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Here is my final project presentation Final%20Cultural%20Project%20Korean%20Drama.pptx

Sources:

As I mentioned in previous posts, I love to watch Korean TV shows and one of the things that stood out to me about the lifestyle of people in South Korea is the life of office workers. Among the things I observed, I will talk about some of the more prominent ones.

First of all, Koreans have very long working hours. In addition to the regular eight hours, the employees are expected to work overtime almost everyday, sometimes as late as 10 pm. Moreover, the employees are usually not allowed to get off work till their boss has left. As a result, sometimes people stay overtime even when they are not working.

The working environment is very stressful. There is constant competition between employees and even between the different departments. Koreans put a lot of emphasis on what their boss think about them and will go out their way to be in their boss' good books as it often guarantees them promotions and bonuses.

I have also noticed that employees are treated differently by their boss inside and outside the office. Inside the office, the bosses tend to put a lot of pressure on the employees and tend not to show their friendly and considerate sides. However, office dinners are very common in Korea, where the employees will have dinner together with their boss and bond over drinks.

In fact drinks and evening entertainment play a very important in the lives of office workers in Korea. Other than bonding with fellow employees over drinks, a lot of business is also done over drinks. Employees are often required to entertain important clients and thus maintain good relationship with them.

Also, new employees tend to get bullied by the older employees are often made to do the menial tasks. They are also made to do most of the work and rarely get recognition for it. There is also discrimination against female employees in the office. They are often viewed as weak and incompetent, which is a result of the patriarchal Korean society.

Television shows tend to exaggerate facts most of the time, so I did some research about the working environment in Korea and I found similar reports from different websites.   

Over the course of the semester, I have learned that I really enjoy and appreciate structure in a language course. At the beginning of the semester I was lost, sort of floundering around as I tried to decide how I would like to go about learning Hindi. I had looked at the different resources available, but I realized that I could not simply jump into my coursework. When I tried to start with Mango, I was overwhelmed by unfamiliar characters, and realized that I was mimicking sounds that I heard and trying to memorize strands of syllables, rather than actually understanding what I was saying and why I was saying it. I encountered a different sort of problem when I evaluated which resources from the MRC I should use—one was a grammar book, but it was intermediate-level and I still needed to learn the alphabet (same with illustrated dictionaries).

Because of these obstacles and realizations, I began to understand that for me personally to succeed as a language learner, I needed more structure to my coursework. I bought a textbook and workbook, and used them to work through a lesson at a time. Having a set progression also facilitated my learning the alphabet, as the book introduced the different letters gradually, enabling me to better retain what I was learning and apply it to sentences and grammar.

In terms of cultural exploration, I think that watching different forms of media, particularly movies, helped to acclimate me to certain values and norms, as well as get me picking out phrases and grammatical structures I had learned. I think that seeing the places I’ll be travelling to, and seeing how people interact in them (even if the films are not nonfiction) was incredibly useful. Some things that I became more familiar with were formalities and titles, gender roles, foodways, travel etiquette, and stereotypes associated with certain cities. I think the most difficult part about learning from the movies was looking past their frequent use of English. It seems that English is becoming (or already was) a language associated with cultural capital in India—those who wish to sound sophisticated or cultured will use English over Hindi or more regional languages. Thus, Indian movies will sometimes use more English than Hindi in their scripts. Since I’m going to a rural part of India where “Hindi is the purest,” this has made it difficult for me as a language learner, since the films are giving me an automatic crutch to fall back on, rather than immersing me in the language I seek to learn.

Although I have faced setbacks, I have really enjoyed learning Hindi, especially learning to write the alphabet out. It is incredibly convenient that everything is phonetic in the language, and that there are few ambiguous spellings that do not match up with a word’s pronunciation (a sharp contrast to English!). I’ve actually found myself thinking in Hindi at times when I try to spell out words! I plan to continue in my workbook even though the course is over, as well as watching more films and listening to music in the language. One major outcome of my learning is that I have gained a new appreciation for Bollywood movies. This could be dangerous in terms of time management and expecting crowds to burst into song, but I think it will also give me great conversation starters for new acquaintances in India.  

To be honest, my focus on my target Language is speaking and listening. I can barely write Koreans but I was able to read a few. I read Korean because I read the books called Travel to Korean. I read the Korean Alphabets in order for me to quickly learn the words and pronounce it correctly. But I think when I move to the next stage of learning I must learn some basic words and know how to write it. 

