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When I traveled to Korea last year, I noticed that there are so many coffee shops even on one street. But even before that, I’ve learned a little about Korean coffee culture from its dramas. When a couple goes out to date, they would meet in a 카페(café) and order two cups of coffee. There are also vending machines for coffee in colleges or on the rooftop of the building, where people can have a small cup of coffee and chat with their friends.

From a drama I’ve watched, I learned that Koreans love to order “아아”, short for 아이스 아메리카노 (Iced Americano). It is so commonly ordered that it has a shortened word for it. Even in winter, people love ordering it with ice. However, according to the Kraze, coffee was introduced to Korea about 121 years ago. The first person in Korea who tried coffee was Emperor Gojong, after which coffee shops and cafés started to appear in Korea. Now, a lot of young people or couples would go to a coffee shop and chill for an afternoon.

Nowadays, Korean cafés have grown so much that this industry becomes very competitive. Every café wants to distinguish itself from others, and thus more cafés are trying to have their theme or concept to make people stay and remember it. A lot of Korean cafés are good places for photo takings, which would attract more young people who are active on social media. Many cafés will have white walls with simple wooden decorations, which creates a healing atmosphere as soft music is played in the background. Despite the well-decorated shop, the display of the coffee is important too. If it is not for takeout, coffee will be served in a glass bottle, usually with a wooden plate under it as well. There will also be small cakes or bread served beside the coffee.

There are also many themed cafés in Korea. For example, there is a snoopy-themed café in Seoul. The cups are painted with the Snoopy characters, the cookies are made in the shape of Snoopy, and there are many decorations related to Snoopy as well. In general, it is a cute shop that would attract young people there to hang out and chat with their friends. There are many other themes designed by the cafés in South Korea, such as vintage, Cotton Candy, and Line Friends. They are called the “Instagrammable cafés” since people would go there for good photos to post on Instagram. This café culture is formed in South Korea in recent years. I want to try it out with my friends someday and I think it would be really interesting.

Source:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyDfoS9E6I0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ncNbguX8M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DY6MyDYhx4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0LdUlGewLQ

http://www.thekrazemagazine.com/latest-updates/2019/5/12/the-caf-culture-of-korea

The last two weeks of classes are used to wrap up the semester. I video chatted with Jenna, my language partner, and did the podcast interview to reflect on the semester.

My plan for this semester of Korean is to improve my language skills while learning more about the interesting aspects of Korean culture. For the first half of the semester, I met with Jenna and Christi, and we did more practice on reading and conversations. Jenna would print out a news article or a weather forecast for us once a week, and we would read through the material line by line and tried to translate it. It was definitely challenging to us at first since sometimes there might be hidden meaning under the expression. Different from my first language, Koreans would say the sentences in a less direct way, which takes one step further when it comes to translation. I remember when we were translating a long sentence from a news article, it took us some time to figure out the logical connection between the parts. It was also not easy for me to get used to the formal expression and the vocabs when we were trying to interpret the weather forecasts.

I enjoyed the conversation practices a lot. Each time Christiana and I would divide our roles and read the lines for each role. We would learn some new vocabulary in a specific scenario before the conversation, and then find them in our lines. I found myself good at guessing a rough idea of the meaning of the sentence, which gave me some confidence in the practice. It was also a very effective way for me to learn new words as I used them in our conversation. I miss doing this practice with Jenna and Christi a lot as we moved on to the online instruction.

For the second half of the semester, we did a lot of cultural learning. We started with learning about the drinking manner in Korea, which turned out to be more complicated than I thought it would be. We then watched a Korean web drama together, which is a new way of drama that I was not familiar with. As the tempo of society gets faster, people don’t have the time and patience to watch one episode from a traditional drama for an hour or even longer. Therefore, web dramas are becoming more and more popular. They are much shorter in length compared with traditional dramas and thus more convenient for people to watch on their commute. I’ve also noticed that some variety shows are trying out a similar way too. Some TV programs have only 5 minutes on TV, so it gets to condense all the funny parts and thus attracts more people to watch. I’ve practiced watching a short Korean variety show on YouTube without subtitles, and I was surprised that I could understand most of it. This has been my goal since I started learning Korean, and I’m glad that I can feel my improvement. I’m now more confident in my listening and conversations, which is satisfying.

https://richmond.box.com/s/vh7pnhlxx1pc51nsdu7dd95t0vnm854y

When I learned about the SDLAP courses near the end of the fall semester, I was excited to take the introduction and Korean courses. Although I came into the class with fluency, I realized that I could speak and understand the language but wasn’t aware of much of the culture. I haven’t attended Korean classes since middle school, so it was nice to learn with my language partner. It was also my first time learning from a fellow student and I enjoyed that experience because I felt that it was easier to ask her questions whether it was about grammar or the college culture in Korea.

