Blogs

As a class, we went to New Grand Mart to explore the different types of Korean foods. The main side dish that Korea is famous for is Kimchi. Everyone knows kimchi, but not everyone know that there are tens of different types of kimchi. For example, there is a lettuce kimchi, cabbage kimchi, radish kimchi, green pepper kimchi, etc.

It was amazing to see so many different types of kimchi. Although I did not try all the different types of kimchi, I was able to try 4 different kinds. They all have their unique tastes and different textures. 

I learned about two extremely famous paintings. The first one, 일월오봉도, is a painting with five mountains, the moon, and the sun. The five mountains represents the five mountains that protect Korea, and just as these mountains protect Korea, the king should also protect hes country. The sun and the moon represents the king needs to watch over hes people day and night. The most important meaning is that the painting is not completed until the king stand in front of the painting. In this painting, rather than showing the power of the king, it enlightens the king to do his duty. It was amazing to see the message this painting brought.

The second painting I learned about was the 연화도. This painting is usually given to a newly brought couple. In the painting, there are lotus flowers and cranes. The lotus flowers represent that the couple should live happily ever after. The cranes represent being clean and humble as well as have many children. The overall meaning of this painting is that you should live diligently and humbly, and have many children as a loving couple. This painting is usually given from the parents because that is the heart of the parents when you get married.

In class, we watched a movie called 극한직업. The learning point of this movie was that we watched the without subtitles. There were many words and phrases that I could not understand; however, I understood them through context clues. Watching this movie was a great way to practice using context clues.

Also, I was able to learn more about specific words related to crimes and drugs. The movie was very action packed, which made it easier to understand what the general plot was without having to understand much of the words. Therefore, when I went back and rewatched the movie, I was able to focus on the words and what meanings they have.

In the past two weeks, I learned about the history of Yeonsei University. Yeonsei University was founded by a British man named Underwood. He started the school when Korea was still a developing country, and he wanted to push Korea into modernization by educating the students. This is the reason why Yeonsei University's mascot is eagle and school color is blue. It is because of the western influence.

On the other hand, Gorye University, Yeonsei University's biggest rivalry school, has the mascot tiger, which is Korea's national animal as well as red as it's school color.

Learning about the history of the SKY schools in Korea was very interesting topic because I would have never learned this elsewhere.

In the last two weeks, I learned about the geography of Korea. Korea is a peninsula and has over 400 smaller islands! I learned about the different states and what they were famous for. Jeju island is famous for wind, rocks, and women. I was confused on as to why Jeju island was famous for these things. Also, I learned about the major cities in Korea. For example, there are major cities like Seoul, Gwangju (my hometown), Dejoen, Busan, Daegu, etc. It was interesting to see that one of the state consists of 80% mountains.

Also, in Korean geography, Dokdo island is considered a property of Korea, but in Japanese geography, Dokdo island is considered a property of Japan. It was weird to see that Japan still has not admitted Dokdo island to be a property of Korea when the rest of the world has.

Because of the recent Korean holiday on March 1st, we learned about the March First Day. March First Day came on about when people started independence movements against the Japanese ruling. It was really interesting to see how much of an impact this independence movement had on Korea's freedom. I also learned about Yoo Gwan Soon, an 18 year old girl who led the independence movement. She was cheering for Korea even when she was in jail and till she was executed. After learning about this historical event, my patriotism toward Korea started burning up. I never realized people fought for independence this passionately.

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In that past two weeks, I learned extremely advanced vocab. In class, we went through news articles and published newspapers to learn new vocabularies. The first thing I learned is that in news articles and newspapers, the authors use advanced wordings instead of expressing it the same meaning in a simpler way. For example, the word 온난 came up, which means warm. The author could have used the word 따뜻하다 which is a more common and less advanced vocabulary than the first one. It was interesting to see expression of same meaning with a more advanced vocabulary.

After going through the first couple news articles and newspapers, the vocabularies continued to show up. I was able to go through the rest of the news articles and newspapers without having to stop on every word.

In the first two weeks, I learned about Korean idioms (관용어). I learned the meanings and how they apply in life. Most of the Korean idioms I learned were completely new, there weren't any similar ones in English.

An example of an idiom that I learned is 손이 크다. This literally means you have big hands; however, the hidden meaning behind it is that you cook a lot of food at once. I would have never guessed any of these meanings.

