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• What insights have you gained about yourself as a language learner and cultural explorer? 

As a language learner, I’ve learned that I am best motivated to be consistent with my learning when there is more structure and an outside influence controlling my learning speed and the topics that I study. Normally when I direct my own planning, I have learned that I am less consistent than I would be with an outside educational plan director with someone to strongly encourage me to improve my studying habits and stay on top of my materials to know. However, learning a language by myself was new and since I had an interest in it, I had hoped to be more committed throughout the semester for maintaining practice with Korean. However, that was not the case. I did not attain as much Korean language learning as I aspired to. 

Regarding culture, I think that it is very interesting about the common cultural themes in Korean history as well as its tradition. I feel that in the United States since we are a relatively young country of different groups of people, there is not strong deep cultural values in typical American modern families. However, that is not the case in South Korea. They seem to be able to embrace the modern ways of living while conserving the important symbolism in traditions and rituals that have a long past and high importance. Furthermore, globalization has only brought value to these traditions as they die from infrequent practicing among today’s younger generations of Koreans.

• What did you find difficult? 

In my learning, I had waves of difficulty for Korean writing and speaking. It was difficult for me to learn a whole new writing system and a whole new set of pronunciations. I had to manipulate parts of my airways and mouth in ways that I struggled with at first. I was also not too positive about the idea of having to memorize a whole new character system and which sounds they produced. However, after getting the hang of it, my next struggle was that I had to sound out each syllable and I could only identify the word from how it would sound, not from how it was written. It has been a slow process learning new vocabulary since I could only know it from its pronunciation instead of its written form.

• What have you enjoyed? 

After learning the basic character system and common greetings and phrases, I liked being able to utilize my limited Korean vocabulary with my Korean friends. I also liked being able to identify Korean in real time. I was sitting on a park bench in DC near American University and thought how strange it was to find Korean on a bus stop instead of chinese. I didn’t realize there was a significant population to have public transportation with Korean writing on it. Especially since Korean originated from a very small part of the globe, it was more astounding that it was prevalent enough to be included with Spanish on the signs of a bus stop.

• How will you continue your learning? 

I hope to continue my learning during the spring semester. I believe that the Talk To Me In Korean subscription will still be valid all spring, so I will try to utilize that as much as I can. I will also try to watch more Korean media like TV shows and movies that interest me. 

• Which readings and learning activities did you find most useful?

I did not find any specific readings or activities the most useful since all of the little Korean I know is all jumbled in my head that one lesson has not left enough of an impact on me to be able to easily practice some phrases in this moment

• What would you like to learn more about?

I think it would be more interesting to learn more about Korean history and traditions. Since Korea has such a complex and long history, there is a lot to know about it and how everyone from the past contributes to the present economic state of Korea and how it has advanced so much in the past 20 years. Korean traditions seem to hold so much meaning, so I think it would be very enriching to learn all the values that Korean culture puts emphasis on. I would also like to learn more about how the split of North and South has affected the people especially those living close to the border as residents or those who worked in the military and their opinions on it.

Fall 2023 SDLC 111

Cultural Post #4

다례 Darye

David Kim

30262888

david.kim123@richmond.edu

The Korean tea ceremony, known as 다례 Darye, is a traditional practice that emphasizes the preparation, serving, and drinking of tea. Darye places importance on simplicity, harmony, and respect. It's a meditative practice that seeks to bring people together in a serene environment. Darye is often conducted in a tranquil setting, such as a traditional tea house or a calm garden, enhancing the overall experience.

While it is challenging to find the exact time of origin, tea culture in Korea can be traced back over a millennium. Tea was introduced to Korea from China during the 삼국 시대 Three Kingdoms period (57 BCE - 668 CE). During the 고려 시대 Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392), Buddhist monks played a significant role in popularizing tea as they incorporated it into their daily rituals and practices. The 조선 시대 Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897) further solidified the importance of tea in Korean culture. 

