innovator in art, he was able to anticipate these technological revolutions that are now fundamental to life in the 21st century. “Good Morning, Ms. Orwell” was the world's first artistic satellite video art broadcast in 1984. It is an hour-long program with music and video art presentations in English and French. I was searching for his works because I needed to write a blog about Korean and Art. In his works, he seeks to transmit the idea of ​​a connected and decentralized world. I found out that some of his works are in the Washington DC museum. When I go there, I will definitely visit the museum. I like the way he mixes art and technology and I hope to know more about this artist when I go to the museum. One of his works is called Superhighway. It is the work being shown in the first picture below. The other work is called Megatron/Matrix. Several TVs together form different kinds of images. Both works are in the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. I particularly identify with the works of Nam June Paik, because I'm not European either and I feel that art from other countries is always underrated.
Today I went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and there was a section called "American Art". I am American, but I am not from the United States. I'm Brazilian. I expected to see art from across the American continent, but I only saw art produced in the United States. The African and Asian sections were very small. In contrast, the European session was huge and separated by a period. I believe that to this day we continue to struggle to have more representation in everything, including art.

Changing the subject, this week, I'm going to start watching the Korean series that is famous around the world. The name is Squid Game. Also, I couldn't go to the Korean church today, but I will go after Fall break.

My cultural artifact for this week is about the Indonesian cultural fair and Gamelan Çudamani performance that took place a few weeks ago. Accompanying the performance were several Indonesian-related events hosted by the University of Richmond. In my four years in Richmond, I have never attended an event solely dedicated to Indonesian culture, much less hosted by UR, so this was a new and special experience for me.

The events I attended included the Indonesian cultural fair and a dance workshop. During the fair, I got the chance to meet a lot of local Indonesian people and practice speaking skills. I was nervous at first, but was able to effectively communicate, which goes back to my goal of learning more formal/academic Bahasa Indonesia rather than casual speech. There were various tables set up for Indonesian snacks, coffee, study abroad opportunities, and more. It was a very pleasant experience for me because it reminded me so much of my trips to Indonesia- it made me realize how long it has been since I was surrounded by Indonesian food, culture, and language. One of the tables even gave out my favorite Indonesian iced tea, teh botol, which is really hard to find in Virginia! After the fair, there were a few workshops on Balinese dance, music, and martial arts. I joined the dance workshop, which was very difficult! The dance did not have too many complicated moves, but what made it hard was the intricate hand movements. I tried my best to follow along, but it required a lot of precision and flexibility. I attended the fair and workshop with a friend of mine who was born and raised in Indonesia, so it was interesting because our experiences were slightly different as I am Indonesian-American. She expressed feelings of homesickness, while for me it was very new and fascinating.

As for the performance, it was very intriguing, and I had never seen anything like it in the past. I am not very familiar with gamelan music, so I did not know what to expect. During the fair, they did play a few pieces, though every song they played had a calm and serene vibe. With that said, I definitely expected something similar for the actual performance, but it was completely different given that the group makes experimental music. There was a focus on both the music and the visuals, so there was not a dull moment. There were theatrical elements, because the dance and music worked together to tell a story. There was an intermission in between, but the first part seemed to focus on “land” elements, whereas the second part showcased their new Titra (water) production. The performance also included some dialogue, though I could not understand it because it was either in Javanese or Balinese. As I said before, the group is relatively experimental, so they mix a lot of traditional elements with their own spins. The music was very dynamic and loud, which made for a fun performance. The last part of the performance even included a portion where they played louder than usual and encouraged the audience to make noise with them. It was very touching to hear about the group itself- many of the members are related and their arts/techniques are passed down from generation. For this performance, many of the younger members took on leadership roles so they were eager to perform. After the show, my friend and I met a few of the performers and supported them by buying their merchandise.

