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Right now, the biggest task I am working on is learning basic words and pronunciation in Portuguese. I have learned a lot of vocabulary like greetings, question words, numbers, and months. The general structure of our meetings has been that we’ll talk a little bit about Brazilian culture or geography, and then we’ll review concepts that we’ve gone over, particularly because I’ll forget the pronunciation the first couple times I say something. I usually have my partner pronounce things a couple times too and we volley back and forth different variations of the words until we settle on how best it will sound in my accent. There are some sounds that I simply cannot pronounce or words that it feels like I cannot move my mouth around enough to get through.

Our lessons so far have been pretty unstructured because we will move from topic to topic as it comes up in conversation. We’ll work through each topic extensively, however, and return to them regularly. It’s a strategy where I don’t realize how much I have learned until I am stringing together very simple sentences, filling in the blanks, or something clicks about a certain concept.

Some of the feedback on my learning plan was that it was too extensive. I would probably agree about that because I see how long it takes to, firstly, go over a concept and then work to actually remember it. It definitely feels overwhelming at times, but I have to remind myself that I am just starting out and I would need to be completely immersed to learn a language at an extreme pace. The slow pace can also be more meticulous, and I know is making me better at pronunciation.

I think that because my language partner has never formally taught Portuguese, we are both trying to figure out what works best for us with her delivering information and me receiving it as well as suggesting other topics I am interested in. It can be difficult for her to explain things sometimes because she is a native speaker and just knows (or was taught from a young age) certain things about Brazilian grammar and pronunciation. We have been using google images a lot so she can show me what she’s talking about or find examples that make sense to her, which help her to be able to then explain it to me.

Moving forward, we are excited to do a movie night with a Brazilian movie. My language partner also sent me a playlist of songs in Portuguese that I am excited to explore more. I am looking forward to these artistic endeavors because I think it will be a great way to gain insight into Brazilian culture, begin to further recognize the cadence of Brazilian Portuguese, and hear some of the words I have learned. When I listened to one of the songs, I was surprised by how much I recognized or at least sounded familiar. Overall, I can’t wait to keep moving forward!

What an eventful couple of weeks :)

During a fire drill run through, another RA and I realized we both speak Korean! We’ve actually known of each other since freshman year, but I never asked her if she spoke Korean with her family. We were the first ones to arrive to start the drill and she asked me if I regularly spoke Korean and we were both surprised to learn that we were quite proficient. We proceeded to speak in Korean and bonded for a while until the fire alarm blared at us.

Maybe it’s because I’m socializing a bit more this year, but I’ve been meeting many new Korean speakers these past weeks. Whether meeting the new international students or getting to know others I didn’t meet in the previous years, I noticed that I’ve been speaking in Korean to more friends and course, my language partner. This has been a great way to introduce myself and welcome the new students across campus.

This past week, an interesting opportunity came up. My art history professor asked me to be a guest speaker for her Korean Art course to talk about the SDLAP program and to teach the students how to write their name in Korean so that they can sign their paintings. It has been some time since I had to teach writing at a beginning level, so I did lots of research and watched videos on the best way to explain the pronunciations and the word building concepts. Thankfully, the students were wonderful participants and engaged well with my small talk. Reviewing the actual step by step procedure on writing in Korean was also beneficial to me. When I normally write, I don’t think about how to place my consonants and vowels- I just do it. But now, I am aware of it and writing in Korean feels more intentional.

Additionally, my professor asked the class to attend the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) for the class. Since we had to attend the East Asian exhibit, I also toured the ancient Korean art section. It was quite small, so there was not as many paintings or sculptures as I hoped, but it was obvious that I had entered the Korean art section by looking at the minimalistic styles of the vases and chests.

In addition to the general speaking of the language, I thought about journaling in Korean. Many of my friends do a 5 minute daily journaling session, so I want to start writing down my thoughts in Korean. Hopefully this will help me reflect on myself while continuing to get comfortable writing in Korean every day. I frequently do small researches of both significant people in Korean history and of interesting cultural facts throughout my weeks. One fun example was researching Kyung-Chik Han. He is the only Korean who received the Templeton Prize (equivalent of Noble Peace Prize but for philanthropists). I was having a normal conversation with my dad and his name came up, so I decided to do some more research while my dad shared the info he knew.

