My cultural presentation is on the Korean traditional martial arts, Tae Kwon Do. I used to practice Tae Kwon Do when I was younger, so I thought it would be interesting to research on a topic that I am familiar with. Tae Kwon Do is a self defense martial arts that teaches not only how to fight, but how to improve character, self-discipline, and confidence that can be applied to any task. Tae Kwon Do took thousand of years to become what it is known today. It has influences from karate, Chinese martial arts, and indigenous Korean martial arts traditions such as Taekkyeon, Subak, and Gwonbeop. Tae Kwon Do aims to change one's lifestyle because it teaches to have a peaceful mind and synchronize your mind with your movements. This extends to your life and how one contributes to society. The principle of physical movements, mind training, and life become one and the same and it eventually becomes a way of life.
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For one of the classes we learned about the corrupt political situation in Korea in 1987. My dad had told me when he was in college he had gone to protests and demonstrations against the corrupt political climate in that era, but I didn't really understand the full scope of this historical event. We learned how Korean citizens basically had no power in electing a president that they desired and this was what caused the spark in protests. Many young generations were fighting the corrupt system and one college student was taken in by the government. He was interrogated and tortured severely enough that he had died. This caused even more outrage and thousands more decided to fight back. The government spread propaganda and stated that the cause of the young student's death was due to shock from one of the officials who was interrogating the student slamming on a desk. This was a ridiculous statement and the Korean public knew that it was all lies and continued pressuring the government to give them their freedom. Eventually, the government gave in and agreed to let the people choose who became president.
I thought this was a crazy part of Korea's history and I had no idea how corrupt the political system was. When it was recently announced that the Korean president was just a puppet for a powerful cult leader's daughter, I remember being so shocked just as many people were in America. However, what shocked me more was my mom's reaction when I talked to her about this. She wasn't even disturbed and replied that the Korean government has always been corrupt and shrugged it off. By learning about what happened in 1987, I can see how her reaction was rational from her experience of living in Korea for most of her life.
The past two weeks have been the traditional lectures given by Youngmin using the workbook, textbook, and other speaking/writing activities that Youngmin prepares. For one of the weeks, we learned to about characteristics and how to describe them without saying the specific word in Korean. She first introduced the words by giving each of the students 2 characteristics and we had to describe the word without actually saying them. I thought this was a fun way to do an educational exercise. We continued on the lesson plan by doing reading and writing exercises with these characteristics using the workbook and textbook. The beginning of the lesson was a bit rough because I didn't know more than half of the words she provided, but the practice exercises we did really helped with strengthening my understanding of the words when we applied them to right context.
We had an assignment where we were assigned Korean historical monuments and had to give a presentation to the class. I thought this assignment perfectly aligned with having to teach someone what we learned about our language, so I decided to write about our presentation. I gave a presentation on the Hanok which is a traditional Korean house. I think I may have incorrectly interpreted some significant things I read online because while I gave the presentation Youngmin looked a bit confused and had some questions to follow up on somethings that I had said. Overall, I thought this was a good learning activity because I had to teach the students about a topic I had researched all in Korean. I had to make sure all the things I was saying were clear and easy to understand. I think it went well because the rest of the class seemed interested in the topic and actually understood what I was saying. I think I need to improve more on articulating my thoughts and what I learned. When the students and Youngmin had questions, I had a hard time trying to translate my English thoughts into Korean on the spot and sometimes just gave up and spoke in English.
For one of the past two weeks, Youngmin changed up the traditional class lecture into a fun activity where we crafted historical monuments. She brought these Korean puzzle like cardboard pieces and we had to put the individual pieces together using the somewhat complicated directions. After we finished, we were assigned to create a presentation completely in Korean about the monument that we had built. My monument was a traditional Korean house called Hanok. We had to explain the history, special features, how it was made, and the purpose of our assigned historical monument. This was a difficult assignment because I had to read Korean articles online to collect information to answer these questions. Reading is one of my main weaknesses because I don't know a lot of the Korean vocabulary, so I had to use an online dictionary to understand most of the articles I found. Although it was difficult, it definitely pushed me into an uncomfortable territory that I was not familiar with and I felt that was necessary because I learned a lot more than I expected. On top of this assignment, we did our usual workbook and textbook lectures that Youngmin always provides.
