Jubilee Justus Report

Cultures around the world are divide by their distinctive characteristic of people, and how people interact within their society. Most cultures are driven by the way their environment has been set for them. Many of cultures have to adapt to the way their environment are due to the conditions that are set for them and the amount of resources that they are provided. The biggest drive for culture are the historical custom. Most countries continue to carry their ancestor custom so that the tradition may stay with them throughout their years, in which making other countries distinctive from one another. One of the particular country that will be discuss in this report is North Korea. In this report, I will be discussing the North Korean culture, with describing their living condition in the country, common issues that they face with on a daily bases, and common threat that they pose on other countries.

     My biggest problem in getting used to this culture was the people. I was astounded when I first entered 4th grade. It was so different from what I was used to. I couldn¡¯t decide which system was better. In Korea, the school system is very rigid. From first grade, kids have to sit in chairs that they cannot move out of. There is no feedback from the students whatsoever. It¡¯s always the teacher teaching and students answering hardly ever. Also teachers would hit the students if they did something they weren¡¯t suppose to and even for bad grades. It was nothing like that here. Our class set on the carpeted floor to just talk and for the teacher to read us stories. The teacher always asked for our feedback. The teacher would not even yell at her students no matter what the situation was. Another strange this was, when a student found another way of doing a math problem, the teacher complimented him whereas in Korea, if a student did a math problem another way, the teacher would yell at him and tell him to do it the conventional ways. Both systems have

Although China’s influence over Korea has waned severely since the dynastic years we find the Confucian system of virtues and behaviors, China’s chief export from that time, still very much alive. Korea highly values the extended family, education, personal discipline and public order. In South Korea Confucian temples continue to be maintained throughout the country. The tenets of Confucianism are seen as antidotes to social ills and therefore education is thought of as a means of building character, not simply of intellectual formation. The values of Confucianism are promulgated throughout Korea in places as diverse as school, the office and the home. Television programs often portray Confucian merits such as filial piety and harmony. However

A terrible experience during the eighth grade has caused me to become prejudiced against Koreans, and believed that they were the most avaricious race of people. Since then this has prompted me to develop a negative notion towards them. During my middle school years, my parents would give my brother and I lunch money for school on a daily basis. Every day after class, we would have to walk to our house which was quite distant from our school. One day, we decided to stop by a store on our way home because we were dying of thirst. After we selected one drink that we agreed to share and went to the counter, we realized that we were short five cents. The store owner told us that we could not purchase the drink unless we had the exact amount of

The United States of America has earned a reputation of treating all individuals equal under the law. Over recent years, the media has taken an interest into cases of possible police brutality against the opposite race. More typically, it has been white police officers using misconduct against black citizens. This has been a trend seen throughout all of history. So, is the current criminal justice system working to prevent cases of unequal treatment under the law?

Though I have Akitas and Shiba Inus galore, Korea became my little pet. Unlike my dogs which love me unconditionally, Korea had conflicting feelings, adoring me for building prosperous industries and better infrastructure, but at the same time, resenting me for trying to erase their identity and forcing them to benefit

“Mom, why is she so dark like fillipino if she’s korean like me?”, “I thought asians were suppose to be smart”, “Since your last name is Kim are you related to Kim Jong Un?”. These were some of the comments I’ve heard growing up in, my whole life. Not just from America where people see me not as a true American but also from Korea, where there is no ethnicity difference. Growing up, I learned to understand it was because I looked different and racism is a concept that is inevitable, but the summer of seventh grade I visited Korea, it changed everything. It had been a while since I last visited Korea, I had been so young I could not remember anything. But when I went that summer when I was older, I was shocked. In a land where I thought I belonged to with my race, was doing the opposite of what I had to learn to overcome in America. In a place where I thought I looked the same still had reasons to accept me. Even though I was the same race as the people there, I still wasn’t good enough. My skin was to dark, I was too big, my face was too round, and I didn’t look ‘asian’. Racism had been consistently plaguing by my side since the beginning.

An example of this is that in the United States we find it alright to ask someone to come to us by pointing our finger and curling it toward us. In Japan they find it offensive to signal someone to come to them in this manner. Something as simple as a hug for which we do quite often in the US can be considered offensive in foreign countries. Weird right? Wow, I could get into a lot of trouble in countries like this because I am a hugger. When seeing friends out and about we tend to hug each other as a gesture of missing each other or love for one another. I never knew this because I have friends from these countries that would find it offensive, maybe they have become “Americanized”. Putting your hands in your pocket as many of us have done many, many, many times, this is found to be rude in several countries. I guess Alanis Morsette would be in trouble also (her song Hand in My Pocket HAHAHA). I can honestly say that I would also be considered rude because I have a bad habit of placing my hand or hands in my pocket. I have even been known to walk around with my hands in my pockets. So I guess I better stay away from places like Austria or the Netherlands. Next time you find yourself doing simple gestures such as these you may want to consider where you

Kim (2011) states in the essay, “We hip hop to Usher with as much enthusiasm as we have for belting out Korean pop songs at a karaoke. We celebrate the lunar Korean thanksgiving as the American on, although our choice of food would most likely be the moon-shaped rice cake instead of turkey. We appreciate eggs Benedict for bunch, but on hung-over mornings, we cannot do without a bowl of thick ox-bone soup and a plate of fresh kimchi” (pg.

I learned about the way they sit when I went on a trip to Korea and it was very weird to see, and very hard to sit there to the way they're accustomed too. When we went out for dinner in Korea we went to a well known restaurant with a table right in front of you there were no chairs. First, you

So, if I make the fried Kim-chi with the Kim-chi from a market, it is just not tasty as much as the one that my mom made. Yet, however the taste of it, every time I eat Kim-chi, it reminds me of my mom’s caring for me and the fact that I am Korean. Because when she tried to make me eat Kim-chi, she always used to say like ‘oh, Koreans should eat Kim-chi.’ By that time, however, what she said did not really come across my mind. Since all the people around me were Korean, I did not really know what being Korea means. But now I am in America, and being ‘Korean’ becomes one of the unique characteristics that represent me.

When I was my 15 years, I watched my first Korean dorama. Then I did not know how it would exert an impact on my fate and view of life. This was the world-famous “Boys over flowers”, which became an occasion of my acquaintance with the country of morning freshness. I strongly believe that my life transformed for better and blossomed after watching this Korean dorama was watched by everyone, from the youngest to the oldest. It drew me in this world – the world of Korean drama, Korean pop and Korean cinema. Knowledge about Korea was increasing more and more gradually and new sides of Korea were opened. I found out the country is famous not only of the Korean wave, Hallyu, but also of kimchi, various traditional food, colorful nature and combination of tradition and modernity. And some pieces of the Korean culture and language are quite similar

South Korea appears in the first quadrant of Figure 2.2 in which states that the country has a culture with relatively larger power distance and lower individualism. South Korea has a relatively large power distance due to the country’s strong emphasis in respecting for one’s elders and superiors. This cultural belief is deeply

My return to Korea in the summer of 2001 was nothing short of a culture shock. I was in a country I thought I had learned by heart. It was the country I always rooted my identity and pride from. I wasn’t ready for the shock. I

In this interview Ben Bagley asks Theresa Han about the difference between Korean and American culture. Theresa is a teenager who recently moved to the United States so she has an excellent perspective for understanding the differences and similarities between these countries.