Blogs

     Charlotte Cho along with her husband founded the South Korean skincare company called Soko Glam in 2012. Charlotte Cho’s company captured the attention of many skincare enthusiasts into investigating Korean skincare or K-beauty. In Korean culture, skincare is emphasized so more than makeup. On the other hand, Western culture appears to be the opposite. Nevertheless, the beauty industry in both cultures meet their consumers’ needs. Charlotte Cho’s company is responsible for testing and curating effective skincare products that are South Korean based and provide their customers with a wide range of products that help relieve symptoms such as acne, dryness, rosacea, etc. Soko Glam is the skincare website that I have been getting all my Korean skincare since high school. The pricing of the products is in between that of drugstore products and luxury brands. Soko Glam’s successful business model runs on the growing momentum of Korean culture influencing the younger generations all around the world from K-Pop bands (Korean pop music) to K-dramas.

    The entire routine of Korean skincare is lengthy and sometimes cumbersome to follow, but the results are astonishing. The full routine is a ten-step process, but the common misconception is that all ten steps are done all at once, which is not the case. All ten steps can be broken down to three important actions that is cleanse, prep, and hydrate. The cleansing step consist of removing makeup or residue on the face by using an oil cleanser followed by a water-based cleanser. This step is known as “double cleansing”. The next step is using a toner to prepare for the subsequent skincare products to allow for better absorption.

    Depending on the type of skin (i.e. oily, dry, combination, or normal), there are different toners that cater to each consumers' need. The toner that I am using is called d’Alba Peptide Serum Toner, and it is fragrant-less and hydrates my skin. The next two products are serums and essences. Serums are packed with nutrition and ingredients that directly help with skin care concerns such as hyperpigmentation. Common types of serum ingredients to treat hyperpigmentation is vitamin C or niacinamide. Essence is at the heart of Korean skincare because this further pack moisture and skin-benefiting ingredients to the skin and tends to be more watery than serums. The essence I am currently using is called Dewy Tree Ultra Vitalizing Essence and is made up of snail mucus extract that moisturizes and heal acne scars. The ingredient “snail mucus extract” might not sound appealing, but many Korean skincare products uses resources found in nature such as snail, mushrooms, ginseng, mug wort, aloe vera, etc. These are naturally occurring ingredients that are beneficial for the skin and most of the time gentle on the skin. Sheet masks are the highlight of Korean skincare because sheet masks deliver and force those skin benefiting ingredients into the skin, and there is a glowing effect after the treatment (results may vary). My favorite sheet masks have ingredients such as mug wort and tea tree because they help calm down the redness from acne and soothing the skin.

     After all the preparation, facial moisturizer, eye creams, and sunscreen comes next. The best way to prevent premature aging is to apply a religious amount of sunscreen in the morning to block out harmful UV rays. Moisturizing is crucial during the wintertime because the heater can draw up a ton a moisture out of the skin leaving the skin dry and uncomfortable. The Korean skincare routine is quite long maybe a bit cumbersome for some, but after some time, the hard work begins to show.

In one of the most streamed Netflix shows, Squid Game, dalgona candy became a very popular candy around the world. In one of the rounds of Squid Game, the players have to pick a shape out of the candy without making any mistakes. In this cultural artifact, I am going to focus on the history of dalgona and its importance in Korean culture. 

Dalgona is made up of melted sugar and baking soda. When the baking soda is mixed into melted sugar, the thermal decomposition of the baking soda releases carbon dioxide, making the sugar thicken. You typically then pour it onto a flat surface and press it flat. When you press it flat, you use a patterned mold to mold the liquidized sugar and create a shape out of it. The customer tries to poke the outline of the mold on the dalgona without breaking the picture. If you successfully get the shape without breaking it, the customer will receive another free dalgona from the vendor. 

The typical shapes are hearts, circles, and stars. After Squid Game, the shape of the umbrella has become very popular worldwide, and many have been challenged to pick the shape out of the dalgona candy using a needle. People also create their own shapes and logos to imprint on the candy and pick at it without breaking the candy. This is known as 뽑기 (ppopgi: the game of picking out the shape using a needle without breaking it). 

During the Korean War, many American soldiers gave away free chocolates to children in South Korea. The creation of the dalgona candy was able to fill the void in postwar South Korea for children who grew accustomed to the free chocolates. After the Korean War, people could not afford to pay for the expensive American candies and chocolates, so Koreans figured out a way of getting their sweets into their system. 

Since raw sugar was very expensive, many people used glucose. However, raw sugar was imported from many different countries. Because of the import of raw sugar, it was more common for street vendors to sell them to people. For example, many street vendors sold outside of elementary schools and playgrounds, and get the children to try 뽑기 and see if they can win a free dalgona.