One of the main things that became apparent to me was that language and culture are intertwined, so no one can really know too much about them because there is so much information to be discovered. When we first made a list of the targets for the semester, I had a difficult time coming up with the goals. After researching about Korean culture, I realized that there were too many things I didn’t have any knowledge of. I even became interested in Korea’s history and traditions, something I once ignored while attending Korean school in middle school. I found it difficult to see improvements in my language learning if I didn’t practice every day. Language skills only improve when the practice is in use and since the course is self-directed, I would have to motivate myself to write and read in Korean to progress in those skills. I also found that out of the four skills of a language, writing was the hardest for me to improve in a short period of time. I was able to fix many of my mistakes because I learned the grammatical rules, but like many rules, there are situations that are exceptions to it, so identifying those exceptions were a challenge to me. I found that I gained more vocabulary and expressions through watching Korean dramas, and of course, speaking in Korean with other students. I will continue my language learning through these activities and will do further research on Korea’s culture. There are also many websites online that can help me learn the vocabulary for pretty much any category.

In class, I enjoyed learning about the family trees and how time can influence a language to evolve. Playing around with the collectivism vs individualism comparisons online was insightful on how cultures differ from each other. The Western part of the world seemed to be more individualistic than the Eastern part of the world. The reading I found most interesting and useful was about the one on phonetics. I didn’t know that people could produce so many unique sounds. During class, I enjoyed learning the details of how we form these sounds and also trying to make new sounds that are not used in the English language. I would like to learn more about how the uncommon sounds came to be and if the location of the origin of the language influenced which sounds the language uses today.

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As I mentioned to Jenna as a goal of my Korean learning this year, I want to learn more about Korean cultures. This week, I learned about the 고스톱 (Go-stop) game, a traditional card game in Korea. I’ve seen old people playing this game in Korean dramas during the festivals, but I never got to understand the rules of it. It always seems that everyone has their own sophisticated strategy for the game, which looks cool to me.

Jenna introduced the basics of the game to me – the cards. The cards are named 화투, where 화 means flower, and the whole word means “flower cards”. All have them have drawings with styles in sync. There are 48 cards in total, categorized into 12 different months, so there are 4 cards for each month. The cards from each group or family have different names. For example, the cards of January is called 송학, which means crane, and thus there is one crane drawn on a card from this set. In the game, there are four different kinds of cards: 피 (shell), 띠, 열끝/멍, and 광 (light). However, it is not that each family will have all four kinds of cards. Instead, in each family, there is either a 광 or 열끝, one 띠, and two 피 cards. For each kind of card, the drawing on the card will have different details. For example, 띠 cards have red or blue ribbon across the drawing, and 광 cards have a small Chinese character written at the corner of the card.

I then went to YouTube and tried to learn more about the rules. I watched several videos, but it is still very confusing. When the game starts, 6 cards will be shown on the table and each player will have 7 cards to their own. The general rule is that each player is using their own cards to win the cards on the table and getting points. When a player gets to 3 points, he/she gets to decide if he/she is going or stopping. As they go more, they will earn more points if they are winning points from the next round. However, if they do not get any points and the other players do not get any points, this round will be not valid and the scores at the next round will be doubled.

I really want to try this game once, not with money since that would be illegal gambling. I believe it will be easier as I try it more and figuring out some strategies for winning points without making the round null. I love that this game can bring family members and friends closer and it allows you to chat as you play. I hope I get to try this game someday with my friends.

YouTube video that I watched for instruction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfDURLM7hBM

For the first week, I spent most of my time traveling home and staying in the hotel for quarantine, so I reviewed the news articles and the conversations that we have practiced with Jenna. I met some words that look familiar to me and give me a general idea of the meaning, such as 전공 (major) and 쓸모 (usefulness). After reading through the words besides the translation, I practiced memorizing them and then started to read the conversations. The conversations helped by providing a context for the words so that I learned these words better. I also read over the news articles and the weather forecasts we practiced earlier in the semester, which is a lot more challenging than the conversations to me. There are a lot of official phrases and expressions in the articles. I found myself getting more and more used to the formal expressions after each practice, and I noticed some expressions commonly used in the weather forecasts, such as 예보했다 (forecasted) and 증가 (increase), which helped me with my reading.

