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Julie and I have transitioned to the topic of Indonesian prefixes/suffixes because she realized it is something I have been struggling with recently. We started the lesson by watching a video that explains a few of the main prefix/suffixes in Bahasa Indonesia. The only one I was very familiar with was the di- prefix which indicates passive form. As for the other prefix and suffixes, I have heard of them and used them, but was very unsure of their actual meanings and when to use them.

The practice assignments that Julie gave me were sentence practice with the prefixes ber- and me- as well as some exercises from a workbook. The sentence practice was quite straightforward, as it was meant for me to show my understanding of the two different forms. Though this, I learned a very important point about the prefixes ber- and me- that I had never learned nor realized while using them. When using the prefix ber-, it only applies to intransitive verbs and me- only applies to transitive verbs, meaning that me- must precede the object. I had never made that distinction before so it was extremely helpful in determining which form to use when composing sentences. It made me realize that one of my weaknesses as a heritage learner is using my own “instinct” and not learning the proper grammatical forms. I still struggle with the suffix -kan, which is often paired with the me- prefix. So for our next meeting, I want to ask Julie what the difference in meaning is when using -kan, because in some sentences it seems as though the meaning does not change.

The workbook exercise was in the form of an article that had the root form of a verb and had me fill in the correct prefix or suffix in order for the sentence to make sense. At first glance, it seemed easy because it was essentially fill in the blank, though I did have trouble because I did not know some of the root words that were used. As a result, I had to use an Indonesian dictionary to (1)look up the meaning of the root word and (2)look up the different forms with the prefix/suffix. This is because some prefix/suffixes aren’t simply attached to a root word due to the linguistic composition. For example, memasak is masak (root word) with the me- prefix attached and memakai is pakai (root word) with the me- prefix. With masak, the prefix is simply attached, but pakai is changed to memakai instead of "mepakai" due to the linguistic rules.

Other than this, I have slowly been reading the novel Bukan Pasar Malam that Julie gave me at the beginning of the semester. The book itself is very short, though I have trouble reading it because the author uses a lot of difficult vocabulary and I have to constantly look up the meaning in order to understand the sentence. As I get farther, however, I have become better at using context clues to infer the meaning which speeds up the process.

My cultural artifact for this month is a documentary titled The Act of Killing which centers on the Indonesian genocide in the 1960s. I actually watched this documentary for my global studies senior seminar class, though I found it coincidental that Julie and I have discussed this topic (from a different perspective) in one of our meetings.

The documentary is fully in Bahasa Indonesia with English subtitles. I could understand what they were saying for the most part, even without subtitles, though it was part of the documentary and could not be turned off. The director employed an approach that I have never seen in another documentary, which is essentially tricking the subjects. This documentary focuses on a man who actually participated in the mass killings in the ‘60s and he details his actions as well as expresses his view of the events. The director tricked him by saying that the documentary was actually for the purpose of creating a Hollywood-style cinematic recreation of the mass killings. To give context, the genocide was carried out by the Indonesian Army against those their accused of being part of the Communist Party, though it later extended to entire ethnic groups such as Chinese-Indonesians, since they associated the ethnic Chinese with the Communist party. The fact that the subject was okay with filming a (fake) recreation shows how much he believed in the cause. The perpetrators of this mass killing genuinely believed their actions were justified and decades later were still proud of what they had done. By the end of the documentary, the main subject eventually showed remorse for what he had done, only after filming the recreation. In the recreation, he played the role of one of the victims and through that he finally realized how atrocious his actions were.

While watching this documentary, I realized that I had talked about this topic with my language partner in one of our meetings. We read an article on G30S, the Thirtieth of September Movement, which was an attempted coup against the Indonesian Army. We did not get through the whole article, though I do remember reading about how the media outlets in Indonesia were taken over before several generals were kidnapped and assassinated. I did not know at the time, but this attempted coup was the main reason why the mass killings took place. Communists were blamed for the coup, which resulted in the purging committed by the Army.

An interesting aspect of this genocide is how well the Indonesian government is able to cover it up. As a result, this documentary had very negative reception in Indonesia and I imagine there is heavy censorship related to the topic. My language partner, Julie, also stressed how many Indonesians are unaware that this genocide actually took place, or they view it as something other than a mass killing. She encouraged me to ask my parents and other family members about this topic and see if they know about it, which is something I plan to do when I see them again.

Recently, Julie and I have been spending our meeting time reading and translating news articles. Since one of my main goals is to formalize my Indonesian vocabulary, much of our practice consists of studying through articles that use formal language. Something I noticed is how I think I understand the main point of a sentence because I understand the subject, etc. though my lack of understanding of one or two words completely changes the meaning of the sentence. As a result, I have been keeping a list of commonly used words in formal news articles. I like how Julie includes a variety of topics to read about which have included music, the Thomas Cup, Indonesian-Australian politics, and more.

In addition to articles, Julie also had me write an essay on an Indonesian artist, which was one of the bigger writing assignments. She chose the topic of Indonesian artists due to the fact that she had plans to travel to Amsterdam to visit her brother who is in charge of an Indonesian exhibit at an art museum. Coincidentally, I had actually gone to the VMFA the week before for another class, so the topic worked out very well. I chose to write about Raden Saleh because some of his paintings allude to historical events which I thought would be interesting to research and incorporate in my essay.

