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Yes, I have been writing in Korean since I started this learning journey. I typically prefer writing free hand as it helps me comprehend more of what I am actually writing. But lately I have been typing in Korean more as it is probably more useful in the future. My goal was to memorize where all the characters are on the keyboard. I think I am close to getting pretty comfortable typing in Korean. Writing in Korean definitely requires me to think more about the structures and parts of speech. I have specifically focused on 문어체 which is a style of Korean when you write apart from 구어체 which is the style of Korean when we speak. 

Here is an exemplary writing piece that I wrote about myself and the difference between Korea and America. 

나는 미국, 버지니아에서 온 이한나이다. 미국과 한국의 가장 큰 차이점들은 날씨, 음식, 그이고 문화인것 같다. 내가 한국에서 가장 좋아하는 취미는 맛있는 음식점과 카페를 다니는 것이다. 한국 음식점들은 항상 반찬과 서비스를 주는 것이 아주 좋다. 미국에서는 사이드 음식들도 돈을 내고 먹어야 하는데, 한국에서는 한 음식을 시키면 여러 종류의 음식을 맛볼수있어서 좋다. 그리고 한국에서는 팁을 안내고 메뉴판에 쓰여져 있는 가격을 내서 식당에서 먹을 때 돈이 덜 드는 느낌을 받는다. 한국사람들은 카페를 아주 많이 다니는 것 같다. 다니는 곳마다 카페가 정말 많은 것 같다. 그리고 미국에서는 음료를 많이들 가지고 나가는데, 한국은 카페에서 시간을 보내는 것 같다. 요즘에 비오는 날씨를 보고 놀랐다. 나는 이렇게 비가 많이 오는 것을 처음 봤다. 하지만 한국이랑 버지니아 둘다 공기가 젓은 느낌이다. 

The highlights for the month of March were the language meetings with Leyao, continued with practicing Chinese characters and reading passages, and reading upon literature about the population crisis and growing prevalence of type 2 diabetes in China. 

This is by far the most productive and enjoyable month of language learning in this program partly because of the fun activities that Leyao and I do and the rewarding conversations we have about Chinese culture while practicing Cantonese. For the first week of March, we went to Fat Dragon which is an Asian fusion restaurant on Cary Street. We ate deep fried squid and shrimp, and we both got lunch boxes with a variety of dishes including white rice, spring roll, assorted vegetables, and the main dish. Then, the following week was spring break, so we did not meet. After spring break, we regrouped and planned out what we should do for the remainder of the time and additionally discussed marriage in China. I found this topic intriguing and was something that came up during my discussion with my iTalki teacher,  Karen 老师, so I wanted to get a student perspective. This past week, we practiced Chinese calligraphy and painting on a special type of paper called 宣纸. The paper is more absorbent than traditional printer paper because it is made out of rice, so it holds the ink and water much better. I never did Chinese calligraphy or watercolor painting before, so it was an unique experience to use the brushes, ink tray, and ink stick. There was a process to get the ink on the ink tray, and the first step we had to do was pour a small amount of water onto the ink tray. Then, put the ink stick perpendicular to the tray and rub against the tray in a circular motion to mix the ink with the water. The longer it is mixed, the darker the ink becomes when writing on the paper. I did not realize how messy it was because the ink was all over my fingers. Overall, I had a wonderful experience practicing calligraphy and learning about the whole process. Next month, Leyao and I planned some exciting weekly activities along with much more meaningful discussions surrounding Chinese Culture.

Continuing from last month, I read passages on the migrant population in China, food and culture, and Chinese television and drama. These were passages used in my CHIN 401 class. I found that there is a heavy government influence particularly among the migrant population and television and drama dictating what can be broadcast and the whole ordeal with the Household Registration System. In addition to reading, I continued practicing writing basic Chinese characters for everyday conversations. Handwriting Chinese characters is much harder than English because it is all about memorization rather than in English. In English, I can sound out the words and spell them out while in Chinese, there is no system like that. I write and practice Chinese characters 30 to 45 minutes three times a week, and this is a consistent schedule I am able to keep up with. 

Lately, I have been reading articles about the growing population decline in China and the prevalence of type two diabetes. The articles were written in English, and because I am fluent in English and know it much better than Mandarin or Cantonese, I had a deeper understanding of the material. It was interesting to learn about the population decline and how the Chinese government abolished the One Child Policy and expanded it to two children and now three children per family because of this alarming trend. Not only China, South Korea and Japan are also facing a growing older population while the birth rates are declining.

The other topic I was alarmed by was the prevalence of type two diabetes in China. The prevalence of diabetes in China is 12.4% of their population, and that is quite a lot because China’s population is 1.4 billion (Wang, 2018). The articles that I read claimed that the prevalence in diabetes increased due to sedentary lifestyles, eating diets high in red meat rather than fruits and vegetables, insufficient exercise, and smoking (Wang, 2018). This information makes sense since many Chinese citizens are now experiencing a more financially secured lifestyle than before, so this may be fueling the increased cases of diabetes in China.

