For this cultural artifact post, I am exploring two key questions: What do people do for fun and exercise? What does this say about the culture?
Indonesia has a wide range of sports--some of these sports originated in Indonesia. Others came from other countries in Southeast Asia, and others came from parts of Europe. While the traditions of these different physical activities themselves contribute to Indonesia's culture, they also help illuminate some of the deeper cultural values below the cultural iceberg.
Many of the sports listed in the article I chose (https://factsofindonesia.com/traditional-sports-in-indonesia and https://factsofindonesia.com/cycling-in-indonesia) support Indonesia's national identity. For example, Pacu Jalur (which means rowboats), Egrang (which means stilts), and Tarik Tambang (which means Tug of War) support national pride because the competition is hosted during Independence day (August 17). Interestingly, Independence Day for Indonesia is a relatively new holiday, so I wonder if these particular sports had the same significance previous to being unified as a nation, or were they just played for fun. Some of these sports seem more ritualistic than competitive, like Egrang. This sport is performed in a parade without the framework of a competitional structure.
Some of the sports have contested backgrounds but may have a shared heritage with neighboring countries. For example, Pencek Silat (which means martial arts) came from Malay, and Sepak Traw, which is a hybrid between football and volleyball may have come from one of several countries in Southeast Asia.
Clogs, for example, a game from West Sumatra requires the collaboration of students as they try to slide to the finish line and can teach how to work together.
Some sports came from a legacy of colonization by the Dutch, such as cycling. While bikes were common for nobility when the dutch first arrived, most Indonesians use motorbikes. There are still bike tours, European influence in Indonesia.
I was intrigued that the article included on the list of traditional supports were also tug of war and sack races, which are games I've played in the United States before. The article didn't specify where these originated, though.
From this article, I get the sense that sports are associated with national pride because so many are celebrated on independence day. Sports serve more celebratory, ritualistic purposes than in the US, where we have a year-round sports entertainment industry.
As a collectivist culture, Indonesia has many team sports like rowing and clogs, though there are also some individual ones. Some of the sports have performative aspects like stilts and rocks jumping. I think these may connect with the concept of saving face, which is making a good impression in public. Comparing some of these sports to ones in the United States - in football, basketball, and baseball, we prioritize competition--but in Indonesia, most sports have some performative aspect. Ultimately, traditional sports in Indonesia creates a sense of unity for Indonesian across the Archipelago.
If I am an English Teaching Assistant in Indonesia, participating in sports will be a great way to build community connections with my hosts. Playing together is fun and also provides an inside look at cultural norms that are communicated through subtle actions.
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For this cultural artifact post, I am exploring two key questions: What do people do for fun and exercise? What does this say about the culture?
Indonesia has a wide range of sports--some of these sports originated in Indonesia. Others came from other countries in Southeast Asia, and others came from parts of Europe. While the traditions of these different physical activities themselves contribute to Indonesia's culture, they also help illuminate some of the deeper cultural values below the cultural iceberg.
Many of the sports listed in the article I chose (https://factsofindonesia.com/traditional-sports-in-indonesia and https://factsofindonesia.com/cycling-in-indonesia) support Indonesia's national identity. For example, Pacu Jalur (which means rowboats), Egrang (which means stilts), and Tarik Tambang (which means Tug of War) support national pride because the competition is hosted during Independence day (August 17). Interestingly, Independence Day for Indonesia is a relatively new holiday, so I wonder if these particular sports had the same significance previous to being unified as a nation, or were they just played for fun. Some of these sports seem more ritualistic than competitive, like Egrang. This sport is performed in a parade without the framework of a competitional structure.
Some of the sports have contested backgrounds but may have a shared heritage with neighboring countries. For example, Pencek Silat (which means martial arts) came from Malay, and Sepak Traw, which is a hybrid between football and volleyball may have come from one of several countries in Southeast Asia.
Clogs, for example, a game from West Sumatra requires the collaboration of students as they try to slide to the finish line and can teach how to work together.
Some sports came from a legacy of colonization by the Dutch, such as cycling. While bikes were common for nobility when the dutch first arrived, most Indonesians use motorbikes. There are still bike tours, European influence in Indonesia.
I was intrigued that the article included on the list of traditional supports were also tug of war and sack races, which are games I've played in the United States before. The article didn't specify where these originated, though.
From this article, I get the sense that sports are associated with national pride because so many are celebrated on independence day. Sports serve more celebratory, ritualistic purposes than in the US, where we have a year-round sports entertainment industry.
As a collectivist culture, Indonesia has many team sports like rowing and clogs, though there are also some individual ones. Some of the sports have performative aspects like stilts and rocks jumping. I think these may connect with the concept of saving face, which is making a good impression in public. Comparing some of these sports to ones in the United States - in football, basketball, and baseball, we prioritize competition--but in Indonesia, most sports have some performative aspect. Ultimately, traditional sports in Indonesia creates a sense of unity for Indonesian across the Archipelago.
If I am an English Teaching Assistant in Indonesia, participating in sports will be a great way to build community connections with my hosts. Playing together is fun and also provides an inside look at cultural norms that are communicated through subtle actions.
For this cultural artifact post, I am exploring two key questions: What do people do for fun and exercise? What does this say about the culture?
Indonesia has a wide range of sports--some of these sports originated in Indonesia. Others came from other countries in Southeast Asia, and others came from parts of Europe. While the traditions of these different physical activities themselves contribute to Indonesia's culture, they also help illuminate some of the deeper cultural values below the cultural iceberg.