After I learned these idioms, I realized that my parents use a lot of idioms during a conversation. Even in just small talks, my parents were using the idioms that I learned, and it was eye opening experience to be able to understand the idioms that they were using.

To improve my writing ability and become a better writer, I began writing journals every once in a while. This allowed me to work on my sentence structuring and the use of appropriate vocabulary. I tried to strictly use phrases and vocabulary that I learned over the semester, to force myself to get accustomed to using new word choices and widen by vocabulary. It also helped to force myself to use every-day slangs and expressions that I could use in common conversations.

One of the cultural aspects of Korea I learned about was the presence of regional tension between provinces in Korea. This is formally called regionalism and is a deeply rooted issue in Korean culture. This issue can be traced back to former presidencies in the nation. Many presidential candidates were backed by their respective province and those elected presidents, often neglected the development of the rivaling provinces. An example of this extreme regionalism is between the Jeolla Province and the Gyeongsang Province. Such regionalism went so to the point of not hiring people from the opposing province. People from the Jeolla Province also faced heavy discrimination in government agencies as well. It was common practice to change one's family registry to obtain higher positions within the government if one was born in Jeolla. Despite being a deep rooted issue, regionalism appears to be on the decline with the new generation of Koreans.

While studying about particulate matter in Korea, I was reminded that it was a very big problem in Korea. Korea has been exposed to a variety of particulate matter from countries such as China. Due to worsening conditions, Seoul has one of the worst air qualities in the world. Because of this, mask usage as become a beauty trend to avoid the harmful smog. These surgical style face masks have achieved a fashion accessory status as one can purchase one in variety of styles. These masks are even modeled by actors, music artists, and more. These masks have another cultural facet to them as well. In Asian countries, it is common to wear masks when one gets sick. This is not for the wearer but for those the wearer comes in contact with. In consideration for others, many people in Korea opt to wear masks when they get sick.

There was an article on Facebook that caught my eye. It was regarding a hot new topic on Youtube that has been gaining attention. People commonly vlog in Korea regarding topics such as 먹방, which is eating, GRWM (Get ready with me), and makeup artists. This concept was one that I had never heard of before- Study with me. I was curious so I clicked on the link, and there is a person sitting at a desk literally studying. I was so surprised because there was no talking involved. 

I am curious why Korean people start these new topics and how they go viral. Even my friends watch 먹방 while they are eating, I turn on GRWM videos with makeup artists as I get ready, but I'm not sure if I will ever hop on the bandwagon of "Study with me". 

I am attaching the video which has 2.8 million views. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmDbesougG0

Week13:

For week13, we had review class for what we learned so far. First of all, we reviewed alphabet and sentence structure: S+O+V+ending. Evelyn asked everyone to make a sentence so I wrote 데빈은 돼지 입니다.

And we also reviewed Korean number systems and used them to represent date, minutes, seconds, money, number of things, age, time, number of people. For instance, number of things used 개.

What’s more, we reviewed how to say day of the week, grammar and VOCABS we learned so far. At the end of class, everyone also did a self introduction again. Compared with the self introduction we did in the first week of class, we are able to give a much longer self introduction and we can speak more fluently. Our self introduction included my name, my birthday, my age , my nationality and my major in University of Richmond. We also introduced our favorite K-pop groups.

Week14:

Final Week

Week 11

Since it is nearing the finals time, this week we are practicing our speaking skills. We did so by incorporating the different vocabularies that we learned this semester and formed sentences. We also learned how to say what our major is and what our favorite thing is as part of practicing self-introduction phrases. In order to live in Korea, I also asked Evelyn how to order food in Korea and ask people how are you today. I think so far, my speaking is much better than before.

Week 12:

Class Cancelled

Week9:

 Spring Break

Week 10

During week 10, we started the class by discussing the film we watched last class and going over some of the common phrases that were said in the film. Watching a movie in Korean class was overall a good exercise because it helped with our listening abilities. For example, sometimes I can understand what the actors/actresses were saying and being able to understand that is really gratifying. Then, we watched another very popular Korean drama, called “Touch Your Heart” (진심이 닿다), It is the most popular Korean drama TV series right now. The show talked about a top actress suffering from a scandal that damaged her career, and was forced to step down from her job for two years. In order to get a role in a major upcoming television series, she had to agrees to get experience at a law firm, working as a secretary to a lawyer. The television was not very good and not quite as good as a listening experience compared to the movie film watched last class. This was because the actress tends to mumble a lot to act cute.And at the end of the class, we also talked about the new song just released in Korea. Evelyn said some korean singers' pronunciation is not really good so it might be hard for people to learn Korean by listening to the music. But it is still a good way to learn some new vocabulary in Korean.

