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Week 2 Reflection

In this initial week of our SDLAP Portuguese journey, we spent the first session chatting and evaluating what kind of baseline knowledge I had. Through our conversation, we both got a feel for where my skills are in terms of each specific category of speaking, reading, listening, writing, and more or less the size of my readily available vocabulary. Our main goal for this week was to create and finalize our syllabus.

We are still not exactly sure of all the details of our class this semester, but we did nail down our meeting times. We settled on meeting twice a week and having a free, loose drop-in time for a couple hours on Friday to answer any questions I had as I went over the material from the week. We determined that we would have an immersive conversation every Tuesday (or Terça-feira) and on Thursdays (Quinta-feira) I would do some type of reading and writing activity to boost multiple types of fluency and performance. I put the Portuguese words for the days of the week because since we coordinate and plan our classes actually in Portuguese, it feels a little strange to refer to these concepts and the mental space and time in English. This, in and of itself, is progress and a certain sign of fluency that I was excited to share!

I have been working with my Language Instructor and had a couple meetings with Dr. Marsh-Soloway about various online resources and databases that would be helpful in developing the skills that I want to achieve by the end of the semester. I hope to incorporate as many platforms, activities, and types of engagement as is helpful. I think that this method – keeping class format and activities dynamic - has been the most effective in my past experiences as a new learner in a language classroom. Professor Abreu would often utilize this, and his class was one of the most engaging and effective long-term learning experiences that I have had. Generally speaking, his approach focused most on imparting the culture and fostering a love and passion for the language by exploring cultural items and concepts while discussing those same elements in the target language. I found that focusing on a piece of music, song, or work of art and expressing my thoughts through the lens of the target language was teaching me both the language and the culture without consciously forcing anything or pushing me or the other students to do so.

With this experience in mind, I am hoping that the structure we have been discussing will achieve this by using different methods on different days. However, true to the nature of the self-directed study, within this framework we will have the option to tweak our schedule as necessary or if it is not playing out as I hoped. I plan to incorporate Brazilian movies into the curriculum as well, which would be something that we could discuss in length in our Tuesday session and could be the topic of reflection on Thursday, giving me the chance to build upon any ideas we had. 

For my first cultural post, I will talk about the South Korean variety show, I Live Alone or 나 혼자 산다. This television program revolves around a group of rotating entertainers who present their personal lives to the viewer and each other. Each host and guest shares one common attribute, they live alone. The show delves into the experience of being independent in South Korea and how people make the most of their single lives. Currently, there are over 360 episodes that span the course of the last 7 years. Many celebrity guests have joined the program and showed the public how they lived their lives and some became full-time members of the Rainbow Club, the group that hosts the show. 

I Live Alone provides a unique perspective into the lives of others and makes you feel a deep sonder. For the South Korean people, many celebrities are like untouchable idols and pieces of art. This relationship feels distant and disconnected. I Live Alone tells a story every week that shows how everyone is just living their lives to the fullest that they can. No one is really perfect despite how the television screen portrays them to be. There are silly moments, monotonous moments, defeated moments, and genuinely touching moments for everyone no matter where they are in their life. Sometimes, when people come home from a rough day, it is simply fun to have people to relate to. 

Aside from the relatable moments, I Live Alone is a genuinely funny show. I can’t help but laugh every time I see the members’ antics and reactions. The cast of hosts are just like the viewer, reacting to the lives of their friends and of the guests if there are any that episode. They voice the thoughts and reactions that you have and the viewing process feels reciprocal and engaging. 

In the latest episode, we watched how friends spent time together during the aftermath of a global pandemic. Since they couldn’t go on vacation anywhere, they set up an inflatable pool, played games and enjoyed themselves. The hosts shared their troubles of how a recent typhoon disrupted many of their work plans and finally took time off from their extreme schedules. Sometimes it is healthy and rejuvenating to just loosen up and act a bit childish. 

One of my favorite members is Kian84, a full-time cartoonist and artist. Originally Kian84 struggled to fit into the limelight of public television. As a person who spent most of their time working alone on art, he stood out as someone who lacked the common sense of showbiz. However, that fact is what drew many viewers to like his style. He represents how most viewers are and his imperfections help to enhance that effect.

I highly recommend I Live Alone to anyone who is looking for a funny and relatable show to watch every week. The show may be several hundred episodes long but it is a fantastic experience to delve into at any time.

For the second class, we continued our discussion with numbers and had a little verbal test with respect to them. The test basically included all the concepts I learned with numbers (time, month, date, age, height, weight) and I was able to consolidate my knowledge. Then, we started to talk about the Korean Alphabet to consolidate the foundation for future study. The Korean alphabet consists of 14 letters for basic consonants and 10 letters for basic vowels. In addition, there are compound letters, each made up of two basic letters.

Indicated in the above table, the left column is the 14 consonants in Korean, and the top row includes the 10 vowels in Korean. It wasn't hard to memorize them as there are certain patterns that exist to help memorization. After that, we also talked about the structure and pronunciation of Korean syllables.

