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For this artifact, I wrote a reflection on a favorite American movie.
친구들이 보고 싶다고 해서 인샙션 을 보았다. 이 영화가 재미있다는 소문이 많아서 보고 싶었다. 이 영화는 사람들이 다른 사람들의 꿈 안으로 들어가서 아이디어를 넣어서 사람들의 행동을 바꾸는 영화다. 어떤 사람이 다른 사업하는 사람의 아들의 꿈으로 들어가서 사업을 망치는 것이다. 이 영화의 제일 재미있는 장면은 호탤에서 싸우는 장면이었다. 나는 액션 영화가 좋아서 그 장면이 기억에 남았다. 이 영화에서 꿈은 현실이 아니다는 것을 배웠다.
For this artifact, I am uploading a reflection I wrote about a movie I watched. This movie is a Korean classic. Ode to my Father. Ode%20to%20My%20Father%20Reflection.docx
For this artifact, I am uploading a reflection I wrote on Korean idioms.
In the past SDLC classes, I have learned about writing, reading, and culture. To demonstrate, I am going to read a short article and talk about my opinions.
This presentation is about Kimchi and its origins. I go more into detail about the health benefits and the westernization of Kimchi.
Korea is really big on their formal language. This is especially true in the work force and towards the elderly. If you do not use formal language with them, it is seen as a sign of disrespect and is usually associated with major consequences. There are even different gestures a person must do when meeting with a person of higher authority or a person who is older than you. When drinking with them, you must look the other way, for it is a sign of disrespect if you drink alcohol right in front of their face. It is also rude to look at them directly in the eye when talking to them. I personally thought this was interesting because it is the opposite in America. In the states, it is seen as a sign of respect to look at others directly in the eye. It shows them that you are paying attention and are focused on that individual.
I am interested in learning Korean because, although I grew up in a Korean family, I only know how to speak the language conversationally. I would like to know how to read and write properly this semester. I mostly want to do this for when I go back to Korea. When I first visited South Korea, it shocked me as to how much I still have to learn about their language. I would constantly get feedback from natives saying that I was being rude or that my grammar was wrong. Therefore, I would like to learn the proper way of reading and writing so that when I go back to Korea, I won't make the same mistakes as I did the last time.
A language usually becomes extinct when another language is dominating and out competes the passive language. This can be seen in history when a country colonizes another area. The colonized area will be under another government system, and may be forced to speak another language. This in turn makes their dominant language the passive one and then slowly over generations, their native language becomes extinct. Linguist can help preserve a language by offering a diversity of language classes to students. Keeping a good record and documentation of potentially endangered languages will also be very helpful, especially when they are looking to revive the language. Therefore, a language can be revived, as long as there is documentation and a demand. There must be some purpose in reviving a language to garner attention.
During my presentation, I think I did an okay job. It was harder than I thought to teach about a basic thematic unit of my target language. It was difficult to make sure everyone understood the concept, especially since it was a language they were not familiar with at all. For me, because I focused on the Korean government, I thought I successfully relayed concepts to others by comparing it to the American governmental system. Therefore, if I were to teach a semester-long course about the subject, I would definitely try to relate my concepts to something that the students would be familiar with. I also think that I would teach at a slower pace because many people may not understand a concept as quickly as others might just because it is so foreign to them.
For South Korea, the Hofstede dimensions were 60 in power distance, 18 in individualism, 39 in masculinity, 85 in uncertainty avoidance, 100 in long term orientation, and 29 in indulgence. I thought the dimensions were mostly true according to my experiences in South Korea. I especially thought the individualism and masculinity were true. When I went to Korea, I encountered a culture shock of how feminine the guys were. Unlike in America, where guys tend to shy away from femininity, guys in South Korea seemed to embrace it. If a guy was walking down the street wearing a pink shirt and had make up on, most people would see him as being fashionable and trendy. Additionally, I find it true that South Korea has a very collectivist mindset. When a person would be praised for their work, a lot of times their family would also be praised. I find this to also be relevant in my life right now especially when I was applying to universities my senior year of high school. Whenever I got accepted to a good school, my parents would be complimented for raising me up and allowing me to get accepted into the university instead of the praise being on all of me.
During this semester, I learned many things about Korean culture in terms of cinema and cuisine. I learned many things about the westernization of Korean food and how Korean movies became so relevant in the United States. I learned what kind of movies Americans like and why it has become so popular in the United States. This was partly due to the reason of increasing immigrants from South Korea. The adoption and popularization of Kimchi was due to the huge influx of immigrants as well. However, with these increases in popularity, came another genre of food, fusion. This created a new, different taste for people in America and South Korea. I have learned why Kimchi is so prevalent in South Korean households and how it even got to my table and hundreds of millions' dining tables.
For this cultural post, I am going to write about the prevalence of Kimchi in American culture. Since Kimchi's popularity increased, there has been a lot of fusion food with Kimchi. There are Kimchi burritos, tacos, and even fries. There are also many different types of Korean fusion restaurants that are popping up around the country. Even in Richmond, there are places like Zzaamm and J Kogi. These places serve many different Asian inspired cuisine, but incorporate Kimchi into many of their dishes. With the popularity of Kimchi, its store presence has increased. It has made its way into some American grocery chains. Since Kimchi requires very delicate handling, special Kimchi refrigerators are a necessity in Korean households. These Kimchi refrigerators have even made it into Best Buy store lots. With the increasing popularity of Kimchi, more and more cuisine and accessories will become readily available.