The name of the candy varied depending on which province and/or region you were from. In Gyeonggi Province, which is where Seoul and Incheon are located, it is mainly called dalgona and ppopgi. However, in areas such as Chungcheong Province, they called it ttigi (띠기) and the South Gyeongsang Province called it 쪽자 (jjokja) while the North Gyeongsang Province called it 국자 (gukja). 

Over the years, the street vendors who sold dalgona have slowly been disappearing because many people complained about its unhealthy aspect and the low quality of it. Because of its disappearing vendors, it became a good memory for those who used to pick at the outlines of the candy. Because of Squid Game, dalgona has slowly started rising back to its popularity, and the sales of the candy have significantly increased, not only in South Korea but also worldwide. In Korea, the memories of doing dalgona while they were young demonstrates the importance of its culture and its traditions. Although it was starting to disappear, it has made its comeback into the street vendors through the help of Squid Game and social media. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/dining/squid-game-netflix-dalgona-candy.html

          My cultural artifact for this week consisted of watching mukbang videos. I am an avid mukbang watcher mainly because I love food. After coming to Richmond, I think I started to watch a lot more mukbang videos than before because my food options were now significantly limited. Back at home, I would cook and bake myself everything I wanted to eat, however, that is a luxury I do not have, so I fill that void by watching mukbang videos of my favorite YouTubers eating the foods that I miss the most. In a way, I also use mukbang videos as a way to track the foods I want to eat right away when I go home during break time. Additionally, I find it a good way to stay on top of the foods that are trending in Korea right now. For instance, I would have never known about mint chocolate flavor craze if I did not regularly watch mukbang videos.  

          As I was googling my favorite mukbangers, I discovered that many of them were involved in scandals regarding product placement and ads. I looked more deeply into it and I realized that many of them were in deep trouble because they were essentially advertising different food brands and companies to their viewers and “influencing” them without explicitly stating that the video was an AD or that it contained a gifted product. At first, I did not really see what the entire fuss was about since it was just food and the entire situation just seemed overscaled. However, as I dove more deep into the topic, I realized just how much power and influence these mukbangers have and it was wrong of them to use their platform in a deceitful manner. Therefore, many of the mukbangers uploaded an official apology video while also taking a break from YouTube for months. Apart from this entire AD controversy, the scandal that shocked me the most was about one of my favorite mukbanger named “Bokhee.” She was known to be a pretty, small-figure mukbanger who ate the biggest spoonful in a clean manner. Many people always wondered how she was able to stay so lean while eating such large amounts of food. Well, it turned out that she was involved in a scandal called “먹뱉" which translates to “eating and spitting out.” Many of her videos were not 1-take videos but were instead highly edited in between scenes. In one of her videos, it can be seen that she actually never swallows during the clips. Therefore, this caused a lot of controversies and this kind of cancel culture forced her to go incognito for 6 months until she recently made a comeback. 

Ultimately, I love watching mukbang videos, but I am not too much of a fan of the psychological effects it has on the viewers. Moreover, since South Korea has a society that is very much focused on the “perfect” shape and body, and is very geared towards outer beauty, having a mukbang culture like this just does not sit right with me. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OBVLr7h10WI5VyKdrJMGe0RhLhxe1rcioazCiU_zR0M/edit?usp=sharing

I was looking at my photo gallery on my phone, and I found pictures from the BTS concert in Brazil in 2019. BTS (Bangtan Boys, 방탄소년단) is one of the most popular K-Pop groups worldwide. It consists of seven boys: Kim NamJoon, Kim SeokJin, Min YoonGi, Jung HoSeok, Park JiMin, Kim TaeHyung, and Jeon JungKook. They became famous because of their lyrics that talked about self-esteem and self-love. I went to their concert in São Paulo on May 25th, the first day of the two-day shows. It was the first, and it is still the only time I have been to a K-Pop concert. My expectations were high, and, indeed, it was one of the best days in my life. Being a K-Pop fan is sometimes hard because people try to demotivate you. They say in a pejorative way that K-Pop does not have good songs or that this genre is made for little girls. There is no problem if little girls are listening to it. K-Pop is for people of all ages, genders, sexual identities, ethnicity, and colors. That is what makes K-Pop so incredible. Being for the first time close to a crowd, I could feel freer to be who I am. That crowd understood how being a fan can change your life and even make you a better person. Before the show started, I talked to a lot of people waiting in the queue. There was a sense of identification and belonging. We were so excited and happy to be there that we sang their songs played in the stadium before the show.

B-ARMYS (Brazilian BTS fans) SINGING IDOL BEFORE THE SHOW - BTS in BRAZIL DAY 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cri1HvtINZo

I think one of the best moments was Jung HoSeok's solo. He is the rapper and main dancer of the group, well-known for always being a positive person and bringing hope to their fans. His artistic name is J-Hope. He is my "bias," which means he is my favorite person in this boy group. He is also my "ultimate bias (utt)," which means he is my favorite idol in the whole K-Pop industry, including female, male and mixed groups and solo artists. His solo song is named "Trivia 起: Just Dance," and it talks about dance as a natural conversation and how you can fall in love with someone the same way you fall in love with dancing.