During the past month, we learned a lot of things. Since my goal for this course this semester is to learn daily words and commonly used words, so that I could be able to understand the Korean drama or reality show I watched easily without the captions, also I wish to be able to communicate with native Korean about basic things, like greeting, ask directions and order food. So we start with some commonly used adjective words and combine them with their antonym, for example, a word is good “좋아” and bad “나빠”, another word group is long “길어요” and short “짧아요”. We learned a total of 8 groups, and for easy memories, Vivian test me every 4 groups by saying a word’s English, and I say that word in Korean, and I correctly answered most words. In this way, I think having a little quiz while learning new words really helps me memorize, more than that, memorizing words with their antonym is really useful and can help me form a stereotype. After memorizing those words, Vivian taught me several daily greeting sentences, like “How are you today?” (잘 지냈어요?), and I can just reply with the words good “좋아” and bad “나빠” that I just learned. 

After learning the commonly used adjective word groups, and focusing on my goal, Vivian start to teach me some commonly used words to describe the weather and how to use those words. We first learned the words rain “비” and snow “눈”. To be able to use those words in conversation and to express “It’s raining” and “It’s snowing”, Vivian introduce the verb “와”, which means “falling”. Combining the weather with the verb gives us “비와” and “눈와”, which could be used to answer the question “How’s the weather today?”(날씨 어때?). Since the answer to the previous question we learned is simply a word, I had a question about why instead of just answering the weather words, we have to add a verb to answer this question. Vivian explain to me that the way we have to do this is if we just answer “rain”,  it does not mean it is raining and will make the other person confused. Later we learned the words fog “안개”, sunlight “햇빛” and moonlight “달빛”. For those words when we describe the weather we add “있어” to the end, which means “have” and combine it with the words, for example, “햇빛 있어” means “There is sunlight”.  For the word “lighting 번개” we learned a special verb to describe it, which is “처”. Add those together give us “번개 처”, which means “There’s lighting”, but here “there is” is not like “there is sunlight”, because lighting doesn’t continuously appear in the sky, it shows up and disappears, so the verb “처” is used here to give a sense of suddenly show up. 

Every week after class, since I like to watch Korean reality shows, my homework is to write down words I don’t know while watching an episode of a reality show and share them in class. In this way, I learned a lot of words for food and ghost in Korean.

The language structure reading was interesting me. I think that I have struggled with language learning in the past because of how it occurs in such isolated parts, exploring each facet of a language. It is something that cannot be helped and is an issue that I am also facing in my Portuguese lessons this semester. I think it is important to acknowledge that when focusing on one part of language (e.g. grammar), then you tend to make certain assumptions about every other aspect of the language structure. I like that I understand this more after reading the Crystal text. It makes more sense why language, particularly at first, can feel like you’re learning it unevenly.

The figure in the Aitchison reading makes me realize that I have a lot of disciplinary interest and approaches when it comes to a language. As much as we have learned the words for each month, we also have talked about cultural differences among regions and when certain phrases are acceptable to say. So, sociolinguistics is of particular interest to me. I am also a big reader but have not ever reached the point in another language where I can fluidly read in it. I think that is a big way I continue to expand my English vocabulary though. Lastly, I have a particular interest in applied linguistics, especially how issues of language manifest and impact people’s livelihoods.

In order to combine different disciplinary perspectives to formulate a more holistic understanding of a given target language, one must first identify the concepts/parts that make up that language which include the use of phonetics, phonology, semantics, and grammar. It’s better to go over each category separately and then observe how each part works together. All parts of the different disciplinary perspectives are important, but I think it’s important to first understand the parts of phonology and phonetics to have the background knowledge to expand vocabulary and advance the language learning process. The knowledge of language structures and disciplinary methodologies give me a better idea of what area of language learning I need to start in. And as I continue learning about phonology and phonetics and I will change gears into semantics (meaning) which will help me understand why sentences are formed the way they are which in turn, could help me better retain the differences in word order and grammar when learning Korean.