Syllables are always constructed beginning with a consonant, and then a vowel follows. The syllable could stop here, or there could be another vowel, or consonant, or both. The syllable begins with the initial consonant on the left or top, and the vowel(s) and other consonants follow to the right or bottom. For example:

가 where ㄱ "k" is the consonant, and ㅏ "ah" is the vowel. It is pronounced "Kah".

고 where ㄱ "k" is the consonant, and ㅗ "oh" is the vowel. It is pronounced "Koh".

When constructing syllables, always move from left to right and top to bottom. This is the same for reading. Sound out the initial consonant and then the following vowel(s), making it flow into the other ending consonant(s) if any. It's just like reading in English. Read left to right, sounding out each letter. Then move on to the next syllable. Words are separated by spaces, and syllables are right next to each other. Again, just like in English.

달 where ㄷ "t" is the consonant, and ㅏ "ah" is the vowel, followed by another consonant, ㄹ "l". It is pronounced "Tahl".

돌 where ㄷ "t" is the consonant, and ㅗ "oh" is the vowel, followed by another consonant, ㄹ "l". It is pronounced "Tohl".

Also, we had our group meeting on Monday that was about watching a Korean drama called "Reply 1994". This television series follows the historically and culturally significant events that happened in the country between 1994 and the years that follow, including the emergence of seminal K-pop group Seo Taiji and Boys, the Sampoong Department Store collapse and the birth of the Korean Basketball League. This television series is very entertaining while containing deep meanings. It tells a lot about the historical events and cultural events from a very unique perspective: Set in 1994, six university students from various provincial areas of South Korea live together at a boarding house in Seoul, which is run by a couple with a daughter. I was able to see how people from the countryside were able to get used to the life in a big city like Seoul at that time. 

During our second SDLP group meeting, we talked mostly in Korean. It was kind of weird at first just talking to people in Korean at the University of Richmond. I’m only used to talking to my brother or mother in Korean, so it was interesting. In Korean, we discussed how our week went. I told Somyoung and Tommy that I was very tired and not in a very good mood. I had to wake up in the morning to go to a Psychology Lab and my stomach started to hurt a lot when I was walking back to my dorm. I told them how I had hernia surgery over the summer and I still feed chronic pain from time to time. However, venting out my situation to them did make me feel better. We then talked about where each of us lived on campus. I told them that although I live in Jeter Hall, my ideal location to live would be Lora Robins because it is close to the dining hall, booker hall, and the post office. I also told them I was thinking about becoming an R.A next year for Loro for I knew Somyung is an R.A for Lora Robins.

Somyung and Tommy shared their career aspirations. Tommy told us that after college, he plans to go to dental school to become a dentist. Last year, Tommy interned at a non-profit healthcare organization called Crossover Ministry and served as an assistant to the dentist. Somyung also strives to have a career in healthcare. She wants to go to medical school after graduation to become an eye surgeon. So she asked Tommy if Crossover ministry had vision care and Tommy told her that they did. He advised her to email them for more information. Somyung currently volunteers at a non-profit organization called Special Olympics. I chipped in my two cents and told them how in high school I wanted to become a physical therapist. We also talked more about mundane stuff. We talked about how humid it was yesterday and how hot the weather has been.

After practicing conversing in Korean, we analyzed a Korean song called 여러분(“Everyone”). We translated the lyrics line by line and Somyug explained some of the Korean metaphors. We then watched a live performance of the song sung by an extremely talented Korean woman. I liked that exercise a lot. I got to understand every word and the main message of the song. 

This weekend, I went out to get a haircut with my Koren friend. We went to a Korean hair salon in Richmond called Park Joon’s Salon. It was my first time in years going to a Korean salon, but it was really good practice for using my Korean in a real-life scenario. I managed to ask the hairstylist to give me a fade on the sides in Korean. I also was able to understand most of the things she was saying to me in Korean. She told me how my hair needed to grow more before I can start to style it. After the haircut, I went to New Grand Mart and ate some Korean food. I am glad I am experiencing more of my culture than I did last year!

Some of the main ideas behind Figuring Foreigners out are that there are several pairs of extremes that can be used to represent any given culture and pretty much every culture lies somewhere on each property’s spectrum but is unlikely to fall into an extreme. Everything may differ from situation to situation. This difference in culture may lead to some misunderstandings since things can be interpreted differently from person to person. Some examples of these properties and dualities are individualism and collectivism, non-verbal communication, monochronic and polychronic, internal and external, and direct and indirect. The author attempts to contrast each property against its polar opposite and does so by providing some situations in which the reader can determine where the situation lies. I generally agree with this assessment of culture because as I was reading through the article, I felt myself creating associations in cultures that I was familiar with and the properties of the writing. Although I do see some comparisons that make sense, I feel as though the author could have given clear examples of cultures that had these misunderstandings and how they played out. In other words, were there any languages that had an easier time resolving these misunderstandings and is the process quantifiable? These generalizations could have been given more substance with these types of comparisons rather than some high-level scenarios. In my native culture, East Asians generally fall into the collectivist, non-verbal communication, monochronic, internal, and indirect mappings. Though I do agree with the author that these are debatable. A conclusive response to the paper would be that if everything is dependent on the situation, a final classification of culture in these parameters is impossible.  

