Minjok Essay: Are you one of us Aaron?

Before I start my essay about minjok, I would like to share a short conversation that I had with my friend Aaron. When I was in America, I was 5th grade in the elementary school and I had a friend named Aaron who was Korean American. I remember a one unforgettable question that I have asked him during the break time. We were talking about something and I said "You are Korean, right?". After few moments, he denied himself as Korean and he said "I'm American". So I said "You look like Korean and you speak like Korean. How can you say that you are not Korean!!" and the reply was "I have US citizenship that proves me I'm American". His opinion was so strong that I couldn't argue with it anymore.

 

 

Can we say Aaron is one of our minjok?
and this is a question that I want to solve during my whole essay.

I have mentioned the word 'Minjok' in my conversation with Aaron. But what is minjok?

According to the National Institute of the Korean Language, 'Minjok' means ethnic group formed with people from region in a long period of time sharing same language and culture. In English, minjok is often considered same as people, ethnic group, race-nation. The history of minjok goes back to 1900s. Minjok emerged by Shin Chaeho during the period when Japan tried to conclude the Japan-Korea treaty of 1905. Shin Chaeho, Korean independence activist, made minjok popular by portraying it as 'a warlike race that had fought bravely to preserve Korean identity'. At that time the most important thing for Koreans was to unite and resist toward Japan's attempt to completely colonize Korea to their terriotory and minjok came in to their mind, and Koreans started to fight back under the name of minjok. Finally on October 15th, Koreans could gain the fruit of independence.

Not only minjok brought independence but it also brought wealth to Korea. In 1950, Korea faced a war which separated Korea into two separate nations, North and South Korea. At that time Korean Conflict brought disastrous results to Korea. Korea's GDP was near zero and people were suffering to death. 1st president, Syngman Rhee, tried to rise Korea to its original place so he emphasized minjok once again to unite people from new-born South Korea. President thought in order to make changes Korean should move by groups not individuals. Thus, in his speech he said "United we stand, divided we fall" underling the importance of minjok. After this event, Koreans were able to make some improvements but they were falling behind compared to North Korea at that time.

The biggest leap in Korean economy occurred during the 5~9th president Park Chunghee. Some people call him a dictator being the president for more than 15years but it is true he has built a Korean society that can be seen now. During his term president Park Chunghee did something called 'Saemaeul movement'. Saemaeul movement can be translated as the new community movement which launched on April 22, 1970  to modernize the rural South Korean economy. This ideology of minjok made people to gather and actively engage in this movement and made them to think "We can do it". By this Koreans were able to accomplish something known as 'Miracle on the Han River' which is the term that people use to describe Korea's rapid economic growth after the war. By emphasizing minjok Korea could gain so many things in such a short period of time.

Nowadays, when ask Koreans about minjok they tend to focus more on something called 'Danil minjok' which is a group that is connected with pure blood. Thus, we don't give the title of 'Danil minjok' to people who have different nationality. But, when we think of Aaron, this seems to not fit with what Koreans think of minjok. Aaron is American but he was born under Korean mother and father which makes him a pure blood of Korean. So the concept of 'Danil minjok' is quite ironic in this case. Furthermore, in Korea we call Korean Americans a 'Dong po' which means they are the members of our Korean minjok. The concept of minjok is so subjective to conclude minjok in to a one definition and people have their own different definitions of minjok. Thus, despite all these minjok controversies, I have come up with my personal definition of minjok.

Minjok is group of people who are unified as one.
Minjok is just another word for unification. If they think they are Korean and can be unified as one of us, I think they can be called our minjok.