This month was quite productive, and I hope to continue that productivity into April. One major goal I want to accomplish in April is to take some type of proficiency test in either Mandarin or Cantonese. 

Sources:
Wang L, Peng W, Zhao Z, et al. Prevalence and Treatment of Diabetes in China, 2013-2018. JAMA. 2021;326(24):2498–2506. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.22208

Right now I am writing in Korean freehand. I don’t like typing it because I don’t have the Korean keyboard memorized also it takes me longer to type because I have to first process which letters to write then I have to look for them in that order. I prefer to write by hand because first, it allows me to write each character properly, meaning the right strokes in the right order. Also just like writing in English, writing on a physical paper allows the Korean language to create a stronger connection in my brain because I have to process what to write and actually take my time while writing it. Korean sentence structure is in the order of subject, object, and verb. At first, it was a little difficult to get that order in my brain because English is in the order of subject, verb, then object. But now it is easier than before to write and read Korean because my brain has gotten used to it. I realized transitional words are essential in order to make complex sentences. I only know a few but even those few words allow me to write much more complex sentences. Korean has these grammatical rules called particles. I started off with three particles. The topic, subject, and object particle. You have to use these to mark the topic, subject, and object of a sentence. These don’t exist in English so it was very difficult for me at first. Therefore, in order to understand how to use these, I first started off with examples from the text book. Then I moved on to writing my own sentences with the help of my language partner. Then I started to read more Korean texts. Writing and reading have definitely strengthened my Korean skills.

This month's meetings follows the same structure as those held the previous month. We watched 영국남자’s video of them having a picnic by the Hangang river with an actor and singer from Canada named Henry. Henry was a former member of the popular K-pop group Super Junior in Korea, but in 2013, he transitioned into a career as a solo artist. Because they are all foreigners living in Korea, they have a lot in common in the video, such as exchanging information about their lives when they first arrived in Korea and the ways in which they have improved their Korean language skills, and they both agreed that making friends with the locals is the best way to improve your ability to communicate in Korean. Vivian also mentioned to me that the Han River flows through Seoul, and because of this, there are wonderful parks and bike routes on both sides of the river. As a result, many people in Seoul like having picnics in the parks that are located along the Han River. In point of fact, not just in their videos but also in many variety programs and plays that I've watched, it's common practice to shoot young people strolling along the Han River and going into convenience stores to buy hot dogs and ramen.

The most recent television series produced by Netflix, titled "The Glory," which depicts the narrative of the victim's retribution after 18 years of enduring humiliation and being forced to abandon school, will be the primary topic of discussion at our meeting this month. The Glory has two seasons: the first season focuses on explaining why the heroine's revenge came about and how the Bullying Five coerced her classmates, the context of the bullying, and all of the preparation she did for final revenge; the second season focuses on the actual revenge of the heroine, unraveling the mystery of the death of a bully that happened at the beginning of the second season, and then the mutual suspicion and suspicion of the bullying gang, revealing the weasel in their group Vivian and I were the first ones to see the episode, and afterward we had a lengthy conversation about the storyline as well as our opinions on bullying in Korean schools. It broke my heart when I read about bullying in schools in reports from China that were published in the press. The news report did not specify the facts and what the teachers and school did to improve the situation, but according to the play, the teacher was on the side of the bully, which was highly frustrating. The news report did not describe the details and what the teachers and school did to improve the situation. "The Glory" is a drama that focuses on many major topics that Korean teenagers are now struggling with, and I believe that it is a thought-provoking drama because of this. The portrayal of bullying in schools is particularly poignant, as it highlights the necessity for more awareness, education, and aid for people who have been mistreated.

Discussion Post #8

David Kim

30262888

david.kim123@richmond.edu

I have started writing in my target language with phrases and sentences that are frequently used in real life situations. I have learned phrases and sentences about weather, food, jobs, and hobbies. For example, To ask "what is your hobby?" will be, “당신의 취미는 무엇입니까?” (Dang-sin-e chwi-mi-neun muos-sim-ni-kka) I would prefer to write free hand in my target language than to type because I am not very used to typing in my target language. Since I prefer to type than to write free hand in English, I think I will prefer to type than write free hand also in English when I get familiar with typing in Korean. I can see a definite difference between English and Korean in the structures of words, clauses, and sentences. Usually, in English, clauses or sentences will be formed with several words. In this case, words in those clauses or sentences usually do not change. Some articles, prepositions, or words are added. However, there are much more variations of words in forming clauses of sentences in Korean. When a word is used for a different role, it would have different suffixes. There could be an addition of articles, prepositions, or words, but usually, a suffix will be added to the word itself.

