Recently, I started to watch Korean drama which is called "Her Private Life"(그녀의 사생활) because it is getting really famous among Chinese students and Korean students. Although it only has 4 episodes, I like this drama a lot because it is about the girl(박민영)try to keep the secret that she likes K-pop a lot from her family and colleagues. The reason that she decided to do this was because a lot of people thought groupies(그룹) were always irrational. So as matter of fact, a lot of companies in Korea will not hire groupies. From my perspective, this drama is interesting but also is trying to uncover the fact that people who are enthusiast about things that they love cannot receive respect from other people. And I also learned a lot of new vocabularies from this drama because there are a lot of combines words that Korean young people would like to use during their daily life. These words sound really interesting.
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Recently, there is a huge event happened in South Korean. The well-known former member of BigBang, Seungri, stands accused of providing prostitution services, embezzlement, and sharing secretly recorded sex videos. Although Seungri had a huge impact on K-pop as a member of one of its most influential acts, the irrevocable damage to his reputation led him to retire from show business. Seungri is known to be polyglot, speaking Korean, English, Japanese and Mandarin. However, after this scandal, people all said that his language skills help him to be an international pimp, which is so sarcastic. Several other high-profile K-pop celebrities are involved in the growing scandal as well.
With a member from one of its biggest groups entangled in such a scandal, South Korean stocks have already taken a hit. Moreover, the stock price of YG which is Bigbang's company plunged more than 14 percent, the largest drop ever since it was first listed on Korean stock market KOSDAQ.
Personally, I was a big fan of BigBang when I was younger and now I am very disappointed to him. I gain an insight into the k-pop star that they just act as what we want them to be on screen, so I will be a rational fan in the future.
The South Korean ferry disaster happened on April 16, 2014. I remember hearing about this even in high school, but I didn't understand the severity of the event until now. The ship was going from Incheon to Jeju island. The event killed more than 300 people, and most of them were high school students going on a field trip. It is the country's worst accident in decades. The event signified corruption from President Park for not sending help for seven hours after hearing about the drowning ship. The ship operators and regulators were criticized for finding loopholes in safety inspections before the ship went out. The captain and the crew repeatedly assured the passengers to "stay put. It will be okay." while they saved themselves. The captain and crew were sentenced to prison for murder through willful negligence. The Korean coastgaurd only saved the people who made it out on top of the ship, ignoring people who were trapped in the windows below. This event was a sign of major corruption in authority and is known as a tragedy among the Korean people. Government actions to retrieve the ferry began a year later and many families remain outraged by the disaster.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/world/asia/south-korean-ferry-accident.html?module=inline
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/22/world/asia/south-korea-ferry-sewol.html
This week, I learned about words used in the Bible because I was interested in learning about the Korean parallel to some words. I knew some of the words already because I grew up hearing about these words, but I wanted to expand upon other terms that I did not know.
For example, we learned about the names of the people in the Bible, along with the books and other important words. As I grew up learning about these words in English, I was able to recognize the stories, but I rarely knew them in Korean. For example, Adam and Noah were easy to learn since they are just “Korean-ized” versions of the English words, such as “ah-dam,” and “noh-ah,” respectively. However, I did not know that Eve was “Ha-wa,” and Rachel was “la-hael.” According to my learning partner, the Korean language in the Bible followed the Hebrew pronunciation of words, which is why Rachel was “la-hael” and not Rachel as we would think.
When learning these words along with other new terminology, I learned that the way that my learning partner and I learned about these words were same in that we made it easier to memorize by learning about it using a song. We noticed that the Korean versions seemed to be more traditional, while the English songs seem to be more modernized. It was interesting to note these similarities and differences of learning techniques! Therefore, this was a nice topic to learn about because not only did I learn about new words, but also we were able to compare the culture between the Korean and American method of learning about this topic!
I watched my first episode of the Korean variety show "Happy Together". I was aware that this show existed when I go to Korean restaurants and saunas, but I never watched it until Seong-hye introduced a different episode to me recently. The only other variety show I tried was "Running Man". This episode features foreigners Sam Hammington(Australian), Sam Otswiri (Ghanian), Fabien (France) who are fluent in Korean. I was fascinated by their fluency, and they talked about how each of them started to learn Korean and their cultural immersion experience. They had a hard time eating Korean food initially like seaweed soup or octopus but eventually came to like the foods that even most native Koreans don't eat. All of them preferred Korean food over food from their homeland. They even cited some idioms that I learned from my cultural presentation about tteok. Otswiri said that he actually hates going back to Ghana because there is no dried seaweed that he can eat there. Otswiri also memorized a long Korean subway route by heart, which was impressive to see him recite.