In the case of Hofstede’s six dimensions of culture, the amount of input data is substantial so the mapping of countries on his parameters looks to have some significance. The quantifiable nature of the index pleases me greatly and provides a level of complexity that the Figuring Foreigners Out article did not have. Additionally, properties like gender and wealth were also taken into account. These properties are essential to understanding the circumstances of any culture and are major parameters that were ignored in the previous article. One problem that I did notice is that if there were 40 countries being surveyed and only 100,000 individuals then the average for each country would be only 2500. And if there was a major difference in clusters (of data points), then some countries would not be as well represented as the mappings suggest. This is a possible area that could be expanded upon to really dive into the properties that can quantify a culture. The mappings did however agree with the mappings that I had in my mind of cultures that I was familiar with. This demonstrates that there is some substance if the reader can relate to the data with their own experiences. Though if presented with a contrary data set, personal biases may play a role in the opinion of the mappings’ accuracy because of selective memory.

The task that I am currently working on is to finish mastering the Korean alphabet. I have managed to memorize the stroke order of each character as well as being able to recognize the characters themselves. My main focus after learning the most basic vowels and consonants was to master the more complex characters that are frequently used in the phrases and words that I learned during the last session. In addition to learning the Korean alphabet, I was also assigned to memorize some simple expressions such as 안녕하세요, which is hello in formal language. This is an interesting property of Hangul; there are different expressions that one would use to converse with someone older than them. We do not really have this situation in English for most expressions. Rather, we just avoid using obtuse slang when speaking professionally. While learning some new expressions in Korean, I struggled with the pronunciation of some characters. Although Korean does not have tones like Mandarin Chinese, some characters in their alphabet do sound particularly similar. One example of this is the letter ㅈ(pronounced j) and the letter ㅊ(pronounced ch). In English, these are pretty different to pronounce, but in Korean, these sounds are nearly identical, at least to me. For example, 잘가, or goodbye, is difficult to pronounce but 자동차 is easy to pronounce since both characters are present. 

Since I am learning these phrases, I have to learn to apply them as well. Since it was my roommate's birthday last week, I learned the phrase 생일 축하해, which is Happy Birthday! Since it was applicable, I learned it much quicker than the other phrases. Another phrase that I learned was 감사합니다, or Thank you. These simple phrases that can be used at any time so I will not forget them as easily. Frequent practice of Korean will ensure that my memory of it stays fresh. This leads into my strategy of deliberate practice of the language. By spending more time on the things that I struggle with, I can learn very more efficiently. Since i struggle with pronunciation, I frequently practice it. Each time I learn something, I will write it down constantly and also voice it aloud as I practice. So far this strategy has worked pretty well with learning the basics of the Korean alphabet so I believe with sufficient practice and dedication, I will be able to learn these Korean phrases as well. I do believe that I can spend more time practicing these phrases once I have finished mastering the alphabet. I am really enjoying this learning process and I am now starting to get back into watching Korean entertainment. I had taken a slight break and jumped into Japanese culture and American media during summer and the start of the semester but now I have more time to watch some Korean variety shows and Korean music. There has been a drought of entertainment at least for me since the virus took over everyone's idle minds. 

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a festival celebrated notably by Eastern Asian countries. This festival is known by several different names: 추석 (Autumn eve) in Korean, お月見 (Moon view) in Japanese, 中秋節 (Mid-Autumn Festival) in Chinese, and Tết Trung Thu (Mid-Autumn Festival) in Vietnamese. The festival is held on the 15th day of August according to the lunar calendar which coincides with mid-September or early October of the Gregorian calendar.

The festival is often celebrated with lanterns – traditionally only red paper lanterns were used, but colorful lanterns that depict pop culture have been gaining popularity in the past decades or so. Traditionally, the lanterns are made of paper as a way to allow people to write riddles to be solved by other people. However, the majority of people have moved away from writing riddles in favor of writing their wishes and goals.

In Viet Nam, the festival is primarily celebrated by children. At night, they would carry brightly lit and colorful lanterns and participate in a group parade while donning masks. While traditional lanterns were handmade from paper, the rise of the manufacturing sector in Viet Nam created an abundance supply of plastic lanterns that utilize the images of internationally recognized characters and mascots such as Peppa Pig, Pikachu, Disney characters, Doraemon, Hello Kitty, et cetera. These modern lanterns are often equipped with popular musical tunes.