Then, I practiced my listening by watching two 12-minute long videos in Korean without subtitles on YouTube. It turned out better than I thought – I could understand 80% of the conversations, and I could guess the other 20% based on the context. I was surprised when I was about to finish watching it. There are also some short sentences shown on the screen as notes. When they jump out, I would stop the video until I read them over and understood what they meant. I could feel myself faster in reading in Korean by this practice, which was encouraging to me. Besides this, it was very interesting to me as I encountered many brand names in English that are interpreted by Korean characters. I would read out the characters first and then guessed out the represented brand, 발렌시아가 for Balenciaga, and디올 for Dior. It was not hard because the pronunciation is a little bit different from the original one and only has more ending consonants than expected. After finishing the practice, I watched the two videos again with Chinese subtitles. I stopped at the places where I did not quite understand by guessing and read over the phrases and vocabs and matched them with the subtitles. I found this practice challenging but fun, so I plan to do this more often for future practices.

After the practices of these two weeks, I gained more confidence in my reading and listening in Korean, especially in a conversational environment. As I watch Korean variety shows in my spare time, I would stop when there is a written phrase appear on the screen. I would then read it over and match the parts with the translated subtitle. It is super helpful for my reading practice as I now can read short phrases without stopping the show. I would recommend it to anyone who is learning Korean and is very interested in Korean variety shows like me. I mentioned this to Jenna later, and she thinks it’s good too.

It is already the end of the spring semester and it went by so fast. I have come so far in my language learning journey and I know that this isn’t the end of it. I don’t think I will have the opportunity to take this class again, but with everything I learned so far, I know I can continue on my own. Jimin and I took our time to discuss my progress so far and I am surprised how much I grew this semester. We also spent some time reviewing all the materials I learned this semester. I still had some trouble with one of the grammar lessons and Jimin was able to clear up some confusion. Another thing we did was checking how much faster I can read now. In the beginning of the semester, we measured how fast I can read by timing my reading of one article. We timed it again at the end of the semester with the same article and saw a significant improvement in my reading speed. After reading so many articles throughout the semester, I began to read while word-chunking which is the act of reading multiple words at once. Before, I was so focused on reading each word one by one, but now, I am able to take in several words at a time. Additionally, being familiar with the vocabulary also increased my reading speed. This is a significant improvement in my journey, and I was happy to know that I have accomplished one of my goals this semester. Although it is hard to measure other goals, being able to measure my improvement and knowing that I have achieved it definitely boosts my motivation. I really want to thank Jimin for being my language partner this semester and I appreciate all the effort she put in for me.

On my own time, I took some time to explore the business website. I know I have a lot to learn but I’m happy to know the direction I want to take and how to begin my journey alone. Also, my parents have told me that I am improving so much in speaking and I am very proud of myself for that. I have put a lot of effort to speak more frequently and the hard work definitely paid off. Communicating with my parents helped a lot, especially during the time I spent at home throughout the quarantine. One thing that my parents have told me is that I am speaking more and more in Daegu dialect. Because my parents speak in Daegu dialect, I was able to absorb a lot from them. I have noticed that my Daegu dialect only come out around my family which is very interesting to me. It really shows that the way people talk around you affect the way you talk. This wasn’t one of my goals this semester, but I am happy to know that I have learned some Daegu dialect. I am hoping that I can reach a point where I can choose to speak either the Daegu or the Seoul dialect. With some new goals I found this semester, I look forward to continuing my Korean learning journey.

Jimin and I were able to read a lot of news together about current events in Korea. We talked about the legislative election coming up on April 15 under the new electoral system. I don’t have much interest in politics in Korea, but it was still worthwhile reading. We briefly talked about how the current Moon party is trying to change free Republic of Korea into a socialist party. We were also able to research on some controversial topics related to this election. It was about how the Moon party is acting against the free democracy by ordering elderly population in Daegu region to self-isolation on account of the coronavirus. The main concern was that this would reduce the votes by the conservative party. It was interesting to learn how the political fight was being formed around the ongoing coronavirus situation. Although I don’t know enough to form my own opinion, it was good to know about the political power struggle in Korea. I was able to discuss some of it with my parents and it definitely is a new knowledge that is worth knowing. Other than the election, we talked about the 6^th anniversary of the Sewol ferry disaster that is coming up on April 16. This is a very sensitive topic in Korea, and I know when I heard of this news then, it was really heartbreaking. It surely is one of the biggest events that took place in Korea in recent years and if you don’t know about it, I really suggest taking the time to learn about it. Next, Jimin taught me the spacing rules in Korean writing. I remember learning this last year and it is still confusing for me. It is something that I really have to master and get used to. Jimin provided a worksheet with sentences containing incorrect spacing and I had to find the incorrect spacings and correct it. Constant practice does help me familiarize the rules and it will take more practice for me to write without spacing mistakes. I used to apply some of the spacing rules without recognizing them, but because I am aware of these rules now, I feel much more confident in my writing.

