Back in July 2016, I had left Singapore and attended a four-weeks summer school programme held by HISS in Korea. I will share my experience in two different posts, with part 1 about the modules I had taken in HISS and part 2 on my recount and reflection about the stay in Korea.
Prior to the trip, I had learnt Korean Language for about 2.5 years in Singapore and attained TOPIK Level 2(Test of Proficiency in Korean). Due to this reason, I have always wanted to travel to Korea as well as to further polish my proficiency in Korean by interacting with the natives. This thus, led to my decision of attending HISS in Korea. At the same time, I used this opportunity to clear two of my common core electives in HISS. As there is no restriction as to what modules we can take for common core electives, I had chosen (1) Korea language, culture and society and (2) intermediate Korean language.
Korea language, culture and society
As the module title implied, this is a humanities module about Korea and its language, culture and society. In this class, students were taught about the variations of Korean language, for instances, the types of dialects (e.g. jeju dialect or jeolla dialect) used in different provinces, the differences between the historical and present Korean language and how/why it was derived and banmal (반말 – informal language) & jondaemal (존댓말 – formal language). On the culture aspect, we were taught about the cultural habits in Korea (e.g. seniority-based culture, Korean kinship terminology & the history of the Korean kinship system and traditional Korean dietary). Lastly, the professor also shared with us the transformation in Korea society; for examples, the predominant influence of Korean-pop in a domestic and global context as well as its changes in technologies.
What left me with the deepest impression was Korea’s seniority-based culture. Being a Chinese-Singaporean growing up in Asian background, I know that seniority-based culture is greatly emphasized; I have to greet everyone in the family with the right formality terms (e.g. uncle and aunty in mandarin) when I met them during festive seasons. However, towards friends or cousins who are older than me, I need not have to greet them in a formal manner; I can just simply address them by name. In Korea, that is not the case; if I am to meet anyone (be it friends or cousins) who is older than me, I will need to use the formal greeting terms (e.g. for girl addressing someone who is older, use unnie for ladies or oppa for guys). Even for strangers, the fact that I do not know the person well yet, I need to hold the formality and be using jondaemal instead of banmal until both parties come to a consensus that it is appropriate to do so. Thus, as a foreigner staying in Korea for a month, this is one thing that I was rather mindful as I did not wish to appear as rude to the Koreans.
There are also various assignments associated with this module. As one of the assignments for this module is to do a presentation on the cultural differences between our home country (i.e. Singapore) and Korea, I had chosen the topic of Waste Management System, specifically on the area of residential wastage. In my opinion, this is the most prominent distinct cultural difference.
In Korea, its waste management system is known as the “Volume-based Waste Fee System”, which is based on the “pay as you throw” principle. This means that charges for garbage disposal of individuals are calculated based of the purchased of specific garbage bags. Also, wastages must be categorised into the “4 Categories of Waste” using the specific garbage bags – food waste (i.e. edible by animals), general waste (i.e. non-edible by animals), recyclable items and large waste items before disposal. This is stipulated by law in Korea and any non-compliances will be charged. Such implementation created a significant change in raising public awareness toward waste disposal and it helps to highlight the importance of waste reduction and costs of waste treatment. It also changed individuals’ behaviors on garbage disposal after a substantial period of time, even though the result from initial stage of implementation wasn’t that great.
In Singapore, we do not have any enforcements in separating out food waste and general waste for residential wastages; neither do we need purchase garbage bag for the disposal of rubbish. The only similarity is that we do have recycling policy implemented, but till date, it seems like it has not been diligently followed. Hopefully soon, with the constant promotions by the relevant agencies about the importance of recycling and the impacts of harmful substances affecting the environment, every one of us play our own part in creating a better environment for ourselves to live in.
Intermediate Korean Language
Even though I already have foundation in Korean language, I would not deny that it is still nerve wrecking for me to attend the intermediate class in HISS as I’m afraid that I will not be able to catch up with the class. Thankfully, that did not happen. Also, I am glad that I took this module as it had some sort of linkage to the module Korea language, culture and society, in term of the language aspect. In this module, I was taught to identify banmal (반말 – informal language) and jondaemal (존댓말 – formal language) and its usage in different contexts, which established the linkage.
Also in this module, I learnt about numerous Korean grammar particles and how it can be applied. With the knowledge, I could read short narrative in the given textbook without much translation needed.
For the final assignment of this module, we were tasked to interview a Korean and hold a conversation with the individual in Korean language. After which, we will need to do a presentation of the interview on our findings about the individual. There were four suggested topics available for us to consider which include – self-introduction, travelling, memorable event in life and future plan/goal. For me, I did an interview with my selected participant on self-introduction about himself and on his past travelling.
One of the challenges that I encountered was the fact that I am still not 100% proficient in Korean language and there were certain grammar mistakes I made in my questions posed to the participant. Even though prior to the interview the professor had already helped to check my questions once, when articulated out verbally, I still made mistakes due to the flow of conversation. This led to confusion for my participant. Lucky enough, my participant could speak English so I was able to explain certain things to him. He was nice enough to help me rectified the mistakes I had made too.
Another challenge for me was to type the narrative out based on the recorded interview audio. Differing from transcription of interview which I can type the interview out word by word based on the audio, for narrative I need to ensure that my content flow with what I typed. Hence, it took me quite some time to listen and typed the content with the right usage of words and grammar particles, since there were also some slight differences in conversational and written Korean.
Comments