Many of the sports listed in the article I chose (https://factsofindonesia.com/traditional-sports-in-indonesia and https://factsofindonesia.com/cycling-in-indonesia) support Indonesia's national identity. For example, Pacu Jalur (which means rowboats), Egrang (which means stilts), and Tarik Tambang (which means Tug of War) support national pride because the competition is hosted during Independence day (August 17). Interestingly, Independence Day for Indonesia is a relatively new holiday, so I wonder if these particular sports had the same significance previous to being unified as a nation, or were they just played for fun. Some of these sports seem more ritualistic than competitive, like Egrang. This sport is performed in a parade without the framework of a competitional structure.
Some of the sports have contested backgrounds but may have a shared heritage with neighboring countries. For example, Pencek Silat (which means martial arts) came from Malay, and Sepak Traw, which is a hybrid between football and volleyball may have come from one of several countries in Southeast Asia.
Clogs, for example, a game from West Sumatra requires the collaboration of students as they try to slide to the finish line and can teach how to work together.
Some sports came from a legacy of colonization by the Dutch, such as cycling. While bikes were common for nobility when the dutch first arrived, most Indonesians use motorbikes. There are still bike tours, European influence in Indonesia.
I was intrigued that the article included on the list of traditional supports were also tug of war and sack races, which are games I've played in the United States before. The article didn't specify where these originated, though.
From this article, I get the sense that sports are associated with national pride because so many are celebrated on independence day. Sports serve more celebratory, ritualistic purposes than in the US, where we have a year-round sports entertainment industry.
As a collectivist culture, Indonesia has many team sports like rowing and clogs, though there are also some individual ones. Some of the sports have performative aspects like stilts and rocks jumping. I think these may connect with the concept of saving face, which is making a good impression in public. Comparing some of these sports to ones in the United States - in football, basketball, and baseball, we prioritize competition--but in Indonesia, most sports have some performative aspect. Ultimately, traditional sports in Indonesia creates a sense of unity for Indonesian across the Archipelago.
If I am an English Teaching Assistant in Indonesia, participating in sports will be a great way to build community connections with my hosts. Playing together is fun and also provides an inside look at cultural norms that are communicated through subtle actions.
I have been writing in my target language since the first week in several different formats. Writing is my favorite of the different modes of communication because I like to be able to edit what I am trying to communicate. Speaking and listening are trickier because you have to be very focused at the moment, and it is easy to miss important information. In class, I take notes by hand, and for homework, I write sentences using the vocabulary. Our longer homework assignments are usually completed online, but I like to start by writing freehand. This helps me to use the vocabulary that I know rather than continuously referring to an online translator. I’m often impressed by what I come up with and can use the practice of circumlocution that we talked about during class a couple weeks ago. If I don’t know how to say the specific word, I can use other words that I do know to describe what I mean. When I was studying German and Italian, I found that journaling in the target language was a very helpful strategy for developing my writing skills. Several patterns are beginning to emerge in the structures between words, clauses, and sentences. For example, the subject always goes first, and then the verb, or an adverb, and then the object. Adjectives always follow the noun and are linked using the word “yang.” Verbs do not require conjugation based on the subject, but prefixes do change. We haven’t yet learned exactly when or why to drop the prefixes, but we did learn that “ber” means “to have.” There are also no definite articles. Indonesians, especially in informal speech, tend to shorten things. The sentence structures that I most often use are modal verbs (I want to eat pasta) and two clauses connected by a conjunction (I want to eat pasta, so I will cook some). I’m not sure how other complex sentences work if they don’t have conjunctions, so hopefully, we will learn more about that soon. Overall, grammatical structures are a lot more flexible than Indo-European languages like German. After having learned adjective endings that change based on gender and part of speech, Bahasa Indonesia’s grammar is a breeze. When we listen to audio lessons from the textbook, it seems like most of the speakers are using simple sentences (but that may just be to meet us on our level). Knowing parts of speech, government, and agreement supports my ability to communicate in written contexts because I can use context clues to figure out the meaning if I know which words are verbs versus nouns.
Here is an example of a culture journal entry in which I wrote about my reactions to some Indonesian films:
Di Ayat-Ayat Cinta, saya melihat empat orang bersama. Mereka punya pakaian yang formal. Ada buku dan lilin diatas meja dibawah tangan mereka.Ada laki-laki tinggi dengan kacamata, dan dia berbicara dengan laki-laki yang muda. Mereka berpegangan tangan. Banyak orang menonton dari luar. Kemudian mereka semua merayakannya bersama. Wanita melempar bunga yang merah. Mereka semua sangat senang.
Pertama kami pergi ke rumah Habibie. Kami melihat dia membaca buku. Kemudian dia berpikir tentang dia ketika muda. Ada wanita yang cantik, namanya Ainun. Badan Ainun kecil dan kurus. Rambut Ainun panjang dan berwarna hitam. Dia punya baju panjang. Ketika muda, mereka pergi ke sekolah bersama. Ainun belajar kedokteran Mereka teman, tapi tidak bisa menikah. Ainun mengatakan, Kami di buku sama, tapi halaman yang berbeda. Laki-Laki merasa sangat sedih.
This exercise was meaningful because it allowed me to practice expressing myself in the target language using the grammar that I have learned so far.