[BTS in Brazil - Day 1] 'Trivia 起: Just Dance' (Full Performance):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVYZdIh-pFo

K-Pop idols must be complete artists, knowing how to sing, dance, make rap, have a beautiful face and body, have good personality and behavior, etc. They have to be perfect, and sometimes this can be harmful to both the artist and its fans. Nobody is perfect, and we should accept this. We should not spread hate, mainly related to the person's color and physical characteristics. We are all beautiful beyond beauty patterns. BTS is one of the K-Pop groups that talk about this issue. Their speech in the United Nations is something that should be listened to for everyone. I am very glad to be part of this fandom.

BTS' Speech at the United Nations (Full Speech from 2018):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhJ-LAQ6e_Y

Besides BTS, I will also highlight one of Hwasa's songs. She is also a K-Pop singer and she talks about how beauty and personality standards should not stop you to follow your dreams.

[MV] Hwa Sa(화사) _ Maria(마리아):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDukIfFzX18

Global conquest plays a huge factor in the reason why some languages go extinct. When small groups of language speakers are conquered by different empires, the native languages that are spoken tend to get traded in for the language spoken by the conqueror. It can be seen as a form of cultural cleansing. Sometimes the people who continue to practice their native language can be punished in different ways. As the time passes from generation to generation, the lesser and lesser speakers there are until there are no more speakers left. There is also not much being done to preserve these languages. Another language-killer is the school systems. There are some things that can be done to preserve a language. People are making databases online that preserve languages. Parents can make an effort to continue to pass the languages down from generation to generation. This extremely difficult nevertheless. Languages can also be preserved through isolation.

This month, I continued to write summaries about the webtoon I have been reading, 랜덤채팅의 그녀! (Random chat). As I kept writing summaries, my language partner told me that she noticed my writing has been flowing a lot more smoothly compared to the first couple of times I wrote my summaries. I learned some new sentence connectors to help my sentences flow and used them throughout my summary. Something she pointed out in my writing is how often I use 는데, which means but, however, or though. For example, in one of my summaries, I wrote 시작했는데 which means it started. However, she taught me another way to write it, which was 시작했다. 하지만…, which means, “it started. However.” Using a method like this helped me a lot because I tend to write very long and continuous sentences. Therefore, it has helped my sentences flow better while writing my summaries. I also learned a new sentence connector, 그래서, which means so, therefore, and thus. I found it interesting how I did not use these sentence connectors while writing, but when I am talking with my parents, I use sentence connectors a lot. I also tend to forget to mention the subject of the sentence while writing my summaries. My language partner always comments on who I am referring to. I tend to skip the subject of the sentence, but it could be hard to understand for people who are not familiar with the story of the webtoon. My language partner also pointed out to me that the written language and the speaking language are different. I tend to use some words that are not really meant or appropriate to use for writing summaries. I have been struggling with not writing like I talk because I have never had the opportunity to write “formally” in Korean other than when I used to live in South Korea. As my language partner kept correcting the words that generally should not be used in writing, I learned different vocabulary words that have the same meaning but are more formal to spell out. 

The summaries have been showing the areas in which I am lacking the most. As I kept writing mine, I did realize that there were fewer errors of sentence connectors which I was very happy about. I hope to continue improving my writing skills through writing summaries. 

My language partner and I also watched a couple of Netflix’s Squid Game episodes together. For the episodes we watched, we discussed in Korean, and we also discussed the different Korean games the characters played, such as carving out the shape in dalgona, and red light, green light game. We discussed other children's games that we used to play while growing up because she went to high school in Korea while I went to elementary school in Korea. We knew different kinds of games since we lived in Korea at different ages, so it was really fun getting to know how to play different kinds of games.

          For this week, Somyung challenged me with the task of translating English songs into Korean lyrics. One of the things I wanted to accomplish was further expanding my Korean vocabulary. While studying abroad in Korea, I listened to a lot of pop music. However, when someone asked me what this English song meant or asked me to translate the meaning, I could never correctly figure out the lyrics. Some of the song selections included Justin Bieber and Bruno Mars songs. My initial thought was that this was going to be a fairly simple task since song lyrics tend to be self-explanatory and consist of simple phrases. The first song I tried to translate was Justin Bieber’s song “Monster.” The first lyrics started off with “You put me on a pedestal and tell me I'm the best.” The moment I tried to translate this, I realized that I did not know the word “pedestal” in Korean. Somyung gave me a couple of tries to try and figure it out with prior knowledge, but I could not think of the correct vocabulary word. We used google translate to find out and it was “받침대." From this moment on, I knew that this was definitely going to be a difficult task. As the song went on, there were so many words that I never knew that I didn’t know. For instance, I did not know how to translate “responsibility,” “unforgiveness,” “intentions,” and “confidence.” With just this one song, I was able to learn a lot of the essential, everyday Korean vocab words. 