My plan for language learning has been changed ever since I started. Initially, I was planning to buy online authority courses on Korean in order to learn it in a standard way. However, after getting access to the course, memorizing of tremendous grammar rules as well as vocabulary overwhelmed me besides other classes’ homework. Therefore, I changed my strategy. I found my Korean friends and try to communicate with them. By learning through daily conversations, I found it much easier other than memorizing grammar rules and vocabulary. After learning basic linguistic knowledge on phenetics, I found it helpful to my learning of Korean words. By looking at the IPA templates, I can try to combine all those vowels to see what the result would be. The discussions really help me a lot in gathering ideas and insights into language learning. I look at others’ discussion posts often in order to find ideas different from mine which can also be beneficial to my objectives. For example, I once looked at Ethan’s post, and I found his personal experience learning Korean very interesting. I am trying to learn from his experience. In short, the learning plan influences my progress extensively as it always reminds me of my goal and necessity for refining my methods.

For this cultural post, I would like to cover Korea’s beauty culture. Under K-beauty, there are a lot of standards that Koreans have to follow to be appreciated and accepted by society. Some influential factors include the Korean media and plastic surgery. 

Some well-known physical features for women that Koreans have been emphasizing are having big eyes, pale skin, a small face, and an extremely thin body. This applies to guys, except that they need to be lean and tall. Overall, they value youthful appearances, which explains why K-pop idols are released at such a young age. These physical characteristics are used to judge someone and their lifestyle. For example, having a slim body meant that that person are not lazy and on track with life. 

I believe that the biggest influence on these traditional beauty standards comes from the media, particularly K-pop idols and actors. These idols have extreme features that "qualify" them for the beauty standards mentioned above. These celebrities would expose their harsh diet plans and exercise routines in the media, causing young fans to copy them. A famous strict diet challenge that used to trend in Korea was a celebrity IU’s diet. She used to only consume one apple, two sweet potatoes, and a protein powder per day. This negatively affected fans as it is very unhealthy and unsustainable. Fans viewing and following these idols start comparing themselves to them with their own physical features. It is quite saddening to see how this can lead to self-hatred and insecurities. But lately, Korea has been slowly changing these beliefs to embrace and highlight uniqueness over traditional beauty standards. I believe that this attitude has been influenced by other countries, like America, making society a more supportive and loving place. 

I came across this YouTube video on a Korean show called “Let Me In." Me-in means "beautiful woman" in Korean, so the title can also be interpreted as “let me become a me-in.” The show has multiple contestants who believe that their physical structures are in need of plastic surgery. The hosts and surgeons would determine, depending on their current status in life and their physical appearance, whether or not to give them a free makeover. It was shocking to see how plastic surgery is the main content of the show, criticizing one’s physical appearance. Also, it was saddening to see how the participants’ lives are considered “depressing” because of all the judgment from society. 

When I studied abroad in Korea, I could tell that there would be specific streets that were full of places for plastic surgery. Especially, in Gangnam, which is known to be a wealthy community, almost everyone had gotten plastic surgery. Unlike in America, plastic surgery is highly accepted, easily spotted, and associated with wealth. I am hoping to see changes in this harsh beauty standard culture that Korea holds and that people start embracing and supporting one another without judgment. 

Video

I have made great progress so far in my language learning. I have been able to do most of what I had planned so far. I am writing daily journals, reading short stories, memorizing new vocab, and watching lots of Korean content. However, I am lacking in the speaking portion of my language learning. I do speak with family over the phone in Korean from time to time but I don’t practice my speaking as much as I do with my reading, writing, and listening. Learning about a language's family and history has helped me a lot with Korean because it allows me to identify where the majority of Korean words come from which in turn allows me to connect words to their meanings. For example, in Korean, a lot of root words, prefixes and suffixes can be traced back to Chinese. After I recognized this I began to recognize the pattern in other words. Recognizing these root words, prefixes and suffixes has allowed me to quickly pick up new vocab or has helped me interpret words I don’t know in my readings. Also, knowing the history of a language has helped me understand Korea’s culture as a whole. Korea was largely impacted by the Chinese; therefore, there are a lot of similarities between Korean and Chinese culture. Daily exposure to Korean through writing, reading, and listening has helped me develop a “Korean brain”. This means that I am not translating everything in my head from English to Korean every time I write or speak. Instead, I am developing a brain that thinks in Korean. Thus, I only use words and grammar rules that I know so far. This makes life a bit more difficult when using Korean because it’s like I have the proficiency of a baby in Korean but when learning something new I do have to start off with baby steps. Something I can do to improve my communicative competence is by reading and listening to media that is produced in Korea for Koreans. This will help me pick up words, phrases, and slang used in the present day in Korean. Therefore, reading old children's stories isn’t always the best solution because they contain many words that are not used at all in the Korean language.

