진주 / 합천

Two weeks ago I took a trip down to Jinju and Hapcheon, near the southern coast of Korea.  For the first 2 weeks of October the city of Jinju hosts the 진주 남강 유등 축제 (Jinju Namgang Lantern Festival).  It was a 4 hour bus drive from Seoul's Express Bus Terminal to Jinju, but well worth it.  The festival originates from the 16th century battles between Korea and Japan, where floating lanterns were used to prevent Japanese troops from sneaking through Korea via the Namgang River.  In addition to the many floating lanterns, there were land-based exhibitions of traditional laterns and opportunities for kids to make their own.    

Overlooking the floating laterns

 The lanterns were very intricately detailed.  In addition to lanterns depicting elements of Korean culture, there were lanterns representing about 80 different countries, including one depicting the Statue of Liberty.  They even had a fire-breathing bird!

Statue of Liberty in the background

The next day I stayed in my friend's hometown of Hapcheon.  My friend describes the city as Sigol (the countryside), although in reality it's probably equivalent to about a small to mid-sized American town.  It was nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of Seoul.  The city was much quieter, less crowded, the air was clean,  and at night you could actually see the stars!  From my friend's house it was a 40 minute bike ride to the Hapcheon Film Set.  It was a really nice scenic view, but being out of shape and having to ride in blue jeans (because I forgot to bring a pair of shorts) made the trip a little difficult, although I'm pretty sure I lost at least 2 pounds that day.

Bike Trail in Hapcheon Park

Biking through farmland

The Hapcheon Film Set is the site of filming for many famous Korean movies and dramas, including the critically acclaimed 태극기 휘날리며 (2004) film about the Korean war.   The set was essentially divided into two parts.  The first section depicted the city of Seoul in the 1930's and 40's during the Japanese Occupation.  As a result, many of the signs on the buildings were written in Japanese.  They did a really good job making the set look realistic as possible - from the Japanese writing and old style architecture, to 1930s vehicles parked on the streets.  It made me feel like I had actually stepped backed in time.

Seoul in the 1930's

In front of Seoul Station (circa 1940)

 The second section was a war zone set used to film war scenes.  I'm not sure, but I'm guessing that this is where they filmed the war scenes for Taeguki.

 I took a Korean Film Course at Yale my sophomore (I'm not sure if it still offered), and it was really cool to actually see the places where they filmed many of the movies depicting important events in Korean history.  I would definitely recommend this place to any Fall Light Fellows / Korean movie buffs.  Getting to Hapcheon and Jinju is a little out of the way, but I really enjoyed my stay and think they are worth seeing.  

On TV!

I realize I haven't updated this blog in quite a while - things got super busy here all of a sudden.  I had my writing, listening, and reading midterms last Thursday and Friday, and had my speaking/interview midterm this past Friday.  For anyone who is planning on taking Level 5 here at Sogang - when they say that it is much harder than Levels 3 & 4, they mean it.  There's significantly more vocab, much much more grammar (remember when you had 2 grammar patterns a lesson in Level 3 & 4?  Now there's about 4-7 per lesson), and longer reading passages.  And then there's the video class.  The 5A video class was actually not that bad - we watched one episode of a drama called 새는 over the course of 4 weeks, and for the most part all of the characters speak  clearly and enunciate well.  The 5B video class is a different story however.  Some of the characters speak a southern dialect, conjugating their verbs differently which makes it very difficult to understand - and there's this one elderly gentleman who mumbles and talks so quickly that I can't understand a word of what he's saying.  I'll talk in more detail about the video class later once I finish it, but the main point is that Level 5 is a lot of work (think normal Yale courseload), and if you don't preview before every class, review after every class, or are otherwise not on top of things, it becomes very difficult the days before the exams.  Fortunately, the midterms all over, giving me about 3 weeks of relative respite before finals.

A page from Hunminjeongeum (훈민정음 訓民正音),
the document proclaiming the formation of Hangeul
(Taken from Wikicommons)

Last Sunday was Hangeul Day, a holiday celebrating the formation of the Korean alphabet.  Before the formation of Hangeul (the Korean alphabet), Korean was written with Chinese characters.  King Sejong invented the alphabet in 1446 to help commoners illiterate in Chinese characters to easily read and write the Korean language.  It may seem strange to have a holiday devoted to an alphabet, but it's pretty amazing how logical in a linguistic sense Hangeul is.  Sounds made with similar articulations have similar shapes.  For example: sounds made with the teeth (ㅅs, ㅈ j, ㅊ ch), sounds made with the lips (ㅂ b, ㅁm, ㅍ p), sounds made by the tongue touching the gum ridge (ㄴ n, ㄷ d, ㅌ t), sounds made by the the tongue touching the soft palate (ㄱ g, ㅋ k), sounds made with the throat (ㅇ ng/no sound, ㅎ h).  Also, sounds that are the same but differ only by an aspiration differ only by one stroke (ㄷd and ㅌ t, ㅈj and ㅊ ch, ㅂb and ㅍp, ㄱg and ㅋk).  MBN, a newschannel in Seoul, ran a special about the Hangeul alphabet, and decided to film our Korean class.  They followed a Russian girl in our class around for a day to discuss her experiences learning the Korean language.  They also interviewed me and another American girl in my class, and they put an excerpt of my interview in the documentary and aired it on Hangeul Day.  So I'm officially famous now!  Sort of.  I have mixed feelings about this - this is the first time I've ever appeared on TV (excluding my hometown's community access channels), but it was extremely nerve racking, and the fact that I had to speak in Korean made it harder.  The whole interview process was extremely bizarre.  They started off asking us questions about how we started learning Korean and what we thought of the Korean language, but it was clear they weren't interested in our responses.  It sort of went like this:

Interviewer: So, what do you think of the Korean language?
Me: Well, it's okay.  It's fun to learn, but challenging at times....
Interviewer:  Challenging?  Isn't it really easy to learn?  The Hangeul alphabet is so logical....
Me: Well....
Interviewer: Just tell us about how amazing the Hangeul alphabet is.

In the end we basically just told them what they wanted to hear.  I'm not sure if that was just them or if most journalists are that way, but I'm guessing that makes sense because they were trying to make a program celebrating the Hangeul alphabet, and probably didn't want students saying how hard it was to learn.

Since I'm pretty sure most of the people following this blog don't speak Korean - here's a link to the video where they interview me.  I show up between 3:00 - 3:49, and my class shows up around 1:40.  And if you're a Korean speaker, please don't watch!  I stutter a lot (because I was nervous) and I'm pretty sure my last sentence doesn't make any sense.

http://mbn.mk.co.kr/pages/vod/programContents.php?progCode=88&menuCode=153&bcastSeqNo=1013915

I haven't posted in a while, so I'm going to try to go on a blogging blitz to make up for it.  I took a trip to see a lantern festival in Jinju and a film set in Hapcheon two weeks ago, and I'll try to upload photos from my trip soon!

Thoughts on Studying Abroad for a Semester+

I get asked sometimes why I'm spending so much time abroad.  I've spent a total of one year abroad so far (last summer + fall, this fall), and I'm planning on coming back to Korea for another year after I graduate.  As a result, I'm delaying my graduation by one year and grad school a few more years.  Couldn't I just spend my summers abroad and call it good?  Indeed when I originally wanted to spend time abroad, my parents were initially concerned about me delaying graduation and graduate school.

So why spend a semester abroad?  First and foremost, for language learners spending time abroad is essential.  It's true that there will always be the geniuses who can pick up languages from textbooks/Rosetta Stone and become fluent without setting foot in the respective country.  But for everyone else, there's really no way to become even remotely competent in a foreign language without having the constant immersion in a language sphere that going abroad affords.  I took Japanese for 7 years and Spanish for 4 years in middle school and high school, and I can't really speak a word of either today.  Compare this to the 2 years of Korean I've taken.  I definitely don't consider myself that great by any means, but I can least function in Korea, being able to convey pretty much anything I need to express.  I have also developed strong friendships here with Korean friends relying only on Korean.  The only difference? - spending time abroad.  It's amazing how much being abroad helps.  It really doubles / triples/ quadruples the time spent learning.  No longer is language learning limited to speaking to one native-speaking professor for one hour a day.  When studying abroad - the world becomes your classroom - every interaction with a store clerk, every conversation with a friend, every look at a subway advertisement becomes a learning opportunity.  I'm convinced that I've learned more from my interactions outside of the classroom than from my class.

Other people have asked me: why study on the Light Fellowship more than once?  The simple answer is: why not?  There is really nothing else like it anywhere else: I haven't come across any other fellowship that fully funds language study in East Asia for students of any program of study.  Most other scholarship programs have very rigid requirements - requiring a major in Korean Studies or the intention to study at a Korean university.  The Light Fellowship 'gets' that the benefits of knowing a foreign language isn't limited to those studying that country's history: in an increasingly globalized world, having knowledge of a foreign language is essential (or at least extremely helpful) across a wide array of disciplines including Business, Law, Politics, and the Sciences.  Going back to my original question, given the enormous opportunity for foreign language opportunity that the Light Fellowship affords, why would anyone only decide to use it for one summer?  I'm actually surprised that relatively few decide to take time off to spend at least a year in a language program.  It just seems like such a wasted opportunity to not take full advantage of the Light Fellowship's generosity to learn as much of a language as possible.  I realize that there's the concern of taking too much time away from Yale - but why not take a leave of absence?  I don't see how delaying graduation/grad school can be so bad - you're going to be spending 40+ years as a working adult, and I really doubt that taking one year off will hurt much in the whole scheme of things.  Graduate school / the real world will always be there waiting for you.

So, to anyone who is on the fence about studying abroad for more than a summer - just do it!  I don't know of anyone who spent a significant amount of time abroad and regretted it.  On the contrary, I know several Yalies who regretted not applying for a Light Fellowship.  I know that there is some concern about breaking friendships formed at Yale by spending a significant amount of time abroad - fear not!  I had similiar concerns, so I decided to spend only a semester abroad (summer+fall), allowing me to walk at graduation and spend one final semester with my class.  JE's dean, Dean Farley, is a huge proponent of studying abroad - and in fact brought in several students to speak to our class about the benefits of studying abroad.  I'm really glad I took his advice.