I decided to listen to more business-related news on the radio this week and it was quite difficult to follow everything as I lack the professional language. Business language is one of my biggest interest in learning Korean. I want to be able to comprehend business news and this was my first step towards getting familiar with it. I really hope to further improve in this area so that I could use it in my future career life. I still have a long way to go and this is just the start but researching on my own and learning about it is really fun especially because it’s a subject that I really like. Going forward, I will try to read more business articles in the future and expand my knowledge on it. I found a great business news website (businesskorea.co.kr) that has both English and Korean version and I’m excited to explore more with it.

It is really unfortunate to be under quarantine now, but my language learning journey still continues on. With April approaching, Jimin and I was able to talk about 만우절, which is the April fools’ day in Korea. It is exactly same as it is in United States, but I found something very interesting in an article we read. Korea had a similar day in its history during the Joseon dynasty. On the first day of snow every year, the subjects of the King would be allowed to say a light lie to the King without any punishment. We also talked about how Korean BJs (Korean streamers) and celebrities use April fools’ day to present fake news to pull attention from the media. Besides reading articles, Jimin taught me more Chinese characters used in Korean. This also gets me frustrated as well but less than the spelling rules. Each Chinese character has its own meaning and they are combined to make a word. By knowing what each character means, you can expect the meaning of a word that you don’t know. For example, the character”인” means manpower and the character “력” means power. By combining the two characters, the word “인력” is formed which means man power. However, these are relatively easy to learn, and the four-character words are a lot more difficult to learn and harder to guess its meaning. Part of the learning is simply getting familiar to the characters and recognizing them in different words. I did a lot of exercises which a word is given, and I would have to write the correct meaning of the word. The four-character words are more difficult to simply guess as it usually means a whole phrase, so I practice them similar to learning other normal vocabulary. These characters also make up most of the professional language used in Korean, so it opens up a way to learn these professional languages as well.

With the COVID-19 situation, I listen to the radio very often with my parents, trying to keep up with the current news both in United States and Korea. There’s been many cases in Daegu where many of my relatives live and I hope the situation in Korea gets better. Using radio and podcast is really a good way to practice listening as it doesn’t have any visual support. I’m really getting used to listening Korean even though I lack the knowledge in professional language. However, I continue to expand my professional language with the help of my parents. Whenever an unfamiliar word come up, I would ask my parents and add it to my vocabulary list to review it later. With the quarantine, my parents have been a good source of learning and they allow me to practice speaking so much because I am forced to use it all the time. Although I am not able to meet with Jimin physically, a lot of my learning has been coming from watching videos and reading articles. As I stay at home, I think I will have a great learning experience as I get more exposure to the language at home and culturally integrate myself.

During the spring break, I was able to use Korean so often. I communicate with my family in Korean only, and being back in an environment where I use Korean more often than English helps me practice the language. Back home, I feel very integrated to the Korean culture as I eat Korean food and watch Korean shows with my parents. Furthermore, I have to show Korean manners and etiquettes which is another aspect of cultural integration. I watch a variety of Korean TV programs and movies with my family. I watched a Korean comedy show called Infinity Challenge which is a show that I have been watching since I was a kid with my parents. In this show, they use a lot of slangs and phrases that is popularly used in Korea and listening to it makes me feel more comfortable and natural to use it in my speaking. Koreans come up with new slangs and phrases very frequently and even people who live in Korea have a hard time keeping up with them. Shows like this is a good way to stay updated in continuously growing Korean language. Furthermore, this show includes a large spectrum of cultural things in Korea that I am not familiar with and it is really a good way to further progress in my cultural journey. Because this is a comedy show, I learn a lot of the Korean humor points that are different from American culture.