In this month’s cultural post, I wanted to explore marriage in China from the past and current policies in place and the pressure that young couples, especially females face regarding marriage. Marriage, in simple terms, is a union between two partners that formally recognizes their relationship with each other. Marriage in China has evolved over the course of many generations from being restrictive towards women to allowing women to freely choose their partners. However, there are many factors that play into marriage laws including the involvement of the Chinese government. In 1950, a marriage law was passed to abolish arranged marriages and guaranteed the right to free marriage. Thirty years later in 1980, another marriage law passed to forbid third parties from deciding the marriage decisions including family members or matchmakers. In other words, only the two partners in the relationship can decide if they want to get married or not. 

Between 1979 and 2015, the Chinese government created a family planning policy or popularly known as the “One Child” policy to suppress population growth. Under this policy, couples are restricted only to have one child per married couple, and more than one child would result in hefty fines. Because traditional Chinese culture favors males rather than females, as a result there are more males than females during this time. Favoring males over females is thought to arise from males being able to continue the family last name rather than females when they are married, they adopt their husband’s last name.

In 2015, the “One Child” policy ended as the government saw a decline in population growth, so by expanding the policy to two children per married couple, the hope is that this would boost the population growth. Giving birth and raising a child is extremely expensive, so many young newly wedded couples don’t have plans to have children, at least not for the near future. Additionally, more females are receiving higher education than in the past, so they are working their way up to positions as their male counterparts. Females are now more career oriented rather than wanting to get married at an early age and becoming a housewife. Therefore, they fear their position will be jeopardized if they go on maternity leave, which would cause the company they work for to find a replacement. Unfortunately, in recent years the state media and the government has pushed the concept of “剩女” （sheng nu) which translates to “leftover women” to pressure women to marrying earlier, which would subsequently make it more appropriate to have children. Those that are over the age of thirty and not married is considered a “剩女”. This concept greatly stigmatizes women that they are unfeminine if they are not married by the time they are thirty years old. 

Parents that are anxiously wanting their children to be married oftentimes seek relatives or matchmaking agencies to find the right partner for their children. Interestingly, matchmaking agencies or parents will post their children’s CV in parks or centers, often without their consent, in hopes to attract any interested partners. This CV would include information such as yearly income and number of cars or homes they own. This appears quite materialistic, but the main purpose is to let the other person gauge how wealthy the owner of the CV is. However, some could manipulate the system and post whatever that makes them look attractive leading to many lies and scams. It is uncertain what the future may have for young adults that are not looking to get married, but one thing is certain is that marriage in China became a decision between the two partners rather than become restrictive in the past. Even though there is free-choice marriage, many adults do seek permission and advice from their parents as filial piety is a big part of Chinese culture.

Sources:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_modern_China#:~:text=The%20age%20requirement%20for%20marriage,state%20support%20of%20marriage%20at

On March 10th Netflix released the second season of The Glory, which tells the story of the victim's revenge after 18 years of suffering humiliation and being forced to quit school. Vivian and I both watched the episode first and we discussed a lot about the plot and how we felt about bullying in Korean schools. The first season focuses on explaining why the heroine's revenge came about and how the Bullying Five coerced her classmates and the context of the bullying; The second season focuses on the actual revenge of the heroine, unraveling the mystery of the deaths in the drama, and then the mutual suspicion and suspicion of the bullying gang, revealing the weaknesses of human nature between trust and distrust.

In addition to the core topic of retribution, this drama concentrates on the terrifying school bullying, where the victim is forced to leave the school in disgrace after the instructors form an alliance with the kids and gain greater authority. The drama explores the problems of Moon Dong-eun, one of the major protagonists, who is plagued by memories of being harassed in school. The show illustrates how bullying can have an effect on a person's mental health as well as their relationships with others and how those impacts can remain long after the bullying has ceased.

Statistics indicate that over 70% of pupils in Korea have experienced bullying at school, which is a severe issue. Bullying may have catastrophic repercussions on a person's mental health, including anxiety, sadness, and in severe cases, suicidal thoughts. The portrayal of Dong-eun's experiences with bullying at school in "The Glory" emphasizes how critical it is to confront this problem and offer assistance to individuals who have been bullied.

I also looked at the main reasons why bullying occurs in Korean schools. The high academic pressure that students are subjected to, which can foster a competitive and stressful atmosphere, is one of the key contributing reasons. Competition in other spheres of life, such as sports and extracurricular activities, might develop as a result of the pressure to succeed academically and land a good career. Lack of knowledge and instruction about the problem is another element that fuels bullying in schools. Bullying is a problem that many schools and teachers struggle to address, and there is sometimes a stigma and culture of silence around it. This may make it challenging for children to come forward and ask for assistance, which may make the issue worse.

In addition to bringing attention to the problem of bullying in schools, "The Glory" also conveys a message of hope and fortitude. With the help of their friends and loved ones, Moon Dong-eun and other characters in the series are able to overcome obstacles and accomplish their objectives. In order to counteract the damaging consequences of bullying, the program emphasizes the value of developing solid connections and fostering a sense of community.

