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

Juha

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.

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).

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.

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.

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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.

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