Various types of tea are used in Darye. Each type has its own unique preparation and serving methods. 녹차 Green tea is one of the most popular types of tea used in the Korean tea ceremony. Green tea leaves are minimally processed, preserving their natural flavors and aromas. 보리차 Barley tea, made from roasted barley, has a toasty flavor and is often enjoyed for its mild and refreshing taste. 옥수수차 Corn tea is made by roasting corn kernels. It has a slightly sweet and nutty flavor, making it a comforting choice. 국화차 Wild chrysanthemum tea is made from 국화 wild chrysanthemum flowers and is known for its light and floral notes. 대추차 Jujube tea is made from 대추 the Chinese fruit jujube. It has a naturally sweet taste and is often consumed for its perceived health benefits. 오미자차 Omija tea is  a unique Korean tea made from Omija, also known as the five-flavor berry. It is known for its complex flavor profile, combining sweetness, sourness, bitterness, saltiness, and spiciness.

Darye follows a precise sequence of steps. The host begins by carefully choosing and cleaning the tea utensils, including the tea bowl 다완 (Dawan), tea whisk, tea scoop, and tea caddy. The host heats water to the appropriate temperature for the specific type of tea being served. The water is then poured into the tea bowl. The tea bowl and other utensils also may be warmed by pouring a small amount of hot water over them. This helps create an ideal environment for brewing the tea. The host measures the appropriate amount of tea leaves and places them in the tea bowl. The hot water is poured over the tea leaves, and the host uses the tea whisk to gently stir and mix the tea, allowing it to steep. The tea is carefully poured into individual tea cups and presented to the guests. The host may serve each guest individually or arrange the cups on a tray. Guests are encouraged to appreciate the aroma, color, and taste of the tea. There may be moments of quiet reflection as everyone enjoys the tea together. After the tea is consumed, the host cleans and dries the utensils. This step is performed with precision and care, maintaining respect for the tools and the ceremony itself. 

Darye is not just about drinking tea. It represents the aspects of Korean culture, including Confucian principles, spirituality, and the appreciation of nature. Darye provides a platform for social interaction, fostering connections and conversations among participants. 

https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Article/E0055116

http://contents.history.go.kr/mobile/km/view.do?levelId=km_010_0070_0030_0020

http://www.myungwon.org/sub3_2

https://teabybirdy.com.au/blogs/news/south-korean-darye

다례 Darye

녹차(Nok-Cha) Green Tea

보리차(Bori-Cha) Barley Tea

옥수수차(Oksusu-Cha) Corn Tea

국화차(Gukhaw-Cha) Wild chrysanthemum Tea

대추차(DaeChu-Cha) Jujube tea

오미자차(Omija-Cha) Omija Tea

Fall 2023 SDLC111

Monthly Language Learning Journal #4

David Kim

30262888

david.kim123@richmond.edu

For November, my language partner and I watched episodes six and seven of the Korean drama show “Mask Girl” on Netflix. Episode six “Kim Mo-mi” is about Kim Mo-mi’s life after she gets imprisoned. The episode starts with black and white. She is dressed in a prison uniform with the number 1047. She is famous due to the Mask Girl case and does plastic surgery consulting for people inside prison. She meets An Eun-suk, another prisoner who is the strongest figure inside the place. She has connections with politicians and made the rule that people who are imprisoned by adultery can not have any food for three days. This scene shows that An Eun-suk is more powerful than the officers. She regularly gets coffee with the manager of the prison. However, Kim Mo-mi doesn’t care and shares her food with the person who was caught for adultery. Even though Kim Mo-mi fought with An Eun-suk’s people, she was the only one getting a penalty. She did not give up and kept fighting with An Eun-suk to the point that An Eun-suk told her people to not mess with her. It becomes 2023 and the episode brings in the colors. One day, Kim Mo-mi receives a letter: "You should also feel what it is like your child is getting destroyed.” She tries to escape but fails and gets a penalty of one month to stay alone in a small room only with a bible. Now Kim Mo-mi gives a testimony and promises An Eun-suk to donate a kidney for her daughter. During a bible study inside the prison, Kim Mo-mi and Kim Kyung-ja meet again. Kim Kyung-ja was one of the volunteers for the bible study. She escaped the car back in 2010. She got plastic surgery, made a fake ID, and bought a new house. She was the old woman who sold tteokbokki and spread the rumor that Kim Mi-mo was the daughter of Mask Girl. Episode six reminded me of the previous episodes. First, the threatening mail sent by Kim Jyung-ja reminded me of the threatening email sent by Ju Oh-nam in the beginning. I was surprised that they were son and mother. Also, the rumor appeared in the show again. I realized how a rumor can ruin someone’s life without any effort or money. It is dangerous because no one is responsible for it and it is difficult to stop it. 