Figuring Foreigners Out was a guide to the comparing of one’s own culture to others. It used 5 categories of comparison: individualist vs. collectivist, which is related to what people identify with and whether people work together cooperatively or not; non-verbal communication, which is the ways in which we use actions to communicate; monochronic vs polychronic, which is the way a culture processes time; internal vs external, which is to what degree a culture believes that they dictate their life’s course; and indirect/high context vs. direct/low context communication, which is related to how much is understood or must be explained when people of a certain culture are communicating. The Hofstede Dimensions of Culture were 6 factors (power distance index, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance index, and long-term orientation) that Hofstede studied and measured in 40 countries. There are concepts within both of these assessments that I do believe can elucidate how a culture operates. However, particularly in the Hofstede Dimensions of Culture, I do not believe these are quantifiers that can be extrapolated to entire countries and could be applied at most at a very small scale. These concepts minimize culture, buy simplifying it to 5 or 6 measures. Also, all of these are subjective and therefore, difficult to determine the accuracy of without an inherent bias from the assessor. I know that I can put my views of U.S. culture into these categories, but I am not sure I can do that for Brazil because I do not know enough about it yet. The biggest difference they have in the Hofstede comparison tool is that the United States is significantly more individualistic.

My learning plan so far has been really working for me. I have been meeting with the same teacher on Italki.com named Estevam. He is a polyglot and speaks pretty much all of the romance languages. Due to this he is an expert on the "rules" of romance languages and how to convert/translate words from one language to another. He has been teaching me these rules which make everything so much less complicated. We will take a spanish word and apply the catalan rules to it, so for example, tiene means he has in spanish; but in catalan you convert the "ie" to an "e" and also not words in catalan end with an "N" so the catalan word for he has is te. My peer tutor has been sick so we have not been able to meet yet unfortunately. Other than that, I am starting to learn some grammar, frequently used verbs, irregular verbs, and expressions. My classmates gave me some ideas based off of their learning plans; Parisa set goals in which she wants to achieve. For example, she wants to order at a restaurant in their native language; I think that would be super cool. 

The main ideas of Hofstede Dimensions include individualism-collectivism which is when people of culture represent and identify themselves to be self-sufficient, focusing on personal needs first then the needs of a group second, and also personal freedom, and self-reliance also represent this category. Collectivism, on the other hand, is the opposite where people group together for survival and view the group as their identity as they work together keeping harmony, and interdependence with the exception of ingroups and outgroups. Another aspect is a culture’s relationship and views with time Monochronic and Polychronic (how cultures view time).

The main ideas of Figuring Foreigners out are about the idea of external and internal forces.  Direct and Indirect Communication (how behaviors/actions are presented in different cultures in the form of communication) INDIRECT- IMPLY rather than say things directly DIRECT-more explicit in what they are trying to convey.

I do partially agree that I have seen some of these ideas being represented in different cultures in different ways. But I am also aware of the possibility that not everyone that’s a part of the same culture follows the same ideals or beliefs of that culture. And I didn’t find any statements, in particular, to be problematic.  

I think that much of American culture is based around individualism and monochronic because of how the government structure is set, the economy, and society (based and built on capitalist views and the ‘American Dream’). I think these ideas are important to research and learn more about for my target language because Korean culture may be very different in comparison. And by becoming more aware of these differences and more knowledgeable on the topic, I can avoid miscommunication that could occur and be able to build better relationships.

My Learning Plan

My plan might be a little different as most of my semester will be focused on finishing all the lessons on the website Persian Language Online, which consists of 3 levels of Farsi (Beginner, Elementary, Intermediate) totaling 60 lessons. Each lesson (generally) consists of a main text and two dialogues. 

"Beginner" comprises lessons 1-20; these are the shortest lessons of all levels, the main text being only a few short paragraphs. I have moved on from these lessons.