I defined minjok as unification because it's not the blood bond that brought us independence, and wealth but it was unification. When we look at our history, people say that we have accomplished independence from Japan because it was the power of our Korean pure blood. However, this is not correct when we see what actually happened in Korea. Korea have accomplished independence not because of their pure blood but they did because they were unified as one. Furthermore, in the book 'Ethnic Nationalism in Korea' written by Gi-wook Shin, the mentions about a special event that happened in Korea in the year of 2002. 2002 World Cup is one of the most fantastic moments that Koreans remember. During the World Cup, Koreans called themselves as 'Red Devils' and very passionately cheered Korean national team. Gi-wook Shin says this event showed Korean's strong pride that they are connected with single blood line by far ancestor called Tangun and he showed a survey done by KBS that Koreans think the blood is the most important thing in Korea. However, this survey was done in 1999 when internet wasn't even commercialized, and during my research I found that many Koreans don't think they are danil minjok anymore. In my opinion, it is 21st century now, and people have something called internet that connects every people all over the world. Also, Korea is becoming a multi-ethnic society. There are many Korean Americans, many mixed-blood, and also people who have changed their nationality to Korea. From what we can see now in the year of 2013, 'Minjok' should be defined as unification rather than old-fashioned Danil minjok.

Now getting back to Aaron. Is he one of our minjok?
Well, it depends on him whether he thinks he is one of Korean minjok. Since he has pure blood of Korean on the perspective of Danil minjok he can be considered as our minjok but minjok is group of people who share same culture. He denied himself as Korean but there are many Korean Americans that have very deep bond with Korea thinking they are Korean as much as they are American. Thus, I think it is not the Koreans who decide whether they are our minjok or not, it is themselves who decide where they belong to.

This is a news about Korean website called 'Uriminjokkiri' which was made to intentionally criticize North Korea's dictatorship. One thing that is interesting about this website is that it uses the word minjok to North Koreans saying they are also one of us. Their opinion is hereditary dictatorship should collapse one day, and North and South Korea should be united.

 

References:
National Institute of the Korean Language, 민족
Wikipedia, Korean ethnic nationalism
Wikipeida, Samaeul Movement
Wikipedia, Miracle on Han river
Gi-wook Shin, Ethnic Nationalism in Korea

 

Rhetorical Device: Hyperbole!!

<Hyperbole>

 

What is 'Rhetorical Device'?

Rhetorical Device is a technique that an author or speaker uses to convey to the listener or reader a meaning with the goal of persuading him or her towards considering a topic from a different perspective.

 

What is Hyperbole

Hyperbole(과장법) is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech from a Greek word meaning excess. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally

-wikipedia

Hyperbole is often used in poetry and is frequently encountered in casual speech.

 

Examples

-“It was so cold, I saw polar bears wearing jackets”

           One easy example explaining hyperbole.

           Polar bears live in Arctic and they don't wear jackets.

           Didn't really saw polar bears wearing jackets but it is used to describe the weather is frigid.

 

-Hyperboles shown in advertisements

iPhone 5: Browse, download and stream content at blazing-fast speeds.

           Blazing-fast speed is an exaggeration. Everyone knows that iPhone is not that fast.

 

Samsung GALAXY Camera: Shoot, Edit and Share instantly to get a thousand likes on your photos!

           Thousand likes is an exaggeration. It is really hard to get thousand likes on facebook.

 

Why do they use these hyperboles?

           They use it to persuade customers. It enlightens the product value.

          Better than saying you can instantly get 10likes.

 

-"My toaster has never once worked properly in four years. I follow the instructions and push two slices of bread down in the slots, and seconds later they rifle upwards. Once they broke the nose of a woman I loved dearly."

Speech of Woody Allen for college graduates.
This time, hyperbole was used to add humor to the speech. Rifle upwards, broken nose.

Group discussion on TOEFL!

In Mr. Menard's class, we gathered in groups of four and discussed about TOEFL writings written by our classmates. Our topic of  TOEFL writing was to write about the changes that new 21st century will bring. Everyone did good on their writings but I thought Jinuk's essay was the most creative one among them. And here's the result of our group discussion!

Hyunsoo Jeon (Seunghyun's response) http://bloglogfogmog.blogspot.kr/
1. Great examples (Specific & appropriate for the topic)
2. Great organization (Very TOEFL-style, but still, great branching out & great wrap-up)
3. Various changes in various fields (Communication, science & education)

Seungjun Lee (Jaewan's response) http://menboong.blogspot.kr/
1. Gave nice examples (Kyoto Protocol, etc.)
2. Out of the three reasons he used as support, two of them are really strong
3. No grammatical errors.