Bilinguals are not necessarily smarter in the sense of intelligence, but are more adaptive to new environment, more open-minded to approach a problem, and in better shape in controlling an environment or solving problems. Different languages have different grammars and different usage of words can utilize more part of our brains, thus improving the “executive function” of the brain which is “a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks” (“Why Bilinguals Are Smarter”, New York Times). Learning a new language just as learning a new instrument or any other creative subjects can train different parts of the brain to allow us to be a better monitor.

I have learned around 250 words in Korean. I learn them by using them in dialogues, listening to new words, watching TVs, repeating them often, and eventually memorizing and recite them. I have also used  Mango app to help me acquire new words. Mango app forces users to repeat the new word multiple times in a lesson. I also used app called travel to Korean, this encouraged me to learn new words that I need when travel to Korea. My goal for vocabulary acquisition is to learn at least 15 new words each week and master basic words I need when I travel to Korea . By complimenting with study apps, I think my goal is realistic.

In the article "School was also once the enemy of tribal languages. Government boarding schools, where generations of Indian children were sent, aimed to stamp out native ways and tongues. Now, the language is taught through the sixth grade at the public charter school in Siletz, and the tribe aims to have a teaching program in place in the next few years to meet Oregon’s high school language requirements, allowing Siletz, in a place it originated, to be taught as a foreign language." When people are sent to school, you are more than encouraged to chat with people in the mainstream language. It is easily for a language to die out under that circumstances. So when a language extinct, the diversity extinct. It was a horrible thing at least for me because I can not imagine the whole word speaking the same language. 

Learning the History of Your language can help you to understand the root and change of your history and understand how it is different from other languages. Korean is one of the world's oldest living languages, and its origins are is as obscure as the origin of the Korean people. Nineteenth Century Western scholars proposed a number of theories that linked the Korean language with Ural-Altaic, Japanese, Chinese, Tibetan, Dravidian Ainu, Indo-European and other languages. Korean is most likely a distant relative of the Ural-Altaic family of languages which includes such diverse languages as Mongolian, Finnish, and Hungarian. Linguistically, Korean is unrelated to Chinese and is similar to, but distinct from Japanese. Early historical records indicate that at the dawn of the Christian era, two groups of languages were spoken in Manchuria and on the Korean Peninsula: the Northern or Puyo group and the southern or Han group. During the 7th Century, when the kingdom of Silla conquered the kingdoms of Paekche in southwest Korea and Koguryo in the north, the Silla dialect became the dominant language on the peninsula. I understand Korean language has a lot of similarity like Chinese so when I compare those languages I learn it quickly. 

I think generally everyone did a good job in the cultural presentation. I am mostly impressed by Melody's presentation because she picks up the presentation on the bath tradition which I did not notice before. One of the presentation is on the phone plan in  Pakistan. Pakistan is a collectivist country where Pakistanis like to be connected with everyone. I think another aspect might also contribute to the differences between a two-year contract cellular plan in the US and a pre-paid based cell phone service in Pakistan is how business environments differ in two countries.

The cultural shock is what happened to me at first. When I travel abroad this is something I also feel about especially went to western countries. I remembered when I first came to the US, I had to do the orientation thing. I was the only Chinese in my group. We played a game called the name game. You had to memorize the name of your group member and the adjectives in front of the name. My name is Yuki and it was so hard for me to come up with an adjective. Also I am set in the middle of the group so I was unable to memorize all the names. So when it was my turn, I was so embraced. 

It was also quite difficult for me to get what people are laughing at. They also don't know exactly my country was like. However, when I talk to more people, things get better. Cultural shock is still there and you have to accept the fact because that is something unique about you. 

understanding the basic structure of Korean sentences in order to be able to communicate and important words too. Korean sentence structure is different from that of English. Unlike English sentence structure that follows an order of subject, verb and object, Korean follows an order of subject, object, and verb that is in the end of a sentence. I will learn from a website called How to Study Korean which contains a lesson on sentence word order (http://www.howtostudykorean.com/unit1/unit-1-lessons-1-8/unit-1-les...), and from Hill’s Learning website (http://www.hillslearning.com/2011/09/01/learning-korean-nyc/). Also, I will learn korean from a lot of Korean dramas because that's how people talk in daily life and that is fun. I think a reference grammar book can be useful because I can quickly refer to and check with the grammar book if needed. But I think I should accumulate more words rather than study the grammar first because I have to lay a solid foundation at first. 

the language spoken in Korea is called Hanguk-mal, literally "Korean speech." Although the Korean language has adopted many words from the Chinese over the centuries and it seems to resemble Japanese grammatically, its phonetic system differs completely. Korean is not a tonal language like Chinese and Vietnamese, where tonal inflection can change the meaning of words. In Korean the form and meaning of root words remains essentially unchanged regardless of the tone of speech. There is little variation in accent and pitch. When speaking Korean, the general rule is to evenly stress phrases and sentences. When reading or speaking questions, the inflection is upward at end of the sentence just as in English. 