I was most interested in Fabien's story. He started out by mastering taekwondo in France, and he enjoyed the Korean culture so much that he saved up for a 3-month backpacking trip to Korea. He also studied English at Ehwa Women's University. He wanted to learn Korean so much that he would avoid talking English or French to foreigners for two years by pretending that he didn't speak those languages. He knew Korea's history more than the native speakers, which became prominent when he cited Korea's 5 most important holidays (Korean Independence Day (March 1st), Constitution day (July 17th), National Liberation day (August 15th), National Foundation day (October 3rd), and Hangul Proclamation day (October 9th)).
I really enjoyed this episode because it gave me hope that people who didn't know the language at all can become so fluent and passionate about the culture. I also liked that the Korean show editing style is very comedic, and it's even helpful because they spell out the words in Korean on the screen, which helps me with spelling. Their love for Korea inspires me to learn Korean more, and I will now add "Happy Together" on my Korean show watchlist.
The episode link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wzRCvUAhWs&list=LLKSkzRjPwe2uxKschBuQzcw&index=2&t=0s
I saw a video of a Korean reporter who interviewed women in Korea asking what is the ideal weight for Korean girls. Growing up as a Korean-American, I was always aware of the unrealistic body standards that Korea had for women. The pressure of those standards continued to persist through my parents and my other Korean friends during my childhood, though I imagine that the pressure is even worse in Korea. Hearing about Korean natives speaking about their perspectives about dieting and talking about their ideal weight was both conflicting and refreshing. I'm glad to hear their perspective from other native Korean speakers who aren't my parents and relatives, but their standards were alarming. The way that they talked about dieting and starving themselves was like second nature to them, even when they acknowledged that it was probably unhealthy. There were diets that I haven't even heard of like the apple diet, which is to only eat apples for days or weeks at a time until they achieved their ideal weight. I really enjoy this Youtube channel because it lets me look into the Korean perspective that I wouldn't have the chance to otherwise.
Here is the link:
I practice typing with my Korean friend Fred. I have already told him what we are going to say at the beginning because I only learned several questions and specific answers for them.
This is Spicy Beef Soup in New Grant and I love it so much! I learned how to order food and practice with the Korean cashier in that restaurant.
Hanchen: 메뉴 주세요! (Hello!)
cashier: 메뉴 주세요! (Hello!)
Hanchen: 육개장 주세요. 감사합니다! (May I have spicy beef soup please? Thank you!)
cashier: 네. 식사 맛있게하세요 (Sure! Enjoy your meal.)
The Korean quartet set Black Pink became the first K-pop girl group to perform at Coachella in the music festival's 20-year history. They are so popular not only in Asia but also around the world. This is a picture of Black Pink with Jaden Smith and this post is so funny loll!
I can make a self introduction now! I only learned about how to do so in formal language.
안녕하세요! 저는 한첸 입니다, 저는 중구 싸람 입니다. 중구 학생 입니다, 선생님 이름 은 성헤 입니다.
translation: Hi I am Hanchen and I am Chinese. I am a student and my teacher's name is Seonghye.
I go to New Grant with my friends almost once a week, and this is a combo with Jajangmyun and Tangsuyuk (탕수육). Jajangmyun is black bean sauce with fried rice and Tangsuyuk is the fired crispy pork with sweet and sour sauce. It is delicious and satisfying but inexpensive! Tips: for the sweet sour pork, I strongly suggest to ask the sauce on the side because the pork is crispy, and putting sauce in the bowl will soaked the crispy pork too soft.
We learned about how to write my name in Korean. Since Korean only has 14 consonants and 10 vowels. The letters are combined together into syllable blocks. For example, Hangeul is written: 한 (han) = ᄒ (h) + ᅡ (a) + ᄂ (n) and 글 (geul) = ᄀ (g) + ᅳ (eu) + ᄅ (l). So knowing how to pronounce the name, I can simply spell it. My Chinese name is 刘翰辰 which pronounce as Liu Hanchen so it could be written it as 려 한챈: 려 = ㄹ (l) + ㅕ (yeo), 한= ᄒ (h) + ᅡ (a) + ᄂ (n), and 챈 = ㅊ (ch)+ㅐ(e) + ᄂ (n).
The last weeks were focused on a variety of different language skills. After reading a passage about a forest fire in Korea, we were tasked to complete several worksheets on the article. The worksheet consisted of connecting lines to definitions, fill-in the blank, and reflection. Through this exercise we had a good review of reading comprehension as well as writing. This activity gave me a good sense of where I was in terms of my studies. I was happy to realize that I was more proficient in Korean after practicing for the semester. I was able to get most of the definitions and was able to comprehend all of the article. I felt a lot of pride knowing that I was able to read and write at a proficient level. The homework assigned for the week was also a similar worksheet.