Jonghyun Wang (Jihun's response) http://jihunkmla.blogspot.kr/
1. Not an overview of the 21^st century, but very focused on one topic (power shift)
2. Might better to use objective POV for examples
3. Good organization

Yong-han Jung (Jinuk's response) http://kmlaenglishwriting.blogspot.kr/
1. Title: WWW (World Wide Web) – also an example of world w/o wires
2. Divide the use of wires into two parts (connect info & charging)
3. Good response to prompt: It’s future technology that we’re looking at
4. Making his own equation for the technology: Creative; Help the readers understand what he’s trying to say.

Song for my art project!!

VIVA LA VIDA

 

 

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemie's eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing
Now the old king is dead, Long live the king

One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered the my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand


I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain
Once you go there was never
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world

It was the wicked and wild wind
Blew down the doors to let me in
Shattered windows and the sound of drums
People couldn't believe what's I'd become

Revolutionaries wait
For my head on a silver plate
Just a puppet on a lonely string
Oh who would ever want to be king?

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Cavaly choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain
I know Saint Peter won't call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain
I know Saint Peter won't call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world


This is a song that I choose for my art project. It is a song by coldplay and  I have to make an album cover for it!! It is a quite interesting topic to do a project on but I'm actually writing on my blog about this because I cannot come up with any more ideas how I should make the album very creative. I don't know if someone will see my blog, but if you are please comment on my post about how you feel about this song and some ideas how I should make my album cover :)
Thank you~ (And maybe later, I'll post  my album cover here)

Montly TOEFL Essay #2: 3 keywords to 21th century

What change will 21th century will bring to us?

 

            It is now 21th century when people all look forward to see a new development that 21th century will bring. Humans have developed many things in 20th century and the progress still continues. By looking at the age of planet earth, 100 years is not a big thing. However, humans were able to accomplish many things in a very short period. I'm going to talk about the things that technological advancement will bring to our lives in 21th century by giving 3 key words.

smart       fast       eco

 

SMART!

          
'Smart' became a widely used word after the introduction of smart phones in 21th century. Smart phones are more than a device, it enable people to communicate rapidly and fast even in the far distance. Many people might think even 2G phones were adaptable to do these tasks but smart phones are the actual ones that made people live in 21 century. Facebook, Twitter are one of the most widely used social network system that everyone at least one account. By this people were able to communicate not just thorough voice or text, but even videos, pictures, and their own handwritings. This created something called smart revolution. In the future, wearable computers will be commercialized. Google launched their own wearable computer called Google glass. This enables people to communicate by eyeball movements. Wearable computers were invented by engineers in the past but it was hard to actually commercialize. Thus, Google has possibility to create a new device that will lead the 21th century.

 

FAST!

"The early bird catches the worm". This is one of the most well known quotes all around the world. It teaches us a lesson to act more rapid to gain benefits. 21th century will be a fast moving century like an early bird.
People want to use their time efficiently and the desire has lead to the creations of cars, trains, and airplanes. Now, people are moving faster than ever and world is being globalized. On the other hand, it is not only the humans that are moving fast, information moves even faster. On the internet we are able to communicate with friends all over the world, and it makes a whole new society that they can share their information, ideals, and emotions.
People living in 21th century say that it doesn't matter how much knowledge you have it in your mind, but what matters is to draw knowledge out of the internet faster than others. 21th century will demand people who are able to extract information in just seconds.

 

ECO!