A language dies when people stop speaking and using the language, especially if it is not written down. This is the case for many indigenous languages, in communities that prioritize the oral tradition. I admit that I did not realize the importance of preserving endangered languages until being in the self-direct language acquisition program. I used to think of language as a vehicle for communication, and in an increasingly globalized world, having a shared language seemed central to developing relationships across cultures. But as I have been studying Indigenous peoples in my geography class and for my senior thesis art project coupled with the readings for this class, I have come across the recurring theme that local languages do matter. The way our languages are structured in turn shapes our worldviews. When Native Americans were forced to go to boarding schools and learn English, they lost a part of their culture. A language dies when people stop speaking and using the language, especially if it is not written down. This is the case for many indigenous languages, in communities that prioritize the oral tradition. I admit that I did not realize the importance of preserving endangered languages until being in the self-direct language acquisition program. I used to think of language as a vehicle for communication, and in an increasingly globalized world, having a shared language seemed central to developing relationships across cultures. But as I have been studying Indigenous peoples in my geography class and for my senior thesis art project coupled with the readings for this class, I have come across the recurring theme that local languages do matter. The way our languages are structured in turn shapes our worldviews. When Native Americans were forced to go to boarding schools and learn English, they lost a part of their culture. We talked about the iceberg model of culture a couple weeks ago but after learning about endangered languages, I have a better grasp of what it means for culture to be more than the traditional artifacts. As the video noted, language is a cultural artifact older and more complex than any of the paintings, architecture that we associate with the epitome of culture. It holds nuances and the values of the community. Thinking about the values that culture holds helps me realize then the role that artists play. As an artist, I don’t want to just paint pretty pictures to hang on walls. I want to play a part in shaping the culture, which is important. At this current moment, we have an opportunity to shift. We can listen to the Indigenous voices, support their cultures, protect their languages, which helps us to have a reciprocal rather than exploitative relationship with the land. I recently read a poem by Natalie Diaz called “The First River is the Body.” In this work, she explores the limits of translation concerning how her culture sees bodies and rivers. Reading poetry reminds me that language is beyond utilitarian and provides a glimpse into the human condition and culture. The article showed that technology, while perhaps a big reason that languages simplify into shared ones, is also a tool for making the languages accessible and bringing them back to life. When people have access to the vocabulary, they are more likely to learn new languages. Linguists are doing many research projects to digitally document these endangered languages so that we do not lose them forever. I’m wondering what an ideal world would look like in terms of language. There is certainly reason to preserve the many languages, but do they need to be functional in society, or more of a traditional token? Which languages have priority? Should there be a common global language? And are the common ones of English, Mandarin, Spanish the best ones? One key is probably to focus on locality. If there is a local Indigenous community near my town, schools could offer language and cultural courses in that particular language. My local high school could have opportunities for community-based learning, to learn from indigenous perspectives, to understand the history of the land. Having a place-based curriculum in schools could make language not just a tool for practical communication but a key to understanding our relationship with the world.
For this cultural post, I would like to talk about the education system in Korea. The reason why may be somewhat funny and nonsensical. Recently, I've been revisiting the Korean drama named "School 2015." "School" TV series is very popular in Korea and it is somehow similar to the "Reply" TV series (except that "School" series are not as popular).
The drama follows the story of the twins, Eun-bi and Eun-byul, who were separated and are now living completely different lives. Eun-bi lives at a home for orphans and is bullied at her high-school, while Eun-byul is adopted and becomes a popular student at her high school. Their lives intersect when Eun-byul runs away from a school field trip to search for her sister. Eun-byul is later found with amnesia while her sister is pronounced dead after committing suicide. The story then revolves around Eun-byul’s fight to regain her memories and identity.
Now, back to our main topic-- the education system in South Korea. After I did some research, I found that the South Korean public education system's structure is very similar to that in China. The Korean public education structure is divided into three parts: six years of primary school, followed by three years of middle school, and then three years of high school. However, in 1996, only about five percent of Korea's high schools were coeducational. Coeducational schools mean having male and female students being taught together in the same school or college. Moreover, classes in many coeducational high schools are still divided along gender lines.This is something that is very different comparing with the Chinese educational system from my perspective. In China, almost all public schools are coeducational schools except for some private schools that may not be coeducational.
The primary curriculum consists of nine principal subjects: moral education, Korean language, social studies, mathematics, science, physical education, music, fine arts, and practical arts. English-language instruction now begins in the third grade, so that children can start learning English in a relaxed atmosphere through a conversational exchange, rather than through rote learning of grammatical rules as is still the practice in many middle and high schools. The major objectives, as stated in a 1996 background report by the Ministry of Education, are "to improve basic abilities, skills, and attitudes; to develop language ability and civic morality needed to live in society; to increase the spirit of cooperation; to foster basic arithmetic skills and scientific observation skills, and to promote the understanding of healthy life and the harmonious development of body and mind.” The seventh annual curriculum, which began implementation in March 2000, kept these basic goals but updated many elements to reflect changes in Korean society.
Upon completion of primary school, students advance to middle school, which comprises grades seven through nine. The curriculum consists of 12 basic or required subjects, electives, and extracurricular activities. While elementary school instructors teach all subjects, middle school teachers, like their colleagues in the United States, are content specialists.