Episode seven “Mo-mi and Mi-mo” is about the last story between all the characters. Kim Mo-mi is taken to a hospital for kidney donation. She escaped the hospital and ran away with a car. Meanwhile, Ye-chun finds out that the rumor about Kim Mi-mo was started by the tteokbokki grandma. Kim Mi-mo’s grandma, Ye-chun, and Kim Mo-mi are all heading to Kim Kyung-ja’s house. Kim Kyung-ja already had Kim Mi-mo at her place and tied Kim Mi-mo up with a camera recording her. Kim Mi-mo’s grandma was killed by Kim Kyung-ja. Kim Mi-mo was able to defeat Kim Kyung-ja and save her daughter. However, Kim Kyung-ja was still alive with her gun. The police shot her but Kim Kyung-ja’s last bullet was shot toward Kim Mi-mo, and the mother saved her daughter with her own body. Ye-chun’s parents became Kim Mi-mo’s guardians and the drama ends with Kim Mi-mo watching her mother’s kindergarten tape. 

When I first finished the whole drama, I thought it was very violent and dark. I could only see the dark sides that they tried to capture. However, I can now see the unseen relationship that only families can have. Even though Kim Mi-mo, Kim Mo-mi, and Kim Mi-mo’s grandmother had bad relationships, they all cared for each other deeply. They were even willing to sacrifice their own lives to save each other. When the drama Mask Girl did a good job capturing the dark reality of South Korea, it also did a wonderful job capturing the strong connection between family members. 

Throughout the semester, I learned that basically if I learn a language that I genuinely want to learn, then I will put much more effort into it compared to something that I’m forced to learn. This may sound very obvious but I think if I had just known the scale to which it would affect my learning, then I would’ve without a doubt learned Korean much sooner. Having almost daily conversations in Korean helped me expand greatly, rather than just sitting down and going through lecture about probably Korean grammar and whatnot. Having a language partner does make the experience much more enjoyable as they help me learn the content in a fun way. Learning the language through videos about history and culture as well as of course the music, will be something that I continue to do without a doubt. What I found most difficult however was trying to learn the writing in Korean. Although the alphabet, forming words, and reading are possibly one of the easiest out of any language, the grammar itself I feel is one of the hardest. Sometimes “conjugating” words did not follow any rule depending on the root word making it extremely difficult to follow along. Learning about the language families helped me with my final project (and coming up with my final project topic). After learning that Korean, Japanese, and Chinese were all very similar I wanted to know how similar they really were and if they changed over time at all. Overall, this experience was nothing to forget as it helped me learn so much about Korean culture and language in such a short timeframe. I don’t think I’ve ever learned this much about a language/culture before on any scale and if given the chance, I’d definitely do it again.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SjvUlby7Q0r8R0OZK0YRKlAr-abWLjlf/view?usp=sharing

Since my final research topic concerns the evolution of the Korean language over time, me and my language partner decided that it would also be good if I learned some Korean history as well. So over the last month or so, I would watch brief videos on the history of Korea and the important events that happened within. But since watching pure historical videos could be boring or even just hard to understand with the Korean I know, I was shown historical videos that had a bit of a comedic aspect to them. These include, once again, episodes from 무한도전 (Infinite Challenge in English) and brief history lessons on Youtube. 