21th century is the century that we have to start concerning about our environment. Our usage of resources has boosted as the result of technological advancement. In other words, people's pursuit of convenience has created something inevitable to change. Nowadays, almost every family has at least one car and some have two, producing huge amount of carbon dioxide resulting global warming. This wasn't a common thing even in late 20th century, and this is expected to increase in the future. Beside cars, smart phones are  also threatening the ecosystems, especially gorillas. Smartphone uses coltan which is used to store electircal charge. Since, coltan is found at the eastern regions of congo, gorillas are loosing their territory due to human's minning activity. 
We cannot make our environment as same as the old times, but we can start to reduce our usage of resources. Our little habits of not taking the convenient route will save the environment of 21th century.

 

           In 21th century, people will live a life that is much better than before. However, we always have to think that easier path isn't always a good one. World isn't made just for people living in 21th century, it is made for us and our future generation. Like our ancestors have build the earth of their descendents, our job is to protect the earth and making it a better place for our sons and daughters.

Weird Nacirema people! (Body Ritual Among the Nacirema)

          

Nacirema=American??

 

 

           It was Thursday that Mr. Menard asked us to write an in-class essay. And he gave me a piece of paper, which was filling two whole pages. This writing was about Nacirema people and their cultural behaviors. According to Horace Miner, the writer of this writing, Nacirema is a North American group living in the territory between the Canadian Cree, and the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles. I never heard or learned about these people's culture. Thus, their weird behaviors were very surprising to me at the first time. From private shrines to charm-boxes, everything was unfamiliar and different compared to my life. But on the next day, when Mr. Menard told us that Narcirema is a word which wrote American backwards, I just couldn't stop from laughing. Also, everything written on the essay was true life of Americans, just written in different perspective.

 

           After I knew that this writing is about Americans, Every puzzle pieces of Nacirema started to fit into the reality, and it was all true. Knowing the truth of Nacirema was knowing the true thoughts of mine toward cultural relativism. At the same time, it gave me an opportunity to look back at myself, how I felt about different cultures. And as we all consider As I described 'weird behaviors' on the paragraph one, I wasn't having positive attitude toward Nacirema people. Everyone who read this essay for the first time would have felt same as mine, and this is the main point which author tried to point out about cultural relativism. People claim cultural relativism, and they think they make interpretation of different cultures based on cultural relativism. However, as a human being, it is hard to understand other cultures, even if they do, it is just their outer side not the inner true feeling.

 

           This is writing also criticizes behaviors of American people. By looking at Americans in different point of view, their behaviors just look awkward and stupid. However, the truth is 'We are actually practicing this'. I'm not American but these Nacirema behaviors could applied to my life also. According to essay, the author describes ritual activities of Nacirema people are focused to the appearance and health of human body, criticizing what is now called lookism. For example, they rely on charm boxes, which seems very stupid activity, and relying on magicians for their healthcare. Anyone who didn't know the truth at the first time would think that people are having foolish phobia toward things they shouldn't be afraid. However, when we know the truth, situation flips over. This is the moment when people starts to question themselves. "Is it the real life of ours?". Nowadays, people put a lot of focus on their looks. As it is described on the passage most of Americans consider themselves ugly. Also, when we look at the case of Korea, we see many hospitals for plastic surgery, and most of women have their double eyelid operation. Society just leads them to have these surgeries, because society wants those people who have more good looking rather than people without double eyelid.

 

           Last week, I had a Chinese presentation about Chinese cultures and one topic was to research about 'China's uncleanness'. When the word 'Chinese' comes into my mind, I had a prejudice that Chinese are dirty. I knew I should consider cultural relativism, but my thinking toward Chinese seem unchangeable. However after days of research, I found out that they were in inevitable conditions of being dirty. There were no clean water resources provided to poors, and no houses for them to block from harms outside. Considering China's population, the number of poors just exceeds the populations of many other countries. I think this can be considered to the case of Nacirema. It isn't important to understand in the way how we look at ourselves. We must not have a stereotype that they should act like us. Being different doesn't mean being wrong. This writing about Americans gave me a huge lesson how I should react to different cultures. Also, as I mentioned on the paragraph 3, nowadays, people fear from too many things. As the members of a society, it is important for us to remember that we are the ones who control the society, not the society itself.