I was able to catch up with Jimin this week and learned about Korean spelling rules. I get really frustrated with Korean spelling rules because there are so many of them. I can learn it one day and forget it really easily. For example, the combinations of letters “데” and “대” are used in two different ways. What makes it really hard is that it sounds exactly the same but in writing you will have to know which one to use. The first combination is used to describe something that happened in the past and the second combination is used when communicating something that another person said. Also, there are rules for words that are just so confusing because it applies to some words and it changes for another. Writing is definitely the hardest out of listening, writing, and speaking because I do the least of it, especially with correct spelling. Many informal communications in writing such as messaging a friend or posting comments on Youtube is done without following any strict spelling rules and grammar. Koreans like to use a lot of abbreviated terms and sometimes only write the consonants implying the word it is supposed to mean. This is something I really need to get familiar with as well as it is used often in various settings. I practice these rules by writing sentences out and applying the rules, but it is something I need to review regularly so that I don’t forget them. As I continue to practice writing in Korea, I am familiarizing myself to a lot of things and I can feel it becoming more natural as I try to use them even in informal communications.

During the spring break, I watched a Korean drama named “쌉니다 천리마마트” (Pegasus Market). This is a drama that is different from all the Korean dramas I’ve ever watched. Looking for something to do during the break, I picked this drama to watch since it has two main actors that I knew to be good: 김병철, who took part in the Sky Castle, and 이동휘, who played a part in 응답하라 1988 (Reply 1988). Both of these dramas are well produced and popular in Korea and China, so I expected the Pegasus Market to be good in a similar way. However, it turned out to be completely another style.

The drama started with정복동 being demoted to the Pegasus Market by his boss. The Pegasus Market is regarded as the worst business owned by the company. Even though the market is at the corner of the most crowded street in the town, few people walk into it. It has two employees, but they do nothing at work. This is an unbearable situation for 정복동, who has worked hard for the company during his entire career. As a result, he wanted to revenge the company by wasting all its money on stocking at the market and hiring unhelpful workers. However, as the story goes on, whatever 정복동 does to try to ruin the market or the reputation of the company, the result always turns out to be opposite to his expectation. The market starts to grow and becomes famous in the town unintentionally under 정복동’s lead.

I quit after episode 2 the first time I was watching it. It appeared to me that this drama mixes so many irrelevant elements that the story appears messy and illogical, such as an ethnic group of people with a superpower, a 깡패 (gangster) who needs the salary for his grandma, and an old man who lost his job due to the Korean financial crisis. All these people are now hired at the market and planning out wired events. However, as I kept watching it the second time, I realized that they are all representations of the neglected group in society. Also, there is a theme hidden under the main story in each episode. One is criticizing the insufficiency of care for the old and children in Korea. Another talks about people being judgmental of other people’s looks, and so on. Instead of the massive fancy effects or the romantic couples that are common in other Korean dramas, the hidden themes make me focus on the story while noticing the problems in the society that the writer wants to address.

The drama is rewritten from a webtoon, so it has the power of turning impossibilities into reality. There are also a lot of scenes in the drama where people sing and dance together as if they are in musicals, which is fun to watch. Overall, the drama is funny and healing with some themes hidden behind. I would say 천리마마트 is a creative Korean drama that introduces me to many cultural aspects of modern society in South Korea.

Through the self-directed language learning program this semester, I have learned that learning a language takes persistence and constant effort. I came into this program with a good deal of knowledge about Korean. Although I have never received proper Hangul education, I have still spoken Korean with my family and friends in our daily conversations. As a result, I set one of my goals this semester to go beyond simply learning vocabulary words and basic phrases. I wanted to push myself to be a better, all-rounded Korean speaker. 

Specifically, one of my goals this semester was to be able to read analytically and fully comprehend Korean news articles and broadcasting channels. Since I plan to be a business major and work in the business field in Korea in the near future, I wanted to be able to learn technical vocabulary words that pertain to business and the economy. This is why Jenna and I worked persistently to try and read different news articles to improve my linguistic knowledge. At first, we started off with simply reading the weather forecast in Korea. Initially, I thought it was going to be a breeze reading this article because in my mind, “it was a weather forecast, how hard can it be.” However, the moment I finished reading the first sentence, I had no idea what it said or meant at all. I don’t know why but I believed that it would come to me very easily and quickly. Therefore, I decided to slow down and read sentence by sentence, word by word out loud to make sure I grasp exactly what I was reading in my head. All in all, it took me almost 30 minutes to read a 2 page weather forecast article. From this moment, I realized that learning a language takes time and patience. I think I need to stop having the mindset that learning will come gradually and naturally. I need to make a conscious effort to try and improve my Korean skills everyday whether it be through reading more weather forecasts or challenging myself to listen to Korean news. 