High schools are divided into academic and vocational schools. In 1995, some 62 percent of students were enrolled in academic high schools and 38 percent in vocational high schools. A small number attended specialized high schools concentrating in science, the arts, foreign languages, and other specialized fields. This is still the case.
The aims of education at the high school level are stated as "to foster each student's personality and ability needed to preserve and strengthen the backbone of the nation; to develop students' knowledge and skills to prepare them for jobs needed in society; to promote each student's autonomy, emotional development, and critical thinking abilities to be brought to bear in and out of school; and to improve physical strength and foster a sound mind."
In the end, I would like to include a shocking "facts" about Korean schools. If I'm wrong, please let me know.
Koreans have school on Saturdays
The official school days were originally Monday to Saturday, which didn’t make for happy students or teachers.
Since 2010, the school schedule has changed and loosened up. Now the Korean public school system has two Saturdays per month, off.
I have started to write in Korean by keeping a notebook where I practice writing down vocabulary and sentences or phrases. I prefer to write in freehand since it allows me to practice my stroke order. I have started to notice patterns emerging in the structures between words, clauses, and sentences. One such pattern is the fact that certain Korean words are commonly used in formal and informal contexts. The character 요 is commonly used at the end of formal phrases. I did not notice any explicit patterns in the words of a specific topic. Even though I learned a lot of vocabulary topic by topic there has not been an immediate connection in what letters are used. The relationship between simple and complex sentences can often be just an omission of certain words in the sentences even though the overall meaning is the same. Thus, the complex sentences can be stated more succinctly. I have not made any complex sentences on my own since most of my sentence building has been done in the conversational introductions or one off phrases. Knowledge regarding parts of speech, government, and agreement have been essential in communicating in written contexts because grammar is fundamental to sentence construction.
Some short meaningful writing exercises from Korean that I have recently worked on are telling time, naming the body part, introducing oneself, naming the animal, the date, and my favorite: naming a food. :0
During these two weeks, I have interacted with the Korean culture in a joyful manner! Choongman Chicken opened up in downtown Richmond! Choongman chicken is a franchise Korean Fried Chicken restaurant and it is known to be as close to authentic Korean Fried Chicken you can get to here in America. So as soon as I heard that they have opened, my roommate and I went to Choongman chicken on my birthday. Let me say, it was a birthday well spent. At first bite, tasting the Korean fried chicken brought back very dear memories from Korea. I remembered the time after our family read through the Bible together, we would celebrate by ordering from the closest Korean Fried Chicken place. Without shame, I can share that I came back the following week with my roommate and indulged in some good Korean food. During the times at the restaurant, I was able to briefly practice my Korean. Not to mention, I saw a familiar face working for the restaurant, my friend Jun. I highly encourage anyone reading this to try Choongman chicken!
I also watched an episode of Hospital Playlist, a Korean drama that explores the daily lives of doctors. It specifically follows a friend group of five doctors who all met during college and are working at the same hospital. It kinds of reminds me of Grey’s Anatomy. Watching the Korean drama helped me reminisce about the times when I visited my brother in the hospital after he had gotten into a car accident. I also learned that it is common for patients to call doctors “teachers” instead of doctors, especially if a doctor is in a higher position. I also have been practicing my pronunciation by signing some Korean hymns. Playing the guitar while singing these songs truly does give a nostalgic feeling as I grew up within the Korean church. Korean hymns also tend to be more emotionally in terms of both lyrics and melody compared to English hymns.
I have been practicing my conversational skills with So Myung as well. In one instance, I asked her in Korean, how her family was doing. She told me that her sister was actually having trouble attending online classes. In fact, she has to call home to remind her mother to tell her sister to get to class. She then asked me how my family was doing. I told her that my mother’s body was recovering well after kidney stones. We then strayed from conversing about our families to talking about how each of us deals with anger. I told her that I usually express my anger through passive-aggressiveness and through intentional disregard towards the person I am mad at. So Myung also told me that when she is mad at someone she gives them the silent treatment as well. She then told me of the struggle of wanting to invite people over to her dorm but not being able to due to COVID. Her little brother is high-risk to COVID so she has to be more careful than other people.
In the first session two weeks ago, Jenna and I went over self-introductions in preparation for the COM2 exam. I asked her for help on some of the phrases and words that I wanted to say but didn’t know in Korean such as hospital, chemistry, senior year, doctor, medical school, gaming, exercise, gym, etc. For my self-introduction, I wanted to talk about my family and how I live with my parents, older sister, and my grandma. I also learned to talk about my dog named Kiwi in Korean. Next, I talked about how I got to the University of Richmond and am a senior that is majoring in chemistry. I also talked about what I want to do once I graduate (take a gap year and prepare for the MCAT). Furthermore, I talked about how I wanted to become a doctor when I grow up. Lastly, I talked about my hobbies and what I like to do in my free time. I learned how to talk about how I love to cook and how I like to go workout and exercise at the gym on campus. Furthermore, I talked about how I love to play games with my roommates at night. After learning the basics of the self-introduction, I practiced and told Jenna my full self-introduction. Although there were a couple of pronunciation and formality issues in my full self-introduction, Jenna and I agreed that I was fully ready and prepared for the self-introduction part of the COM2 exam. Next, we aimed to focus on the listening part of the COM2 exam. She told me some example questions that might come up on the exam, such as asking basic questions about a picture or understanding a sentence spoken by the test instructor. Jenna gave me the next week to prepare and be able to quickly understand spoken Korean by listening to podcasts and watching Korean music videos by BTS.