Academic movie review: Stupidity? (The Age of Stupid)

Are humans intelligent?

           It is definite that humans are intelligent. Humans know how to control their instincts unlike other animals, and their acts are based on rationality. However, even if humans are intelligent and rational, they are so stupid that they make themselves dangerous by their own hands almost to the death. Which means, human activities that are done so far is threatening their own human beings.

 

           Now, it is THE AGE OF STUPID. Human's eagerness of comfortability caused many harms(global warming, climate change) to our planet and it will happen more frequently in the future.  And the movie 'The Age of Stupid' is a good example for stupid human behaviors toward the climate change.

           The Age of Stupid  is a short movie directed and written by Franny Armstrong in 2009. This movie is a documentary movie, made by combinations of many documentary film about climate change. The story begins with an old archivist from devastated earth of 2055 living in a archive where all the resources are stored. Before the old man starts to show documentary, you can notice that he is repeating same question over and over again with the regret mixed into his voice.

"We could've save ourselves."

This short sentence contains many things that will be discussed later on the movie.

We could've save ourselves but we didn't. We could've save ourselves from the climate change but we did not do that. Why not?

           The purpose of this movie is to persuade audiences that climate change is a serious problem that we face today and we have be desirable to solve this problem not just being stupid. But, since this movie is just 89 minutes, it seems hard to persuade the audiences in such a short time. However, by providing examples of real documentary films, it makes the movie more credible and unbiased by looking at one problem with different perspectives. And the movie especially talks about the oil(oil is the main cause of stupid human activities), providing different view with three people.

           Oil also known as petroleum has been dominating our lives since late 19 century. It is used in variety of purposes starting from transportation to clothing. Now, the demand for this cheap and efficient energy source has grown so rapidly that it's the most used energy source throughout the world. In order to give more accurate and unbiased view, the movie shows three different documentaries related to oil.

 

           The first documentary is about a story of  young aged man who owns his low-price airline in India. Airlines are one of the most high consumers of petroleum since their jobs is to fly airplanes for far-distances, so a lot of oil is consumed. For the international airplanes about 36,000 gallons of oil is used for 10 hour flight.

           Second documentary film that archivist shows is about a man who works for an oil company called 'Shell'. His work is to analyze the samples brought from the under ocean and he decides whether it is adaptable place to drill the oil. Thus, he is contributing to the oil production.

           For the last, there is a woman from Nigeria who suffers from harm driven by the oil companies. There is no clean drinking water for them to drink, and the atmosphere became murky that it is even hard to breathe. All these harms came from desire of oil companies to make more profit.

           Now, by taking three examples with the perspective of economy, we can notice there is serious inequality among these people. First example is a 'consumption activity', second one is 'production activity', and the last one is 'allocation activity'. Each three activities rely on each other to form a economy system having all having profits. However, Nigerian woman from the third example gets all the harms from the process of production and consumption. For example, strong and rich country like USA consumes huge amount of gasoline and huge amount of carbon dioxide is being emitted to the atmosphere which causes the global warming. Thus, it seems fair that USA gets all the disadvantages for producing greenhouse gas but it all goes to the underdeveloped countries especially located near the equator. Total increase of temperature of the earth is just critical to them unlike USA, located in the northern hemisphere. These countries suffer many climate changes like flood and hurricanes driven by developed countries. Developed countries get to have benefits contrary to underdeveloped countries.

 

          The reason that I chose 'Stupidity?' for my writing is because I wanted to question if human beings are intelligent(What is the standard point of intelligency?). Other animals which are concerning about extinction of their specie might be regarded as more intelligent animals than human beings in our 'Age of Stupid'. Now it is time for us to look back at ourselves worring about the future as we did in the long past before the evolution and making earth a better place for our future generations.

 

<People trying to see global warming as a natural process>

Reflection of 'The age of stupid'

 

 

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_age_of_stupid

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change

http://navercast.naver.com/contents.nhn?rid=116&contents_id=3754

http://navercast.naver.com/contents.nhn?rid=116&contents_id=5270