We have been continuing our lesson plans of using the workbook and textbook that Youngmin had provided us. For the past two weeks we expanded different grammatical rules and how to apply them to using problems provided by the workbook. For one of the weeks we learned how to form sentences that were hypotheticals. For the second week we went over phrases that use _tends to be _. Another phrase we learned to use was "if something was this, __ this would have happened."We also learned about different superstitions in the Korean culture. For every new subject that we covered Youngmin provided more practice we could do in class. For example, she would write topics on the board and each student would write a sentence using what we had just covered. When we covered the workbook, we would answer the questions and problems through speaking, so that was helpful in learning the pronunciation. This has also been helping me become more confident and comfortable in speaking in Korean.
One of my goals was to learn more about Korean history. I don't really know what happened in my grandparents' generation and I can never really have a full-fledged conversation to learn about it because I have a hard time speaking Korean with my grandparents. Youngmin gave an assignment to my class to watch a Korean movie titled, Ode to my Father, which has a Forrest Gump type of story where it shows the life a an old Korean man from childhood to present. The main character is placed in settings of significant events of Korea's history in the 20th century. It shows how he lost his father and younger sister when South Korea was at war with North Korea. It also reveals his time working abroad in Germany to make money during an era when Korea did not have the thriving economy it has today. I found this part fascinating because my mom told me my Grandpa went to Saudi Arabia to make money during this era. It was interesting because although it is a fictional story, the events and setting did exist. I was able to get an inside look at how my grandparents' lives were like.
Overall, I really appreciated that this film was assigned to watch. I learned about Korea's history and what the people had to live through. It really made me appreciate the life I have lived until now in the United States and how privileged I am. It is so vastly different to what my grandpa may have lived through when he was growing up. I feel that I somewhat connect with him and the Korean people a bit better and that's what made this movie so impactful.
Over this past week, my Indonesian friend and his/her (I use "his/her" to conceal the person's identity) friend got into an argument over the phone via text messaging. He/she showed me the texts and had permitted me to write about it.
How does this relate to my cultural topic? My cultural topic is about language registers in Indonesia. And the argument sheds a great deal of insight on the social influences on the use of language register. The fact that the argument was expressed via texts also provides insight on factors that influence language register. What's more, the relationship between the conversational partners is a key dynamic, which also influences one's choice of language register. Finally, the topic influenced their choice of register. As you can see, the use of a language register is contingent upon many factors, and it can get quite complex. Luckily, their argument captures them all.
First, the relationship between the two conversational partners could be characterized as friendly. They are future brother- and-sister-in-laws. The older conversational partner addressed my friend as “kamu” (“you,” informal) and himself as “saya” (“me/I,” formal) which is inappropriate given the social relationship. The person is supposed to address his conversational partner as “adik” (younger “sibling”) and himself as “kakak” (older “sibling) in order to maintain the social norms.
The fact that he used “kamu” purposefully indicated a breach in conversational norms, a clear marker that something went awry. The use of kamu and saya is also rude because it creates a distance between the speakers by changing the nature of their relationship. It is hard to describe in an environment in which loose conversational norms govern speech. In addition, the use kamu and saya sets the tone of the conversation because the sentences that follow each pronoun are mostly composed of formal words, which creates distance.
This week, we continued with creating sentences while focusing on verbs and other grammatical aspects. The most important lesson from this week, was learning that in Indonesian, personal pronouns come after the noun rather before like in English. For example, instead of writing "your cat", the sentence order would directly translate into "cat you." Adjectives are also placed after the noun unlike in English where adjectives are before the noun. This week we also learned about two new words we can use when discussing future events. The word akan means will while the word mou means want. These words have made it easier to grasp the concept of time in Indonesian.
The lesson from class this week was also very relatable in terms of my self-directed learning. In class, we discussed how being bilingual may help you think or just think differently from those that are only monolingual. I have certainly found that to be true, especially when learning to speak Indonesian. While English has helped to an extent, I have found Spanish to be a little more helpful when trying to pronounce new Indonesian words.