In the article, "How we mean". But vocabulary within sentences always. It is the interaction between words and sentences structure which conveys our "sense of sense". Only when they are used within a sentence do they make senses. Sentences exist to enable us to make sense of words. That is why sentence study is the foundation of words.

I find this particular important because It is really difficult for a beginner of certain language to memorize and understand a lot of vocabulary at one time. Even sometimes you remember the vocabulary you will easily forgot it after a period of time. But if you put everything in a context, maybe in a sentence, you will easily remember the word and hard to forget. So to help me learn more Korean words. I will come up with more conversation and put them into sentences so I know when to use those words properly. 

Artifact1-direction.mp3

My first artifact, the conversation about direction, was actually based on my work last semester. Last semester, I learned some vocabularies such as left(wenjok), right(orunjok), front(ap), behind(dwi). However, I found it very hard to use these words to construct complete sentences in real situation. Therefore, I designed my first artifact as a real life conversation with Azmain as follows:

Sam: Where is Hanyang university?

(Hanyang dae hak gyo eo ddeok ae ga na yo?)汉阳忒哈kyo 偶都开 卡纳哟

Azmain: Are you getting there by car? (차 타고 거기 가요? cha ta go geo gi ga yo?)

Sam: I will be walking there. (아니요, 걸어서 가요 a ni yo, gul eo［curl嗷］saw ka yo)

Azmain: Do you know how to get there? (어떻게 가는지 알아요? -eo ddek ae ga nen ji al a yo?)

Sam: No. I am lost.Can you tell me how to get there?

(아니요. 어떻게 가는지 알려주세요 a ni yo, eo ddek ae ga nen ji卡能及 al lie 儿撩 ju sae yo.

Azmain: From here take a right turn, go straight. Then at the intersection, take a left. (여기서 오른쪽으로 가시고, 직진 하세요. 그리고 사거리에서 왼쪽으로 가세요.(yeo gi seo Orunjjok eo lo ga si go, jik jin ha seo yo. ge li go, sa geo li ae seo, wenjjok eo lo ga sae yo.)

Sam: Can you draw a map for me? (ji do leul几多叻 ke lie 骨/哥料 ju sae yo)

Azmain: Yes. Here it is. (자 여기요, ja, yeo gi yo)

Sam: Is there anything around the University?

(대학교 주변에 뭐 있어요? -dae hak gyo(kiao)/ ju bien ae/ mo yit eo yo?) chubiangai mo yisaoyo

Azmain: Yes. There is a park.(예, 거기에 공원이 있어요.-yeah, ge gi ae/ gong won yi/ yit eo yo)

Sam: Thank you so much! (정말 감사 합니다-  jung mal 冲脉 gam sa 康擦hap ni da)

Azmain: You are welcome (네 잘 가세요-> nae, jal ga seo yo)

Artifact3.mp3

Artifact: Meeting new friends during summer school orientation

S: Hi. My name is Sam. Nice to meet you!

안녕, 제 이름은 샘 입니다. 만나서 반갑습니다.

Annyung ha sae yo. Jea yilumen sam imida. Mang na(meet) cao pang gap si mida.

A: My name is Alvin. Nice to meet you too! Are you a student in Hanyang University?

제 이름은 앨빈 입니다. 만나서 반갑습니다. 한양대학교 학생 이세요?

S: No. I am here for summer school.

아니요, 저는 여름 학교로 와 있습니다

aniyo. Jeanun yao lum ha kyo lo wa yisimida

A: Really? Where did you go for college?

진짜요? 어느 대학교 다니세요?

S:I am a sophomore student from University of Richmond.

저는        다니고 있습니다.

Jeanun university of richmond tanigo yisimida.

A: Cool. So what is your major?

와우, 전공이 무엇입니까?

S:I am a math major.

저는 수학전공 입니다.

Jeanun suhak chonggong imnida.

A: So are you here to take math classes?

여기에서 수학을 들으러 오셨나요?

S: Actually I am taking computer science classes here. What about you?  Are you a student here?

사실, 저는 여기서 컴퓨터 공학 수업을 들으러 왔습니다. 그쪽은요? 혹시 여기 학생이세요?

擦心儿sil. Jeanun yogiso kangputa konghak suoberl teluldao特饿到 wasimida. Kujiao genniu?