One popular aspect of the festival involves Mooncakes, which can only be found around the time of the festival. Typical mooncakes are round and bulky. They always contain some sort of sweet filling and salted duck egg yolks. Popular fillings include – the most common found – lotus seed paste, red bean paste, mung bean paste, mixed nuts, and – the least commonly found – black bean paste and date paste. Some regions of Viet Nam have also incorporated the infamous durian fruit as a filling into the popular snack. While they serve as a popular snack food, a single mooncake can contain up to 1,000 calories and, although small, is meant to be shared among family or friends. This is to symbolize the notion of reunion among people.

Another traditionally common activity during the festival is matchmaking and courtship. This tradition is believed to have originated in China with prayers to the moon goddess Chang'e. In Viet Nam, the tradition is more festive in that a carefully selected group of people are gathered to showcase their ability to sing or recite poetry. In each round, a girl and a boy will be eliminated until there is only one couple remains, which is quite similar to the concept of musical chairs. The couple remaining is given a prize and sometimes even matrimonial prospects. This practice is now less common in modern society and urban areas like Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi as people move away from the concept of matchmaking and courtship. However, this practice is still popular among the rural areas and indigenous people of Viet Nam where marriage is often arranged.

According to Figuring Foreigners Out and the Hofstede Dimensions of Culture different countries have different cultural norms. Figuring Foreigners Out organizes these traits into individualist-collectivist, monochronic-polychronic, internal-external, and direct-indirect communication. Alternatively, Hofestede organizes culture into individualism, power distance, masculinity, uncertainty, long-term orientation, and indulgence. The fact that this model is not a spectrum may unintentionally convey that countries with more of a certain trait have a higher score and are therefore superior. In this case of Individualism, a country that has a low score on this indicator may be seen as having a deficit, though I don't think this is the intention. 

Society shapes the way people live their lives, but it is not definitive. There is variation within a culture, and sometimes an individual may feel tension with the prescribed cultural norm of their society. I noticed such a tension when I read about the monochronic-polychronic spectrum. This discussion on different cultural perceptions of time suggested that countries like the United States, which are concerned with efficiency, busyness, and see time as a scarce commodity, are monochronic. As someone growing up in the United States, I feel these pressures even though I try to fight them because I don’t feel that this is the way for me to live an authentic life. I feel that living in the moment, embracing detours and interruptions, and slowing down are key for recognizing how our lives interconnect with one another. This framing of time as a scarce resource resonates with a reading from my sustainability class. We talked about how the market economy and push for profit-centered development transformed Nature into a resource to be exploited and consumed, an environment with no agency of its own. It seems that this market-based perspective has also shaped how places like the United States view time, in an effort to always be working for progress without ever stopping to recognize the depth of opportunity offered by the single present moment. Thus, I seem to identify better with the polychronic model that is prevalent in Indonesia. 

When I compared Indonesia’s culture with the United States, Italy, and Spain, which are the two other countries I have been to, I was surprised how much each country varied. The biggest differences between Indonesia and the United States was Individualism (at 91 the US is individualist, while at 14 Indonesia is collectivist). Coincidentally, in my culture class this week we talked about Indonesian personality traits, especially those that Americans may find off putting at first. Many of these spoke to Indonesia’s collectivist culture. For example, my teacher talked about going out for dinner with a roommate even though she was very tired. People rarely express how they are really feeling, especially if they have a dissenting opinion. Students in school also wear color-coded uniforms that reinforce their commitment to the collective. Despite this commitment to the larger group, it’s important to note that Indonesian culture is not monolithic. Life is very different in metropolitan Jakarta than rural Java, and there are hundreds of different languages spoken throughout the archipelago. While these cultural indicators make helpful starting points, we should not assume that the speak for everyone in a given country.

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When I presented this proposal to my classmates, they were excited by my interest in learning Indonesian. Since my Indonesian studies this semester already have a syllabus provided by my language instructor, my self-directed learning plan focuses on the themes I would like to explore in order for this language learning experience to be relevant to my interests and goals. The tasks I include are more like overarching themes I will be thinking about during the classes I have with my language teacher for five hours each week. I am interested in learning about the national motto of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, Wayang Kulit, or shadow puppet culture, schools in Indonesia, and how to have culturally competent conversations. Through grammar lessons, culture classes, and speaking sessions, I have already learned basic Indonesian vocabulary to introduce myself. I have also had the opportunity to talk to my Indonesian instructor about her experience as a student in Musllim boarding school. From the SDLC 105, I have learned about resources that can complement these in class studies, such as listening to Indonesian music and news programs. My instructor provides us with powerpoints and a textbook with a helpful glossary that I will continue to refer to as I learn the technical parts of the language. Having an Indonesian language partner is especially helpful given that Indonesians rely a lot on the context to give words meaning. My Indonesian partner provides insights on how we would use the language to navigate around Indonesia, and knowing that I am interested in being a teaching assistant there, tailors the culture classes to include relevant information. 

