In Korea, there is a traditional honor guard. It follows the music and appearance of the Joseon Dynasty exactly as they were. This is the unit welcoming the Japanese Prime Minister who visited Korea today.
Until 1998, Korea blocked Japanese culture, and this was a backlash against cultural annihilation, such as the banning of the Korean language and forced name changes, which Japan carried out during the colonial period. It might be difficult to understand, but until then, Japanese culture was something that had to be blocked to protect Korean culture.
This situation ended in 1998, and President Kim Daejung's 1995 remark became famous: "Let's accept good Japanese culture."
The funny thing is that even before then, it was impossible to avoid the influence of Japanese soft power. Because the cultural influence of Japan was global, beyond Asia. In the shopping districts, pirated copies of Japanese comics, animation, and music were widespread. This was illegal, but because Korea's copyright law at the time was lax, nobody cared. Koreans who grew up during this time remember the huge popularity of the Japanese rock band "X Japan."
Given that North Korean people risk harsh punishment to import South Korean music and TV series, people's lives are similar everywhere. lol
The Republic of Korea has advocated for democracy since the days of the Provisional Government, but after the division, democracy was not realized due to dictators who maintained hostile coexistence with North Korea. They used to say that democracy and human rights were impossible in a country technically still at war.
The struggle of citizens who were aware of this problem continued, and terrible violence by state power also occurred several times. This was a struggle toward something almost impossible, and even foreign media were skeptical about Korea's democratic future. However, the suppressed emotions of all citizens burst out in 1987. The trigger was an incident in which a college student died under police torture. Citizens of all classes came out into the streets and stood against state power. This could soon cause setbacks to the scheduled Seoul Olympics. The military regime, driven to the edge of a cliff, had no choice but to sign a constitutional amendment bill guaranteeing free elections and human rights.
This is called the June Democratic Movement. The historical film 1987: When the Day Comes, which deals with this event, is a really well-made movie, so I would gladly recommend it.
I think this unique communitarianism is an Asian characteristic. It is everyone joining forces for society even though there is no personal benefit. When a foreign exchange crisis occurred in Korea in 1997, many people even donated gold they kept at home without expecting any compensation. As time passes, I feel it is a pity that these Asian values are gradually disappearing in Korea.
To be exact, this is something done to food during a memorial ceremony held on the anniversary of a deceased family member's death. Everyone in the East Asian cultural sphere knows that something is wrong.
Stories often appear on Korean internet communities about encountering Westerners who are ignorant about Asia. The stories mainly consist of talking about meeting people who think Koreans will understand Chinese and Japanese to some degree. This is purely a misunderstanding. The mutual intelligibility among Chinese, Korean, and Japanese is close to zero. It is not that there are no similarities among these languages.
To summarize, it is like this.
-They started from completely different proto-languages. Therefore, they are classified into completely different language families linguistically.
-Classical Chinese was the Latin of East Asia, and they came to share a large amount of vocabulary borrowed from Classical Chinese. Of course, as time passed, the pronunciations of Chinese characters became different in each country, but there is still a certain level of similarity.
-These are languages that started from different roots and underwent convergent evolution. High-frequency vocabulary is completely different, but low-frequency vocabulary tends to be similar. Furthermore, considering that each country has its own unique Sino-derived vocabulary and usages, speakers of these languages cannot understand even a single word of each other's languages without learning them.
I am asking out of pure curiosity, but did you think people from these countries could understand each other's languages to some extent?
And is there any other fact about East Asia that you don't know well?
-The election of Yoon Sukyeol
He ruined Korean diplomacy and delayed AI investment for several years. If I can't erase this event, I will leave his self-coup attempt alone. This is because it made it possible to impeach him.
-Putin's invasion of Ukraine
As North Korea became closely aligned with Russia, the situation on the Korean Peninsula became more complicated and entangled.
-The election of Trump
Fu**in tariffs, and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
There are two examples in Korea. Both are very, very popular foods.
Seonji haejangguk: Cow's blood that has been solidified is called seonji. The brown chunks seen in the photo is exactly that. This is a soup boiled with various ingredients and spicy seasoning.
Sundae: It is a Korean-style sausage made by putting various ingredients such as glutinous rice or glass noodles into the small intestine. Pig blood also goes into it.
Unfortunately, Thailand and Taiwan have caught up with us./s
Korean and Japanese are not of the same language family, but their grammars are very similar, and they even have much common vocabulary borrowed from Classical Chinese. If one memorizes only the native Korean words, which make up most of the basic vocabulary, the rest becomes very easy. This is because, first, the word order is the same, and although the Korean and Japanese pronunciations of Chinese characters are very different, they are cognates, so there are similarities in the pronunciations, and a one-to-one correspondence for each character is possible.
Chinese people are also a group that learns Korean easily, which is due to this lexical similarity. However, they don't learn Korean more easily than Japanese people do.
Mongolians and Turkish people also learn Korean relatively easily because of the grammatical similarities. However, they are not of the same language family. This is indeed a topic that gives many linguists a massive headache.
What about other people learning Korean? Is it possible? lol
In Korea, when election season comes, candidates ride around in trucks playing loud music. You can also see campaign workers wearing clothes matching the party colors and dancing together in groups.
It seems like they transcribe Sino-Korean pronunciations, including personal names, into katakana, but are there really many people who don't know that these names are based on Chinese characters?
I happened to hear this, and it was quite surprising. Of course, a deep understanding of a neighboring country is not necessarily required.
To explain further, the number of names derived from native Korean words is increasing in modern times. They are considered modern and refined names that break away from tradition, but it is necessary to be careful because they can sound childish if chosen poorly. For example, there are female names based on season names like Bom(spring), Yeoreum(summer), Gaeul(autumn), and Gyeoul(winter).
Personally, I like the nickname given to Korea, "The Poland of Asia."
Koreans have strong resilience.
Since ancient times, Koreans have loved white clothes, so they were called the "ethnic of white clothes." They layered black coats(두루마기) over them. White clothing also required dyeing, and while it was vulnerable to stains, being able to keep it clean was a symbol of wealth.
Even now, the most common colors to see on Korean streets are neutral colors like white, gray, and black. It might be a preference handed down from earlier times.😅IDK
Currently, in Korean movies, actor Ma Dongseok's role has been solidified as a character who solves everything with overwhelming physical force.
Now he is the Korean Steven Seagal.
For example, in French, both butterflies and moths are "papillon." In Korean, both rabbits and hares are "tokki."
This is because Korean hares look cute, like rabbits, so Koreans are often surprised when they see foreign hares.
hare=산토끼,멧토끼santokki, mettokki
rabbit=집토끼jiptokki
Also, the Korean language doesn't distinguish between mice and rats and calls them both "jue."
mouce=생쥐saengjue
rate=시궁쥐sigungjue
squirrel=다람쥐daramjue
Long arm octopuses are called "nakji," which is distinct from octopus, because they are a very common food ingredient.
Also, we have various names for calling deer.
사슴saseum=deer
노루noru=siberian roe deer
고라니gorani=water deer