Students are required to submit two reports regarding culture pass. Students can 1) attend two Culture Pass Events or 2) attend one Culture Pass Event and participate in at least two Language Exchange Sessions. Each culture pass report will count for 2% of the final grade. Both culture pass reports are due by the last day of class, December 9th. Students can find Korean culture events in the Boston area on the BU Korean Program's Instagram page (@bukoreanstudies): https://www.instagram.com/bukoreanstudies/

Culture Pass Event Report:

Students attend Culture Pass Events organized by the World Languages and Literatures department or other cultural events approved by the professor. Students will write interesting aspects about the event in English and post a photo they took at the event on Padlet. For each event, students may describe the event, what they have learned from it, and what they thought about it in 15-20 sentences.

Language Exchange Session Report:

Students participate in at least 2 Language Exchange Sessions (50 minutes each) with students at Sogang University or Daegu National University of Education. They will write a report summarizing what they learned throughout the Zoom meeting sessions in 15-20 sentences in English. The students will post a screenshot of the online meeting participants with their names on Padlet to report along with other writings. Each session will consist of 25 minutes in Korean and 25 minutes in English. While speaking Korean, students can practice the expressions and vocabulary words they’ve learned in class. Participation in 2 language exchange sessions will be counted as 1 culture pass report. The report writeup should include the date, duration, and main topic of each session.

For me, the most impressive part of the first section is the guest presentation. She introduced the dialect in her hometown, Daegu, to us. I found that it's extremely different from the Korean (which I think is used in Souel) that our class had learned. We played an interesting game: we tried to match the Daegu dialect with the Souel one. I think it was fun because the tone or accent when we spoke the Daegu dialect was distinct, and I learned some words in the Daegu dialect. Other places in Korea such as Busan or Changwon also have their own dialects. Relating to my country, China, people use various dialects in different provinces, too. Although we encourage people to use Mandarin to communicate, those dialects are still worthy of knowing since they have unique characteristics from each other. The interesting fact is that sometimes we cannot understand some dialects, like a foreign language.

In the second section, the professor introduced the history aspect of Hanguel. I knew that the language was changing as society developed. For example, Hanguel abolished some vowels or consonants (such as the triangle-shaped one) and then became what we have learned now. Also, I found how some sutras or ancient records were translated from Chinese to Korean. It made me feel the connection between different languages, in another word, cultures around our world.

To sum up, I got a lot of useful knowledge about Hanguel and Korean culture from this activity. Thank you for the snacks.

The second session was about the history of Hangeul. The professor introduced us to King Sejong, who created Hangeul, and shared his family history. He also explained the purpose of Hangeul, which was initially used by commoners since they couldn’t read Chinese. However, the push to use more Hangeul started when a war broke out between Korea and China. They needed a way to send messages across the country so that the enemy couldn’t read them even if they were intercepted. Other purposes for Hangeul included religious preaching and education for everyone. The professor also explained that some of the old Korean vowels and consonants were lost because they were used to represent Chinese sounds in Chinese literature, but are no longer needed.

There were various snacks offered at the event, including ChocoPie, 약과, and barley tea. 약과 is actually one of my favorite snacks!

The second portion of the event was with Professor Wuerthner, who introduced us to the history of Hangeul. King Sejong pioneered the Hangeul system to improve literacy, especially among commoners, and to make writing easier. Hanja, the traditional Chinese writing system, was mainly used by elites at the time. The professor also taught us some old Korean vowels and consonants. As Hangeul progressed into the 20th century, the government heavily promoted it as part of its educational reforms. There was also an increase in the promotion of English translations in media, such as newspapers.

Overall, I found the event very educational and entertaining. I have always wanted to visit Daegu and Busan!

In one part of the book, Cathy discusses the Japanese internment camps implemented in the U.S. during World War II. She explains how survivors later became allies of other minority groups. After her reading, the session transitioned into an open discussion with Dr. Rivera and Dr. Rani. They touched on topics such as the recent election. They also explored the role of Asian Americans in politics.

An interesting point was raised. Some older generations of Asian Americans harbor prejudice against recent undocumented Asian immigrants. These immigrants are seeking new lives in the U.S. This is both intriguing and surprising. My parents' generation, who also faced hardships, went through similar struggles. Additionally, Dr. Rivera highlighted a major factor in Biden's 2020 election win: the rightful anger from the Black Lives Matter movement.

Over the years, the trend gained popularity across the country and became a hallmark of Korean popular culture. Beyond exchanging Pepero, people also give handmade treats, write heartfelt messages, and decorate cards, adding a personal and creative touch to their gifts.

At the event, I decorated cards with super cute gem stickers and fun markers. I even saw Michelle there and made her a card! She took my picture! The event was cool because they taught us about the traditions before letting us be creative. It was really fun because they were playing upbeat KPOP music and everyone was enjoying writing cards. Then, we got to coat the Pepero sticks in a giant chocolate fountain which was super cool. We got to put different types of toppings which was interesting since I didn't know that you could put other toppings like sprinkles. I realized that Pepero was very similar to Pocky! Pocky is a Japanese brand of the snack and also comes in so many different flavors like strawberry, matcha, and cookies and cream. It was a lot of fun! I gave my Pepero to my roommate who said she enjoyed it and would give it a 10/10. She also liked the note I wrote her which was super cute.