My interest in studying Indonesian was first prompted when I decided to begin the Fulbright Application last spring, but I’ve realized that Indonesian culture connects very well to my interests in art, geography, landscapes, interfaith dialogue, sustainability, and Indigenous cultures that I am studying in my other classes. I’m excited to have this perspective from another part of the globe inform my worldview and hope that I will have the opportunity to visit, whether through the Fulbright or another opportunity. 

Over the years, I have learned how I am very much a visual and an auditory learner. I've also learned that I study most effectively through making notecards, watching lectures on materials, and allowing enough time for repetition. I was inspired to learn about ASL through interacting with a guest at my job at Chick-fil-A. It was soon after then that I learned about how there is a significant deaf community in Richmond, and I wanted to be able to communicate with them.

Due to this, I've organized my self-directed learning plan to mostly consist of videos, gifs, and much interaction with either other people learning ASL or directly trying to communicate with individuals who sign ASL and are deaf/hard of hearing. In addition to common resources many people refer to when learning ASL (LifePrint, SignSchool) I've found YouTubers such as SignDuo and Our Signed World to be incredibly helpful as they are the channels made from individuals who are deaf. Another resource that I recently learned about is Deaf Family Matters on Instagram. This page has not only allowed me to learn more about deaf culture, but has taught me about some ableism and discriminations that deaf citizens face. It has also has exposed me to new terms that I would most likely not cover in a "traditional" ASL class.

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Sunday, September 13:

       Hello and welcome back! Week three is completed and I can confidently exclaim that these past two weeks were really successful with my ASL carrier. For three out of the four of my classes, Reba and I were reviewing a lot of the material that we covered last semester including days of the week, time, numbers, colors, animals, typical breakfast foods, countries, class subjects, people, common verbs and adjectives, emotions, and several other subjects. Surprisingly, I remembered much more than expected making the conversation between the two of us much lighter and seemingly smooth. Regardless, I do find it interesting how some signs, such as the word “night” (as in the time of day), are much more difficult for me to remember than other signs. For the most part, many of the signs are institutive after guidance and teaching -an airplane looks like an airplane made with your hands, the weather is simulated by moving your hands and fingers in specific patterns to mimic specific weather patterns, and etc. As I previously mentioned, however, some words, despite the practicality and sense to the sign, some continuously slip my mind when conversing in ASL. From a neurological perspective, I wonder why some words are so much more easily lost than others?

       Regardless, the most exciting thing regarding the past two weeks was my opportunity to act as a sign language translator. When I first began learning sign language, every other class with Reba, a sign interpreter would also be present, to help me establish an initial foundation for the language and a generalized understanding of basic words and fingerspelling. This was especially helpful in the first few weeks of ASL because I could ask questions deeper than surface-level regarding grammatical structure, plural and singular forms, cause and effect, history, and other aspects of the culture that are difficult for a beginner to understand. Furthermore, Somyung, a new student of ASL with Reba, had one of her first sessions and I was asked to join as a mediator. Granted, none of the conversations was philosophical or deeply serious in any way, but, it was really cool to be able to exchange information between a hearing and a non-hearing individual. Reba and I both helped Somyung learn the alphabet as well as some common introductions and responses. I know that this opportunity does not present itself often, but it was an incredible opportunity to practice my ability of understanding ASL in real-time and translating it to someone else as well as translating English into ASL. One aspect of the translation that I found interesting was that I proved to be more of a challenge to go from English to ASL than from ASL to English.

       I am excited to see what the next two weeks will hold in our lessons. We are currently still online learning, but Reba and I have gotten into the swing of things. Although I have questions and signs I do ask her to teach me, she has an established learning plan which she has used for dozens upon dozens of other ASL beginners. Thus, I trust her judgment and guidance when it comes to her teachings.

I organized a learning plan I would like to follow when I start learning my language next semester. I am Korean but I would still love to be able to master the language. After my presentation, my classmates told me that my plan might be overwhelming because I want to accomplish so many aspects of the language in a short period of time. So I feel like I might have to take a longer span of time to explore each section that I want to accomplish. For example, repeating the 8 weeks after they are accomplished. I feel like repetition would be a great way for me to improve more in the language. I was first motivated to learn more korean by seeing how my other korean friends were so fluent to the point where they could start translating or having conversations with adults about various topics. Whenever adults talk about different cultural, historical, or political opinions I tend to not be able to reply back. I wanted to challenge myself to be able to be very fluent in korean which encourages me to build up my skills in four different parts: writing, speaking, reading, and listening in korean. My studies will help me investigate my language deeply because I will also be examining the culture and historical backgrounds of the language. That might help me gain a deeper relationship with the language.

