thoughts about session 7 (Korea w/Prof. Jung-Kim)

[Anonymous]

This student dropped out of high school? How would he become a lawyer? I wonder if the fact that he was male had anything to do with his father's support.

In my family, my brother and I were treated differently because of our sex. Both my parents stressed the importance of education, but it was more so for me than for my brother. My options were to get good grades or get married. My brother did not have the same limitations. To my parents, it was more acceptable for the boy to have less education than the girl, if the girl has a brain. To this day, my brother who is quite intelligent has not completed college, and my parents are ok with that. Had I quite college, I would never hear the end of it.

[Anonymous]

This session was very interesting and brought back a lot of memories of my own experience when I visited Korea. I was pleasantly suppressed on this trip to find Korea as a Modern and industrious nation. Soul is a cosmopolitan city with an impressive skyline of skyscrapers and condominiums. Korea is also concerned with its environment and maintains a lot of its natural beauty. In Korea, education is a priority, I remember being on the tour bus at around 10pm, on our way back to the hotel, and seeing students dressed in their school uniforms and caring back packs crammed full of books. I asked our tour guide about this and was told that most students, after school will attend study groups till 9 or 10 pm then go home to prepare for the next day.

We did have one incident when going the visitors center in the DMZ with North Korea. While waiting for clearance, a North Korean soldiers was inspecting our bus from the outside, while our passports where being reviewed. Someone on the bus snapped a picture of the solider. He came onto the bus and in not a very friendly tone, but in English said, "NO Pictures!!!". We where forced to wait another 20 minutes after this.

[Anonymous]

As I look over my notes and think about content and approaches that I can incorporate into my teaching, I'm struck by Professor Jung-Kim's periodization of Korean history into five eras of globalization (Buddhism, the Mongol Empire, Confucianism, Western expansion and Japanese imperialism, and the Cold War). While I'm not sure I'll have time to cover all of that (I must admit that Korea gets short shrift in my Human Geo class, although I'm planning to expand my discussion of it now that I know more!), the breakdown of eras would be a useful and memorable way to present Korean history to students. Not only does Professor Jung-Kim's approach link Korean history, which is largely unfamiliar to my students, to things they do know about (like Buddhism and Confucianism), it also underscores the important point that globalization is nothing new -- it is a process that has been gathering steam for centuries, albeit at different scales.

[Anonymous]

One of the things Professor Jung-Kim talked about during this class was the evolving relationship between North and South Korea. I don't know much about this outside of what I occasionally hear on the news, so it was helpful to learn more and to be reminded that this, as with many things, is a political situation that is used by both sides to appeal to Koreans on each side of the border. She discussed the "sunshine policy" (a conciliatory approach taken to the North), as well as recent events that have made that policy less popular.

Here's a fairly recent article from the New York Times that looks at some South Koreans' attempts to reach and influence their compatriots on the other side of the border, as well as reactions from other South Koreans. Not everyone believes their propaganda is helpful, and (somewhat amusingly) the two men are in competition with one another.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/world/asia/27iht-korea.html?scp=7&sq=north%20korea%20propaganda&st=cse

[Anonymous]

Korea will be 6th nation in the world to land sports “Grand Slam” by hosting four major international sporting events:
1988 Summer Olympic Games
2010 FIFA World Cup
2011 IAAF World Championships in Athletics
2018 Winter Olympic Games

When IOC announced the host city of XXIII Olympic Winter Games, it marked as “New Horizons” of Korea’s globalization. Way to go, Korea!

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

Hi all,

Please share your thoughts about session 7 on April 26 by replying to this thread. You may raise questions and share thoughts either before or after the session.

Best,
Xin

[Anonymous]

Before Jennifer started this session by checking our previous knowledge of Globalization in Korean history, which was an interesting way to review a history, I thought. I learned World History by country name, or by chronological order (old school?) I thought History lessons could be arranged by Theme, such as Globalization, Philosophers, Paintings, Policy Makers, Christianity or History of Military Weapons (Maybe not!?), etc. especially to teach East Asian history. Because These countries share many similarities that teaching by theme might help students to grasp universal concepts of each period...probably many of World History teachers have been doing this already.. just a thought.

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