While writing the essay, I found the process to be more difficult than I thought. Julie had given me a few links as reference in order to conduct research on Raden Saleh. All of the websites were in Bahasa Indonesia, so even though I could read and understand them, I still had to write my own composition and it was hard to paraphrase from the sources because they were all historical facts. To avoid plagiarizing, I had to summarize the facts in my own words and a big part of that was looking up synonyms. It was very helpful, however, because I learned a lot of new vocabulary in the process. Finding appropriate synonyms was tricky because sometimes some words are only used in certain contexts, so I had to look up example sentences. Another difficult part was making the essay flow nicely with the use of transition words. I felt like I kept repeating certain transition words such as setelah (after) and karena (because). I also felt that I used the word dan (and) a lot and wanted to know if there was another word I could use to connect two nouns or clauses. Julie sent my essay back with corrections and there were fewer mistakes than I thought. One mistake was my use of informal language in the essay. I used the informal word bilang (say), which is only used in spoken Bahasa, instead of berpendapat. Another mistake was my incorrect use of prefixes. When discussing this, Julie remembered me saying that I wanted to work on them at the beginning of the semester, so our next big topic will be lessons and practice with prefixes and suffixes.

I used to listen to a Brazilian podcast on Spotify. It talks about K-Pop and cultural issues related to it. This week, I was listening again to one of the most important episodes, in my opinion. It talks about Yellow Fever and how Koreans are sexualized because of the Hallyu. K-Pop idols have to be perfect for their audience. Perfect face, body, skills, and behavior. Some of them have to get plastic surgeries or extreme diets to fit in this pattern. Because they are 'perfect,' their fans might create the illusion that they are the perfect ideal men/woman to fall in love with. Inside the K-Pop, they have something called "Fan Service," things the idols do or say to please their fans. Things such as skinship with other idols and never assuming if they have a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship with someone are common types of fan service. Also, another kind of fan service is telling people that their fans are all they need or even that they are their boyfriend/girlfriend, and it really affects the way the fandom understands their relationship with the idol.

A reasonable part of the Korean dramas also focuses on male characters that fit into a prince's way of behaving. All the series' romantic atmosphere creates the ideal of a "right-man" for the viewers. These people can sometimes interpret the characters' personalities and behavior as common Korean man's ones. This Oppa ideal is the idea that any Korean man will be the same as the ones from the dramas. Some K-Drama fans, then, seek these kinds of connections in real life and, sometimes, look for famous Koreans or even ordinary Koreans in their countries to start a relationship. Again, Koreans are not seen as individuals, but as an object that represents the ideal of perfection.

One of the most well-known cases of Yellow Fever is Oli London, a British man who decided to do surgery and identify as Korean. He had already been in South Korea and, because of that, he pretends he knows how to speak Korean although his pronunciation is pretty bad, and he knows just random basic sentences. He sometimes makes videos trying to teach other people how to speak Korean even correcting native speakers' pronunciation. He is obsessed with Park Jimin, from the K-Pop boy group BTS, and he made a bunch of surgeries to try to look like him. Now, he really believes they look alike. He now identifies as a trans-national person, a term that he invented to try to justify his attempts to "become Korean."

I decided to bring this discussion here because it is essential to understand that being a fan is not a justification to generalize and idealize Korean people. Having respect for other cultures happens when you understand and appreciate their diversity, being also aware that you are a foreigner. As a foreigner, you can love the culture, speak Korean and even live there, but you will never be a Korean person. By drawing this line, I believe it is possible for fans to step back and do not fell into Yellow Fever's stereotypes. This is a deep topic that needs pages to de discussed, but I hope this brief reflection would help!

I have started the Italki classes this month. I have two classes per week focused on TOPIK writing. I have realized that although I know a lot of vocabulary, I need to learn a lot more, mainly those commonly used in the exam. I also have difficulty with passive verbs, so I am practicing more of them. I did not know how much I improved in Korean until I had to speak for 15 minutes in a row to record the podcast. We always talk a lot in Korean during our weekly meetings, but it is so natural that I did not realize my progress. I am still shy to speak Korean, but I am way better than when I started.

My Korean partner also focused on exercising my writing. Because of that, I feel that I am pretty capable of writing simple texts and having daily talks with Koreans. However, when it comes to TOPIK level 4 writing, things get complicated. In one of my exercises, I had to practice the 수강 신청 어휘 (Vocabulary for enrollment in classes). 수강 (sugang) means "signing up," and 신청 (shincheong) means "application, requirement." This is a very important issue for students since it is a vocabulary commonly used in universities. For my next Italki class, I have to memorize the vocabulary related to it, such as 수강 정정을 하다 (make a course change) and 학점을 따다 (get a grade).

During these next two weeks of classes and finals, I will focus on finishing studying the two books related to TOPIK that I borrowed from Global Studio. I will also focus on doing my homework for Italki classes. After coming back to Brazil, I will try to keep close contact with the Korean friends I have met here not just because they are my friends and I will miss them, but also as a way to practice my Korean. In Brazil, I will also study Korean through 'How To Study Korean' website and by reviewing the Italki classes I had here. I hope to take the test in the middle of 2022. As a way to enjoy learning Korean, I will during vacations keep translating the Encounter drama until I get to watch this series without subtitles. I do not know if I will be able to translate all the episodes from the end of December to the beginning of March, but that is my goal.

When my classes restart in March, I will be in my last year at the university, so I will be busy with a lot of big projects. For this reason, I will focus entirely on the TOPIK vocabulary and on knowing how to answer each TOPIK question on time. I still have a long way to go when it comes to learning Korean and unfortunately, I will not be here next semester to get this SDLC class, but I will do my best to study alone and achieve my goal that is to score well on the exam next year.