Learning plan:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wtY75s21Po2B-k7IxkUiPihqPbvKaggp6PXNSUSuWjM/edit?usp=sharing

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I have organized my self-directed learning plan based on my background knowledge and skill sets. Since I am a beginner, I wanted to start by learning the basics like the Hebrew alphabet, grammar, etc. My ultimate goal is to learn how to read the Hebrew Bible and translate it in English (will be very hard), but I think I will enjoy it. I have learned that it is important to plan ahead and set realistic goals. If they are not "reachable," it would be difficult to motivate myself to actually learn. I have been looking at YouTube videos, but I have not found a lot of resources. I have always been curious and excited to learn more about Hebrew because my pastors would always refer to Hebrew when they needed to explain many different topics and meanings of the Bible. I thought it would be interesting for me to learn and have that unique experience of being able to understand the "original" version of the Bible. My classmates think it is interesting, and I appreciate my classmates for their support! 

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I have learned the Korean alphabet so far as well as several phrases that are commonly used. Some of these are greetings and goodbyes in both formal and informal style. I have identified some resources that I can use to learn Korean and my Language partner assigns specific work from a topic that we both think is a good direction to proceed in. Right now, the work is simply mastering the korean alphabet and pronunciation. My studies will allow me to engage more in Korean entertainment, specifically webtoon, novels, and shows. These same things are what made me motivated to learn Korean. Some feedback that I received from my classmates was that I should be more specific and split some tasks into parts for a reasonable learning timeline.I also specified what shows that encouraged me to learn Korean.

For the first cultural post, I will talk about the Korean Drama, It’s Okay to Not Be Okay or 사이코지만 괜찮아. This drama was released on Netflix starting on June 20, 2020, and aired 16 episodes. The story was written by Jo Yong and starred actors Kim Soo Hyun and Seo Ye Ji as the two main protagonists. This romance drama was aired internationally through Netflix and gained a lot of popularity for its interesting plot.

The story is revolved around the ill-fated love between Moon Gang Tae, a health worker at a psychiatric ward, and Ko Moon Young, a well-known children’s book author. Moon Gang Tae does not have time for love, because of his busy life and his need to protect his older brother who has a mental disorder. However, one day while working at the psychiatric ward, Ko Moon Young came to read her newly released book to the patients. However, trouble rises as an escaped patient goes on a rampage to find her daughter and take her life with his. Among the chaos, Ko Moon Young finds herself confronted at the backstage with the delusional patient and she begins to provoke the patient, calling him a coward for wanting to take the life of his daughter instead of just his own. The angered patient tries to attack Ko Moon Young, but she retaliates. Right before she attacks the patient, Moon Gang Tae stops her and begins their first encounter. Gang Tae tells her to calm down and not to provoke the patient but is surprised by her assertiveness. Gang Tae continues to be patient and tells her to leave, but Moon Young begins to grow interested and starts to pursue the emotionless Gang Tae. Thus, beginning the comedic sequence of Moon Young trying to gain the attention of Gang Tae.

I first heard of this drama through friends, who told me that this was a must-watch. I believe, this drama is unique and has a lot of charm to it. The characters are well cast, and you begin to get attached to the characters more and more as you watch the series. Another interesting aspect of this drama is the fact that the drama raises awareness regarding psychological disorders. From Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to Multiple Personality Disorder, various psychological disorders are portrayed in the drama to raise awareness. I thought this was very interesting and something that made the drama more informative. However, my main praise goes to the actor who plays the role of the older brother, Oh Jung Se, who plays Moon Sang Tae. This actor has gone above and beyond and manifested an autistic character very well. There was an article that came out that a fan who has autism loved his character so much that Jung Se met up and spent the day with the fan and acted as his character for the day.

I highly recommend this drama to anyone who is looking for a romance, comedy, and mystery drama that embodies a modern take on Romeo and Juliet. Though the plot may seem slow at times, it is worth the watch and one that will make a lasting impression on the viewer.

It is now the start of the Fall 2020 semester. This semester I will be taking SDLC 113. I will be working with Vivian this semester who is my language partner. This semester I am studying remotely, so we will be communicating through zoom. I have a lot of expectations for myself this semester, but I am optimistic that I will be able to achieve at least some of the goals I have set up for myself. Some of these goals include working on my pronunciation skills, learning how to read more efficiently in Korean, and to study more Korean vocabulary.

In addition, I am studying remotely this semester, so I am living with my brother and parents. I think this is beneficial for my Korean learning journey because both of them are native Korean speakers and we speak Korean at home. Though I would usually speak a mixture of English and Korean to them, I will try to solely speak Korean this semester, while I am at home. In addition, I mentioned this last semester for SDLC 112, I wanted to practice and get more immersed in the Korean culture. I wanted to engage in the cultural food of Korea. I wanted to familiarize myself with traditional Korean food and the significance of the food for the country. For example, a dish known for its historical significance is budaejjigae, which in English is translated to Korean Army Stew. This stew has a spicy rich broth with beans, sausage, onion, ramen, and rice cake. This stew was created by army members in Korea, who wanted to eat a stew but lacked the normal ingredients to make a proper stew. As a result, they grabbed whatever army rations they could find and created this stew. Now this stew is normalized in Korea and is enjoyed by many Koreans. Therefore, I want to engage and learn more about different traditional Korean foods and learn the cultural significance it had on Korea.