          Similar to how I wanted to translate English songs into Korean, I also wanted to get better at translating Korean songs into English. In Korea, I unconsciously listened to so much K-pop in the streets, malls, restaurants, and e.t.c, however, I just listened to it more for its rhythm and energy. I never really dove deep into thinking about what the songs meant. Therefore, for this meeting, Somyung and I also took a Korean song called “HOLO” by Lee Hi and tried my best to translate this as well. The first set of lyrics started off as “홀로 있는 게 가만히 있는 게 어려운 일인가요 홀로 있어도 같이 있어도 외로운 건 같아요. One day it will stop.” One strategy I used to figure out the general meaning of this song was to use context clues, especially at the end when it had an English lyric. I ended up guessing correctly that “홀로” translated to alone. The word “홀로” also came up a bunch of times so I knew this song was about solitude and being okay with being alone. 

          I found this exercise to be very fun since it took the songs that I listened to on a daily basis and really challenged me to think deeply about its meaning and words. I feel like this would be a very good practice for me in the future to always try and translate songs I listen to and see how they translate in the other language. 

The main task I focused on for this cycle of my language learning experience was eliminating some of my Spanish tendencies when using Portuguese. Some of these include using false cognates, mispronouncing a word and using incorrect syntactic structures. My native Spanish speaking abilities have helped me greatly in being able to read and comprehend most Portuguese texts at a high level, although I do make mistakes when it comes to my pronunciation since the phonology varies significantly.  Although both languages share a lexical similarity of about 89%, some of the most frequently used words are false cognates and can also lead to errors in my speech production. 

The resource I have been using the most to address this learning goal of mine is a language learning book titled “Pois não: Brazilian Portuguese Course for Spanish Speakers”. I thought this book would be a great resource because it is specifically designed for Spanish speakers who are also fluent in English. Additionally the book has lots of activities and drills curated to eliminate some of the Spanish cross over that usually occurs when learning Portuguese. One activity that really caught my attention and helped with my cognate dilemma was a short story called “False Friends: Eu Não Falo Português” by Daniel Samper Pizano. The story synthesizes a lot of humor with vocabulary traps and false cognates to try and highlight the vocabulary differences. I learned a lot from seeing the vocabulary in context and will have to review the word list in the book a lot more in the future to really understand and grasp some of the differences. Although I do generally well in differentiating between some of these cognates now because of the time I have spent learning Portuguese, adding this lesson to my short term goals is a good idea. If I had been in Brazil right now I would have easily confused the name of multiple professions and used the wrong adjectives and verbs for a couple different situations. 

Additionally,  the section of the book that covered morpho-syntactic differences between Spanish and Portuguese was extremely helpful. For one, I learned that the future subjunctive is not used in Spanish anymore, except in some literary expressions of very limited usage, meanwhile it is used frequently and productively in Portuguese, such as in  “Se Deus quiser” (God willing”), Seja o que for (Whatever will be),  and quando eu puder (whenever I can). These are the types of phrases that I try and translate in my head from Spanish but really struggle to construct. It can be quite frustrating trying to express the Spanish equivalent correctly in Portuguese because of the syntactic differences. 

For the future, I think I will keep using this book as a resource in tandem with my language partner, with whom I can practice new vocabulary and sentence structures. This is my first time in quite some time using a textbook to aid my language learning but I think it has been a successful experiment thus far because there is some structure to separating my Spanish from Portuguese, while in other books there is a sole focus on English that doesn’t help my cause much in this case. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nMvSmTtlq70VJEYk_EyzmO7PFrW_Z5oI0cANZpDVNe4/edit?usp=sharing

I finished reviewing the book "Integrated Korea - Beginning 2". Last Saturday morning, I had my first class at the Italki app. My professor's name is Jessi (Korean name 보경정). She will help me improve my abilities in writing in Korean so I will be able to do well on the TOPIK exam. The TOPIK exam (한국어능력시험) is the proficiency test in Korean. I had already taken TOPIK 1 and got level 2 in Korean.

Now my focus is to apply for TOPIK 2, which goes from level 3 to level 6. My intended level is level 4. This level is the minimum required for graduate and post-graduate students. The main difference between levels 3 and 4 is the Writing section. If your writing is academic and shows that you know how to articulate all the grammar and vocabulary you know, you will probably do great at universities in South Korea. I think Listening and Writing are the most challenging section of the TOPIK exam. The audios go fast, and you have to read and answer the questions at the same time you are listening. It is a non-stop activity that makes you tired and over alarmed. Writing is always difficult because it implies a good knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, and sentences structure.