The cultural post is about Hungarian-Turkish Friendship Park (Magyar-Török Barátság Park in Hungarian, Macar-Türk Dostluk Parkı in Turkish). It is a public park located in Csertő, southwestern Hungary. It was built to memorialize the Battle of Szigetvár fought in 1566 between the Ottoman Empire and the Hungarian and Croatiandefenders of the Szigetvár Castle. The park was established in 1994 and opened jointly by Hungarian and Turkish officials. The picture below is the head sculptures of Miklós Zrínyi (left) and Sultan Suleiman (right) with the symbolic tomb seen in the background at the park. The head sculptures were created in 2006 by User:Csanády. I appreciate this park that shows the history of the two countries and mourn for the deaths that caused by the battle from 16th century. I believe that this kind of memorial parks gives a vivid education of history and reminds the decedents how present is valuable and not be the same without the scarification of our ancestors.
What are your cultural learning goals for this semester?
I want to learn about Turkish arts this semester. I will spend my time exploring Turkish arts in three categories: architecture, painting, and sculpture. I will use the google search tool and other websites including artists' blogs to explore Turkish arts. I think it will enrich my knowledge of arts, which I am minoring in. I think Gokhan, my language partner can also help me out with the background stories behind the art works. I will learn about the history and legends behind the architectures, paintings, and sculptures. I will insert pictures of them on the cultural posts. I am planning to do a cultural presentation on Turkish architecture or sculpture. I will look for vocabularies that are related to the arts and the art pieces so that I can increase my Turkish language skill, while I am exploring more about the Turkish art.
Overall Korean Family Culture:
Korea is a very community centered nation, and that reflects in their family culture. When it comes to the family unit, members of the family are not really considered individuals. Family members are more concerned with cohesive happiness instead of having their own autonomy separate from the group. Koreans believe that when family members are independent, they are being set to to live a very lonely life. Overall, close family ties and a sense of dependency are extremely valued.
Another big concept of Korean family culture is that children are seen as being in debt to their parents for giving birth to them and for taking care of them. This debt is said to be repaid in a few ways: treating parents respectfully at all times, taking care of parents in their old age, mourning them well at their proper funerals, and performing ceremonies for them after their deaths. Although these are all extremely important, full payment is not considered received until the son has a child and continues the family line. The concept of a family line or legacy is extremely important in Korean culture. Koreans believe that birth and death are not necessary the start and beginning of life. They believe that every lives through their predecessors as well as the generations that come after death. The majority of these traditional family values come from traditional Confucian principles of family organization.
Traditional Korean Family:
"Harmony and smooth flow of affection were seen as the result of proper patriarchal regulation of women and children. The family should be run as a 'benevolent monarchy,' the eldest male as household head. Sons remained home after they married, while daughters went to live with their husbands' families." Young children in Korea are indulged and usually aren't disciplined until they are about 6 or 7. One of the first things they are taught is how to speak politely to elders. They are also taught how to read and write Hangul. On the other hand, girls weren't taught how to read or write, and they usually didn't learn the alphabet either. Girls were also taught that they are inferior to elders and their brothers.
Under this old system, parents usually arranged the marriages for both males and females. Usually the children would have absolutely no say in who their spouse would be. Furthermore, since men stayed home after marriage and women went to live with a new family, marriage was usually traumatizing for women. New wives had a duty to please their new husbands, but especially the mother-in-law. Mother-in-laws usually boss the wives around and instruct them to do the housework and any tasks that need to be done. It is also considered extremely disrespectful to speak out against the mother-in-law. The position of a new wife is not secured until the married couple have a son.