 Week 13

For week13, we had review class for what we learned so far. First of all, we reviewed alphabet and sentence structure: S+O+V+ending. Evelyn asked everyone to make a sentence so I wrote 데빈은 돼지 입니다.

And we also reviewed Korean number systems and used them to represent date, minutes, seconds, money, number of things, age, time, number of people. For instance, number of things used 개.

What’s more, we reviewed how to say day of the week, grammar and VOCABS we learned so far. At the end of class, everyone also did a self introduction again. Compared with the self introduction we did in the first week of class, we are able to give a much longer self introduction and we can speak more fluently. Our self introduction included my name, my birthday, my age , my nationality and my major in University of Richmond. We also introduced our favorite K-pop groups.

Week 14

Finals week – exam time!

Week 11

Since it is nearing the finals time, this week we are practicing our speaking skills. We did so by incorporating the different vocabularies that we learned this semester and formed sentences. We also learned how to say what our major is and what our favorite thing is as part of practicing self-introduction phrases.

We did the following:

Name: 저는 데빈 입니다 (jeun nun devin ibnida)

Age: 저는 스물 한살 입니다 (jeun nun sumul hansal ibnida)

Birthday: 제 생일은 천구백구십칠년 십이월 십파일 입니다 (jyeo saengil eun cheongu baekgu shipchilnyeon shibyiwael shibyiil ibnida)

Major: 제 전공은 PPEL 입니다 (jyeo jangunin PPEL ibnida)

Nationality: 저는 중국 사람 입니다 (jeun nun juonguk salam ibnida)

Week 12

No class. – Evelyn went to geography conference in DC

Week 9

No class – Spring Break

Week 10

During week 10, we started the class by discussing the film we watched last class and going over some of the common phrases that were said in the film. Watching a movie in Korean class was overall a good exercise because it helped with our listening abilities. For example, sometimes I can understand what the actors/actresses were saying and being able to understand that is really gratifying. Then, we watched another very popular Korean drama, called “Touch Your Heart” (진심이 닿다), It is the most popular Korean drama TV series right now. The show talked about a top actress suffering from a scandal that damaged her career, and was forced to step down from her job for two years. In order to get a role in a major upcoming television series, she had to agrees to get experience at a law firm, working as a secretary to a lawyer. The television was not very good and not quite as good as a listening experience compared to the movie film watched last class. This was because the actress tends to mumble a lot to act cute.

Week 7

For week 7, we learned:

 새벽: dawn.  아침: morning, breakfast.  점심: noon, lunch

 저녁: afternoon, dinner. 밤: night

 오전: AM  오후: PM

 그제: day before yesterday  어제: yesterday. 오늘: today

 내일: tomorrow 모레: day after tomorrow

 봄: spring. 여름: summer  가을: fall  겨울: winter

 날씨: weather. 춥다: cold. 덥다: hot

 And in the class, we had conversation practice such as 지금이 어느 계절인가(What season is it now)

        지금 몇 시예요(What time is it now?)  내일은 몇 월 며칠이에요(What date is tomorrow?)

Week 8

In week 8, we watched a movie called 극한직업(Extreme Job) which is a 2019 South Korean action comedy film. This is about a team of detective and police are given many chances, but fail over and over again. They are given one more chance, which is to catch a drug gang, before they all get separated into different police departments. They go into the chicken restaurant to go undercover, to find the drug gang. The restaurant was going to close that day, so they buy the restaurant, but somehow, after buying the restaurant, their new business turns extremely popular, distracting them from their actual job. A rich man, who is a part of the drug gang, which they later find out offers to buy the restaurant. Since their business is so popular, it gets turned into a chain, which is secretly selling drugs, disguising them in the products. Once they find out, however, they chase down the gang, and fight them, which in the end, they arrest. After a long fight, they succeed, finally ending the situation in Korea with all of the drug dealing. With doing this, their jobs are saved, and they are promoted to officer ranks, finishing the task they were given. The plot line is really interesting, and we were asked to act out the dialogue in the movie. I think it is a really good way for me to practice speaking.