This past week, Jenna and I met up on Thursday to practice and prepare for the listening portion of the COM2 exam. She gave me a picture for me to talk about when asked a question regarding the picture. The picture she gave me was a cartoon drawing of a park with people walking around and different things happening in the picture. She asked me a couple of questions about the picture such as, “what is happening to the left of the park bench?” and “how many people are standing in line for the hot dog stand?” I was easily able to answer most of the questions being asked, but I struggled with replying quickly with full complete sentences. We repeated this process with another picture near the end of the session and Jenna gave me tips on how to speak quickly on my feet and recall the different words that show up in the picture so I can prepare myself to reply to a question quickly. For example, if the picture has a dog and a person throwing a football with his friend, I can think about the Korean words for dog, friend, and football. This would allow me to be quick on my feet and respond quickly to a question being asked, such as “what activity are the two guys doing in the field on the right of the picture?” and “what animal is walking on the sidewalk next to the park bench?”
In my personal experience, one of the most renowned deaf individuals in history is Helen Adams Keller. She was born on June 27, 1880, to Arthur H. Keller, a retired Confederate Army captain, farmer, and local newspaper editor, and Katherine Adams Keller, a young educated woman from Memphis. Helen was the older of two daughters and in February 1882, just before her second birthday, Helen succumbed to an undetermined disease – possibly scarlet fever or meningitis- that stole her hearing, as well as her sight. Because she lost these two major senses at such a young age, Helen never learned to speak, thus she communicated with her family members through the physical touch of facial expressions! Additionally, due to her “disability”, she was not offered a formal education until the age of seven. It was at this point that Katherine knew of her daughter's intelligence, despite her lack of vision and hearing, and she demanded her daughter's education at which point Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, was contacted by the Keller family in the summer of 1886. The famous inventor suggested contacting the director of Perkins Institution for the Blind, Michael Anagnos, to request a teacher for Helen.
Anne Mansfield Sullivan, Anagnos’ star pupil and valedictorian, became Helen’s manual sign langue instructor on March 3rd of 1887. Because Helen could not hear, nor see, Sullivan had to be creative to teach Helen manual sign language. Her method, although originally met with resistance, was to teach Helen the alphabet and then spell out words as Helen encountered them. This was a technique developed by Samuel Gridley Howe, Perkin’s first director. For instance, on April 5th,1887, there was a breakthrough moment in which Helen discovered that “ everything had a name” during which one of Helen’s hands was being exposed to water while Sullivan spelled W-A-T-E-R on the other hand! Below is Hellen’s reflection of the experience:
“Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something is forgotten—a thrill of returning thought, and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that “w-a-t-e-r” meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! …Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life.”
A year later, Sullivan took Helen to the Perkins School in Boston where Helen learned to read Braille and use a special typewriter for the blind. Helen’s success and perseverance began to get attention in the press and she was even invited to meet President Grover Cleveland in the Whitehouse. Helen's education blossomed as she went to New York to attend the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf for two years to improve her speaking abilities in 1894 and then went to the Cambridge School for Young Ladies in 1896. After, she was accepted into Radcliffe College where she graduated cum laude in 1904. However, it is important and inspiring to note that even before graduation, Helen published two books, The Story of My Life (1902) and Optimism (1903). These books were the catalyst that jumpstarted Helen’s carrier as a lecturer and writer. Since then, Helen has written dozens of articles and books and becoming an advocate for the blind, women’s suffrage, and ultimately was the co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. Helen Keller never married or had any children and she died on June 1st, 1968.
https://www.afb.org/about-afb/history/helen-keller/biography-and-chronology/chronology
On Friday, October 9th, 2020, Netflix released an original TV reality series – Deaf U. The series consists of eight-episodes, each episode around 20 minutes long. The show’s executive producer Nyle DiMarco is actually an American model, actor, and deaf activist who gained his original following from the 2003-2018 series, America’s Next Top Model where DiMarco one season 22 competition and from Dancing with the Stars, which he also one. It is important to know that DiMarco is also deaf and despite the challenges he has faced, he has been a major contributor in the spearhead effort towards deaf activism. Interestingly enough, I remember when DiMarco was on America’s Next Top Model, and during his time on air, he did express the difficulties of being the only Deaf person on a show where all other models were hearing. Although I have wanted to learn ASL since I was young, DiMarco proved to be major catalysts in my learning of the language and his work is often someone I look for in inspiration towards learning the language and learning about the culture.
The show follows a group of students at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. Three of the students are young men and three are young women, both groups from different races, classes, and sexualities. Additionally, For those who do not know about Gallaudet, Gallaudet is a federally chartered private university for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing, although hearing students do attend the university. This reality TV show is similar to that seen on other platforms such as MTV and the American Broadcasting Company. The college students being followed share their stories ranging from topics of sex, dating, love, family drama, and friend drama. However, what is so unique about this show is that these issues are inspected and shown through that of a deaf perspective. The show does address the difficulties and experiences of deaf people living in a hearing world; however, the show’s normalcy in the topic and exhibition of everyday life is to show the hearing communities that deaf communities are not too different from our own. As noted in idiewire.com’s article, Deaf U lifts “ the veil and dispel notions about the deaf community that can often extend to all disabled communities out there.”