I consider "The Glory" to be a thought-provoking drama that focuses on many significant themes that Korean youth are currently dealing with. The depiction of bullying in schools is especially moving, underscoring the need for more awareness, education, and assistance for individuals who have been bullied. The series conveys a message of optimism and support for young people in Korea and emphasizes the significance of fostering a safe and encouraging environment for all pupils by increasing knowledge of this problem and promoting stronger action to avoid it.

Right now I am writing daily journals. In these daily journals, I start off by stating the date and the time. Then I write a sentence or two about the weather. Then I write a few sentences about what I ate. And lastly, I write a sentence or two about something I did that day. I am also reading short stories from a book I bought. These stories are only a paragraph long, each about a topic such as cooking or going to the movies. I underline words and grammar I don’t know and take the time to reread the sentence until it becomes a little more coherent. I am still learning new vocabulary. I am learning at least one hundred vocab words in specific topics. For example, this week my vocab words are adjectives so I will learn a hundred or more adjectives before moving on to a different topic like verbs or cooking. Also, for listening practice, I am watching Korean dramas and also watching Korean videos on social media. My goal for writing is to be able to expand upon more about the topic I am already writing about. For example, instead of saying what I ate, I wasn't able to describe how it tasted. Also, I would like to be able to write about different topics than the weather and food. My goal for reading is to be able to re-read the old stories I read in my book and understand them without having to look up certain words and grammar. My language partner helps me find vocab that is necessary for my learning. Also, she also helps explain sentence structures that I come across in my reading so that it makes more sense to me. Also, she checks over my daily journals and corrects them if it’s wrong or she changes my sentences to sound more natural. One strategy I use for my writing practice is repetition. When I come across a word I don’t know or a grammar rule I don’t understand. I make sure to include it in my writing every day until it becomes clearer. Then I ease off of the word or grammar rule and only use it every now and then. One strategy I use for reading is to break a sentence down word by word. I do this with sentences I don’t understand. Taking a step back to understand each word helps me understand the writing as a whole. Taking small steps into my reading helps me efficiently understand what I am reading. By writing every day my language skills get stronger because not only am I remembering vocab better I also am getting used to the Korean language structure. By reading every day I am exposed to vocab I have learned and new vocab that is relevant to me. Also, reading allows me to see what native Korean actually looks like in written form, so this helps me with my writing and helps me with my speaking because being able to visualize what I want to say helps me speak more coherently. Taking small steps and repetition is definitely key to learning anything and I will continue to apply these methods to new vocab words, grammar rules, and other important parts of Korean I need to learn.

In learning Korean, I think I have done a pretty decent job of sticking with my original learning plan. However, I didn’t anticipate how much I enjoy learning the Korean roots, let alone seeing their contemporary applications in everyday language. Hanja sees its vestiges ubiquitous in the Korean language, and this alone has improved my vocabulary, a divergent from my learning plan that was so reliant on the circumlocutions–– a welcomed change in arrangement, in my opinion. This permits more efficient interactions with others, which is also the main function I hope to tackle in my competence. A phatic function makes sense for me since I am a Korean surrounded by other Koreans, and this relates back to discussions on language’s connection with culture. Honorifics are a major part of the Korean language, an effect of the highly structured social conventions in the culture, and as someone who speaks to adults very frequently by virtue of my social relationships, being able to carry a conversation with them is seen as a sign of reverence. Ultimately, I hope to continue a CLT-type approach to my language learning as outlined in the chapter. Actually using Korean, rather than studying it works wonders for me, and I think language learning is akin to the “getting the ball rolling” adage–– using it only becomes easier as one uses it more. 

Discussion Post #7

David Kim

30262888

david.kim123@richmond.edu

Overall, I learned much more about my target language and culture than I expected. My language learning process is slightly different from how I planned, but I could see some progress. As I mentioned in my learning plan, I wanted to study Korean literature, especially poems. For several reasons, I chose Yun Dong-ju’s poems. First of all, he is one of the famous Korean poets that represent Korea. Also, I thought it would be more meaningful if I could read poems that were written during the Japanese Colonial Era. I was hoping to not only learn more about the Korean language itself but also about one of the significant Korean historical periods. Discussion about the phonetic inventory was interesting to me. I always thought about how I translate words, phrases, or sentences into English or Korean. I realized that I do not really think about how their pronunciation or phonetic inventory was different. As I wrote in “Discussion Post #5” about communicative competence, sociolinguistic competence is the most emphasized one in my plan. Since I already know a lot of other factors of communicative competence in Korean, I thought it would be great to improve in the most complicated aspect. I hope to experience and show improvements in learning my target language and understanding my target culture.

Compared to my presentation of my learning plan, I believe that my learning has been on track with what I originally intended to focus on. I have also been using most of the sources I mentioned in the presentation. However, some changes include that I depend more on some of the learning platforms to make my learning journey more engaging with my personal interests, convenience, and lacking areas. For example, most of the broadcasting news, cultural education, and social interactions were on YouTube or Naver instead of the actual news platforms (SBS, KBS).

