2/6/10 -Session 8a - Jung-Kim - Korea to 1945

What I found most interesting about the morning session was the spread of Buddhism in Korea and particularly how it was changed and made to reflect Korean culture more. Where I teach now, the sophomore-year English curriculum starts with the Bible as Literature. This past year I began the unit by having them do mini-research papers on different world religions that made me feel a little better about teaching the Bible at all, even as literature, and was a way to teach research methods, citing, using MLA, etc. It was well liked by the students. So I think I'd like to expand on the project next time and have them look at different religions in different cultures--say Christianity in Sweden and in Korea, Buddhism in China and in Korea, etc. and make part of their presentation that they discuss how the religion changed depending on geographic location/culture and maybe that they look at a literary religious text from that particular culture's religion.

Interesting session. A few comments.

1) Civil Exam became official in China in the year 607 during Emperor's Sui Yangdi's time. Sui Dynasty proceeded the grand Tang Dynasty, when many Asian countries, especially Japan and Korea, sent their students to study in China's capital Chang’an. Some didn't return to their original country, stayed in China and became Chinese officials.

In professor's Jung's presentation, Civil Exam started in Korean was about 200 years later , but was categorized under Korean's inventions? Maybe I didn't remember the 2nd part correctly.

2) "Korean Wave"

The English " Korean Wave" is slightly different from what it means in Chinese, where Professor Jung said the term was originated from.

In Chinese language, “hanliu" is a weather forecast team which means a "cold wave". In Chinese Mandarin, Korean is also pronounced as "Han' and "pop culture" is pronunced as "liu shing wenhua". Some Chinese young internet users decided to use "hanliu" as an abbreviation to refer to "Korean pop culture" because it's short and sounds cool.

3) China has the biggest overseas Korean community
"According to the report published at the end of 2008 by Korean's "Culture Daily" newspaper, the population of Koreans in China has surpassed that of Japan, and China now has the biggest overseas Korean community in the world. Each year, more than 100,000 Koreans moved to China.

According to "Koreans in China Association's 2008 survey, in Beijing, more than 100,000 Koreans live there. In Qingdao, Shangdong province, there are 70,000, and Shanghai comes the 3rd with 50,000 Koreans. Those numbers were 2008 statistics. This Korean association predicted that the number of Koreans living in China are expected to be more than 2 million by 2010.

[Edit by="lwang on Feb 8, 8:48:23 PM"][/Edit]

There are Korean towns at least in Bejing, Shanghia, Shangdon, etc since 10 yers ago. You may think you are in Korea because there are so many Korean signs. The dominant Korean population are NOT those from Korean ethinic minority group in Northeast China, as Professor Kim mentioned. However, those ethnic group Korean Chinese are bilingual. You will see them working for Korean business in those Chinese cities. They are NOT included in statistics published by Koreans' in China Association. Most Koreans go to China to do business, or learn Chinese.

My daughter has a good friend from Korean. Her dad is in China, not Korean, doing import and export business, and visits her and her mother from time to time.

"Among China's 220,000 overseas students, Korean students ranks the first, with Japan the 2nd and U.S. the thrid." (March 29, 2009, China Education Newspaper).
"2008年，我国来华留学人数首次突破20万，共有来自189个国家和地区的22.3万各类来华留学生，分布在全国31个省、自治区、直辖市（不含港澳台地区）的592所高等院校、科研院所和其他教学机构，比2007年增加27996人，同比增长14.32%，其中来自韩国、美国、日本的留学生人数名列前三位。"
http://www.jyb.cn/world/gjsx/200903/t20090326_258253.html

I agree with you about the book Korea Kids. I am thinking of a way to incorporate it into my lessons for Spanish 1. I was thinking of creating a powerpoint/lesson that talks about Mexico Kids or Argentina Kids, (etc!) and comparting/contrasting both visually what they see and what they learn about children (and/or) students from both locations.

I see several similarities between modern Korea and Taiwan. Each only recently formed a (stable) democratic government after years of military rule or martial law. Also, both of are now economic powerhouses in the East Asian sphere. While both of course, possess their own distinctive culture, the similarities between them are pretty remarkable.

I enjoyed Prof. Jung Kims addition to the 10 things we learned about Korea from our reading number 11 is Korean Women have not been historically quiet and submissive. I believe that is a relevant addition because of the common misconception of submissive female role in Korea.

Professor Jung-Kim's presentation was really quite interesting to me. I think that perhaps Korea is the Asian country that I knew the least about. Most of the things I learned really delighted me and surprised me. The 11 most important things one should know about Korea was a great starting point for her to jump off onto the information she shared with us. One of the things I was most surprised about was the fact that "historically Korean women have not been submissive". The fact that when married they did not join their husband's family and could stay with their own had big implications for the Korean woman. Not only was she was not under her in-laws control, she was able to inherit land and other property. I would think that that one issue provided a huge amount of control over her own life!