From this show, you will not only begin to normalize the deaf community, but you may also begin to see some sides of the deaf community that you may never have thought of. For example, the show reveals that, in this situation, there is a bit of a hierarchy in the deaf community where deafness is revered depending on your upbringing (hearing vs non-hearing communities) and how many members of your family and generations have been deaf. The purpose of showing all lights of the Deaf community is not to create the generalization as to that the community is awful or good, but rather show hearing audience members that this is a community like all others-filled with some good people and some bad people. This step sets a serious step in the right direction towards the representation of the deaf community and I can not wait until more series and moves like such are released.
https://www.indiewire.com/2020/10/deaf-u-review-netflix-1234590049/
Hello again! I hope everyone is doing well. These past two weeks have been amazing for my ASL journey. Reba and I have been able to hold conversations much longer than previously before and we are also practicing new vocabulary words and modifiers. Also, the amount of fingerspelling I have to do is much less than previously before and I can read Reba’s finger much faster than before. Reba also provided me with the opportunity to attend her American sign language course on Tuesday evenings for the school of continuing studies from 6:00 through 7:00. Faith, another member of the ASL SDLP program, was also at the meeting! Primarily, I served as a translator for Reba as she taught the new students to question words, colors, where they were from, names, and practiced greetings and fingerspelling with them. All in all, there were about 9 students.
I did not realize the difficulty of teaching more than one person sign language at a time! Gosh, it is very difficult! Much of the language requires the speaker to point to another person when asking a question or addressing the said person. However, on zoom, that part of the language cannot be expressed in a group meeting. If Reba points her finger at the computer screen, the question or addressing could be towards anyone of the members. I have been thinking about different ways to combat the issues I had noticed while teaching sign to a large group through zoom and I think one way that might be helpful is to have the professor sign the initials of whoever they are addressing beforehand. That way, specific individuals will know when they are being asked or told information. Additionally, I noticed that Reba often got very close to the camera, had it positioned in an unpractical position, and would constantly ask if she could be seen. I expressed this concern to Mary Catherine Raymond as she is a student in the course and she has been traveling to Reba’s home and helping figure out the best ways to teach such a language through the internet.
All in all, I am fairly happy with the rate and way in which my singing language abilities are developing. I can understand a lot more than at the start of the semester and Reba actually shared a deaf news source for me to watch and learn from. The news source is called https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdANpi-iksc&feature=youtu.be and is approximate 7 minutes long. The news anchor covers topics around the world in a summary ranging across all topics. It was really neat to watch someone sign for a larger audience, but at the normal playback speed, I did have trouble understanding the signer. It wasn’t until I slowed the speed down to .75 x playback speed that I was able to understand more of the signs signed. I am excited to watch more of those sign videos, but in the meantime, the reality TV show Deaf U has been both entertaining and educational in learning how other individuals to sign and which signs are colloquial and which are not.
Week 5 Reflection
In order to address the slight lack of Reading or Writing skills that I felt like I needed a boost on, I went back to the list of resources on the syllabus that I had compiled at the beginning of the class. I liked the idea of starting a book together that we could both follow along with, and a translation of Alice in Wonderland in Portuguese was available online through the website paralleltext.io. I had already read the original English text many years ago, and of course, almost everyone is familiar with the story of Alice and the Mad Hatter which helped a lot as I was going through it. I learned a new group of vocabulary words, such as “well”, “hedge”, “hole”, “tunnel”, “vest”, “pocket watch”, etc. The website also has a feature where it will read you a sentence if you click on it, which was a great complement to learning new vocabulary words. I then wrote a literary analysis on the chapters that we had read that week to submit on Thursdays, which I felt required more thought and effort on my part than reflecting on a topic we had talked about on Tuesday, so I was happy to be stepping things up in both departments.
This new strategy, alongside weekly grammar lessons and exercises from the book, I feel really pulled together all of the goals that I had outlined in my conception of how I wanted to learn Portuguese this semester. I was able to talk about something creative, a work of art that I was familiar with and excited about reading but that was also slightly different than the tale that I knew and develop my language skills as a byproduct of discussing this engaging topic. This was the method that I had been inspired to do because of the way that Professor Abreu styled his Portuguese classes, and in many ways was the reason I found myself wanting to do a self-directed language study in Portuguese and go to Brazil in the first place.
If I were to design this class for a group or for somebody else, I think this setup would be ideal. However, I probably would not use this particular website because it is definitely set up more for leisure and perhaps does not anticipate that the viewer really plans on getting through the whole book and would just like to do a bit of casual practice as you can only flip through one page at a time. I would probably find a side-by-side print book or online version to purchase, maybe of a famous Brazilian author. In any case, every part of this has been a learning experience and I am glad to have progressed to this point where I have found something that is working for me and if it would not work for someone else, how I would go about adapting it.
During these two weeks with Reba, I learned how to refer to different people. In our previous lessons and conversations, “I” and “you” were the only pronouns used since we only referred to each other. It really has been easier to communicate since I don’t have to fingerspell “our” or “you all” each time. These signs are very easy to learn because people who don’t know ASL actually make these gestures! It’s also important to note where your fingers point because that determines who you are talking about. Another example in which where you finger are point at is the difference between “look at me” and “look at you”. For “look at me”, you hold up two fingers are point them to your eyes while for “look at you”, you do the same sign with your hands, but point them away from your face. Reba also explained that in this case, you can imagine that the eyes are on the tip of the fingers, so whichever direction they point Is what you look at.