"Elementary" are lessons 21-40, this being the level I am currently reviewing. Though I have technically read every level, I consistently go back through them with my language partner to practice fluent speaking, using these lessons as a talking/listening exercise due to my familiarity.

"Intermediate" are lessons 41-60, which are quite difficult for me. They are very long, and sometimes it will take 2 or 3 meetings to get through one lesson, where is in "Elementary" it was rare to use more than 1 meeting to initially read through the text and dialogues. My goal is to finish PLO, but considering the spike in difficulty, for this semester I am aiming to progress to lesson 50 (as opposed to 60). I do not know if this is even practical, as each lesson becomes more difficult (and sometimes longer) than the last.

PLO provides cultural learning as well, which is why I think my task list is not as long as the template considering these lessons cover (theoretically) 60 different topics, though the "Beginner" lessons are quite short. 

My focus will be mainly on my first 3 tasks, PLO, spontaneous speaking, and beginning to learn writing. 

My Learning Plan.pdf

Now that I’ve had more meetings with my language partner, I learned through each of the meetings the importance of taking the language learning process slow, and not to rush it. As I would end up missing some valuable information that could help me be better off in the future with learning Korean, making the process a little bit easier and clearer. For the language plan, I have already started off with the basics (learning Hangul-Korean Alphabet). The reason is to ensure that I am able to spell words out in Korean and pronounce them correctly. And after I’ve passed that portion, I will begin learning vocabulary in my desired categories which are: Buying items/Shopping, Food/Restaurant/Grocery, Honorifics, School, Activities, Time/Date. For each category, after I’ve built my vocabulary (and feel comfortable with it), I will learn how to form basic sentences (using the vocabulary from each unit) to begin the conversating process with my partner. One day of the week I will be quizzed on my vocabulary and another day of the week I will watch a short video or listen to songs in Korean and through that I will get more familiar with the language. I have identified some textbooks that will be very helpful for my task-based objectives. Most of them are textbooks from global studios which are the Talk to Me in Korean Workbook (Level 1) and the Oxford Picture Dictionary Second Edition (English/Korean). What prompted my interest in learning Korean was Korean entertainment and that what followed was my interest in Korean music, the culture and the history that’s so different from the U.S. In the future I would love to be able to travel and spend some time in South Korea exploring historical sites, nature, shops and making new friends. Feedback that I received from Elspeth was that making friends was a good motivation that I have for wanting to learn Korean.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Mw5fdwZeI9P83tLldRweJE5PEbP-nfD6E5qLVbGCvr8/edit ;

SDLAP%201st%20reflection.docx

https://youtu.be/s1-StAlw3aE

Context: I have only had two meetings thus far on iTalki with different instructors each time, neither of which are themselves deaf. Therefore, the information provided in this post is from a secondary source I found in my research on the topic rather than via interview. 

This video is about the history of a sign language in the continental US other than standard American Sign Language in use today. The interview focuses on Plans Sign Language or Hand Speak in the Midwest. Hand Speak was a lingua franca used among Indigenous Americans in the Midwest prior to colonization. Several known signs were lost over time as the settlers colonized their land and prevented the passing on of Native knowledge Today, there are a limited number of fluent signers, and they fill the gaps in their lexicon with ASL. 

I think it is very important that this knowledge is preserved for the next generation in order to revive the culture threatened by US imperialism. It is also important to teach hearing and deaf signers alike the history of sign languages in America. Along with common home signs, there are at least four recognized dialects of ASL: American Sign Language, Black American Sign Language, Martha's Vinyard Sign Language, and Plains Sign Language. Each of these languages developed from a community's unique intersectional struggles, particularly with otism and race. 

Furthermore, I feel that many people come into ASL classrooms expecting to learn a universal sign language, the deaf equivalent of Esperanto. This is simply not the case. Just as languages developed around the world over thousands of years, so have ways to communicate between deaf and hearing individuals. Yes, the standarization of various sign languages is a recent developement closing the gap between many signing communities, however sign language in the US is still totally different from sign language British Isles even though both countries have English as the dominant language! In fact, someone who knows ASL would likely have an easier time understanding LSF (French Sign Language) because that was the basis for developing ASL.