I also borrowed a book from the Global Studio called Complete Guide to the TOPIK: II Intermediate - Advanced (new edition). This book explains the different parts of the exam and analyzes them. It shows the types of questions, their patterns, and it gives key strategy solutions and explanations for each one. It also has two Practice Tests. For this reason, it will help me to understand my strong and weak points related to this exam. I will start studying this book next week, and I will try to finish using it in a maximum of three weeks.

I went to New York during Fall Break and I bought two books written in Korean. One of them is "시가 사랑을 데리고 온다". Its name does not have an English version yet, but it can be translated to "Poetry brings love." It was written by Na Tae Joo (나태주), a poet famous for his poem called "풀꽃," (Glass Flower). Here is the poem:

"It starts to look pretty when I look closely
It starts to feel lovely when I watch it long
And so do you."

Korean version:
"자세히 보아야 예쁘다
오래 보아야 사랑스럽다
너도 그렇다."

I bought his recently published book and, for this reason, there is no version in English yet. My Korean friend told me some words Na Tae Joo utilizes are not common since it is poetry. I selected a random poem for us to read together, and she did not know one of the words, even though she is Korean and has lived her entire life in South Korea. I want to read this book slowly. I will not read this one now, but during vacations. The other book I have bought was "그냥 흘러넘쳐도 좋아요." The translation can be "It's okay if it just overflows." I have not searched about this book's content yet. I bought it because it looked curious and I am looking forward to reading it.

Not much has changed. I have gotten to the point to where I have set my mobile phone system completely into Portuguese. One thing that I found very useful from the lectures in class was the speech accent archive. There are so many different Portuguese accents and the speech accent archive really helps me understand the phonetical inventory between different Portuguese speakers across the world. There was also another resource in class that I forgot what it was called. With this website, you can speak in a language and it will type out what you have just said and talk about your accent accuracy. I think that resource would be very useful in helping you speak correctly. The resources given during the lectures have really helped me a lot to say the least. To improve my communicative competence, I just need to practice speaking a lot more. Language and culture have always been linked to each other. They go together like peas and carrots. Languages are linked to a specific group of people from a specific geographical region. Overtime we have seen languages globalize through conquest and imperialism. 

For my cultural learning this week a lot of information I covered intertwined with my Cultural Anthropology course. Specifically, I focused on Chapters 5 and 6 of the book ‘Cultural Anthropology: A Toolkit for a Global Age’. In these chapters I read and learned about the cultural construction of class, gender and race in Brazil. The book explicitly mentions that Brazil is a good location to explore the cultural basis of such ideas because it is one of two of the largest multiracial countries in the Western Hemisphere, with the other being the United States. My goal then was to try and compare the United States to Brazil and see how each country frames these different identities and social hierarchies. 

One amazing video that I watched to help me understand the Brazil’s system of racial classification was a TED-talk by Brazilian artist and photographer, Angélica Dass. In the video she talks about her photography and how it should challenge the way society views skin color and racial classification. Angélica Dass conducts a portrait challenge in which she takes photographs of different people with different colors of skin, and although some photographs contain members of “different” races, their skin tone and background color are exactly the same. 

I found this project by Dass quite interesting because it challenges the notion of race in great detail by color coding people who one would generally assume to be of completely different backgrounds. The project also speaks on the Brazilian system of racial classification, which has a much more expansive and detailed focus on color coding which in term bodes to a larger collection color terminology than here in the US. The US typically categorizes people into Black, White, and Brown but Brazil encompasses hundreds of different color categories. Some terms that I read about included alva (pure white), alva-escuro( off-white), alva-rosada (pinkish white), branca (white), clara (light),, branca morena (darkish white), branca suja (dirty white), café (coffee colored), café com leite (coffee with milk), canela (cinnamon), preta (black) and pretinha (lighter black). I think these racial categories show a continuum of appearance rather than the very structural and rigid color and race construction we have here in the United States, which was one of the biggest takeaways I had from this lesson.  

The next portion that I focused on was seeing how such racial categorization affects people in society. To do so, I read the beginning chapters in ‘Laughter Out of Place’ by anthropologist Donna Golstein. The book explores the relationship between poor working women of color in Brazilian favelas, and how such workers support the families and homes of middle-class and lighter skinned Brazilians. In general the book demonstrated a lot of similarities to the United States. For one, darker-skinned Brazilians face higher levels of exclusion and injustice, which I find to be a systemic correlation between color and a capitalist society, much like it occurs in the US. All in all I think both Brazil and the US face similar problems across society albeit reaching such problems through different paths. Brazil did not outlaw slavery until 1888, a full generation after the US outlawed slavery in 1863 and I wonder how much of that impacts how physical diversity is viewed across both countries. 