     Awhile back, former President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un had a contentious and tense period where threats were thrown back and forth because North Korea was developing dangerous nuclear weapons. North Korea trying to develop a nuclear program may be alarming. The reasons for why it may not be a surprise can be supported by examining history itself.  

     The Korean peninsula is divided on the infamous 38^th parallel that separates North Korea from South Korea. Kim Il-Sung was leader of the North while Syngman Rhee was leader of the South. The border on the 38^th parallel was meant to be a temporary division that the Soviet Union and USA agreed upon to slowly get rid of Japan’s presence. This division was never meant to be what it has become today –– that is a strong divide between North and South Korea and deepening the broken relationship. On June 1950, the North was advised by the Soviet Union to attach the South, and by doing so alarmed the USA and the United Nations (Millet 2021). Troops were sent to aid South Korean’s military pushing the North Korean army back to the 38^th parallel, and eventually capturing Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital in 1951 (Millet 2021). Just as the USA and UN troops were about to succeed, the Republic of China military aided the North Korean army and pushed USA and UN troops back to the 38^th parallel. There were negotiations on both sides, but the negotiations did not provide any relief to the contentious relationship between the North and the South. Therefore, the 38^th parallel remain as a physical border between North Korea and South Korea and this is known as the DMZ (demilitarized zone).

      The devastating part of the Korean war was the mass casualties that resulted on both sides that included 36,500 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of soldiers from North, South Korea, and other forces (Recchiuti 2021). More than half a century later, the relationship between the North and the South continues to be tense and fierce with no signs that peace talks will mend the relationship. Most wars have some resolution whether that be peace agreements or an obvious victory. The Korean war, on the other hand, never ended. There was a stalemate between the North and the South, and the frightening thought is that the war could possibly continue if North Korea launches a surprise attack like it did on June 1950.

     More than half a century later, North and South Koreans traditions and cultures diverged from when they were once a collective entity. There are still similarities between the two countries, but certain words and traditions have change because there was no mingling of two cultures for a long period of time. For an example, the word ice cream in South Korean is 아이스크림 while North Koreans refer to it as 얼음과자. Even though the language is slightly different, both countries speak Korean. Unifying North and South Korea seems unlikely, but it is hopeful that without unification, there can be lasting peace between the two countries.

Millett, Allan R.. "Korean War". Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Jun. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/event/Korean-War. Accessed 3 October 2021.

Recchiuti, J.L., “The Korean War”. Khan Academy, 2021, https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/1950s-america/a/the-korean-war.

In Korean culture, there are many general and dining etiquette rules that the general public follows. As a Korean-American who grew up following both Korean and American etiquettes, I sometimes get mixed up. I also don’t know every single etiquette rule, and I thought it would be interesting to learn more about the etiquettes in Korean culture. 

Knowing and following Korean table manners is very important because it shows your respect towards those who prepared the food and to the Korean culture in general. One of the most common and important rule is to tell the person who prepared the food or the head of the household that you will eat well. The phrase said before eating the meal is “잘먹겠습니다" (jalmeokgesseumnida). When you are done with the meal, you have to say “잘먹었습니다" (jalmeokeosseumnida) which means “Thank you I ate well.” Another common rule is to wait for the oldest to eat first. However, the oldest person in the room could also tell you to eat first, and that is when you could eat before them. Another rule is to not extend your reach too far across the table. It’s best to try not to extend your arms so far into the table that your elbows past the edge of the table. If you want food that is too far away from you, it’s best to ask someone else to pass that dish to you instead. Finally, it’s important to know which utensils to use for the dishes. Koreans mainly use spoons and chopsticks, the spoons are for the rice and soups while the chopsticks are used for everything else. One superstition regarding chopsticks is that they should not be stuck into your rice bowls as it is known to bring bad luck. This is because when the chopsticks are stuck in the rice bowls sticking up, it looks similar to the incense sticks that are stuck in the ground at Korean funeral sites. 