Avestan & Zoroastrianism

In studying Farsi, especially in the context of Iran, religion & politics are nearly unavoidable due to Iran's history in the last 50 years. Iran, whose full name is the Islamic Republic of Iran, is not a secular country. The current legal system is heavily based on sharia (Islamic law). This includes, but is not limited to, mandating all women to adorn hijabs, despite their faith or background; a national prohibition on alcohol; and heavy censorship of media in efforts to only have pro-Islamic, 'modest' ideas. Islam's heavy influence on Iranian law and politics, at least in its modern form, is due to the 1979  Iranian Revolution. Now, I could write (and have) a 10-page paper discussing the intricacies of this revolution, so I will choose to focus on Zoroastrianism, the main religion in the region that would become modern-day Iran.

Zoroastrianism is debated to be one of the first monotheistic religions. It is more than three thousand years old (its origins date back even further), predating both Christianity and Islam by centuries. Its main ideas and beliefs can be seen throughout other major religions, such as Buddhism and Judaism (as well as Christianity and Islam). Zoroastrianism became the major religion of Persia, and remained so until the 7th century Arab Conquest, inducing a global Parsi -- the term for the Zoroastrian population -- diaspora. Zoroastrianism is deeply tied with ancient Iranian history, which can be seen throughout modern-day culture -- most notably, perhaps, in Nowruz, which is the widely celebrated Persian New Year. 

The origins of Zoroastrianism are not widely known. This might be due to the fact that it was orally passed down among Zoroastrian priests for more than a thousand years. Likely the first time the Avesta was written was in the Sasanian period. A special alphabet was devised to do so, forming the language/script Avestan, the language the Avesta is written in. The Avesta is the earliest (sacred) main text we refer to for knowledge about Zoroastrianism. 

Below is a digitized page from the Avesta (see here for more pages).

"Avestan," University of Oxford

The Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, and the Indo-Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages. The Iranian languages are generally split up into three stages: Old Iranian, Middle Iranian, and New Iranian. Persian would be classified as a New Iranian language (alongside others like Pashto and Kurdish) -- just a note, I am specifically studying Farsi, which is a dialect of Persian, specific to Iran. 

Avestan, rather Old Avestan, would classify as an Old Iranian language, alongside Old Persian. Avestan is more specific to the Avesta and Zoroastrianism, while Old Persian was more widely used across the Sasanian Empire (an ancient Persian empire).

References

Crary, David. "Ancient but small in number, Zoroastrians confront depletion of their faith," PBS News Hour, 1 July 2022. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/ancient-but-small-in-number-zoroastrians-confront-depletion-of-their-faith#:~:text=Beliefs,words%20and%20do%20good%20deeds.

Malandra, William W. "Zoroastrianism i. Historical Review Up to the Arab Conquest," ENCYCLOPÆDIA IRANICA FOUNDATION. 20 July 2005. https://iranicaonline.org/articles/zoroastrianism-i-historical-review

Yanran Li

Bi-weekly journal 1

During these two weeks, I met my language partner Vivian and we made a general plan for Korean learning for this semester. Since the last time I learned Korean was in 2020, and I have not learned and applied Korean for a long time, we start with reviewing the alphabet, trying to master the writing and reading of 40 phonetic symbols. Because Korean is made up of phonetic symbols, you can read any Korean you see as long as you master the pronunciation and writing of phonetic symbols, even if you don't know the specific meaning. Writing Korean is more complicated than reading Korean because some words sound similar and beginners can easily confuse some words. Therefore, my primary goal is to be able to accurately read out the Korean I see, and accurately identify and write down the Korean I hear. At the same time, pronunciation is also very important. Korean has something in common with Chinese and English and Japanese, which is convenient for learners to learn, but it still needs a lot of practice to speak authentic Korean. Korean has a special pronunciation structure, and the position of the tongue is very important in pronunciation. While we reviewing the alphabet, I found out that although I have already learned those alphabets once, I still make some wrong pronounce. All wrong pronounced alphabets are related to the double alphabet, and the pronunciation of these characters is an important part of learning Korean. Take ㄱandㄲfor example, the previous one is “giyeok” and the last one is “ssang giyeok”. “Ssang” means double, so “ssang giyeok” pronounced higher than “giyeok”, and there are 5 pairs of alphabets like “giyeok” and “ssang giyeok”. Therefore, it is necessary to explore each pronunciation slowly during practice, which will be of great help in the future. 

