South Korea

The South Korean traditional piece of writing I have chosen to evaluate is entitled Why The Sea Is Salty. It was translated by Suzanne Crowder Han in 1991. It is about a magical stone hand mill owned by an ancient king that would produce anything the owner would ask for. One day, a thief took the mill, sailed out to sea and asked for the most valuable thing of all in ancient times; salt. The salt filled his boat and it sank, drowning the thief. The mill has not been told to stop and continues to produce salt to this day. Like most folktales, this story has a moral: Greed and too much of something won’t get you anywhere. The story is an overly simplified English translation and does not give many clues about the Korean culture, but will do my best to maximize each one. In this story, no references were made to a god, and this suggests that the society was very dependent on its leaders for guidance, in this case, a king. The fact that the thief desperately wanted to steal the stone mill shows that the culture heavily values material possessions and is identical to western culture in this regard.  An easily overlooked detail in the story is the thief’s escape method. He sailed a boat out to his hometown, and this only happens next to the sea, and along the coast. This environment is not hard to come by in Korea. There are no other issues in this story aside from the mill being stolen from the mill being stolen from the King and the Thief drowning and there are mo unique uses of language ether. This is probably because the story is directed to a young audience and is meant to be easily understood.

http://park.org/Korea/Pavilions/PublicPavilions/KoreaImage/hangul/litera/mill/index.htm

Juha

Sophie 

When reading a foreign piece of literature, there are many ways to find cultural clues that can help in the overall understanding of the piece. The folktale I read was Shimch’ong , the Blind Man’s Daughter which is a Korean story about putting others before your self. Something common that comes up in folktales, myths or stories such as this, religious beliefs often come up as well as attitudes towards them. In this piece, clues about religion were found when Shim was told to offer 300 bushels of rice to Buddha so he’d regain his site, which tells us this is a Buddhist society. Values and what is important also comes up in these types of stories a lot. For example, the biggest value here was family importance and putting others before your self, when Shimch’ong sacrificed herself so that her father could see again. Clues about the stories geography are that it is set in Korea since it is a Korean folktale. We also know more specifically that they live bear a river since that was where the Dragon King lived. We found clues about Shim and Shimch’ong’s daily life when in the beginning it was stated in the first paragraph that they were poor and a small family of two who lived their lives as beggars. General issues in the story were hinted to us when the merchants had to please the Dragon King or else he’d change the weather that showed that they had an issue with pleasing him and his needs. There was also the more obvious issue of Shim dealing with his handicap of being blind while trying to survive. There were also issues of raising a daughter without a wife and issues with the people having to provide the King with whatever he wanted, like when he wanted to marry Shimch’ong, he got what he wanted. Clues about the language are that they most probably speak Korean since the setting is in Korea, and they speak very properly in their dialogue with one another and don’t use and slang terms whatsoever.

  In one of the articles I read, North Korea spoke in a very aggressive tone to South Korea about their growing nuclear arsenal. North Korea threatened to annihilate South Korea after one of the South’s high ranking officials said that he would consider attacking the communist nation if tried to carry out a nuclear attack. The response from the North was hostile and an unidentified KCNA military commentator said “Our military will not sit idle until warmongers launch a pre-emptive strike, everything will be in ashes, not just a sea of fire, if our advanced pre-emptive strike begins.” Shortly after, North Korea fired a salvo of short range nuclear missile into the sea threatening to “mercilessly wipe out” any South Korean warships that violate the sea border. North Korea also banned any South Korean officials from entering the border.

In my opinion, the problem lies in the fact that both the governments of North and South Korea don’t want to be the first to give in to the pressure put on them by the other. If one North Korea gives into the pressure and reunites with the South, this will invalidate all the threats and aggressive gestures it cast on the South. Kim Jung Il will look like a fool, and nobody wants to be in a position like that.

Be a Cultural Detective-ARCEE

Title: Korea Creation Myth
Country of origin: South Korea (in the text the setting is based on the whole of Korea)
Author: James A. Crites
Date Accessed: 15 May, 2008
Site: http://www.angelfire.com/ca/beekeeper/korea.html

CLUES ABOUT DAY-TO-DAY LIFE (FOOD, CLOTHING, HOUSING, FAMILY SIZE)

The clues that I have found out in the story relating to the topic of day-to-day life is that the clothes the characters may have been wearing are god-like clothes, and that the animals that they myth was referring too had no clothes, but instead naked (with fur). Housing, it said that one of the characters lived in heaven, but animals, bear and tiger were living in a cave on earth. The Family size wasn’t clearly explained, because it only mentioned god and the bear and tiger and God having a child and a wife. The food was explained directly to the bear and tiger, in the text where God gave them specific food ot eat to become human, which was garlic and mugwort.

CLUES ABOUT VALUES & BELIEFS (RELIGION, ATTITUDE, ETC.)

The clues to the topic about the beliefs were clearly mentioned in the story, and seeing that the genre is a creation story, the religion and the beliefs are god, heaven, and the creation of the Korean Peninsula, and of bears becoming human. The attitude was of the story only showing how and what of the creation of Korea.

CLUES ABOUT LANGUAGE OR DIALECT

Considering the names of the characters like Dan-Gun, heavenly prince, Chancellor cloud/rain/ and Wind. It shows that the names come from the region of Eastern-Asia, or somewhere along the area of China, or Japan. Also, that there language was most likely Korean.