A: Yes. I am a student here majoring in Chemistry.

네, 저는 여기서 화학을 전공하고 있어요.

S: Sounds good! Are you taking chemistry classes during the summer?

아 네, 여기서 여름동안 화학 수업을 듣고 있으세요?

Aaaaa Nae. Yogiso 摇lum dong ang huahuk suoberl 特古 isicaiyo一丝菜哟

A: No. I am actually doing a summer research here.

아니요. 저는 여기서 여름 리셔치 하고 있어요.

Artifact2.mp3

sam: hey azmain! What did you do this weekend? Did you go to the pig roast?

Aneoung azmain! Chumalei出马累 mohai soyo? Pig roast ei kasoyo?

Azmain: No. I slept during the weekend.

anoung. qiaonun chumailei cha soyo.

Sam: Oh really? What else did you do?

qingjia? Domo多摸 hea soyo?

Azmain: I studied in the library and went out to eat the korean restaurant. what about you?

qiaonun taosoguan eiso kongbulo hea soyo. kuligu, Hanguk xigdang eiso chongnuang mogosoyo. kujiaogenniao?

Sam: I watched a movie called furious 7 and I went to dc.

qiaonun furious 7 yonghua lu pasoyo. Keligu, Dc ei kasoyo

Azmain: What did you do in the dc?

dc eiso mohai soyo?

Sam: I went to the cherry blossom festival and went shopping.

cheery blossom festival kasoyo, keligu, qiaonun shopping tao keasoyo.

Azmain: Was it fun?

chemi so soyo?

Sam: Yes, it was. But i need to study now.

nea. heajimang, jeanun kongbu lul heaya teayo(need)

Azmain: Right. Good luck!

allasoyo. fighting!

Sam: Thank you!

kongmawoyo

After I decided to go to Korea for summer school, I began searching online about various aspects of Korean culture, including tips to live in Korea, commonly used Korean words, how to look for help, etc. Then, I realized that all these topics could be very useful learning-materials so that I added them into my learning plan.

I asked my language partner to teach me some applicable Korean. For example, I made an artifact with Azmain about getting directions. I imagined the situation of me getting lost in the downtown Seoul and hoping to get to Hanyang University, the place for my summer school. Also, we learned many vocabularies about places to go.

Also, I realized that knowing how to speak is totally different from knowing how to respond. Sometimes even if I could initiate the conversation, I could not completely understand their words and make appropriate response. One reason is that the speed of speaking would be a great challenge, and another reason is that in Korean, same idea can be expressed in several different ways. Therefore, when I was learning Korean from my language partner, I would ask for as many ways to say one thing as possible. Especially, there is a difference in formal and informal Korean. I enjoyed learning the different versions of speaking one point.

After learning a large amount of vocabularies, I tried to make up my own conversation with Azmain. However, due to the lack of grammar knowledge, it was pretty difficult for us to create complete sentences. Therefore, we decided to go beyond vocabularies, and start learning some common verbs and different tenses, including past tense, present tense and future tense. Interestingly, I saw a connection between grammar and characters’ construction. The structure of words may largely decide the usage of verb and tense. The memorization of such rules would be important.

My language experience prior to learning Hindi has been in a classroom-style setting and online, when I was learning French. My high school did not have a very good French department, so I often had to supplement classroom lessons with outside efforts in order to really learn the language. I often got frustrated with the way that high school classes were structured, as they didn’t really seem to facilitate language learning. Because of this, I enrolled in an adult course at a French library one summer to focus on conversational French, which I wasn’t getting from endless verb conjugation in class. This showed me that learning “from the books” can give students a good foundation for conversation and “survival” with a language. I later skipped a level of French, learning it myself over the summer, then took the next level online, later taking a college course in the language.

After looking at the FIRE model, I would say that my learning style is a combination of insightful and rational: I like organization and learning rules, but I also like to dig deeper into issues that interest me. For my Hindi learning, I have bought a textbook and workbook, which provide a structure to lessons and a gradual progression of what is learned. When I started, I had neither, and was simply going to learn phrases through Mango. However, I was overwhelmed by this, and felt like I couldn’t start with nothing, as a tried to listen to the Mango activities which featured all Devanagari text. I realized that in order to best understand Mango conversations, I couldn’t just ape the sounds, I needed to develop a base in the alphabet and word structure. The textbook I bought understands this, and enabled me to gradually learn the alphabet, learning key phrases, questions, vocabulary, and grammatical structures at each group of letters. This structure has made learning the language much easier, and I think that having this base will make Mango learning much more effective.