     The Korean culture heavily emphasize on education, and this can be seen through their rigorous education system and extracurriculars. Prior to researching in depth on the Korean education system, I would stumble upon information every once a while on “Korea produces top and high achieving students” or “Korea education system is too stressful”. Not looking too much into Korean education, I thought it would be like the Chinese education system because the rigor, selectivity, and competition is seemingly similar across both systems. The mentally taxing exam in China is called the “高考” (gaokao) and is equivalent to the SAT in the United States, but unlike the SAT, the 高考 is taken once during the final year of high school. The same goes for Korean university entrance exam called the “수능” (suneung). During this exam day in China, noise level is brought down to the minimum including delaying public transportation and having police officers patrol the streets to ensure quietness and no disturbances that can affect the test takers. Similar procedures are used in Korea as well to ensure students get the best chance to obtain a high enough score to get into top universities.

     In Korea, the top universities are abbreviated as SKY that is Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University. These universities are equivalent to ivy leagues in the States, and graduates from SKY are almost guaranteed a future / well-paying job. However, the path to get into the university is not a simple one. Middle school and high school students in addition to school, most of them attend private tutoring commonly known as “cram schools” or “학원” (hagwon) until late at night. These cram schools are for-profit and tutor many subjects in the school system such as math, science, English, etc. A typical schedule for middle and high school students is wake up early in the morning to go to school, attend a 학원 (hagwon), complete school homework, and eat meals somewhere in between. Sleep is often compromised in middle and high school because the amount of academic work they must do to attend top universities so that students can have a bright future.

     I watched a few Youtube videos on various Korean student schedules, and the schedule seems quite intense for high school students and middle school students. I watched a video from Buzzfeed, and it contrasted the school schedule of a high school Korean student and a United States student. The contrast is quite big and was interesting to see what the respective education system focuses on. For an example, the Korean student mentions that she works on questions/problems every day while the American student follows an average student schedule from the American perspective. The American student did also attend a specialty high school that focuses on the arts, so the coursework was different than that of the Korean student. Nevertheless, as a viewer, I could feel both students have their own stresses, but the Korean student made me feel as though she was under an enormous amount of stress, which is most likely attributed by how the Korea education functions.

     In my opinion, I think the United States education system should adopt some of the same aspects in the Korean education such as 학원 (hagwon) so that students are given the best resources they can to achieve a better future. However, there are opportunities for people that don’t go to college and go directly into a vocational school, and can still have a well-paying job in the States whereas in Korea, that may not be the case.

     SDLAP 105 was a comprehensive and interesting introductory class on language acquisition. Because I am concurrently enrolled in the SDLAP 110, I was able to apply SDLAP 105 material that was learned to SDLAP 110. One of my favorite aspects about the half-unit course was the discussions. Dr. Marsh-Soloway effectively lead our small group of students to discuss about language, and this is a topic that many of the students could offer additional insight to. I believe most of the class are bilingual speakers, so we all have something to offer about learning a language whether that be English or their native language. Through this class, I support my opinion that the best way to learn a language is through immersion and acquire social competence.  My goal to learn a new language is to have effective conversions with the other party, but if a language learners’ goal is to gain professional/business level in that language, then perhaps grammatical competence may be more suitable.

     SDLAP 105 helped me feel comfortable speaking out aloud and sharing my thoughts because our class has seven students. The small group allow students to participate frequently and be inquisitive about language learning. One of my favorite topics that we briefly touched on was on bilingualism. I wish we could investigate bilingualism in terms of how the brain functions when different languages were spoken/heard. Cantonese is a dialect in Chinese, but the pronunciations of characters are so different that I don’t believe a Mandarin speaker could easily deduce what the Cantonese speaker is saying. This is also vice versa for Cantonese speakers. I speak fluent Cantonese while I can speak intermediate conversational Mandarin. However, my reading and listening skills in Mandarin is at a much higher level than my speaking. I wonder how Cantonese, Mandarin, and English is stored in my brain and which areas are activated when using these three languages.

    The one activity that we did in SDLAP 105 that I found was the most useful was recording our learning plan presentation on Panopto. This recording revealed how I am not that confident with public speaking as I hope to be because I produced too much unnecessary hand movements and eye movement. Nevertheless, this activity gave insight into how I can improve myself to speak comfortably in front of another and in front of a crowd. I need to start becoming more comfortable with being uncomfortable because speaking a Korean is the most effective way in learning Korean.

     I hope with the materials and information that I learned in SDLAP 105 I can apply that to future SDLAP classes. Through SDLAP 105/110, I found iTalki tutoring service to be quite useful in learning Korean or any other language because I can hear feedback real-time from an expert. I am quite pleased and satisfied with the outcome of both courses and hope to continue my Korean language learning journey during the school year and during summer break.

     This past semester was a tough semester I believe that many students and faculty members can agree. Juggling with classes for my major and with learning Korean from the very basics was not as difficult as I thought. Yes, there were times when my goal of working on Korean once a day was not accomplished but compared to when I first started to learn Korean, I accomplished several language goals. Most of these goals were accomplished with my language partner, Somyung, and my iTalki teacher, Yazi. They helped me identify what I was having trouble with and taught me Korean from introductions to honorifics to the Korean number system. I met with my iTalki teacher once a week usually on a Sunday, and we would learn Korean through the Yonsei University textbook. The textbook contained numerous graphics to help me understand the meaning of the words.

     Upon this reflection of the semester, I recognized the difficulties I encountered with learning Korean such as pronunciations and grammar. I am not comfortable, yet, with Korean sentence structure because unlike Chinese and English, Korean follows S-O-V structure while English and Chinese follows S-V-O structure.  This difference is enough to confuse me and get me mixed up when forming sentences. Nevertheless, I believe grammar in any language is one of the important if not the most important in learning and speaking a foreign language fluently. Even though I grew up in the States ever since I was three years old, English grammar continues to be somewhat difficult for me. Therefore, grammar is one of my most difficult aspects in language to master.