The most interesting reading from SDLC 105 was the reading about collectivism vs. individualism. I always knew that Korean and American culture were vastly different, but I could never actually point to what was the main difference. However, when I read that article, it really resonated with me because the way in which the entire culture thinks is almost polar opposite. And, I think that also reflected back into how different cultures reacted to COVID-19 pandemic. In Korea, since it is a collectivist society, every member worked unitedly to quarantine themselves out of their own will (without the government having to push them) to stop the spread of coronavirus as fast as possible. However, the United States, which is an individualist society, acted in the mindset of “every man for themselves” in the beginning. In the future, I would definitely want to explore more about the underlying cultural differences between the U.S. and South Korea. 

I attended my last two Korean class sessions in the past two weeks. I honestly cannot believe that I finished another semester of the self-directed language and am proud to say that I have improved my hangul more than I have before. In retrospect, I can say with confidence that I enjoyed every class session because my language partner and my peers helped make them enjoyable. For these past two weeks, I voice chatted with my language instructor and reviewed everything that we went over this semester. Upon reviewing a semester's worth of material, I could not believe how much I accomplished. I was able to read news articles and academic journals with the highest level of hangul grammar and vocabulary. I still remember when I struggled to read a short news article about a sports event that took place in Korea. I am now able to read articles that update me on the coronavirus outbreak, geopolitical issues between the two Koreas, economic losses from lack of business activities, and more. After gaining a clearer understanding of what I've accomplished during the semester, my language instructor and I created our podcast to document this milestone.

I also learned new phrases and Korean concepts such as root words. I learned the root words for terms such as fire, water, mankind, power, office, teaching, and etc. While I knew these terms intuitively by practicing Korean, I had never learned this conceptually. I think these root words will be very useful in the future when I have to learn the meaning of new words. Instead of referring to a dictionary or Google Translate, I could use context clues and my knowledge of the root words to figure it out.

If there is anything I would do differently, I would be more proactive in my studies. Because my course load for the past two years have been tremendously in quantity, I was unable to exert my full effort into each class session and assignment. During the weekends, I would take breaks and spend more time resting. In retrospect, I should've used at least thirty minutes in those rest days to practice more Korean. Although my hangul skills are quite impressive right now, I would be at another level if I spent that time studying.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dkKTyO1uoSv9dM1xiN6W9WYOglbsiGnZ/view?usp=sharing

There has been a saying that has been popular in Korea amongst the quarantine period that has been happening worldwide. It goes like this: “확진자도 돼지 말고 확찐자도 되지 말자.” It is basically a play on words between “confirmed” and “person who gains weight,” and it translates to “let’s not be confirmed and let’s also not gain weight” during this quarantine. Since we are trapped in our homes with nothing to do, but to sleep and waste our nights away in bowls of ice cream and hot Cheetos, it is very likely that many people will put on some weight. However, in Korea, gaining weight can even be scarier than actually contracting the Coronavirus due to Korea’s beauty standards. In Korea, diet is a very popular subject especially for women. Ever since I could remember, Korean female idols (aka celebrities) have always promoted thin bodies and deemed this specific body type to be considered beautiful. They have very specific and almost impossible body standards and weight (although it has improved in the past few years) and it can be directly seen through the interviews and tv shows conducted by Korean broadcasting channels. 

I was looking through some videos on Youtube and I came across a video of IU and her diet plan. IU is one of the most famous solo female artists in Korea. She is basically the “Billie Eilish” of Korea if I had to compare to give you more reference. She came out with her infamous diet plan which consists of 1 apple, 2 sweet potatoes, and 1 glass of protein shake a day. Along with her limited nutritional plan, she also exercised and did cardio for at least 2 hours a day. 

 In the United States, she would have probably gotten a lot of negative backlash for spreading and promoting such an unhealthy diet that young teenagers/girls could follow. Intaking such a low amount of calories could potentially lead to malnutrition and severe health complications. However in South Korea, many people including young teenage girls and other celebrities actually were in great awe of her strength and admired her for her will power and determination to lose weight. There were many comments below the video saying: “so this is why she is so thin and pretty,” “I wish I could be strong like her,” and many more. I also saw many other youtube videos in which other youtubers challenged themselves to try out IU’s diet for themselves. I think this really shows just how different people treat extreme dieting in these two different cultures. In Korea, your looks reflect back on you as a person and your values. It also reflects back on the beauty standards of Korea. In Korea, if you go over 50 kg (110 pounds), you are considered overweight or even “fat.” However, in the United States, I heard a lot more comments talking about how everyone is different and that weight is simply a number. It does not reflect back on your health. Body positivity and self-love is very much encouraged. 