Despite being history lessons though, learning through these were very fun and interesting since they didn’t feel like actual lectures. Rather, as mentioned before, they had a bit or even a lot of comedy incorporated into them. But the most helpful thing was that they used casual language to teach these historical events. That made understanding the videos much easier, even though there were, of course, specific words that I didn’t really know. We chose to focus on events that would change the entire nation and its future. This includes the creation of Hangul, Japanese occupation, World War II, Korea’s independence from Japan, and finally the Cold and Korean War. Some of the words I learned are; 독립 (independence), 6.25 전쟁 (Korean War), 친일파 (pro-Japan faction), 일제강점기 (Japanese occupation), etc. Although a lot of these words aren’t useful in everyday conversation, it helps me understand the history of Korea better. But by learning all these historical events throughout Korean history, I was able to make connections on how the language itself changed greatly across. 

For example, before the creation of Hangul the main written language was Hanja; a language strongly based on Chinese. And because of this, many of the words in the spoken language are also based on Hanja rather than Hangul even to this day. But of course after the creation of Hangul, there are many pure Korean words that are used instead. During 일제강점, one of the main goals of Japan was to eliminate all Korean culture and replace it with their own This led to many words from Japanese being incorporated into the Korean language to erase the usage of Korean. Even in the modern world, a lot of Japanese equivalent words are used instead of the actual Korean words, showing the lasting impact of the terrible event. 

Lastly, is the huge impact of the independence of Korea and the Cold & Korean War. To keep things simple, the division of Korea was due to the conflicting views between the Soviet Union and USA. This led to North Korea being freed by the USSR under communist views and South Korea being freed under democratic views. This led to a strong influence of the US essentially covering South Korea. The US had military, police, and government officials taking charge in South Korea during the Cold War and post-Korean War. A lot of this influence caused the US to be an influential figure for South Korea, leading to many English words being directly incorporated into the Korean language. The lasting effects of this can be seen in the modern world where nearly more than 50% of the words used in the Korean language are just direct translations of the English equivalents.

This month I focused more on the cultural factors than my reading, writing, and speaking aspects. While teaching my students, I had a request from Justin that he wanted to learn more about Korean history. During my search for sources he could use to learn more about the history, I found multiple YouTube channels that were not only educational but entertaining and funny. One of the best channels is an entertainment show called “Infinite Challenge” where seven comedians have to go through whatever challenges they are given. The challenge for the video I found was to make a rap song that contains different historical events that happened in Korea. This was a very good idea because it would bring awareness to Korean history while it is still entertaining, easy to listen to, and easy to understand. The video contains a famous history professor teaching Korean history to the Infinite Challenge members as well as famous Korean rappers. The professor gives brief background and information on historical events to be used when creating the songs. When the songs were released, it was a huge hit, dominating the top 100 songs chart. 

Another YouTuber that I found is also a comedian who puts on a character as a professor. The theme of the content is teaching students (viewers) while sliding in humor to stop viewers from exiting the videos. The YouTuber 문쌤 also makes other funny videos but I think people like him because they know he is faking to be a professor. While learning about Korean history, I also learn a lot of slang terms and humor codes that Koreans find funny. Through these sources, I noticed that Koreans value comedy and it is a great way to easily reach important and heavy materials in an authentic way. 

Other topics that I’ve been focusing on are K-beauty and K-fashion trends. As someone who is highly interested in Korean fashion (specifically Korean street style) and skincare, I always try to keep up with what is trending and what I would like to get during my next trip to Korea. One of my favorite YouTubers who post vlogs and fashion videos is Kim Movie. I remember she was very popular when I was in middle school because of her unique look and style. I recently bought a Korean brand purse that she recommended through the video. Since I am not able to explore Korea at the moment, watching Kim Movie’s videos provide me with a glimpse into life in Korea. She recently also posted a video of her exploring the area that I grew up in. I was able to see how much the area has developed. Because YouTube is the most trending platform in Korea, I think it is a great resource for everyone to learn about Korean culture. 