     This past month, I learned Korean vocabulary about different spaces such as restaurant, classroom, bathroom, office, etc. Most of these spaces have the common character “실” which I believe means “space”/ “setting”. In addition to these spaces, I learned location words such as behind, in front of, inside, etc. The pronunciation of these words doesn’t have any similarities to Chinese, so it is hard for me to retain the information. I also learned classroom vocabulary and student supplies vocabulary such as pencil, eraser, notebook, etc. The supplies vocabulary was easier to learn because of their resemblance to the Chinese pronunciations.

     With my language partner, we discussed several cultural topics such as the educational system in Korea and compared with the States’ education system. This inspired me to do my cultural presentation on Korean’s education system, and during my research, I stumbled upon several intriguing information such as this huge fascination and emphasis on “cram schools”. Cram schools are after school private tutoring academies that tutor a variety of different subjects in school. We also watched and analyzed the award-winning film Parasite. Parasite highlights the socioeconomic inequalities between the ultra-rich and ultra-poor families, and the film contains many themes that resonates with a large audience.

      In the past month, I have difficult time distinguishing the soft and hard sounds of certain consonants. For an example, the consonant “ㅅ” is softer than the “ㅆ” form. I feel as though I can distinguish the sounds when comparing them together but when the consonant is in a character, I don’t know whether I am saying the “ㅅ” sound (softer) or the “ㅆ” sound (harder).

My language learning thus far has been wonderful and I am grateful for the opportunity to further build on my Portuguese knowledge before I head out to Brazil for my study abroad experience. The task I worked on for this cycle of the class was my final podcast/interview for the course. It was great to look back at all the work and topics that my language partner and I covered since the beginning of the course. I also found it quite useful to see everything that we covered because it served as a refresher for the Podcast/Interview that I had with my language partner. We were actually able to record the entirety of the podcast using only Portuguese, which I think shows how much more comfortable I am in holding conversations now compared to when I first started the course. More specifically, I was able to talk about my experience in self-learning Portuguese as well as discuss several academic and cultural topics like the history of carnival in Brazil. 

Throughout the podcast my language partner really wanted me to reflect on my language journey since the beginning, explaining how it is that I first started learning and got interested in Portuguese up until the recording of the interview that we made. In addition, I was asked to build on the concepts and perceptions that I had about Brazil based on all of the topics we covered during our sessions. For example, I had to talk about three words that I would use to describe Brazil, my favorite Brazilian holiday tradition and the biggest cultural difference compared to the United States. My language partner decided to create a script and set of questions that I would be asked during the podcast, but going into the recording session I had no clue what I was going to be asked. My language partner and I decided on this strategy so I could answer the questions in the most natural way possible, although this method definitely led to some less detailed responses than I would like. I still think it was effective because I had to dig deep into my Portuguese vocabulary on the spot in order to talk about culture and history in Brazil. Although being able to have some background knowledge beforehand would have allowed me to give more comprehensive and exhaustive answers. 

This was definitely a successful experience and honestly a learning strategy that I hope I get to use more in the future. Being able to sit down and have a one-on-one conversation with someone about things that have been learned, and read about is much different than having a regular day to day conversation with that same person. For the creation of my final cultural presentation, I am going to use the audio from this interview as an additional resource when choosing the cultural topic that I want to explore. The podcast will also serve as a reminder that I am indeed capable of having an in-depth conversation with a Brazilian and in the future, I hope I can integrate more one on one audios or recordings in general when I am reflecting on my learning experiences. 

For our last meeting before Thanksgiving, Somyung and I decided to have an easy day by watching Korean Englishmen videos. I actually was well aware of the Korean Englishmen channel before. I knew all of the hosts including “조쉬”, “올리", “가비,” and e.t.c. For our meeting, Somyung asked me to choose any video I wanted to watch. I chose the video with “하하.” The reason is that I knew “하하" also known as “HaHa,” from an extremely popular variety show called Runningman. HaHa was one of the casts in Runningman and he was one of my favorite comedians in Korea which is why I chose this video to watch. The setting of this video was in HaHa’s own barbeque restaurant and it was cool to see a famous comedian own his own restaurants as well. Somyung and I searched up to see if other famous celebrities owned their own shops and we discovered that this was a very common thing for Korean celebrities. For instance, a famous rapper named “로꼬" owned a famous burger joint and kpop stars like G-Dragon and Kim Jong Kook also owned their own cafes. I do not think this is a common thing here in the States. We see very few celebrities opening up their own restaurants/cafes, so it was cool to see that such a famous celebrity like HaHa had his own restaurant that he carefully managed and oversaw. In the video, HaHa was also talking about this idea of “정" pronounced “Jeong.” Somyung and I tried to find a translation for it but realized there was not a direct translation to this word. It is similar to “aegyo” in a way that it also does not have a direct translation in English. From the video, they describe “Jeong” in a way that means affection and caring. It is something different than love. 