CLUES ABOUT CLIMATE & GEOGRAPHY

In the text it was shown that the Chancellors that “the heavenly prince” Dan-Gun brought with him with the name of Rain/Cloud and Wind, was that their names represented what happens in that are in a daily basis (the weather). The Geography, in the “beautiful” Korean Peninsula consisted of trees, mountains, and caves, and the city of Pyongyang, (which in the present is now the capital of North Korea).

Stevii:

In researching South Korea, you will come across a number of articles concerning certain issues that have to do with the country and its neighbors. In this case, I found an article called “North Korea threatens to turn South into ‘ashes’”. I found this newspaper article on the International Herald Tribune website. It was written by a South Korean journalist named Choe Sang-Hun from inside the country. Therefore the author most likely had firsthand experience with the subject of North Korean threats against South Korea. It also gives a good view to the reader. The readers of this article would mostly include people interested in foreign affairs. It was written to inform the readers about what was happening between North and South Korea. It has very little emotions included in it, because it is very informative, and therefore is based on facts rather than opinions. It was written on March 30, 2008, which is very recent. Therefore, it has very up-to-date information, and it is very accurate.

Arcee

Analyzing an Informal Text about a country

North Korea inoculates poultry against bird flu following outbreak in South Korea

This is a new article on South Korea that I found on the Internet in The International Herald Tribune (Asia-pacific). This article had no author, and was published on May 5, 2008. The purpose to this news article is to inform people about the current events in South Korea and it directed to adults, news agencies, business men, and scientists whose work is about “bird flu” and/or who is interested into the topic (bird flu, H5N1 virus, North/South Korea). The author of the article hasn’t shown any strong emotions, but is getting right to the point based on the topic, and is said in 3^rd person, like what is shown in the text,

“South Korea has slaughtered about 6.5 million chickens, ducks and other poultry since early last month when bird flu broke out there for the first time in more than a year.”

There isn’t any like feeling to it, just that the author is being straight-forward about the topic.

“The North has intensified its quarantine efforts on poultry farms and ordered farmers to keep their poultry in pens to stop them from coming into contact with migratory birds, it said.”

It shows that the article is showing proof about the topic from different sources.

Click here for article

Sophie:

Analyzing An Informational Text About A Country

“South Korea Ready to Embrace Green Issues” by Alison Smale

This is a news article from the Herald Tribune written by journalist Alison Smale. It features second hand information since she is not from South Korea and is not experiencing what the citizens of the country are. The text was written for adults who are interested in environmental issues and world issues. The article was meant to inform people about South Korea’s plans to go green. The writer is not really writing in a bias perspective because this article is more informative and matter-of-fact than persuasive. However, if it had to show any perspective of the situation, it would be the positive side of raising environmental awareness, which the author clearly shows. The text was written a little less than a year ago, meaning their act to go green is still in motion. More recent events in articles also makes the readers think more about the situation because it is not just something in history books, it is happening right now.

Click here for article

Title: The Disobedient Frog
Genre: Folktale
Analysis:
In any country, there are clues in literature that can link to almost anything about a country. This does not exclude my EXPO country, South Korea. When I looked at literature originating in South Korea, I came across a folktale called “The Disobedient Frog.” It is an ancient story passed down through generations, which means that it has no particular time period that it pertains to, and that it has no specific author to speak of. The first thing the tale mentions is that a young frog lived with his widowed mother. Seeing that it mentions no other family members, one can imply that this is a family of two. From this, you can guess that family sizes can be quite small in South Korea, even though this is a family of frogs. The mother in the story complains that she is embarrassed by her disobedient child, which can entail high standards for children in the country. Parents expect their children to be well-rounded and obedient; nothing less. It also shows that in small families, children tend to be spoiled with praise, which often leads to a lack of discipline which is not enforced as strongly as it would be in a larger family. It also hints about the social situation, because it talks of her being embarrassed by him. In fact, not having enough children is becoming a grave problem in South Korea right now. The fertility rates have dropped dangerously below the replacement rate, and this isn’t good. The story does not hint at that issue in particular, though. The only reference to language in the story is when the mother is teaching her son to speak like a frog, and she cries “Kaegul! Kaegul!” He is a disobedient child and instead cries “Kulgae! Kulgae!” in return, but you can guess by the ending of the story that this is the onomatopoeia for the sound a frog makes, because it explains why frogs call “Kaegul! Kaegul!” when it rains. The rain can also be interpreted as a clue to the geography of South Korea, because it is saying at the very least that there is some rainfall there, and it is not a desert. It also mentions a river and a hillside, which are accurate, because South Korea is very mountainous. 80% of the land is covered in mountains, in fact. As you can see, there is a lot to be learned from literature. You may be surprised what you can find in your own stories.

South Korea has killed all poultry including chickens and ducks, to prevent a second outbreak of the H5N1 strain in the capital, they have already confirmed 31 cases so far and since April has killed more that 7 million chickens and ducks. Even though the spread is still continuing, they continue to slaughter. Last week 2 chicken were tested positive for the avian flu. The government plans to use vaccines for 5% of the country’s population.

Click here for article

In Seoul, South Korea, on a beach a wave that is belived to be 16 feet high has crashed down and has killed 9 people including 2 children ages 5 and 9, and has injured about 14 people. at first about 15 people has been missing and fortuantely later on has been accounted for. The wave was probably caused by regular tidal movements in the Yellow Sea, and during the time, and during hte incident it was couldy and was drizzling.

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