I started my first pair of weeks in the program without a language partner, but I still had 4 very productive lessons with a private teacher through iTalki. I specifically chose a tutor on iTalki who was from Rio de Janeiro, as that is the city where I will be studying abroad. I thought this would be a good starting point to hearing the regional accent and getting a head start on some of the vocabulary specific to the area. 

From there, I had two lessons where the main focus was to compare some of the cultural differences between Brazil and the US. I learned about the openness of most Brazilians and how friendships there work a bit differently than they do here. For one, I learned that simply showing up to someone’s home is acceptable and seen as a good act of friendship and demonstration of trust. I told my professor that here in the US it would be more common to schedule something like that and there is more of a standard for always making sure the other person is available and free to meet. In Brazil it is also typical to arrive at someone's home with a gift or food, as arriving empty handed anywhere is usually a sign of being raised poorly or not having respect for the visitor. I mentioned that such an act is not completely nonexistent in the United States but that it is typically reserved for times of meeting elders or a people who one has not seen in a long time. 

My next two lessons dealt with a lot more conversation and I really got to put my speaking abilities to the test. My professor brought in a local college student to teach me more colloquial speech, slang and day to day words that locals shorten in conversations. At first it was tough to understand the slang words the college student was saying without context, but once I heard them in a conversational setting they made much more sense. One of my favorites was “Dar um bolo” which literally translates to “give a cake” but it means to miss a compromise or get stood up at a date or event. I thought these lessons were extremely helpful because I felt like I had been engulfed in formal and academic speech this entire summer as I did my Critical Language program. Improving my informal speech and general speaking skills is one of my long term goals and I am glad I was able to practice that with two native speakers from Rio de Janeiro. 

After my iTalki lessons,  I was fortunate enough to begin communicating with my language partner, who is an exchange student from Brazil studying film studies here on campus. For our first couple encounters, we went through the basic acquaintance process and tried to figure out the best times to meet and what I wanted to get out of the language partner portion of the program. I was ecstatic to finally have the opportunity to speak Portuguese with someone in person. After months and almost a year of traversing through my language learning process via Zoom and other online platforms it was rewarding to hold a conversation with a person in real life. Meeting my language partner was definitely one of the proudest moments I have had in my language learning journey and I am thankful to have a friend that will be able to help me learn more about Brazil, its culture and the language. Funnily enough, I am also proud that I knew enough Portuguese to help my language partner during our first meeting. She was having trouble with cashing in a check through her mobile banking app, so my first ever conversation with her was about checks, signatures and bank apps in the United States. All the more reason to never skip specific vocabulary sections on Duolingo. 

We did more speaking exercises in week 4. We started by catching up with each other, and then we did a conversation exercise on the issues that recently happened in Korea. Vivian mentioned a Korean artist's scandal lately, so we discussed our opinions and feelings towards it. We then moved on to a culture in Korea - mukbang, which refers to the YouTube channels where the YouTuber eat a lot of food in one video. Some eat only one kind of food in one video, and some eat a variety of food - but in common they eat a huge amount of food. I've watched few mukbang videos before, but Vivian has watched it a lot for 대리만족, which means gaining a sense of satisfaction by seeing somebody else doing it. I didn't know before Vivian told me that mukbang started in Korea at first and then went popular around the globe.

Vivian introduced me the concept of mukbang and showed me a channel that is really popular on YouTube. It is a girl who looks pretty and slim but eats a lot. She eats the amount of my three meals in that one video. We discussed the message that this type of video is conveying - that you need to eat a lot but stay slim and pretty. This is a very unhealthy but common idea in Korea but also in many East Asian countries. There are also scandals about the mukbang channels. People have found that quite a few mukbang YouTubers have been advertising for brands without telling their audience, which is illegal in Korea. In Korea, if you are advertising something, you have to let people know, either explicitly or implicitly. Another scandal about the mukbang YouTubers is fake eating, that they put the food in their mouth, chew it, and spill it out. And they edit the videos so the swallowing or spilling out part is not included in the whole video. These two scandals raised an issue of untrust in YouTubers in Korea, and some YouTubers just shut down their channel because of this.

I then read through a news article on the mukbang issue that Vivian found. It was still very hard for me to read - there were quite a few phrases that I've not encountered. What we did was I read it first, Vivian read it again, we went over the vocabs or phrases I don't understand, and then I tried to translate the whole sentence into English. It was a struggle for me, but I did learn a lot of new phrases from the passage.