The second part of our meeting is to try to list all vocabulary I know and write it out. Words are very important when learning a language, and they are the basis of future learning. My learning goal this week is to get familiar with all the sounds of the alphabet, watch an episode of a Korean TV series, and learn how to express a sentence in Korean. When learning a language, it is not good to only master the theory, using it in real life is important. You can learn a lot from real communication. It is important to find problems in time and correct them. I also like watching Korean TV series, and variety shows and listening to Korean songs. After I’m able to accurately read out the Korean I see, and accurately identify and write down the Korean I hear, I would start watching some clearly spoken Korean TV series or news and turn off the subtitles. Local news in South Korea may be spoken very fast. If I cannot understand it, I will try to gradually increase the speed from slow to normal. I will try my best to achieve the learning goals and expand more cultural knowledge.

I find that the celebration of birthdays- especially the first birthday- is a unique and interesting aspect of Korean culture. Most commonly known as doljanchi, dol means first birthday and janchi means feast. Due to the high infant mortality rate in Korea in the 19^th century, a child’s first birthday was an incredible milestone that was celebrated to wish them health and longevity. Surviving the first 365 days was a bright sign that the child would continue to grow up healthy. Although there are many traditions within this grand celebration, I wanted to highlight two aspects: dolsang and doljabi. The infant wears a hanbok, a traditional style Korean clothing, and sits on top of the head "sang". Sang means table so dolsang includes all the food and symbolic objects that is intended to wish the infant a life without adversity. This includes fruits (prosperity), different types of ricecakes (knowledge and wisdom), silk pouches (vibrant life), and flowers as decorations. Doljabi is a tradition where a variety of objects are placed in front of the child and the object they choose represents their particular future profession or fortune. Some traditional items are the pencil/brush (scholar), money (wealth), rice (plentiful life), thread (long life), or bow and arrow (military career). Nowadays, I have seen items such as a microphone (entertainer), sport balls (athlete), gavel (lawyer), and stethoscope (doctor). Of course, there is only a small pile of items that the parents lay out in front of the baby, so there are limited options, but I always enjoy the doljabi section of the party because it can often be amusing. Attending a doljanchi can be incredibly entertaining and is an important celebration that the parents spend a considerable amount of energy into.

An example of a recent event was the celebration of my lovable neighbor’s first birthday. The doljanchi was held at our church and he seemed to have had a blast. When the time came to do the doljabi, some of the items were a tennis ball, guitar, and money. The adults thought it would be extra amusing to have both a $20 and $100 bill. When he was encouraged to grab an object, his hand immediately dived in for the $100 bill. This made the entire crowd laugh while the baby smiled and waved his prize around. I’ve attached the picture to the blog! I didn’t have many, so I included the photo where the infant grabbed the $100 bill.  

I have always been curious about what I grabbed for my doljabi, but it turns out that my parents didn’t set one up for either me or my siblings. I guess I’ll never know what object my infant self craved for that day. On another note, I do have a recording of my doljanchi which a family friend edited for us. In the video you can see the piles of fruit and ricecakes, flower and balloon decorations, close friends and family, and a younger version of myself and my parents in hanbok.

A question I had that came to mind from the readings was centered around the idea of localization. Although some areas of brain may have a specific correlated function, is it possible that all parts are connected in some way whereas to say that if one area of the brain becomes injured, it will affect in some way, the efficiency of other parts of the brain?  