Since I haven’t started my lessons yet, I will talk about some of the things I did over the summer that helped with my Korean learning. I have begun to watch more Korean dramas over the summer. Though I had the subtitles turned on, I tried my hardest to not rely on them. I found that my ability to understand and comprehend Korean has significantly improved as I immersed myself more around programs that spoke my target language. In addition, I found that I was able to pick up on hidden Korean jokes that are not accurately translated in English. In addition, I have begun to listen to more Korean music. One artist I particularly enjoy is Sam Kim. Sam is a Korean American artist, but he is able to speak both languages fluently. While I listen to his music, I try my best to listen to the lyrics and try to understand what he is saying and what the lyrics are about. As I look forward to this semester, I will continue to engage in these activities to aid my Korean learning journey.

My second cultural artifact is a news article written in Korean about a basketball player in the Korean Basketball League. The basketball player, Deonte Burton, currently plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA. I was drawn to this article because the OKC Thunder is my favorite basketball team and Burton won MVP in the Korean basketball league the year after he graduated from Iowa State. This article talks about Burton's potential and future in professional basketball. The article also compares Deonte Burton to Michael Jordan in Korea. Because he is playing so well in the Korean basketball league, people think he deserves the MVP. They talk about his strength and skill set as a young basketball player and how he has quickly and efficiently adapted into the Korean basketball league. They talk about how he and his DB team defeated many teams and is currently playing in the semifinals in the playoffs. I thought this article was very interesting because Deonte Burton isn't as worshipped in America. They use words like "the best" when describing Deonte Burton and compares him to Michael Jordan, one of the best basketball players in the world. I think this comparison is a little too much, but the fact that Korean sports writers use this comparison really shows how different the perspectives are in America and Korea. Furthermore, I thought that it was really helpful to learn words in the world of basketball and sports such as win and playoffs. I want to continue practicing and reading news articles in Korean about the Korean basketball league. I will begin to watch live broadcasts in Korean to learn more vocab and understand the phrases and language in sports. The article also talks about how Burton has the potential to become recruited by G-League teams in the NBA if he continues to grow as a player.

Reading and understanding this article was difficult at first. There were many words and phrases that I had no clue about, but with the help of Jenna, I was able to better understand the article as a whole. I read the words out loud and asked her what a particular word or phrase meant if I didn't know what it meant. We didn't go through the whole article though, and during my own time, I started to read and translate sentences as practice. I looked up specific words if I didn't know what it meant and used context clues to understand and write the translation of the sentence in English.

I will continue to read basketball articles about the Korean basketball league and articles written about the NBA in America. I found these articles on naver.com. I searched for basketball and looked for different articles written in Korean about either the NBA or the Korean Basketball League. Jenna and I will continue to read through articles together about different topics I am interested in (music, food, and sports). The COM2 language exam is reading through an article and answering questions about the article, so doing this every week will help me become more proficient in reading and writing in Korean.

While researching, I found a quote by Paddy Ladd about Deaf culture: “Deaf people… are unique in being the only linguistic group to have a community in every country in the world.” I thought it was really interesting that even though deaf people all around the world communicate in different sign languages, they are able to share pieces of the same culture.

Literature on Deaf culture describes 5 key characteristics. They are language, the norms of behavior, values and beliefs, traditions and heritage, and possessions and artifacts. First and foremost, members of Deaf culture are deaf (with varying degrees). They use sign language (varying degrees of fluency), ASL in America, for communication. (There is no universal sign language!) Members must also value that being a person of the eye is okay and not abnormal and follow behaviors such as strong use of eye contact and facial expressions. There is also the characteristic of heritage, but since many Deaf people are only one generation thick, most deaf people are accultured into Deaf culture and it can be difficult to transmit the cultural traditions to the next generation. American culture has fast food, football, fashion, and jazz music, Deaf people have artistic expressions such as Deaf folklore, Deaf View/Image Art, Deaf film, and Deaf literature.

With that overview of Deaf culture, I thought that I would dive a little deeper into a more specific aspect of the culture. I was intrigued by Deaf folklore and decided to look further into it. Deaf folklore is a way for people in the Deaf community to pass down stories about their identity and culture through sign language. There are also deaf jokes, riddles, puns, and sign language humor included in many of these tales. Furthermore, it is a way to preserve and celebrate sign language. Many of these stories are even personal experience narratives people want to share with one another. There really isn’t an “origin” of Deaf folklore because it existed as long as sign language has existed.