We have also been going through more expression terms! These are actually my favorite type of vocabulary to learn so that I don’t have to say “good” or “fine” each time I get ask how I’m doing. I like to put in an occasional “tired” or “excited” to jazz things up a little now! Sometimes I can even guess what they mean before Reba goes over it with me. It’s honestly one of the best feelings when you get it right and you see the joy on her face.
Even though Reba has her lessons planned out for me, we are starting to make random conversations here and there. Over the week, a friend told me one of her distant relatives was both deaf and blind, so people would communicate with him by signing into his hand and by taking his hands through the movement of the signs. I did my best to bring up this connection when she mentioned that one of her friends was also both deaf and blind. It was a fluid conversation with both of us sharing back and forth. I actually forgot for a moment that I was even signing. A couple days later I watched the recording and noticed that I was fingerspelling much quicker than the pace I usually sign!
Lastly, I wanted to mention that although I am getting better at understanding the context during our conversations, fingerspelling has still given me some trouble. (It is much easier for me to do it than to understand it when someone else fingerspells). I was never really good at spelling bees because I needed to see the letters on paper; I would just lose track of the previous letters. For ASL, I still need to translate the sign to letter, but doing that for each letter, keeping track of them, and putting it all together to form a word is not as simple as I thought it would be. I usually need the word to be repeated again and if I still don’t understand it, Reba would write it on a whiteboard for me.
I am definitely starting to see more and more progress, so hopefully I can keep this up!
For this week's class, we talked about the Korean alphabet again and try to consolidate the foundation before actually practicing reading and speaking.
The actual alphabetical order is listed below, which is separated into consonants and vowels:
ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ
ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅢ ㅣ
The following are the first set of Korean consonants that you need to get into your brain. There is no easy way to explain to them, you just need to memorize them:
ㄱ= k
ㄴ= n
ㄷ= d
ㄹ=r/l*
ㅁ= m
ㅂ= b
ㅅ= s
ㅈ= j
ㅎ= h
There is no perfect way to represent Korean characters using English letters (or sounds). The English letters presented above are the letters that will commonly be found being used to represent their respective Korean letters. While it is helpful (at first) to memorize the general sound of a Korean letter by using the English letter – but Korean sounds are vastly different than English sounds. Not only are Korean sounds different than English sounds – but English sounds different depending on who is speaking (because of accents). Therefore, there is no perfect way to represent Korean sounds in English.
For example:
“K” and “G” used to represent “ㄱ.”
Or “D” and “T” to represent “ㄷ”
Or “R” and “L” to represent “ㄹ”
Next are the basic vowels:
ㅣ = i
ㅏ = a
ㅓ = eo (Romanized as “eo” but it sounds closer to “uh” in English)
ㅡ = eu
ㅜ = u
ㅗ = o
Korean is written into “blocks” that make up one syllable. One block always has exactly one syllable. The blocks are ALWAYS drawn in one of the following ways:
Important rules you need to know about these structures:
1. Number “2” is ALWAYS a vowel. Always always always always always.
2. Number “1, 3 (and sometimes 4) are ALWAYS consonants. Always.
3. Blocks containing a horizontally drawn vowel are always drawn in one of these two ways:
4. Blocks containing a vertically drawn vowel are always drawn in one of these two ways:
For example, if I want to write “bab”:
Step 1: Determine if the vowel is horizontal or vertical. a (ㅏ) is vertical, so we will use:
Step 2: Determine if the syllable ends in a consonant. Yes, it does. So we need to fill 1, 2, and 3, so we need to use:
Step 3: Place the starting letter “b (ㅂ)”, the middle letter “a (ㅏ)” and the ending letter “b (ㅂ)” into 1, 2, and 3 respectively.
ㄱ = k
ㅏ = a
ㄴ = n
ㅏ is vertically aligned, so if we make a syllable we would write: 간 (kan)
ㅂ = b
ㅓ = eo
ㅂ = b
ㅓ is vertically aligned, so if we make a syllable we would write: 법 (beob)
ㅈ = j
ㅜ = u
ㅜ is horizontally aligned, so if we make a syllable we would write: 주 (ju)
ㅎ = h
ㅗ = o
ㅗ is horizontally aligned, so if we make a syllable we would write: 호 (ho)
During these past two weeks I learned about the complexities of the Korean language regarding the names of relatives. One thing that greatly differs between Korean and English is that the relatives have different names depending on which side of the family they are on. This process goes all the way back to the grandpa and grandma status from what I have learned about.
Another topic that we touched on again was the importance of conversational Korean phrases. I learned some essential phrases such as excuse me and you are welcome. Though it is interesting that you’re welcome is implied in Korean and rarely used. This is similar to how I already speak so that was nice. The conversational phrases are also affected by who you are speaking to. The informal and formal usages are extremely important here as to complement the prose of the person you are talking with. One aspect of Korean culture that naturally arose from this conversation is the ritual that Koreans have before eating a meal. They often say ‘I will enjoy this food’ and ‘I have enjoyed this food’, respectively before and after eating a meal. This process is absent in American culture and in Chinese culture to my knowledge but is present in Japanese culture though it is out of my scope of study. We also learned how to say it's delicious and it is not particularly good. This is especially important as I can use the phrase in practice during a meal. I extrapolated from this to learn what tastes bad was in Korean.