As we know, Japanese is not a tonal language, and yet, Japanese poets and the language would borrow from that of the Sinitic languages. Sinitic texts are incredibly important to the Japanese literary tradition. But as Chinese is a tonal language, there was a discrepancy in the orality of the poems. And in delivering these poems to a non-reading audience, Japanese poets struggled to vocalize the impact and importance of the tones within the writing. Hence, the Shiwa was conceived. The Shiwa was the first example of Japanese commercial journalism. Shiwas focused and reflected on the nature of Sinitic poetry and would also discuss the challenges of Japanese-sinitic poetry. One type of Shiwa was a “readable dictionary” that discussed important words and phrases and the significance of such. Professor Fraleigh conjectured that Sinitic poetry is just as important to the Japanese tradition as it is to the Chinese tradition despite it being Sinitic, as the Japanese felt it just as much. He goes on to state how foreign this Sinitic understanding is often debated. And in his belief, the Japanese have overemphasized that it wasn’t foreign to reclaim it as a part of their tradition. He says that while it is integral to Japanese tradition, it belongs and ultimately is another language. He also explored the letters between authors of Shiwas and Japanese-Sinitic poetry. A Japanese-poet had sent a letter to an acclaimed Chinese poet asking for his thoughts on his work, and the Chinese poet rejected it on the basis of the state of diplomatic relations between Japan and China.The group who delivered the poem to this Chinese-poet were paid by the Japanese-poet, and felt a pressure to receive feedback, so they paid Chinese-students to provide this feedback. Ultimately, the Japanese-poet was happy as the feedback was all praise, and did not know that this review of his work was done by a group of students, and not the Chinese-poet. This was only uncovered when the Japanese-poet’s works were later published, along with the feedback of the Chinese-poet, except the Chinese-poet then had to clarify that it was not him who had written the feedback. The Chinese-poet then went to say that he had wanted to review the work, but felt an obligation to his country and decided not to.

Duration: 1 hr

In my first language exchange with Erin from Sogang University, we did introductions and learned more about each other and our interests. Her English is advanced and she is currently in Pennsylvania studying in America so it was easier communicating with her. While she helped me learn more basic and daily expressions I could incorporate in regular conversations, I helped her with English conversation practice by just talking back and forth together.

For the time when we were speaking Korean to each other, I tried to use the expressions I learned in class to do a simple introduction which included my academic year, my major, my nationality, a few of my hobbies, and so forth. Erin was kind enough to teach me more expressions that would be helpful in introducing myself like saying my age which uses different numbers than the counting numbers we’re learning in class. She taught me how to say I’m currently learning Korean and also that I want to visit Korean one day. When she learned of my major, she asked about my future plans with advertising. She then taught me how to say I want to work at an agency in the future if asked about career plans.

When we were conversing in English, we had a normal conversation very comfortably. We shared common interests in K-pop and traveling so we talked about those for some time. We shared our experiences traveling to other countries as well as future plans for traveling. I shared that I was interested in doing an Asia tour and would love to visit Korea as well as Japan someday. Erin is planning to visit different states in the U.S. this year like California and NY with her friends. We also talked about wanting to improve our language skills and methods that could be helpful. She recommended I watch shows to gain more knowledge of conversational Korean. For Erin, it would be helpful to consume media in English as well. Since she is more advanced and wants to learn more slang, it might be helpful to simply converse more in English with native speakers and look through social media to learn more about the culture of Gen-Z.

In the second lecture, I learned about the origin and evolution of Korean, which were very interesting and I had never been exposed to before. The professor also told us that many Korean characters evolved from Chinese characters, and the pronunciation is similar to them, which makes learning Korean pronunciation easier because my mother tongue is Chinese. During the rest time, the rest area also prepared Korean special snacks for us, and they were very delicious. All in all, This experience was great for me and it is a good opportunity to learn about Korean culture!

Duration: 1 hr

In my second language exchange session with Erin, I prepared more questions on Korean that I could ask her. At the time, we were starting to learn about Native Korean numbers in class. I asked more questions on different situations we would use Native vs. Sino Korean. She let me know that Native Korean is for time and counting. Sino Korean on the other hand is for ages, dates, phone, address, measurements, money, and temperature. She gave me example sentences so I could understand the uses more. She also helped me with my grammar when I tried to make my own sentences to say to her. She was very patient and helpful with my speaking and clarified grammar points for me.

We also talked more in depth about our travel plans. Erin has plans to go on a school trip for a short time during Thanksgiving break to NY. I am from NY so we talked about activities/places she can go. I recommended that she visit Times Squares as it’s a tourist area that many people like to visit and go shopping since she said she wants to go shopping. I also mentioned that she can visit KTown. She will only be there for a day but will go back during winter vacation with her friends for a longer period of time. I will also be back in NY during the break so we talked about meeting up which would be a great chance to talk in person.