The biggest change from when I first started learning is the way I view learning about Korea and Korean. Before, I focused mainly on the organizational competence of the language. However, I started realizing that pragmatic competence is as important and that I can benefit from both to become fluent. I also started noticing the variety of structures that Korean has, such as the pitch, styles, and even nonverbal communication skills. The influences of other languages have also been catching my attention, making my understanding of the language deeper. 

Relating to the influences of other languages, the changes in Korean are highly correlated with the culture. As the language changes, the surrounding cultures of Korea have also changed a lot. For example, Koreans have been using a lot more slang and abbreviations as society values more of a convenient and fast-paced lifestyle.

Cultural Post #2

Banchan

David Kim

30262888

david.kim123@richmond.edu

Weeks after having Somyung’s Kimchi-jjigae, I and my language partners went to Yewon to have more Korean food. As we entered and ordered food, water and banchan were served. Banchan is food that is eaten together to supplement other nutrients that are difficult to satisfy with main dishes or to eat more deliciously. There are many cases of translating banchan into English as side dish, but this can lead to misunderstanding the concept of banchan. A side dish refers to a dish that is simply added to the main dish like vegetables served with steak. Kimchi, black beans, and vegetables match the concept of side dish among banchan. However, main dishes like grilled fish, stir-fried pork, braised ribs, and bulgogi cannot be called side dishes. In other words, not all banchan are side dishes, so banchan should not be translated as side dishes. Because of these cultural differences, banchan is used as a word that refers only to Korean food culture. Traditionally in Korean cuisine, kimchi is a menu that is naturally served at every meal, so it is not included in counting the number of banchan. Jeollado is a local district famous for serving a lot of banchan. The name "Jeollado Table" was also created over the food culture of Jeolla-do, which has many banchan. Even though I was very familiar of banchan, I was never really curious about how Koreans started this typical way of eating. After doing research about today's Korean cuisine, I learned that people in Korea started to make and eat banchan from the end of the Goryeo Dynasty to the early Joseon Dynasty. It was usually based on the diet of upper-class families with different banchan made of special ingredients of each region or district. Places close to the beach started to make banchan with fish or seafood and eat them with rice. Seafood from the South Sea and the West Sea, which have many islands and deep oceans, is still valued as one of the best. In the south, rice is well produced and grains are developed because the temperature, climate, and rainy season are suitable for farming. In the case of winter, it was difficult to get food other than seafood or fish. People used to pick vegetables that are well grown in spring and dried them in the shade to eat them throughout the winter. This type of banchan is called namul(나물). Banchan that are made with meat existed before the Three Kingdoms Period, but it was developed in the middle of the Goryeo Dynasty. Recently, there are several banchan stores that sell only banchan for most people living alone. In Korea, banchan stores appeared in the early 2000s. People usually buy banchan and eat at home with instant food or delivery food rather than making banchan due to lack of time, lack of cooking skills, or laziness. Because this way of eating is unhealthy due to nutritional balance, banchan stores are specializing in banchan to aim for this market.

English Resource

https://koreasociety.org/policy-and-corporate-programs/item/1397

https://www.kcet.org/shows/the-migrant-kitchen/banchan-the-story-of-the-korean-side-dish

Korean Resource

http://contents.history.go.kr/front/km/print.do?levelId=km_026_0040_0060_0010&whereStr=

http://www.futurekorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=103351

Image : https://m.blog.naver.com/lljjyy1983/221904091258

Language Learning Journal #2

“Prelude” - Yun Dong-ju

David Kim

30262888

david.kim123@richmond.edu

As I said in my learning plan, I wanted to learn more about Korean literature, especially poetry. One of the famous poems that I already knew was ‘Prelude’ (Seoshi) by Yun Dong-ju. Poet Yun Dong-ju was born in Bukgando on December 30, 1917. He passed away on February 16, 1945, a few months before Korea's liberation. He wasn't a fighter leading independence movements with a gun or knife. He was not a famous poet of his time. However, he was influenced by Jeong Ji-yong's poetry and opened a new world of poetry that expressed sincere feelings in easy words. Yun Dong-ju sublimated the madness of Japanese imperialism into agony and melted it into poetry to capture his life. For that reason, his poetry contains his own life, struggles, and self-reflection. Several symbolic poetic words appear in Prelude. Natural objects like the sky, wind, stars, leaves, and night are iconic poetic terms. The poetic word Sky is expressed as an omnipotent figure that evaluates him. The term wind was used in a negative sense as a being that shakes him, a being that makes him suffer, as it is used in many poems. The word Star also means purity and ideals as the symbol of stars. Leaf Bird can be interpreted as citizens like us who are nothing special. Night means the background of the times, the Japanese colonial era. Rather than using a special method of expression, Prelude is a poem of self-reflection as if he is looking back at his life. The first sentence that makes up line one and line two is a well-known sentence in South Korea. It shows that he wants to live a life without shame that even the sky, an omnipotent being, admits. Line three and line four confess that he was distressed by small conflicts that came to him. Line five and line six show that he will not fall for these conflicts and temptations. "The heart of singing stars" will pursue hope and the ideal world. "I should love all dying" refers to the love of his people and their lives. Line seven and line eight say, "I will walk the path given to me." It means that he will carry out his destiny and mission, to make his own way for independence and liberation. The last line of the poem states that the stars keep passing by in the wind tonight. In other words, he is trying to express that it was a difficult time to dream about hope and independence. When reading and studying Prelude, I knew that it would be important to connect this poem with the Japanese colonial era due to the circumstances when it was written. Prelude emphasizes that it was written during a negative period. It also emphasizes the writer's willingness not to be swayed by any suffering or struggles. Reading Yun Dong-ju's prelude made me want to know more about the poet Yun Dong-ju. It was impressive to see how someone could write such a beautiful poem in this frustrating situation. Through more literature work, I not only want to improve my language ability but also have a better understanding of Korean culture and history.