I think language is partially a biological phenomenon in the sense that it took a series of events for it to come to be, in the sense of how different cultures and people have developed their own language with the use of sound or sign but also is innate.

The parts of the brain that are most important for the production and comprehension of speech are located in the left side (hemisphere) for most people in regard to language. Wernicke’s area (Posterior superior temporal lobe).

I personally seem to conceptualize and process meaning, by making references to describe something most of the time depending on what it is I am trying to describe. Meaning is the process of describing why or how something is the way that it is.

The first reading, “Brain language”, inspires me to use musical or emotional connection with the language I am learning in order to better retain what I learn while I am immersed in the language.

Ancient Hangul Metal Blocks (Yeonju metal blocks)

Small metal blocks were discovered in pots alongside other artifacts by the Sudo Research Institute of Cultural Heritage. These metal blocks were estimated to have been from the Joseon Dynasty (approximately 15th and 16th century) and totaled in 1,600 pieces.

What were these metal blocks you may ask?

Well, these metal blocks had been engraved with a written script on them. This written text is seemingly reminiscent of today’s hangul characters, alongside Chinese characters as well.

This is a very important discovery as it is a groundbreaking representation Korean written language that is still prevalently used today.

The time period in which these blocks were believed to be from was when King Sejong had reigned. King Sejong had made one of the most important historical changes that would advance Korean language and culture. This important change was the Korean phonetic system for written language.

Why was this change so important you may ask?

To answer this question, it is important to look to what previous system of written language was used during the Joseon dynasty and ones preceding even that.

Given the history of Korea, China had major influence in Korea as in the past, they had invaded and colonized the country (3^rd and 4^th century). And because of this, they introduced the writing system of Hanja, a tradition writing system that consists of Chinese Characters. Hanja would provide the ability for the Chinese to exchange, trade and communicate with Koreans.

However, Korea still had their own people as their rulers. And if not for King Sejong, the creator of the Hangul writing system, Hanja (Chinese characters) would still be used today.

Chinese Characters are known to be more difficult to learn given its complexity, but also the vast number of characters that exist which is just over 50,000. Even though 2,000-8,000 characters may be enough to be able to understand most written text, it can still prove to be a difficult task for many people. And it can be especially difficult and even virtually impossible to those who were poor, lacked resources (books), or not as privileged to receive the education necessary to be able to read and write.  

The hangul alphabet on the other hand which is what is used today, is much simpler and easier to learn and understand. Each of the symbols represent and reflect the shape of how a certain sound would look when using your mouth to produce that sound. This makes the alphabet purposely consistent with speech and is believed to be what King Sejong had in mind with its creation.

Now, everyone regardless of social or economic status would now have the ability to read and write, which would influence aspects of Korean culture, government, and society on forward.

The discovery of these Yeonju metal blocks that were found prove to be a reminder of the revolutionary and historic change that Hangul made to Korea’s future progression. And it shows how Korea’s writing language became what it is today.

Metal type blocks from King Sejong’s reign discovered (koreaherald.com)

Ancient hangul type among treasure trove of buried relics (joins.com)

Let it be known that any mistakes in the interpretation of this art are mine and mine alone! :)

The artist Tarsila do Amaral created the oil painting, Abaporu, in 1928. Abaporu means the man who eats people in Tupi, a language spoken by an aboriginal people of Brazil. Abá means man, poro means people, and ‘u means to eat. It was a birthday present to her husband, Oswald de Andrade. Oswald was a writer and the painting inspired him to write the Anthropophagic Manifesto. This manifesto then inspired a movement that was centered around the engulfing of European culture so that Brazilian culture could rise. 