For weeks 5, 6, and 7, we each picked an episode of Korean drama we wanted to watch and watched them together. I started with the last episode of Hospital Playlist, which is my favorite drama of the year. Then Vivian recommended the Squid Game, which ranks first on almost all regions on Netflix right now, but it was too scary for me. This week, we watched Hometown chachacha, which is a comedy romance drama that I really enjoy. During each class, we would turn off the English subtitles and have the Korean one. I could understand most of the plots, but there were times when I was just lost and couldn't guess out the phrase I didn't understand. We would pause in the middle and Vivian would explain it to me, either what is going on or what the important phrase was. I was really motivated by this type of class because I always want to know what happened so I would really focus on listening and reading the lines. I've been taking notes about the words I didn't understand and I need to review them frequently so I don't forget.

For the first week, I just filled out the form for our preference for language partners. I did watch a few episodes of variety shows in Korean to help me get used to listening to Korean.

Starting from Week 2, I started studying with Vivian, who is my language partner this year. On our first day of class, Vivian did a self-introduction about her family, hobbies, and her study abroad experience in Korea last year. She talked mostly in Korean and I was able to understand most of it. When I met words or phrases I didn't understand, I would guess them first and then ask Vivian about them. Then I would jot them down on my notes. I was quite surprised by myself - I couldn't take Korean last year because I was studying abroad, but I could still understand most of it. I then tried having a conversation with Vivian about my study abroad experience as well. I stumbled and had vocabs that I didn't know how to say, but Vivian helped me with them. She also asked me what kind of practice I wanted to focus on the most, my concerns if I have any, and of course, the topics that I am interested in. I really liked the introduction and I was very excited about the coming classes.

In week 3, we had a conversation practice. We started by talking about our past weeks, and we discussed the d hall food as well as the new building on campus. Vivian prepared some fun questions for us to discuss, such as the type of animals you wanna be, our 이상형 (ideal type), and so on. We then went over some Korean slang that is commonly used when people type, and that was a fun exercise too. Then to learn more about Korean culture, we watched an episode of Korean Englishman on drinking in Korea. I enjoyed the class with Vivian overall and I like that I am able to practice speaking a lot through our conversations.

     I recently found a new podcast called “Talk to Me in Korean – Core Korean Grammar”, and I regret not using it earlier for my Korean studies. The podcast has two hosts that explain various Korean grammar points that are used on a daily basis such as “This” versus “That”. What I appreciate about this podcast is when the host introduce the grammar point and put it in context, they repeat the phrase or sentence in regular speed and then slowly. As a new learner, it is imperative that I am able to pronounce the characters accurately, and so the slower speed helps me. Unlike the other podcast called “Real Life Korean Conversations”, “Talk to Me in Korean” is more suitable for new language learners like me. The other podcast is more appropriate for intermediate learners. Another point I wanted to point out was how the two host explain the grammar points in detail and often add in words of encouragement throughout the lesson. For an example, I listened to the lesson about “This” versus “That”, and they put those words into context by using examples such as “This book” or “What is this”. With my Cantonese and Mandarin background, this grammar point was not too difficult for me to learn since the pronunciation of “This” is almost identical in Cantonese. Nevertheless, this is a valuable resource that I wish I discovered earlier to help me.

     My language partner, Somyung, and I went over family pronouns and the Korean number system for the past two weeks. The family pronouns were fun to learn because like Chinese, there is a different pronoun for those that are older or younger. The Korean number systems has two number systems. One is based on Chinese characters and is used for money and the other is used for possession such as your age. The Sino-Korean system characters are derived from Chinese characters, and some of the pronunciation is like that of Cantonese and mandarin. For an example, “ten” in Korean is 십 (ship) and “three” is 삼 (sam). In Cantonese, “ten” is 十 (sup) and “three” is 三 (sam).

     The discovery of this podcast came just in time when I am beginning to learn grammar with my iTalki teacher. We learned about the difference between “This” and “That” and the addition of “이” or “가”. “이/가” was somewhat difficult for me to grasp since there is no meaning in those characters just like other characters such as “십니다”or “합니다”. On the other hand, “This” and “That” can be applied to many situations and has meaning, so grammatically, it makes sense to use in one situation or another. My iTalki teacher assures me that grammar is difficult, but we will take it slowly because there are a lot of changes in terms of pronunciation and the structure. I am quite surprised at how much I have learned already in terms of introductions, family pronouns, simple sentences, and a handful of vocabulary. It amazes me how many resources are out there on the internet that can help me with learning Korean or any language. My perception of learning a new language are a teacher, classroom, and textbooks, but nowadays with advance technology, a self-directed language study is highly achievable.

One thing that interests me about my target culture of Brazil is the lifestyle in the favelas. Favela life is a completely different world from the city life. The people who live in the city typically have a lot more money than the people who live in the favelas. Favelas are made up of the lower class people. I can say, from outside looking in, it seems that the favelas have a much greater since of community and typically the people look out for each others well-being. Another part of Brazilian culture that I would like to explore is the martial arts. Brazil has some of the most world-renowned martial artists and has some martial art forms native to Brazil. These are capoeira and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I do not believe there is any type of special vocabulary or linguistic knowledge necessary other than knowing Portuguese.