In terms of understanding culture and language together, I think that watching movies and other media items. Literature is also important: I have an Eyewitness guide to India, a book on religious history in the area I’m visiting, and a novel set in the north Indian mountains on my bookshelf. Each of these pieces of literature gives me a different perspective with which to see the culture. The Eyewitness guide offers more of a Western view, telling the (presumed white, educated, First World) traveler what to do in an unfamiliar culture. Contrastingly, the religious book takes a more in-depth look at Indian history and religious belief. Thus, the first book looks at what to do, what to see, and (occasionally) what to say, while the second book looks more at the people themselves, giving the reader a better understanding of what they may believe/value. Finally, the novel offers what anthropologist Clifford Geertz described as “stories people tell themselves about themselves.” It enables me to see values, aspects of etiquette, and inherent values in the culture, similar to what a Bollywood film might provide me with. To improve my competence, I will need to practice speaking, reading, and writing, but also continue to immerse myself in the culture. 

I realized that this semester I have been putting a lot of effort into learning grammar but not enough effort into learning vocabulary. As a result, I have dedicated this week to learning new words and a good starting point seemed to be food and drinks. 

As a result I looked up some online resources which provided a simplified list of vocabulary on food, typically the words names of food that would appear in a menu. However, as I was reading through the list I was surprised by how many of the words I already knew from watching Korean shows. I already knew how to say bread, noodles, meat, rice, porridge, rice cake, ramen, soup, water, tea, coffee and cola. Moreover, some words like chocolate, pizza, sandwich, juice have almost the same pronunciation as in English. In case of the names of food I did not know, I looked up pictures for each of them so that on reading the names a visual image will appear in my mind which helped me remember the words. 

In addition to names of food I also learned some words to describe tastes like salty, sweet, sour, spicy, bitter etc. However, what I noticed is that when adjectives like sweet or salty is used, there is always an ending added to the words like "da" for informal and "yo" for formal. On the other hand, for adjectives like refreshing or for words that describe a particular flavor, a different ending is used. In this case "hada" is used for informal and "haeyo" is used for formal. This rang a bell in my mind because I had previously learned that "hada" is the verb "to do". So it seemed that since adjectives like refreshing or "gosohada" which means nutty flavor, has an active component to it, a verb ending is used. 

Since the words I have learned are such that I can easily integrate them in daily conversation with friends, especially in the dining hall, they are easier to remember. 

Every country has its own collection of folklore that tells us a lot about the history and culture of that country. Moreover, it is always interesting to see how the folklore reflects the present social dynamics and the way people from that culture think. Therefore, I asked Sun about some of the Korean folklore and myth that almost everyone knows about. 

The first one is called "The Fox Sister" and it goes as follows. A man had three sons and no daughter, so he prayed for a daughter even if she was a fox. Consequently the wife gave birth to a daughter but when the girl was six, one of theirs cows died every night. The father asked the oldest son to keep watch to find out what happened to the cows. The boy reported that the daughter killed the cows by pulling out its liver and eating it. The father got upset and threw the boy out of the house. The second son told the same thing and the father threw him out as well. But the third son said that the cows died from seeing the moon so he was spared. The older brothers became Buddhist monks and later they found the sister living alone. She said that the rest of the family had died and asked them to stay. Later that night one of the brothers woke up and saw that the sister was eating the liver of the other brother. She told him that she needed only one more liver to become human. So he fled and threw a white bottle behind him which became a thicket of thorns but it did not stop the fox sister. He threw a blue bottle and it became a river but she swam ashore. Lastly he threw a red bottle which became fire and she was burned until she was no more than a mosquito. 

This tale is based on a popular East Asian myth of a nine-tailed fox demon called "kumiho" in Korean. According to legend, a fox that lives a thousand years turns into a kumiho, a shape-shifter who traditionally appears in the form of a woman. The myth is similar to the Western lore of werewolves and vampires and the kumiho myth is adapted to the story. However, kumihos are mostly portrayed as women. 

There several cultural implications of the myth. In Korea, fox is a word to describe a woman who is a siren. Kumihos are always portrayed as beautiful women in Korean shows and tales. It seems like it is a folkloric way to warn men not to fall for the tricks of women who will seduce men and eat their livers or hearts. It is just another example of how female sexuality is portrayed as dangerous in folklore. 

However, one change that has been seen in recent adaptations of kumiho in film and tv is that besides demonic kumihos there are good ones who chooses a moral path by not harming humans. This is very similar to the vampires tales where the vampire refuses to drink human blood.