I looked up some common folklores and a famous one that kept popping up was, “The Deaf Tree” (also known as “Timber”). I watched a couple versions of the story and found that the individual executing the story can make a huge difference on the audience watching. Like American folklore, storytelling is a form of art and the narrator’s skill level correlates to how well a storyteller can engage with the audience and make it interesting. Each storyteller has their own style/signature in how they narrate their story. Specific to Deaf folklore, storytellers also incorporate rhythms in their movements. I put a link to one of the versions of the story I enjoyed below. The narrator was able to deliver a great story through her use of strong facial expressions and also by emphasizing her movements. As someone who has not had prior experience with sign language, I was surprised to see that I was still able to follow along the general idea of the story even without the captions.

http://deafstudiesonline.weebly.com/3-deaf-communities--subcultures.html

https://www3.gallaudet.edu/clerc-center/info-to-go/deaf-culture/american-deaf-culture.html

https://festival.si.edu/past-program/1981/folklore-of-the-deaf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-3GxazfIw8

The readings present a more sophisticated lens on the study and origin of linguistics and language. The first reading delves into the complexity of the human brain and how each portion of the brain has a role in processing the information from our senses. One interesting part that I found in this section was that the human brain hemispheres were responsible for behavior on the opposite side of the body. This feels overly complex and not exactly intuitive since one would think that the respective hemispheres control the respective part of the body. However, although each part in each hemisphere has a main role, the brain is still connected and not at all independent halves. One claim that I find a bit strange is that after a brain has lost a part, a person loses certain functionalities. For this I wonder why can’t the brain partition that lost portion’s work to another part of the brain. Additionally, if we were to replace that lost portion of the brain, would the subject's functionality be recovered? Is there any part of the human brain that turns out to be essential? I am not sure if that idea was covered in this reading. 

I do not think that language is a purely biological phenomenon even though it is biology that facilitates many forms of communication because language can outgrow the biological necessities that it was initially formed for. Additionally, if we look at computer languages, we can see that language is not necessarily biological even though it was developed by biological beings. 

The parts of the brain that are most important for the production and comprehension of speech are the Broca’s area and the Wernicke’s area, which are the lower back part of the frontal lobe and the upper back part of the temporal lobe respectively. Heschl’s gyri also plays an important role in audio reception. 

We process and conceptualize meaning by studying the context to which that word is connected to. This is because a word can be representative of many different types of meanings and understanding which meaning is necessary. We innately break down a word and attempt to associate it with whatever context we have seen it in before, specifically sentences. Words on their own are difficult to decipher in terms of meaning because they could represent many things, but with a sentence structure, we can use experience and context to single out a single meaning.

For me, these readings do not inspire any insights or motivations for learning Korean because I have only just learned the alphabet. I’m not sure a surface level understanding of the biological brain will help me in advancing language since that falls into a different field of context. Once I have a better understanding of what words can be complex, revisiting this work may be helpful in furthering my journey into Hangul. There may be specific examples where meaning is more vague and understanding the application of and context of a character will be crucial to comprehension, but I believe that will come with time.

The task I am currently working on is learning the Korean alphabet, which is called Hangul. I hope to have memorized the 19 basic consonants and the 21 basic vowels this week. In addition to memorizing the pronunciation and characters, my language partner, Kim Somyung, encouraged me to also focus on the stroke order of the letters. During the weekly session, she worked through the basic combinations of the vowels and consonants, along with their proper pronunciation. During this process, we also established some goals to frame our lessons around. My personal goal was to be able to read Hangul at a proficient level so that I can read Korean novels/webtoons and also understand some of the quirks of the Korean language when I am watching Korean entertainment and dramas. The fundamentals of Korean language is the alphabet so my initial strategy is deliberate practice and repetition of the alphabet. This strategy has been simple but effective and I am confident that I have learned most of the alphabet and should be able to pronounce words correctly with some minor guidance. 

When Somyung and I were setting our goals, we also discussed the specifics of Hangul. One thing that we noticed was that the language didn't have tones, whereas my native language, Chinese, did. This was interesting since it did mean that the Korean language seemed to be similar to English in that way. I always struggled with intonation so that turned out well. But, I did learn that some Korean letters sounded quite similar. In addition to these musings of the similarities between languages, Somyung and I also went over our names in Korean and I learned that the Hangul does not have a sound associated with “v”. Therefore, my name would use the “b” sound rather than the “v” sound. I found this particularly amusing because this variation was already a nickname that I received from a friend who was not Korean. Another interesting discussion that we had revolved around the use of technology to generate Korean, specifically how Hangul worked on the computer keyboards. I learned that the Hangul keyboard was much more difficult to work with than something like Chinese pinyin. This will be an interesting direction when I have to write up paragraphs in Korean. 

Looking into the future, Somyung and I also discussed having collective sessions where I could listen in on some lectures that are fully in Korean once I have reached  sufficient mastery of the language. Of course this is unlikely to be anytime soon but having a complete lesson in Korean will challenge me to expand my vocabulary and concentration. In the immediate future, I received plenty of online resources to practice Hangul pronunciation and stroke order, as well as letter combinations. Once I have finished mastering basic alphabetical variations, we plan to dive into vocabulary and reading because that is my focus for the time being. I look forward to taking this dive into the Korean language and being able to read stories in their native language.