Korean Resource

http://www.theviews.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=459

https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Article/E0027887

English Resource

https://artsandculture.google.com/story/life-and-poetry-of-the-eternal-young-poet-yoon-dongju/ZQVxOv5SmmRsAw

I am very excited that I have found a language partner. Her name is Genet, she is so multifaceted in terms of what she does that it is difficult to distinctly say what she does. However, it is clear she is incredibly knowledgeable about linguistics as so much of her research throughout her life in academia has been centered around it. She is a native Afaan Oromo speaker though she does also speak Amharic, which is what we also communicate in as a basic language. As a first task, Genet and I focused on learning the Afaan Oromo alphabet, called qubee. We did this by going through the alphabet and practicing the pronunciation of each letter as well as the pronunciation of the combination of letters, often sounds that are not popular in English or any other language for that matter. In order to contextualize the pronunciation, Genet would give me an example of an Oromo word that begins with that letter and ask me to pronounce it. This strategy of pronouncing words helped significantly more than just pronouncing the letter on its own. While many of the letters were not difficult to pronounce, most likely because of Afaan Oromo’s use of the familiar Latin alphabet, it was quite difficult to pronounce the combination letters that were specific to Oromo. For example, the sound created by the letters ‘dh’ presented quite a challenge for me. However, Genet’s reassurance that native speakers will be able to understand me despite my not-perfect pronunciation of these combo letters calmed the frustrations certainly. Upon securing a language partner I hoped to begin by learning common native-speaker greetings. Although the book I used included these phrases, there was some variation and more specificity when learning this with my language partner. For example, the book evidently presented far more formal greeting phrases. When learning with Genet I was able to hear what native speakers say in response to greeting phrases, and what phrases are common in what context. This for sure increased my confidence in speaking the language because before although I knew greetings in Afaan Oromo I would seldom use it when speaking to any native speakers I interacted with because I wasn’t confident about their applicability to the manner natives interacted with one another. In addition to greetings, we talked about my daily routine through sentences. This was interesting to me because I didn’t expect to dive straight into full-on sentences because in other language learning settings I’ve been in we start off by memorizing various individual words. But according to my language partner and her time tutoring students, she found that language is learned best when it is applicable to the learner's life. A laundry list of different vocabulary words would not be applicable to my life. But my daily routine, something that I do all the time certainly is. Learning how to say what time I usually wake up, what I do (wash face, brush teeth, eat breakfast), where I go (school), what I learn, and who I see throughout my day, all expose me to vocabulary while simountnsosuly being connected to my real life and able to be used in actual conversation-my dad asks me what I did today every time I speak to him on the phone so now I am able to answer in Oromo. This kind of relates to Professor Soloway’s strategy of putting sticky notes around his house that identify things he sees every day in his target language.  

Currently, Korean is under the Koreanic family and Jeju language used in Jeju-do. The history of Korean has been influenced by many other countries. Especially, the Chinese characters, Hanja, entered Korea in the 1st century BC, becoming the main source of language for writing. But Korea’s own alphabetic characters, Hangul, were created by King Sejong the Great in the 15th century to fully portray Korean when writing and aid reading and writing Hanja. Korean also relates to Japanese as there are a lot of overlapping words and grammatical factors. We are also able to spot the influences of English and other Western vocabularies used in Korea. Following the Korean War, there is a noticeable difference between South and North Korean languages within Korea. Also, depending on the area of Korea, there are different accents and dialects. 

Knowing the history of Korean enhances my learning of the language, as I am able to know the difference depending on where the words originated. I am also able to know more of the traditional words through Hanja. I believe that I am also able to improve my fluency as the Japanese and Western vocabularies are typically used for slang terms. Not only the language, but I am also able to learn the cultural and historical factors that have been influenced by these countries. 