Aside from dining etiquettes, there are also general etiquettes to follow which will show that you respect Korean culture. Because Korean culture really emphasizes hierarchy, either by social or age, it is important to follow the etiquettes to show that you respect them. For example, when shaking hands, it is important to shake hands with both hands instead of just one. When greeting an older person, it is also important to bow to around 45 degrees to show your respect for the elder. Some people also tend to bow when shaking hands with someone older. It is also important to pour a drink with two hands. If the person is younger than you, it is okay to pour with one hand.

Body language is also very important in Korean culture. Koreans do not like to be touched by someone they are not close with or if they are not their family. Comparing it to the American culture, it is very different because many people tend to hug each other even when they are not too close.It is also considered rude to cross your legs or completely stretch your legs out in  front of you. Another body language is to never point with your index finger, but use your palms instead. 

The reason for all of the Korean etiquette is because the Confucian culture was once dominant in South Korea. The main idea of confucianism is the importance of having a good moral character, and this affects the world through the idea of cosmic harmony. It also emphasizes the respect for ancestors, age, and seniority. These beliefs from the Confucian culture have continuously been influencing Korean culture, albeit to a lesser extent than in the past as the society is always advancing. 

https://www.britannica.com/place/South-Korea/Cultural-institutions 

https://www.90daykorean.com/korean-table-manners/ 

https://theculturetrip.com/asia/south-korea/articles/a-guide-to-korean-table-manners/

https://www.90daykorean.com/korean-etiquette/

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-VOcbqb95AgOmnck1ScoGAaHs7xY04W6hYfPqft1l6I/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RAi1Evp1NjsMK_dpb_ODPtZrkSk0cxq8mc3acLgQ7Kg/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kYKBbiubuENKsmtm0e7Rrl094D57o40VYwDDJyfkxRg/edit?usp=sharing

This week, I had my first meeting with my learning partner, Vivian. This semester I will be having one on one lessons with her. We were able to meet and discuss around eleven to twelve learning topics and initial ideas we had to put together a general syllabus for this semester. These goals and ideas consisted of Korean slangs, memorizing the korean keyboard/improving my writing, reading korean articles, learning some vocabulary related to physical therapy, learning more about korean culture via youtube videos and korean dramas, the mukbang product placement controversy, texting in Korean practice, as well as practicing speaking scenarios in Korean while always increasing my Korean vocabulary and competency. We decided to move forward with these goals for now and have our lessons in complete Korean to make sure we stay engaged with Korean since we normally do not speak it on campus due to instruction and everything else being in English on our campus. We aspire to achieve all of these objectives because we feel that by being exposed to Korean in a variety of methods, we will all progress as learners. We agreed to adapt my learning plan on a week-by-week basis because this semester's plan is a little more ambitious than previous semesters. Our meeting times are on Tuesdays from 3-4 and sometimes even 4:30 depending on how in depth we go on our discussions. I learned from the  strategies freshman year in the SDLC class that I am an active learner so I will interact with books, practice with my learning partner and outside of classes either alone or with some friends, and will make the activities engaging by tailoring them to include hands-on activities and writing as well. That was my initial meeting with Vivian and in my next class we ended up starting with an introduction of how our weeks were in Korean and if there was anything interesting we had done that week. Then we went to some scenario practice by talking about the dining options in the dining hall as well as some fun introduction questions to get to better acquaint ourselves with one another and just get some basic Korean practice in as well. We also watched some Korean variety show clips during the lesson with the intention of practicing speaking comprehension which was useful as it made sure you immersed yourself in the language and actively translated what was going on during the class. Afterwards, we discussed what homework would be, which was to begin a Korean drama or movie and write a reflection on what we thought about it during the time. I ended up choosing a Korean drama called Hometown Cha Cha and shortly after ended up starting another drama called Squid Game which happened to be some of the most fun Korean shows I have watched in a while due to how uniquely they set up the scene and messages from the characters, to the plot, and artistic direction under the directors/producers’ visions of the show.