As we are forced to quarantine inside our homes for a longer period of time, my time spent on Youtube has also increased dramatically as well. There is a show called We Got Married that I have not watched in a very long time, however, it started to pop back up on my feed, so I recently got back into it. We Got Married was a South Korean reality variety show that aired on MCB from 2008 to 2017. The show paired up celebrities who pretended to be married couples and completed various challenges together. Although this show is simply supposed to be light and romantic tv show for teenagers, I thought it revealed a great deal of Korean culture and differences in tv show standards between Korea and the United States. 

First of all, the main difference between Korean and American reality shows is their level of provocativeness. In We Got Married, it is quite “PG” and very “cute” with many adorable gestures and words. For example, a gesture in which the male lead pats the girl’s head is illustrated as overly romantic and suitable for their audiences to see. Also, cursing is not allowed on any Korean tv shows. However, when I see American reality tv shows like Love is Blind and Too Hot to Handle, it is very different on what is deemed acceptable to air on national tv. On shows like these, people talk about sex and relationships very openly and swear occasionally as well, which is not something you will find on Korean tv shows. In shows like We Got Married, it is almost like a forbidden word in which no one can ever speak of. However, on a show like Love is Blind, it is basically about a show in which singles try to find a match and fall in love -- without ever seeing each other face-to-face, as emotional connection attempts to conquer physical attraction. Too Hot to Handle is about singles who meet and mingle for a chance to win $100,000 but they must not have any sexual intercourse with each other. Korean and American reality tv shows are polar opposites of each other. 

These shows also directly translate back to different celebrity dating cultures in Korea and the U.S. In Korea, dating between celebrities is something that is very controversial and it is very rare that couples willingly reveal their relationship to the public. If they do, it is very likely that they will receive heavy negative backlash from their fans and their entertainment companies. If they break up, it reflects even more badly on them and sometimes these things even end their careers. However in the United States, celebrities come out with their relationships very openly and even show public display of affection. Many times, no one actually even cares about their relationship and it is not considered a very big deal. In this manner, one can really see the different cultural aspects in these two countries’ dating life. 

One of my future goals in life is to work in the business field in South Korea. Jenna and I were supposed to get to our business-related work for our sdlc 110 class later on in the semester, however that obviously got cut short due to the pandemic. For the next few weeks after spring break, we simply decided to improve my overall hangul skills by watching Korean dramas through Netflix. However, for our last sdlc 110 session, I decided that I wanted to still work on getting better at listening to the news especially about the economy and the different markets. Currently, I am also taking macroeconomics and we are studying the effects and trends of what COVID-19 caused on different economies of the world. I knew how to interpret the data and statistics in English, but when I read Korean economic articles, I had no clue what they were talking about. For our first meeting, I attempted to read a weather report in Korean, but I had a very tough time understanding the content, so for this time, we decided to listen to broadcasting news about Korea. 

The video was called “한국이 코로나19 확진자 수 세계 2위인데, 왜 해외에서 칭찬하지?/스브스뉴스” It basically translates to “Korea’s confirmed cases in #2 in the world, but why are other countries praising us for our work?” Below, I am going to list many of the vocabulary words I failed to understand when I listened to the video the first time:

• “저명한” 
• “진단 능력” 
• “입증” 
• “비판” 
• “논의” 
• “적자” 

These words are not words I use very often or ever when I speak or write in Hangul. However, I thought it was still important to know these words because this one news broadcasting was not the only source where these words popped out. I always have heard of these words, but I never took the time to actually learn it and digest their meanings. The second time I heard the video, Jenna asked me to turn on the Korean subtitles and see if looking at the spelling of the words and their context clues would help me understand what it means. At first, simply hearing made it harder to understand and think about what those words would mean. So for the second time, I looked for those words in the subtitles and paused the video to see the full sentence of where that word was placed. Then using the context clues, I was able to define at least 3/6 words correctly. I think this method really worked for me because it forced me to think critically and pay attention to the context clues of the news source. It made me feel more confident with my analytical skills. Before, I thought I could never be able to understand a Korean news article or show, but this activity made me feel better about my reading and listening abilities. 