Another topic that I really enjoyed learning about was food. I think that food is an essential part of understanding a culture and by extension a language. Additionally, I was hungry so learning about food helped prepare me for lunch. We learned about the basic types of food such as meat, rice, noodles, egg, vegetables, and more. A couple of interesting facts here is that the side dishes are very common in Korean meals and are often irreplaceable. Additionally, some important words that we dived into are red chili paste and salted seafood. Thus I learned the importance of rice, spice, and seafood in Korean cuisine. In terms of learning planning, food is an effective avenue of learning a language since it is useful anytime you go out to eat that culture’ food. It is a bit sad that right now eating out is not appropriate for health guidelines but I hope that next semester there are more opportunities to use food vocabulary to study Korean. In line with that, I heard that in previous years language partners would go out and eat together to study that culture’s cuisine and practice the language they were studying. I hope that Somyung and I can share a Korean meal before I graduate next semester.
So far repetition has been an effective way of keeping up with my growing list of vocabulary. Although I can’t use all of them, slowly I will incorporate certain words into my Korean inventory.
Languages go extinct when there is no one left to speak it conversationally and documentation of the language becomes sparse. One point of interest on this is that many speakers of dying languages are elderly and the language tends to degenerate with the speaker’s health. When a language dies it is quite difficult for it to recover since oral teaching is significant when it comes to linguistics. One technique that has become prevalent for languages is to record one’s language phrases and send them online. This has happened with American Indian Languages like the one mentioned in the New York Times article. Initially the language recordings were limited to those who belonged to the tribe but by sending the audio online, the tribe and recorder learned how much of an interest there was to learn languages abroad. However, the article did note that just understanding how to say a few phrases in a language does not constitute a speaker status since competency is lacking in such a case. Although recording phrases and the language as a whole is a way for linguists to help preserve a language, it is not entirely sufficient because there are ideas that can not be expressed simply through speech. Things like grammatical rules can fall into the category of ideas that require a more complex perspective to understand than simple audio recordings. Another way linguists can help preservice languages is to create educational text alongside these audio recordings which requires significant effort and luck because many dying languages are difficult to learn in the first place because the speakers are ill elderly. One idea is that languages can consume each other to create hybrid languages but overall reduce the number of languages out there or cause language to go extinct as a result. This may be more common in more centralized areas as the need for a unified system exacerbates.
A dead language can be brought back to life given that there were resources left behind by the original speakers and enough interest or requirement to speak that dead language. The American Indian language that was supposed to die has recovered slightly but completely dead languages require those complex resources to revive them. Some efforts currently underway to document linguistic diversity would be the work of linguists like David Harrison and also the enabling of diverse foreign language options in schools. One thing that was mentioned that was quite interesting was the education system stifled the development of dying languages. Since there were fewer speakers in a language, often schools would not offer certain languages despite having a language requirement. I understand that personally as I witnessed how few options students were given in high school and middle school regarding language choices. Even here in UR, there are only a few languages that are not in the independent language student program that I am sure many students would appreciate the opportunity to learn. Thus programs like the Self Directed Language Acquisition Program also help to document linguistic diversity here.
After reviewing my language plan I think that my original structure was not specific enough in delegating the work I had to do to learn Korean. Despite this, my current learning style has evolved and adapted naturally to be more specific without going back to my learning plan that often. One of the main things that I missed in my initial learning plan was the concept of themes for vocabulary. I was too focused on the grammatical types of certain words that I had learned when I should have been focused on what types of words do I want to convey and what words are commonly used and are useful in understanding. One thing that I did plan out well was the learning process for the Korean alphabet because by the time I had written up the learning plan, I had already practiced the Korean alphabet significantly. This isn’t to say that I have mastered the Korean alphabet like my learning plan suggests because mastery is something quite difficult to achieve even for native Korean speakers. There are nuances that a novice learner would overlook like I did that really differentiates the fluency of the Korean language; this is especially true for the fundamental building blocks of Hangul, the alphabet.
One thing that did become quite frequent was the use of YouTube as a studying platform for learning Korean. When I first wrote up my learning plan, I had some idea of what YouTube offered but I did not internalize the depth to which the video platform could be used for learning. Many native speakers offer their knowledge and experience to viewers for free and it is a resource that is always available on campus. Jumping into grammar was an essential part of learning any language and I think that I did not have sufficient information to break down the process of learning grammar at the time of writing the learning plan. Now that I have been studying Korean grammar for some time now, I understand that there are some complexities that I did not consider. Some examples of these are particles and batchims, which have been a major focus of mine for the past few weeks. These rules are necessary for constructing sentences and original ideas, which I did bring up in my presentation of my learning plan.
Regarding how I have incorporated what I learned in SDLC 105 into my Korean learning, I have expanded my understanding of linguistic proficiency as stated earlier. Additionally, we have recently delved into the concept of language families, a topic that I haven’t considered when looking at the language and culture of Korea. I initially thought that only the close neighbors of an area would affect the language but the distance and expanse that the language families covered surprised me.
In this next stretch of learning, I need to focus on reaching competency with the grammar and reading of Korean. I believe that my initial expectation of learning speed was a bit of an overestimation and I would like to reframe my learning experience as being more natural. Learn what topics are useful and simple and build up step by step as a native Korean speaker would. It may take a long time to become sufficiently skilled at reading and writing and speaking Korean but with consistent practice, it should be possible to become as skilled as a grade schooler in Korean language haha.