I used to watch a lot of variety shows while growing up because it helped me to learn a lot of Korean used for casual conversations as well as catch up on slang. Without variety shows, I do not think I would know a lot of the slang I know today. On Runningman, HaHa always came out as a childish character who always made jokes and was never serious. I always thought HaHa would be the same in real-life but by watching this video, I realized how different he actually is outside of the screen. He was very mature and grounded and the way he talked about certain topics was extremely poised and well mannered. Something I also learned is that Korea has an even more 2 faced tendency than the U.S. culture. Celebrities are set to the highest standards, so they cannot run into any scandals or problems or they will be permanently “canceled.” This is why I think it was even more interesting to see that HaHa was so completely different from his character on Runningman. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TNKw4kJ5f_IuqRx6ODibLF82P3s9WWcE/view?usp=drivesdk

Taekwondo (태권도) is a Korean form of traditional martial arts. It is a discipline that shows the ways of enhancing your spirit and life through the training of your body and mind. It is unarmed combat based on the earlier forms of taekyon, which is Korean self-defense. The tae in taekwondo means “leg” or “to step on,” and kwon means “fight,” and do means “discipline” or “way.” All these meanings are put together to demonstrate the important concept behind the word taekwondo. 

Starting with the history of taekwondo, it has been developing for 5000 years, and it has been called many different names throughout history. In the ancient kingdom of Koguryo, it was known as the training of body and mind. In the Shilla period, it was the backbone of producing leaders of the country, as young men developed strength, speed, and survival skills through unarmed combat techniques. However, in the Joseon Dynasty, people followed Korean Confucianism, so martial arts were looked down upon by scholars. However, it was still taught in the military. It slowly started making its way back as time passed on, and people studied different martial arts and incorporated elements, and it became what is known today as taekwondo. In the 1950s, a group of Korean martial artists unified their forms under a single style of hand and feet fighting, and taekwondo was recognized as a form of self-defense. In the modern days, it is known to be a discipline that gives you the art of integrating your mind, body, and spirit while also allowing you to defend yourself. 

When training in taekwondo, you first train in individual techniques of kicking, punching, and blocking. After learning the basics, you practice these individual techniques combined in traditional sets, known as Hyung. When you practice taekwondo, you have to make sure that your mind is at peace and your movements are synchronized with your movements. You then extend this harmony to your life and your society. 

Taekwondo practitioners wear dobok (도복). With the dobok, you wear belts with it. The belts are separated into the junior and senior sections. The junior section ranks are indicated by 급, and they wear belts from white (the lowest) to red or brown (the highest). They typically range from 8-12 급 rankings. The senior section (black belts) of ranks is generally made up of nine ranks, and each rank is known as 단 (dan). The degree of the black belt is indicated with stripes, Roman numerals, or other methods. In order to advance from one rank to the next, the students complete promotion tests to demonstrate their proficiency in the different aspects of taekwondo. Some examples of what is tested in the proficiency tests are breaking boards, sparring, self-dense, physical fitness, and history. 

There are five tenets of taekwondo, which are courtesy (예의), integrity(염치), perseverance (인내), self-control (극기), and indomitable spirit (백전줄굴). Along with these tenets, there is a taekwondo oath that Choi Hong Hi, an important figure in the history of taekwondo, created. The five components of the oath are (1) I shall observe the tenets of Taekwondo, (2) I shall respect the instructor and seniors, (3) I shall never misuse Taekwondo, (4) I shall be a champion of freedom and justice, and (5) I shall build a more peaceful world. With this philosophy, taekwondo helps you lead valuable lives while also giving you the ability to defend yourself for safety. I hope that taekwondo becomes even more well known than now throughout the world, and that people can get to know about the beauty behind the art of taekwondo. 

To learn more about the history of taekwondo, click here https://www.rpi.edu/dept/union/taekwon/public_html/history.html

To learn more about taekwondo, https://www.encyclopedia.com/sports/sports-fitness-recreation-and-leisure-magazines/taekwondo 

In my last monthly journal, I mentioned how I wanted to change the webtoon I was reading because I began to lose interest in the storyline. However, instead of changing it, I tried to stick with it for the last few weeks of my language journey because I have been reading the webtoon since the beginning of this semester. I was happy with this decision because I ended up enjoying the rest of the webtoon episodes I have read, and I had a lot of fun writing summaries. In one of the summaries I wrote during this month, I made no mistakes in my writing and grammar, which made me feel really accomplished and happy. 

When going through my mistakes and corrections, I realized that there were two main mistakes I made. The first mistake is getting confused about using the consonant ㄹ or ㅇ. She taught me that when the noun has a final consonant, the ㅇ is used. When the noun does not have a final consonant, ㄹ is used. For example, in my webtoon summary, I wrote 소리 크게 불었다, which means he screamed loudly. However, the correct grammar for the sentence would be 소리 크게 불렀다. This is because in 불 it ends with a consonant, so ㄹ would be used instead of ㅇ. 

The second mistake I was making was confusing when to use the 를/을 and 이/가. I learned that 를/을 is the particle that attaches to the end of a noun to indicate that it is the object of the sentence, while 이/가 is the particle that attaches to the end of a noun to identify it as the subject of the sentence. I would switch these two particles, and it could make the sentence a little difficult to understand. 

These webtoons have been the main source of my improvement in my writing skills. Reading the news articles in Korean has also helped me improve my vocabulary and reading skills since the writing style of articles is more formal than the webtoons. Reading news articles also allowed me to stay in the loop about South Korea’s current events. 

Rachel and I also ate Korean food together once. We ate Bonchon Chicken, and we spoke to each other in Korean while enjoying Korean food. Although I wish we had the opportunity to go out and enjoy the Korean cuisine more, I was still glad that we were able to enjoy the Korean food from Bonchon Chicken and converse with each other in Korean. It allowed me to focus on my speaking and listening skills after focusing so much on my writing and reading skills. 