• “저명한” = famous
• “진단 능력” = ability to diagnose (correct)
• “입증” = prove (correct)
• “비판” = criticize 
• “논의” = discuss (correct)
• “적자” = deficit 

Quarantine life has gotten even more weary as Illinois Governor, J.B Pritzker pushed the stay-at-home order until May 30th. My everyday routine has been this: sleep, eat, complete assignments, watch Netflix, nap, eat, and sleep. It is not the most energy-intense routine to say the least. My body has adapted to this slow paced lifestyle, so if I do anything physically or mentally exhausting, I feel like crashing. This is why for my sdlc 110, Jenna and I have been simply watching Netflix together. However, unlike other times we watched Netflix together, we decided to watch it on a chrome extension called “Netflix Party” which enables multiple people to watch the same series at the same time and comment on it. We decided to use this tool because I thought it would help me ask questions while watching the series. It would make it easier to remember and Jenna can also quiz me on certain Korean vocabulary words and phrases. Since we made the choice to watch it on this extension, Jenna and I agreed to take the subtitles off and if I had questions, I could then ask her directly through the chat. In addition to watching Netflix together, Jenna and I recorded our very awkward (at first), but chill podcast as well. 

The Netflix show we watched was a classic Korean drama called Boys Over Flowers. It is a 2009 South Korean television series that is based on the Japanese mango series Boys Over Flowers. The series is about a working-class girl who gets tangled up in the lives of a group of wealthy young men in her high school. It earned extremely high viewership ratings in South Korea and popularity throughout Asia. Starring Ku Hye-sun, Lee Min Ho, Kim Hyunjoong, Kim Bum, Kim Joon, and Kim Soeun, it was one of the most popular romantic comedy Korean dramas when it first released. Although it aired over a decade ago, it still remains as one of the most representative dramas of Korean culture. To make it easier to understand for people who do not know Korean dramas, it can be compared to American tv shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Friends Wars, or The Office. 

The first thing I noticed was how cringe it was, obviously since it was from a decade ago. Regarding the language used, the hangul used in this tv show was easier to understand than the hangul used in Kingdom. This is most likely the case because it was a drama based on teenagers. The Netflix Party chrome extension I thought helped a lot because now, I was forced to actually listen to the listeners rather than reading off of the subtitles. Additionally, we could pause the episode and I could ask Jenna about some plot or word confusion. There was a word I didn’t quite understand which was “찐따.” I asked Jenna on the chat and she asked me what I thought it meant based on the context clues of the show. I ended up guessing correctly and it meant “loser.” All in all, we used this chrome extension successfully to help me better learn hangul in a more effective way. 

Classes have started to move online, so interacting with my language partner has gotten more difficult. However, Jenna and I decided to meet up through a kakaotalk video call and discuss our learning plan for the rest of the semester. During this time of isolation and weariness, Jenna and I thought it would be the best to continue to watch Korean dramas to improve my hangul. Before, we studied and discussed articles about the coronavirus and other news information, however, I really did not desire to do that anymore. I simply wanted to improve my Korean, but in a relaxed and stress-free manner. 

As a result, I decided to start another Korean drama called Kingdom with Jenna. It is a South Korean political horror thriller web television series starring Ju Jihoon, Rye Seungryong, Bae Doona, Kim Sangho, Kim Sungkyu, and Kim Hyejun. This drama is set during Korea's Joseon period a few years after the Japanese invasions of Korea all the while investigating a mysterious plague that is spreading across the entire peninsula. Furthermore, it is a plague that appears to bring the dead back to life as blood-thirsty monsters. Personally, I never really liked gruesome and bloody dramas, so I was very reluctant to start this series. However, Kingdom received such high ratings and everyone I spoke to recommended me to start this drama. So, I was convinced to begin. 

At first, the series was very slow as it was slowly building the main plot line, however, once it started to pick up, I was easily hooked and I could not stop watching. Therefore, I finished 2 seasons in less than 2 days (although it only had 6 episodes per season). I thought it was such an interesting concept of combining zombies with imperial Korea. It was such a unique idea and it personally, it had a way better and more developed plot line than The Walking Dead. Kingdom was set in a time where the people of Korea were starving and living under intense poverty while the royalty ruled cruelly yet lived lavishly. And now, ironically, the people turned into a literal hungry monster, searching for human blood and they will always be hungry for more, never satisfied. 

In addition to the stellar plot, I was very intrigued by the language used in this series. Netflix actually gives its audience the opportunity to have subtitles and also English dubbing, however, I decided to not use dubbing because then, I would not learn anything. Even if they are Korean dramas, I usually do not even use English subtitles, however, for Kingdom, since the language was so different to modern Korean, I needed the subtitles to help me along. Many of the vocabulary used were definitely foreign. For example, there’s a phrase that was said quite often from the ministers to the king. That phrase was “통촉하여 주시옵소서.” I had no idea what this meant, but when I searched it up, it basically means to “please be considerate” in thinking about a certain proposed policy. Phrases like these were something I never knew about, but after watching this drama, I think my knowledge about imperial Korea and its language grew a little more.