For this cultural post, I am going to focus on Kimchi. Kimchi was originally just pickled vegetables that were fermented. Kimchi was not originally spicy until the American army introduced Korea to the red pepper. Although it was introduced, it was not adapted into Kimchi until a few decades later. The importance of fermentation was due to the fact that there were no refrigerators to keep the food fresh. Since Korea was not a very affluent country and was one of the poorest countries in the world, people needed to think of other ways to keep their food fresh. Fermenting it meant that the food could have been eaten for a while after it was made. There are different types of Kimchi, like cucumber kimchi and water kimchi. Each region has its own specialty in Kimchi. This combined with many other vegetables made it so that there are over 100 varieties of Kimchi. Kimchi is something that was eaten for hundreds of years and has not really changed in its shape, size, or form.
For this cultural post, I will focus on Korean cinemas. Korean cinemas have been starting to gain worldwide attention. This started with the movie The Host. This movie has garnered worldwide attention and even got a limited release in the United States. After that, movies like Oldboy and Taegukgi has started to surface and gotten more attention. These two movies were known for their story telling and twists. Oldboy is part of a trilogy that has to do with revenge. With these popular movies, came Korean movie theaters that opened up in select parts of the United States. These movie theaters show Korean movies with english subtitles and even Korean movies that are popular. Although these cinemas are not too prevalent, their popularity is rising. Okja, a Netflix special that was set and directed by a Korean director is also a sign of this Korean cinema revolution too.
For this semester, I want to learn more about the culture in terms of movies and Korean cuisine. I want to explore the Korean cuisine side more, because I want to learn more about the details of the background of the food that I grew up with.
I plan to explore these topics by doing some more research about each one and seeing what interests me the most. I have already decided that I will be going with a culture presentation of Kimchi, because it is a staple in the Korean dish.
I hope to learn why Koreans are so dedicated to Kimchi and its origins. I also want to learn more about the history of why Kimchi became one of the most important dishes for Koreans.
I believe that my Korean is adequate in terms of casual speaking, but not in formal speaking. Here are the results:
Interpretive listening: Developing 1
Interpretive Reading: Developing 2
Interpersonal Speaking: Expanding 1
Presentational Speaking: Beginner 3
Presentational Writing: Beginner 3
For these final 2 weeks, we focused on our cultural presentations. I decided to do my cultural presentation on Kimchi. It was interesting to learn about this staple dish, because even though I grew up with it, I did not know much about it. After doing the research, I became more interested in Kimchi and Korean cuisine. I understand the importance and the cultural aspect of the dish. It was something that reflects the Korean culture. For example, Korean Kimchi was actually not spicy until the Japanese invasion when the American soldiers introduced the red pepper for the Koreans. The hardest part of this presentation was actually condensing the information into a presentation and finding reputable sources. Since most sources are just casual websites for people who do not really want to get too into the nitty gritty, it was hard to get actual insight on the dish. However, after digging around a little more, I found out the history of Kimchi and it gave me a broader understanding of food in Korea. Giving the presentation was actually helpful, because Youngmin and my classmates gave me critiques on the presentation. This was helpful because I did not know how my presentational skills are on Korean topics. Some critiques were that they wanted to know more about a certain topic. I have added these information to the cultural presentation and have greatly increased my knowledge on presenting in a foreign language.
For these two weeks we learned about traditional Korean buildings. Youngmin brought our class easy assembly toys that we were required to make and learn about. After we made the buildings from some styrofoam, we were supposed to give a presentation on them. This was interesting to learn about because it gave us a hands on experience on how the buildings are actually structured and the special parts of the assembly process. The building I had was a national treasure and a palace for the King and Queen and the family of the royals to sit down near a lake and rest. This was a two story building that was tall to overlook the whole palace. This was good in learning because before this experience, I had no idea that the building even existed. The presentation also allowed us to learn about other people's buildings as well.
For the next week, we went over the workbook a little more and did problems from there. These were situations like texting conversations. We were supposed to text each other in class and talk about what that text message said. This was fun for me because it allowed some room for creativity. The most difficult part of this assignment was to actually describe what was happening in the text messages. Since it is not something that is used as a daily conversation material between my parents, it was something foreign to me. However, it gave me a chance to text my friends and use Korean in a more casual manner.
For these past two weeks, we watched a movie and summarized it. Since Youngmin was not able to make it to class, she assigned us a movie to watch and to write a reflection on it. When we wrote the reflection, we typed it up and read each other's in class. It was an interesting way to learn Korean and to reinforce the first topic that we learned about writing a reflection paper in Korean. This was an interesting way to learn and a good exposure to Korean cinema. The movie was about a Korean native who is taking up odd jobs in foreign countries to help support his family back home. I liked this balance between learning about Korean culture and the Korean language.
For the next week, we went back to working on the workbook. This time, we learned about descriptive words. These descriptive words were words like "next to" and "behind of". She showed us a picture of a scene and we were required to describe each object like "The lamp next to the bed is turned on." This was something that I had trouble with because it was hard for me to form my sentences in formal settings. When I have casual conversations with my parents, I have no problems forming my sentences, but when I am forced to, I have a harder time. This is something that Youngmin and my class will work on continually.