I was drawn to this painting inexplicably. The colors are simple, yet striking. After reading for SDLC 105, this painting left me thinking about meaning. It is so approachable because the colors make sense to just about anyone. The ground and plants are green, the person tan, and the sun yellow and gold. They are distinct and shaded. Then, as you further study the painting, you realize that things are distorted, simplified, and rounded. The first thing I noticed were the person’s feet. The detail with which the big toe nail is shaded, only to have this detail fade with each passing toe. The person’s foot and calf are also enormous. To me, it makes them look more grounded and dominating in the painting. I had similar thoughts about their hand. It also makes this person look like they’re at rest on this hillside. The body begins to taper off dramatically to the subject’s head and other hand. He leans on his knuckles studying his audience. The figure also looks a little lonely and bored, something I believe because of his posture, even though he lacks any expression. Sometimes when I look at a painting, I feel the odd feeling that I can be seen or at least that someone made a painting knowing that it would make you look at yourself too. It feels like a challenge. Why am I viewing this painting? How am I viewing this painting? What is it making me feel? 

I particularly enjoy the natural features in the painting. I love the simplicity of the hill. Nothing has texture in this painting. There is no grass on the ground or spikes on the cactus. They are simple, yet contrast beautifully with the person’s skin and the sky. The sky is also simple, yet gorgeous, not a cloud in sight. I found the sun especially interesting in that it is the childlike depiction of a circle with lines stretching from it in every direction as well a yellow circle around it representing its glow. It makes the scene idyllic and further contributes to the altered reality of this painting. 

Overall, I see how this painting inspired a movement. It is authentic, yet it definitely draws from the inspiration of other artists of the time. As her husband’s movement describes, it took from the influences of the time and made something elevated and inspiring. 

Recently, I was watching a Korean TV series that just started. In the TV series, I saw a lot of historical buildings in South Korea, so I wanted to know more about them. On my previous trip to Seoul, I visited the Gyeongbokgung Palace, and there is another important historical site in Seoul that I failed to see, Jongmyo Shrine. Jongmyo is the oldest and most authentic of the Confucian royal shrines to have been preserved. Dedicated to the forefathers of the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), the shrine has existed in its present form since the 16th century and houses tablets bearing the teachings of members of the former royal family. Ritual ceremonies linking music, song, and dance still take place there, perpetuating a tradition that goes back to the 14th century. These buildings in jongmyo are usually asymmetrical in position, but they are symmetrical as a whole. 

According to the space and importance of the order, the main hall and longing hall eaves, the height of the roof, and the thickness of the columns are not the same. The number and thickness of the columns increased with the number of worshiped gods, resulting in a unique size and shape of the interior space. Although the main hall is the longest wooden building in Korea, the overall style and decoration are relatively simple. There are two special paths in jongmyo, one for the soul and the other for the king. The pavements of the two roads are paved with black brick and stone, which makes them different from ordinary roads. The path of the king was slightly higher than that of the left and right sides. Only the king and his son could walk in the middle, and the officials walked on the left and right sides. This shows the dignity and authority of the temples in South Korea.

The main activity held in jongmyo is sacrifice, so sacrificial music is indispensable. In every jongmyo ritual, there are songs and dances to pray for peace and development of the country and to praise literature and martial arts. In the sacrificial ceremonies of Korean ancestors, "musicians" in red robes made beautiful music with instruments such as stone, metal, wood, leather, and silk. While playing the unique sacrificial music, some exquisitely dressed people offered wine and offerings to their ancestors, while other young dancers, dressed in scarlet, stood in a neat square, slowly bending and swaying in a simple and restrained dance. On the first Sunday of each may, the descendants of the Korean royal family hold a ceremony in Seoul to honor their ancestors and their great achievements. In 2001, jongmyo ritual and jongmyo music was listed on the representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity by UNESCO.

China also has the same function as the jongmyo building, which is the Tai temple. In contrast to the complex and ornate Chinese imperial temples, Seoul's jongmyo temple is characterized by a long facade, simple décor, and few colors said to embody the Confucian spirit of simplicity. In terms of the architectural arrangement, the main feature of jongmyo in Seoul is that it is built according to the natural terrain, so it is not like Chinese architecture to have a unified central axis. From the appearance, there is no unity in the main palaces, but the building successfully achieves the unity of the whole by cleverly utilizing the concepts of order and moderation.