Although this experience was outside of my usual weekly Korean lesson with Rachel, I wanted to include it in my monthly journal because it has been a major help with my improvement in Korean. I have been able to put my Korean to use outside of my lessons. An exchange student from Korea came to the University of Richmond this year. Because I can speak in Korean, I was able to become friends with her, and since she is comfortable with Korean, I have been conversing with her in Korean. I learned a lot because we would always text each other in Korean, and she would correct me if I messed up a lot with my spelling or grammar. I also learned from the way she texted me, and I also learned the informal and formal ways of texting in Korean. 

Overall, I am really happy with the way that my Korean language learning journey went this semester. I feel like my goal has been achieved as I feel more confident about my writing and reading skills. The webtoon summary writing and reading news articles really helped me reach the place that I am at right now. I am excited to continue my learning journey until the end of the semester. 

My focus for this cultural post is carnival or “carnaval” in Brazil. More specifically I tried to learn as much as I could about the origin, history and evolution of the event in Brazil. Additionally, I researched what the current plans are for hosting carnival this year under the conditions of COVID and how the celebration is being altered or modified. 

One of the first things I learned is that Brazil is not the only country to celebrate carnival in such an animated and large manner. Places like Venice, Italy and Nice, France also celebrate in such fashion. I also discovered that the Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans, Louisiana is a form of carnival. More importantly I had no clue that the two (or any of the aforementioned celebrations) were in any way commemorating Lent and the commencement of Ash Wednesday since I am not familiar with any religious customs. This made reading about the tradition in Brazil really interesting because of my limited background knowledge. 

In Brazil, Carnaval originated with an event called "entrudo", which was brought over by the Portuguese conquistadors. The event was a form of a game where people threw water, flour, eggs, and paint at each other during the days leading up to Ash Wednesday. I mentioned this aspect of the origin of carnival to my language partner and she hadn’t heard of it before and instead told me that afro-brazilian customs, culture and traditions contributed to the development of the event. A research article by Reginaldo Prandi, a Brazilian anthropologist who works at University of Sao Paulo, mentioned the event of “entrudo” by the Portuguese as the basic foundation of carnival but also highlights the importance of african culture to the evolution of the event. For one, during the entrudo enslaved Africans entertained themselves to the sound of drums and rhythms brought from Africa, which would eventually be mixed with Portuguese musical genres. This mixture would be the origin of the “marchinha de carnaval” and the samba, among many other musical rhythms that are a staple to Brazilian carnival. The creation of this type of music and dance then led to the establishment of “escolas de samba” or samba schools in which different congregations of cities practice and organize their dance routine, music playing and floats for the carnival. These dance communities in cities now are critical to the celebration, as they often require year-round preparation and heavily involve large parts of the community. 

In terms of celebrations and plans for this year in Brazil, most major cities are currently planning to host the event again after a one year hiatus in 2020 due to COVID. Most cities have outlined that they plan to have little to no restrictions in terms of social distancing or masks.. In some of the interviews and comments for news programming, some Brazilians call for no carnival to be hosted as COVID has not been resolved and the event is considered one of the largest parties in the world. Others fully support the return of carnaval as they state it is a cultural staple and that regardless of the governmental decision people will celebrate at large. 

As a whole it was great to learn about the origin of carnival and its evolution across time.  Having a discussion about the perception of the event and its history with my language partner was also helpful, as she has a more personable and open perspective about Brazil and answered/clarified any questions I had throughout the process. 

     Charlotte Cho along with her husband founded the South Korean skincare company called Soko Glam in 2012. Charlotte Cho’s company captured the attention of many skincare enthusiasts into investigating Korean skincare or K-beauty. In Korean culture, skincare is emphasized so more than makeup. On the other hand, Western culture appears to be the opposite. Nevertheless, the beauty industry in both cultures meet their consumers’ needs. Charlotte Cho’s company is responsible for testing and curating effective skincare products that are South Korean based and provide their customers with a wide range of products that help relieve symptoms such as acne, dryness, rosacea, etc. Soko Glam is the skincare website that I have been getting all my Korean skincare since high school. The pricing of the products is in between that of drugstore products and luxury brands. Soko Glam’s successful business model runs on the growing momentum of Korean culture influencing the younger generations all around the world from K-Pop bands (Korean pop music) to K-dramas.

    The entire routine of Korean skincare is lengthy and sometimes cumbersome to follow, but the results are astonishing. The full routine is a ten-step process, but the common misconception is that all ten steps are done all at once, which is not the case. All ten steps can be broken down to three important actions that is cleanse, prep, and hydrate. The cleansing step consist of removing makeup or residue on the face by using an oil cleanser followed by a water-based cleanser. This step is known as “double cleansing”. The next step is using a toner to prepare for the subsequent skincare products to allow for better absorption.

    Depending on the type of skin (i.e. oily, dry, combination, or normal), there are different toners that cater to each consumers' need. The toner that I am using is called d’Alba Peptide Serum Toner, and it is fragrant-less and hydrates my skin. The next two products are serums and essences. Serums are packed with nutrition and ingredients that directly help with skin care concerns such as hyperpigmentation. Common types of serum ingredients to treat hyperpigmentation is vitamin C or niacinamide. Essence is at the heart of Korean skincare because this further pack moisture and skin-benefiting ingredients to the skin and tends to be more watery than serums. The essence I am currently using is called Dewy Tree Ultra Vitalizing Essence and is made up of snail mucus extract that moisturizes and heal acne scars. The ingredient “snail mucus extract” might not sound appealing, but many Korean skincare products uses resources found in nature such as snail, mushrooms, ginseng, mug wort, aloe vera, etc. These are naturally occurring ingredients that are beneficial for the skin and most of the time gentle on the skin. Sheet masks are the highlight of Korean skincare because sheet masks deliver and force those skin benefiting ingredients into the skin, and there is a glowing effect after the treatment (results may vary). My favorite sheet masks have ingredients such as mug wort and tea tree because they help calm down the redness from acne and soothing the skin.