Changes to the Family Structure Since the 1960's:
Since most Koreans live in cities and work in factories at this time, larger extended families couldn't fit into a small city apartment, so families began to be a little bit more spread out. There was a new emphasis on having stronger husband-wife relationships. Furthermore, under the New Civil Code of 1958, numerous cultural reforms were made. For example, now eldest sons are able to leave the house, husbands and wives share the power to educate and punish their children, young adults can decide on their own marriages, younger sons can leave to form their own families, all children have equal claim to their parents' property, and love matches are no longer frowned upon. Although love matches are becoming more accepted, arranged marriages are still very popular. Casual dating is also more acceptable and prevalent, however, most of the interactions between males and females are in groups. Moreover, the family still retains a male house head, sons still inherit more than daughters, and children are still legally responsible for taking care of their elder parents. Although many Confucian principles are still at the core of Korean family values, the dynamic of the Korean family and the many elements that pertain to it, change a lot through the course of time and other societal changes.
https://asiasociety.org/education/value-and-meaning-korean-family ;
A learning goal which I have successfully accomplished is verb conjugation. I feel at this point I can know successfully conjugate in the right tense any verb which is given to me. Learning verb conjugation at the beginning was a little confusing as I was used to the Spanish verb conjugations, but as I got more used to those of Portuguese I have found the system very similar to that of Spanish. I feel as though my completion of this learning goal will help me greatly in my future goal of fluently creating sentences.
My recent meetings between my language partner and I have been based around sentence structure. More importantly the use of prepositions. I have learned the base set of prepositions and the uses of de and a after them to form the connection between the preposition and the object or verb it connects them to. I have also been learning about the different types of preposition such as the accidental and the essential.
This week I attempted to teach my suite mates how to describe the weather in Portugese. I found that for my roommates that know how to speak Spanish the process was much easier, as the descriptions for weather were very similar to that of Spanish. I found many similarities in their learning process as mine, as I also came from a Spanish to Portuguese. As for my other suite mate who did not understand Spanish the process was quite difficult as I had to explain what each part of the sentences meant in English translation. Overall I felt as though this lesson went quite well, but I would definitely make a different plan for a Spanish speaker, in comparison to a non Spanish speaker.
Learning to read and write in Korean has been a huge focus of my language learning this semester. Learning a new alphabet and writing system is a big hurdle that you can avoid as a language learner when learning another Romanized language. Instead of being able to jump write into vocabulary and grammar like I was able to do with Spanish, I spent a while just memorizing the alphabet and learning how to read and write in Hangul. However, it has been a cool way to track my progress because I remember in the beginning sounding out every word and needing to look at my notes on the alphabet in order to read. Now, I'm starting to recognize common combinations of letters and being able to process what sounds like make much more quickly. I'm not sure if I would say that I'm bilingual; I'm definitely not with Korean, but my Spanish skills are much more developed. Even so, I still can't think quickly in Spanish and can definitely still improve how fluidly I speak it. However, I guess being bilingual isn't necessarily being fluent in two languages, but rather just proficient. My Korean will need a lot of work before I can say I'm trilingual.
I think the articles make some good points about the benefits of bilingualism. It's hard to quantify intelligence, but I think that knowing more than one language can broaden your scope of thinking, which in my opinion, makes you smarter. Different languages force you to think in different ways, and that can only boost your intelligence. Also, bilingualism opens you to new cultures, and having a greater global perspective and understanding contributes to intelligence I believe. Knowing more than one language also forces you to be able to switch gears quickly and be more active in your thinking in order to know which language, vocabulary, grammar rules, etc. to process and speak in a certain context.
This week, I worked on Turkish history and architectures. My language partner, Gokhan gave me a presentation and taught me the geography or Turkey, and the architectural history of Turkey. It was really interesting for me, because I am minoring in Visual and Media Arts Practice, and took art history class. I had few chance to learn about Turkish architecture, so that the presentation was really helpful and informative. I think I want to do a cultural presentation on the Turkish architecture. There are lots of historical buildings in Turkey that they are tied to the culture. I learned that it is also connected to economy in Turkey. I wrote down several names of buildings including an old library in Ankara. I will keep researching online, and rent books on architecture from UR library. Although I did some research and gave a presentation on Turkish tourism history, it was still interesting and new for me to listen more about Gokhan's presentation on the Turkish legends and politics. It was amazing how people still admire Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who was the founder of the Republic of Turkey. Attached below is the simple version of presentation about Turkish Architecture that I made after I was inspired by Gokhan's presentation.
Third Artifact: Turkish Architecture