During this past week, I learned about Nam June Paik (남준백), the Korean artist known as the father of video art. He was born in South Korea in 1932 and had his first art exhibition, called “Exposition of Music - Electronic Television,” in Germany in 1963. He dedicated one of the exhibition rooms to new inventions with the TV equipment. At that time, no one had ever thought that TV could be used for any other purpose than mass transmission. He used 13 televisions and manipulated them to present deformed images or sounds in the form of an image. At the time, television was still an object of luxury and its use was only for mass distribution. The idea of ​​using TVs as a kind of art was not even imagined by the most revolutionary artists of that time. At a time when live global broadcasting was not possible, Nam June Paik was directing “Good Morning, Ms. Orwell,” a live show for the cities of New York, San Francisco, and Paris. In addition to being an innovator in art, he was able to anticipate these technological revolutions that are now fundamental to life in the 21st century. “Good Morning, Ms. Orwell” was the world's first artistic satellite video art broadcast in 1984. It is an hour-long program with music and video art presentations in English and French. I was searching for his works because I needed to write a blog about Korean and Art. In his works, he seeks to transmit the idea of ​​a connected and decentralized world. I found out that some of his works are in the Washington DC museum. When I go there, I will definitely visit the museum. I like the way he mixes art and technology and I hope to know more about this artist when I go to the museum. One of his works is called Superhighway. It is the work being shown in the first picture below. The other work is called Megatron/Matrix. Several TVs together form different kinds of images. Both works are in the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. I particularly identify with the works of Nam June Paik, because I'm not European either and I feel that art from other countries is always underrated.
Today I went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and there was a section called "American Art". I am American, but I am not from the United States. I'm Brazilian. I expected to see art from across the American continent, but I only saw art produced in the United States. The African and Asian sections were very small. In contrast, the European session was huge and separated by a period. I believe that to this day we continue to struggle to have more representation in everything, including art.

Changing the subject, this week, I'm going to start watching the Korean series that is famous around the world. The name is Squid Game. Also, I couldn't go to the Korean church today, but I will go after Fall break.

My cultural artifact for this week is about the Indonesian cultural fair and Gamelan Çudamani performance that took place a few weeks ago. Accompanying the performance were several Indonesian-related events hosted by the University of Richmond. In my four years in Richmond, I have never attended an event solely dedicated to Indonesian culture, much less hosted by UR, so this was a new and special experience for me.

The events I attended included the Indonesian cultural fair and a dance workshop. During the fair, I got the chance to meet a lot of local Indonesian people and practice speaking skills. I was nervous at first, but was able to effectively communicate, which goes back to my goal of learning more formal/academic Bahasa Indonesia rather than casual speech. There were various tables set up for Indonesian snacks, coffee, study abroad opportunities, and more. It was a very pleasant experience for me because it reminded me so much of my trips to Indonesia- it made me realize how long it has been since I was surrounded by Indonesian food, culture, and language. One of the tables even gave out my favorite Indonesian iced tea, teh botol, which is really hard to find in Virginia! After the fair, there were a few workshops on Balinese dance, music, and martial arts. I joined the dance workshop, which was very difficult! The dance did not have too many complicated moves, but what made it hard was the intricate hand movements. I tried my best to follow along, but it required a lot of precision and flexibility. I attended the fair and workshop with a friend of mine who was born and raised in Indonesia, so it was interesting because our experiences were slightly different as I am Indonesian-American. She expressed feelings of homesickness, while for me it was very new and fascinating.

As for the performance, it was very intriguing, and I had never seen anything like it in the past. I am not very familiar with gamelan music, so I did not know what to expect. During the fair, they did play a few pieces, though every song they played had a calm and serene vibe. With that said, I definitely expected something similar for the actual performance, but it was completely different given that the group makes experimental music. There was a focus on both the music and the visuals, so there was not a dull moment. There were theatrical elements, because the dance and music worked together to tell a story. There was an intermission in between, but the first part seemed to focus on “land” elements, whereas the second part showcased their new Titra (water) production. The performance also included some dialogue, though I could not understand it because it was either in Javanese or Balinese. As I said before, the group is relatively experimental, so they mix a lot of traditional elements with their own spins. The music was very dynamic and loud, which made for a fun performance. The last part of the performance even included a portion where they played louder than usual and encouraged the audience to make noise with them. It was very touching to hear about the group itself- many of the members are related and their arts/techniques are passed down from generation. For this performance, many of the younger members took on leadership roles so they were eager to perform. After the show, my friend and I met a few of the performers and supported them by buying their merchandise.