     After all the preparation, facial moisturizer, eye creams, and sunscreen comes next. The best way to prevent premature aging is to apply a religious amount of sunscreen in the morning to block out harmful UV rays. Moisturizing is crucial during the wintertime because the heater can draw up a ton a moisture out of the skin leaving the skin dry and uncomfortable. The Korean skincare routine is quite long maybe a bit cumbersome for some, but after some time, the hard work begins to show.

In one of the most streamed Netflix shows, Squid Game, dalgona candy became a very popular candy around the world. In one of the rounds of Squid Game, the players have to pick a shape out of the candy without making any mistakes. In this cultural artifact, I am going to focus on the history of dalgona and its importance in Korean culture. 

Dalgona is made up of melted sugar and baking soda. When the baking soda is mixed into melted sugar, the thermal decomposition of the baking soda releases carbon dioxide, making the sugar thicken. You typically then pour it onto a flat surface and press it flat. When you press it flat, you use a patterned mold to mold the liquidized sugar and create a shape out of it. The customer tries to poke the outline of the mold on the dalgona without breaking the picture. If you successfully get the shape without breaking it, the customer will receive another free dalgona from the vendor. 

The typical shapes are hearts, circles, and stars. After Squid Game, the shape of the umbrella has become very popular worldwide, and many have been challenged to pick the shape out of the dalgona candy using a needle. People also create their own shapes and logos to imprint on the candy and pick at it without breaking the candy. This is known as 뽑기 (ppopgi: the game of picking out the shape using a needle without breaking it). 

During the Korean War, many American soldiers gave away free chocolates to children in South Korea. The creation of the dalgona candy was able to fill the void in postwar South Korea for children who grew accustomed to the free chocolates. After the Korean War, people could not afford to pay for the expensive American candies and chocolates, so Koreans figured out a way of getting their sweets into their system. 

Since raw sugar was very expensive, many people used glucose. However, raw sugar was imported from many different countries. Because of the import of raw sugar, it was more common for street vendors to sell them to people. For example, many street vendors sold outside of elementary schools and playgrounds, and get the children to try 뽑기 and see if they can win a free dalgona.

The name of the candy varied depending on which province and/or region you were from. In Gyeonggi Province, which is where Seoul and Incheon are located, it is mainly called dalgona and ppopgi. However, in areas such as Chungcheong Province, they called it ttigi (띠기) and the South Gyeongsang Province called it 쪽자 (jjokja) while the North Gyeongsang Province called it 국자 (gukja). 

Over the years, the street vendors who sold dalgona have slowly been disappearing because many people complained about its unhealthy aspect and the low quality of it. Because of its disappearing vendors, it became a good memory for those who used to pick at the outlines of the candy. Because of Squid Game, dalgona has slowly started rising back to its popularity, and the sales of the candy have significantly increased, not only in South Korea but also worldwide. In Korea, the memories of doing dalgona while they were young demonstrates the importance of its culture and its traditions. Although it was starting to disappear, it has made its comeback into the street vendors through the help of Squid Game and social media. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/dining/squid-game-netflix-dalgona-candy.html

I was looking at my photo gallery on my phone, and I found pictures from the BTS concert in Brazil in 2019. BTS (Bangtan Boys, 방탄소년단) is one of the most popular K-Pop groups worldwide. It consists of seven boys: Kim NamJoon, Kim SeokJin, Min YoonGi, Jung HoSeok, Park JiMin, Kim TaeHyung, and Jeon JungKook. They became famous because of their lyrics that talked about self-esteem and self-love. I went to their concert in São Paulo on May 25th, the first day of the two-day shows. It was the first, and it is still the only time I have been to a K-Pop concert. My expectations were high, and, indeed, it was one of the best days in my life. Being a K-Pop fan is sometimes hard because people try to demotivate you. They say in a pejorative way that K-Pop does not have good songs or that this genre is made for little girls. There is no problem if little girls are listening to it. K-Pop is for people of all ages, genders, sexual identities, ethnicity, and colors. That is what makes K-Pop so incredible. Being for the first time close to a crowd, I could feel freer to be who I am. That crowd understood how being a fan can change your life and even make you a better person. Before the show started, I talked to a lot of people waiting in the queue. There was a sense of identification and belonging. We were so excited and happy to be there that we sang their songs played in the stadium before the show.

B-ARMYS (Brazilian BTS fans) SINGING IDOL BEFORE THE SHOW - BTS in BRAZIL DAY 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cri1HvtINZo

I think one of the best moments was Jung HoSeok's solo. He is the rapper and main dancer of the group, well-known for always being a positive person and bringing hope to their fans. His artistic name is J-Hope. He is my "bias," which means he is my favorite person in this boy group. He is also my "ultimate bias (utt)," which means he is my favorite idol in the whole K-Pop industry, including female, male and mixed groups and solo artists. His solo song is named "Trivia 起: Just Dance," and it talks about dance as a natural conversation and how you can fall in love with someone the same way you fall in love with dancing.

[BTS in Brazil - Day 1] 'Trivia 起: Just Dance' (Full Performance):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVYZdIh-pFo

K-Pop idols must be complete artists, knowing how to sing, dance, make rap, have a beautiful face and body, have good personality and behavior, etc. They have to be perfect, and sometimes this can be harmful to both the artist and its fans. Nobody is perfect, and we should accept this. We should not spread hate, mainly related to the person's color and physical characteristics. We are all beautiful beyond beauty patterns. BTS is one of the K-Pop groups that talk about this issue. Their speech in the United Nations is something that should be listened to for everyone. I am very glad to be part of this fandom.