Countries often have traditional clothing that can be traced back throughout the entire country’s history. In Japan is the kimono, Scotland has the kilt, and Korea has the 한복 (Hanbok). But what is the significance of the Korean Hanbok? Well, it bears immense significance all throughout Korean history. Its roots stretch back to ancient times, the Hanbok encapsulates the very core of Korean heritage; evolving over centuries while maintaining its cultural roots.

The origins of the Hanbok can be traced back to the Three Kingdoms Period (57 BCE - 668 CE), where its design first began to take shape. Originally, the Hanbok was worn by everyone throughout the peninsula. Whether poor or rich, it served as an everyday attire for everyone. But over time, as Korea experienced changes in rulings and cultural shifts, the Hanbok became not only an article of clothing, but a way to express social status, cultural values, and aesthetic sensibilities.

During the Joseon Dynasty, the Hanbok began to represent the Confucian ideals during the time period. It started to reflect the values of modesty and social hierarchy. Different colors, fabric choices, and accessories conveyed specific information about an individual's age, gender, and social status. The Hanbok thus started to become more of a traditional clothing, rather than just an everyday article of clothing. Later, under Imperial Japan, the Japanese empire attempted to erase the Hanbok from the country itself. It was prohibited from being worn on special occasions, but of course they were not able to do this as it still exists today.

Because of this, in the modern world the Hanbok is generally only worn on special occasions such as Lunar New Year’s, a wedding, Chuseok (Korean harvest festival), birthdays, etc. The younger generation, in particular, has embraced the Hanbok as a symbol of cultural pride, showing it off and wearing it in various forms such as fashion shows and social media platforms. This changing world has brought the Hanbok to adapt a more modern feel/look as well. The design has adapted a more contemporary feeling to keep it relevant in the modern world. The traditional version still exists of course and is still mostly worn over the contemporary versions. 

The Hanbok stands as more than just a piece of clothing; it is a living testament to Korea's enduring cultural legacy. Woven into its fabric are centuries of history, cultural values, and artistic expression. Its significance and values have persisted throughout centuries even through the hardest times. The Hanbok's significance persists in its ability to bridge the past and the present, fostering a sense of pride and connection among the Korean people and captivating the admiration of the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi8hZFHdHDk

One of my favorite cultural aspects of Korea is the concept of Nunchi/Noonchi. Nunchi is a very difficult word to describe in English because there is not a specific translation to it. It is a unique concept that refers to the ability to understand the emotions, thoughts, intentions, and atmosphere of others and the space without any explicit communication. I really like this video of Korean Austrailians trying to describe this unique concept of nunchi. I definitely agree with them on how it is something that is passed through generations and something we learn from our parents growing up. I also think about it as a way to go about situations on whether or not my parents would approve of my behavior. It is definitely a crucial role in interpersonal relationships, communication, and overall harmony within the Korean community. It builds a deeper connection with others and a way I personally bond with other Korean people. 

The key to understanding nunchi comes from your observations of others. These observations can include their facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, and the changes that occur in their behaviors and moods. It is a way of showing manners and I also believe that it is somewhat of a sixth sense that we Koreans consider in our daily lives. Nunchi not only takes an individual’s expressions but it can also determine the tension in a room. For example, it can apply to your workplace, family gatherings, and public spaces. 

Nunchi is actually very important in social settings in maintaining smooth interpersonal relationships. Since Korea is very been with after work social settings such as 술자리 and 회식 (company dinners), nunchi is necessary to build your reputation. Sometimes it is even considered as a part of your ability to work at a company or school. Nunchi can be very challenging because it takes a lot to always be aware of your surroundings. It can definitely lead to some emotional labor. Also, nunchi can also result in negative ways as actions can seem fake. I think nunchi requires a good balance between being attentive but with self-care.

The history behind nunchi comes from Confucianism and its influence on societal norms. Nunchi roots from the importance of hierarchy, respect, and the social harmony that Korean culture puts an emphasis on. Due to these factors, nunchi became an essential part to climb the hierarchy and have respect for others. Although nunchi can sometimes be a stressful concept, I extremely appreciate it and this is an amazing trait someone can have.