During this month, I have been continuously improving on every aspect that I listed in the first bi-weekly post. Those aspects are reading, writing, listening, speaking, and cultural knowledge. I like to organize my learning plan by independent studying and my partner studying. 

For my independent study, I have continued to work on reading news articles and watching relatable shows. Reading the news articles helps me stay updated with the Korean societal topics as well as the cultural aspects that I have been missing. I have significantly sought improvement in my vocabulary and the speed of my reading while still understanding the content.  

Also, I have been trying to browse particular shows that relate to my personal life. One of my biggest hobbies is working out, and I especially love doing CrossFit. Recently, I came across a nine-episode show on Netflix called “Physical 100” through my partner’s recommendation. This show has 100 participants who believe that they have the best physicalities, and they have to go through multiple challenges to become the last one surviving, proving that they have the best physicality within the categories listed in the following sentence. Through this show, I was able to learn a lot of the physical related terms such as 순발력 (quickness), 밸런스 (balance), 정신력 (willpower), 근력 (strength), 지구력 (endurance) and names for different body parts, increasing my ability to have conversations regarding this topic.

With my partner, we have been working on conversational and writing fluencies as well as cultural factors. One activity we do that really helps me in every aspect is watching Korean cultural videos on YouTube. After watching the videos, we would talk about the topic they go over, the vocabulary terms, and have a written Q&A session. An exemplary video we went over together is a video by Korean Englishman. We watched this video together because it portrays one of the biggest cultural factors in Korea (that I mentioned in my previous cultural post), mukbang. It was a video that was collaborated on with a famous entertainer, HaHa. They were having a typical dining experience while also learning about the drinking culture of Korea. These videos are really helpful, as another foreigner is learning about Korean culture through filming them. Through the video, I learned and related to multiple terms that relate to the culture such as 식전주 (pre-meal drink), 꼰대 (bossy), and 인싸/아싸 (insider/outsider), 정 (jeong), 눈치 (nunchi). Through these words, I could really feel how much Koreans value respect, age differences, and differences in personalities. We also practiced the phonetics by repeating the words or phrases I found difficulty in. 

For this particular video, Vivian provided three different questions. 

영상대해서 어떡해 생각했어요? 

영상을 보면서 배고팠습니다. 영상에서 새로운 문장들이 있었습니다. 

예를들어서 부킹 멘트이랑 식전주가 있었습니다. 

생각보다 영어 단어들을 많이 쓰는 것 같았습니다.

하하 좋아해요? 왜요? 

하하씨를 어렸을때부터 많이 봤습니다. 굉장히 재미있는 사람인 것 같습니다.

예능 런닝맨 본적있었어요? 어떡해 생각해요? 

런닝맨도 어렸을때부터 알았습니다. 오빠가 자주 봤습니다. 요즘에는 별로 재미없는 것 같습니다. 

I was able to connect my own past experiences and personal beliefs to the video. We would use relatable videos to carry on our learning meetings in this manner.

For the next month, I want to focus more on the influences that other languages have on Korean, as I started to spot more foreign words during my studies.

Korean is argued to be from the Altaic language family. However, Korean did not descend from a single-language family. Korean evolved mainly from Chinese and neighboring languages such as Mongolian, Japanese, and Turkish. Korean started off as a spoken language and did not have an official script. Instead, Koreans would have to learn how to write in Chinese. However, the Chinese language system could not accurately represent all Korean words. So in the 15th century, King Sejong created the Hangul alphabet. He did this so the Korean language could have an actual alphabet and become its own language. Another benefit of making the hangul alphabet was that now everyone could learn how to read and write. Previously, only the elites learned how to read and write in Chinese. But now everyone has learned the hangul alphabet together. Because Chinese was the dominant language for Koreans before the hangul alphabet was created, a lot of Korean words used today can be traced back to Chinese roots and sometimes are the exact same word. In fact, in Korea students are taught some basic Chinese so they can understand where and why certain words and grammatical structures came from; thus, allowing them to better understand the language. Other two big languages that impacted Korea are Japanese and English, more specifically American English. Just like Chinese, a lot of Japanese words can be found in Korean too; however, Japanese is not as deeply rooted in Korean as Chinese is. So studying Japanese will only help you understand Korean better to a certain extent. After the Korean war. South Korea opened up its borders and became a big trading partner with America. Because of this, Korea became very westernized and now in the Korean language there are tons of cognates. For example, even though Koreans have a word for “ok” which is 네 (pronounced “neh”), Koreans will often say 오케이 (pronounced “okehee”) which is just supposed to mean “ok” like “okay” in English. Knowing that a large part of Korean derives from Chinese allows me to see that studying some Chinese might help me improve my general understanding of Korean a lot better which will help me understand why the language is what it is today, and know that there are a ton of cognates with English will help me a lot because now I know that I most likely know hundreds of Korean words just from English.