BTS' Speech at the United Nations (Full Speech from 2018):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhJ-LAQ6e_Y

Besides BTS, I will also highlight one of Hwasa's songs. She is also a K-Pop singer and she talks about how beauty and personality standards should not stop you to follow your dreams.

[MV] Hwa Sa(화사) _ Maria(마리아):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDukIfFzX18

Global conquest plays a huge factor in the reason why some languages go extinct. When small groups of language speakers are conquered by different empires, the native languages that are spoken tend to get traded in for the language spoken by the conqueror. It can be seen as a form of cultural cleansing. Sometimes the people who continue to practice their native language can be punished in different ways. As the time passes from generation to generation, the lesser and lesser speakers there are until there are no more speakers left. There is also not much being done to preserve these languages. Another language-killer is the school systems. There are some things that can be done to preserve a language. People are making databases online that preserve languages. Parents can make an effort to continue to pass the languages down from generation to generation. This extremely difficult nevertheless. Languages can also be preserved through isolation.

This month, I continued to write summaries about the webtoon I have been reading, 랜덤채팅의 그녀! (Random chat). As I kept writing summaries, my language partner told me that she noticed my writing has been flowing a lot more smoothly compared to the first couple of times I wrote my summaries. I learned some new sentence connectors to help my sentences flow and used them throughout my summary. Something she pointed out in my writing is how often I use 는데, which means but, however, or though. For example, in one of my summaries, I wrote 시작했는데 which means it started. However, she taught me another way to write it, which was 시작했다. 하지만…, which means, “it started. However.” Using a method like this helped me a lot because I tend to write very long and continuous sentences. Therefore, it has helped my sentences flow better while writing my summaries. I also learned a new sentence connector, 그래서, which means so, therefore, and thus. I found it interesting how I did not use these sentence connectors while writing, but when I am talking with my parents, I use sentence connectors a lot. I also tend to forget to mention the subject of the sentence while writing my summaries. My language partner always comments on who I am referring to. I tend to skip the subject of the sentence, but it could be hard to understand for people who are not familiar with the story of the webtoon. My language partner also pointed out to me that the written language and the speaking language are different. I tend to use some words that are not really meant or appropriate to use for writing summaries. I have been struggling with not writing like I talk because I have never had the opportunity to write “formally” in Korean other than when I used to live in South Korea. As my language partner kept correcting the words that generally should not be used in writing, I learned different vocabulary words that have the same meaning but are more formal to spell out. 

The summaries have been showing the areas in which I am lacking the most. As I kept writing mine, I did realize that there were fewer errors of sentence connectors which I was very happy about. I hope to continue improving my writing skills through writing summaries. 

My language partner and I also watched a couple of Netflix’s Squid Game episodes together. For the episodes we watched, we discussed in Korean, and we also discussed the different Korean games the characters played, such as carving out the shape in dalgona, and red light, green light game. We discussed other children's games that we used to play while growing up because she went to high school in Korea while I went to elementary school in Korea. We knew different kinds of games since we lived in Korea at different ages, so it was really fun getting to know how to play different kinds of games.

          For this week, Somyung challenged me with the task of translating English songs into Korean lyrics. One of the things I wanted to accomplish was further expanding my Korean vocabulary. While studying abroad in Korea, I listened to a lot of pop music. However, when someone asked me what this English song meant or asked me to translate the meaning, I could never correctly figure out the lyrics. Some of the song selections included Justin Bieber and Bruno Mars songs. My initial thought was that this was going to be a fairly simple task since song lyrics tend to be self-explanatory and consist of simple phrases. The first song I tried to translate was Justin Bieber’s song “Monster.” The first lyrics started off with “You put me on a pedestal and tell me I'm the best.” The moment I tried to translate this, I realized that I did not know the word “pedestal” in Korean. Somyung gave me a couple of tries to try and figure it out with prior knowledge, but I could not think of the correct vocabulary word. We used google translate to find out and it was “받침대." From this moment on, I knew that this was definitely going to be a difficult task. As the song went on, there were so many words that I never knew that I didn’t know. For instance, I did not know how to translate “responsibility,” “unforgiveness,” “intentions,” and “confidence.” With just this one song, I was able to learn a lot of the essential, everyday Korean vocab words. 

          Similar to how I wanted to translate English songs into Korean, I also wanted to get better at translating Korean songs into English. In Korea, I unconsciously listened to so much K-pop in the streets, malls, restaurants, and e.t.c, however, I just listened to it more for its rhythm and energy. I never really dove deep into thinking about what the songs meant. Therefore, for this meeting, Somyung and I also took a Korean song called “HOLO” by Lee Hi and tried my best to translate this as well. The first set of lyrics started off as “홀로 있는 게 가만히 있는 게 어려운 일인가요 홀로 있어도 같이 있어도 외로운 건 같아요. One day it will stop.” One strategy I used to figure out the general meaning of this song was to use context clues, especially at the end when it had an English lyric. I ended up guessing correctly that “홀로” translated to alone. The word “홀로” also came up a bunch of times so I knew this song was about solitude and being okay with being alone. 

          I found this exercise to be very fun since it took the songs that I listened to on a daily basis and really challenged me to think deeply about its meaning and words. I feel like this would be a very good practice for me in the future to always try and translate songs I listen to and see how they translate in the other language.