Seoul Wanderings

 

A short video of my adventures in Seoul this summer. Enjoy!

         -Adena

 

 

Adena Peckler

B.A. Asian Studies, International Affairs 2015

Sigur Center 2014 Korean Language Fellow

Seoul National University, South Korea

 

For more posts from Korea:

Language Study at Seoul National University   

Update from Seoul

Language Study at Seoul National University

               In choosing a language program in Seoul this summer, I was faced with an overwhelming number of renowned university programs to consider. After having talked with students who had studied in South Korea, I was directed to Seoul National University’s Korean Language Education Center (KLEC) based on the evaluation that the curriculum offered would provide a well-rounded approach to reading, writing, and speaking. Without a doubt the program advanced my knowledge of the Korean language, but this achievement required an immense amount of time and energy.
                On the first day of the summer session, I was completely surprised by the pace of the class. From the textbooks, lectures, and even amongst the teachers, there was no English explanation to be found. At George Washington University the language classes are to a large extent taught in Korean, but there also exists a reliable English crutch for clarification. Yet even in KLEC’s Introductory Level 1, where students presumably have had no prior exposure to the language, classes are taught entirely in Korean! There are definite benefits to this strict “Korean Only” policy as it forces students train their ear and speech, but in the first few weeks I felt completely overwhelmed. 

I have been studying Korean for a few years now, but the vocabulary and grammar I understood did not coincide with the foundational material of KLEC. This became clear when I submitted the initial placement exam and, from a quick glance and a matter of seconds, it was declared that I was “halfway between levels”. From such a helpful deduction I chose to round-up and to proceed to the next level. This was perhaps the greatest challenge for me during my time in Korea- aside from reviewing the material learned in class, I also strove to play catch-up. In a mere ten weeks I learned more than could ever be imagined in the year equivalent, let alone a semester, at George Washington University.

 

 

 

On the left are the textbooks used during ten weeks at KLEC.
The book to the right spans almost a year's worth of study in the United States.

          
               As I began to acclimate to my new life in Seoul, the students in my class were the kindest people who came to truly define my experience in this city. Despite our diverse backgrounds and ages, the fact that we were all studying in South Korea reflected a shared passion amongst us for the country and its culture. Applying one’s knowledge of Korean outside of the classroom extends only so far, especially given the lack of both time and patience for strangers to aid you. Yet in the comfort of a class group, we could support each other whilst stumbling through the language. Although most of the students had studied together since Level 1, my entire class was extremely welcoming and became my greatest aid through the informal review sessions we created for those new to the program.

The class celebrating having successfully ordered, over the phone, pizza to be delivered!

 

This has been my first experience participating in an intensive language study, but it will hopefully not be my last. Ten weeks, four hours each day in the classroom, and all the studying which proceeded it, was no simple task. In retrospect, I would recommend Seoul National University’s Korean language study only to those whom have had a much longer exposure to Korean, perhaps at Level 4 or 5. It required quite a bit of work, but such an opportunity allowed me to study alongside equally motivated individuals, exposure to multiple cultures, as well as the ability to actively apply the grammar points after each lesson. I will now be leaving Korea with greater insight into its culture and language, quite a fair share of strange stories, long-lasting friendships, and a burning desire to return!

 

 

Seoul National University's Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies

 

Adena Peckler

B.A. Asian Studies, International Affairs 2015

Sigur Center 2014 Korean Language Fellow

Seoul National University, South Korea

 

For more posts from Korea:

Seoul Wanderings

Update from Seoul

Update from Seoul

               My name is Adena Peckler and I am an undergraduate Korean Language Fellow enrolled in an intensive summer study at one of South Korea’s prominent “SKY” institutions, Seoul National University. Prior to arriving in South Korea, I was aware of the value this experience would hold regarding contemporary Korean culture, as well as my grasp of the Korean language. I was not prepared for the valuable insight I would also gain into the various opinions regarding South Korea’s future potential.

While in Seoul, I have come to realize that in order to understand the importance of South Korea’s influence in Asia, one can simply look at the composition of students enrolled in the language schools. The number of participants in Seoul National University’s summer language program is in fact quite small, with a typical class size of fourteen students. Despite the small size, there are key trends to note. The first is that many of the students in the program are either gap year students, or college graduates, who hope to work or study in South Korea. The overwhelming majority of these students are from China, Southeast Asia, and Australia. For some classmates, their motivation for Korean language study was a lack of academic and professional opportunity due to immense competition, while others are seeking a degree which they believe will be of a higher value given its origination from Korea (also consider that the program is held at one of the premier institutions in Asia). Thus, for the students from China and Southeast Asia, the vast majority began studying Korean at level 1 and plan to proceed to level 7 in order to take the government-sponsored TOPIK and KLPT proficiency exams.

 

 

Similarly, there is a large contingent of Australian students participating in the program as well. Many are here on language grants provided by the Australian Government, as well as a vast array of scholarships originating from city and district offices, versus national grants. Such opportunities also exist in the United States, but it does not seem comparable to the sheer scale of the Australian government’s promotion of language study (presumably to increase trade as well as influence within the region). For example, to study in Indonesia, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia Vietnam, etc. many large grants are available.

 

Myself and classmates enjoying the best fried chicken the side-streets of Seoul has to offer!

 

On the surface, it seems that there is either a conscious or latent push from China and Australia, as well as a distinct pull from Korea, to invest in the Korean marketplace. In fact, during my summer at SNU, President Xi Jinping of China came to give a talk at the university. This singular visit was, and continues to be, coveted with much fanfare in Korea as signaling a key alliance between the two nations. As for the Australian students, many have observed that there is a need for their country to capitalize on both the skills and connections such programs can provide

What I have come to realize is that South Korea is viewed within the region as a land of opportunity. In the United States, interest in Korea is often limited to Korean pop-culture and the tacit peace with North Korea. This narrow focus is furthered by the lack of a developed Korean Studies program in many US universities offering a degree in Asian Studies. Yet in Asia, Korea’s value is seen as untapped, and interests in the country span much farther beyond the pop-culture of the Korean Wave.

I have had an interesting time in Korea thus far, and there are still plenty more experiences to be had during my time here! Keep a look out for another post which will expand on my life here. Until then, I hope you are having a good summer . . . wherever you are!

-Adena

 

Nighttime shot outside of my apartment in Seoul.

 

Adena Peckler

B.A. Asian Studies, International Affairs 2015

Sigur Center 2014 Korean Language Fellow

Seoul National University, South Korea

For more posts from Korea:
Seoul Wanderings

Language Study at Seoul National University   

Jackie in Japan

Hello again to all the readers of Asia on E Street!

This is Jackie Lareau, recipient of the Estelle Sigur Grant for Japanese Language Study in Japan. It's been a while since my last update and I've done quite a bit of adventuring now that we've settled into the summer, so I'll give you a peek at all the highlights.

One of the most exciting events of the last few months was the weekend trip to Kyoto and Nara organized by CIEE, the exchange program handling my semester abroad, for all of the exchange students. We spent two days in Kyoto, which was the former imperial capital for over one thousand years before the capital was moved to Tokyo. As a result, the city is extremely rich with historic, traditional, and cultural treasures, especially with its 2,000+ Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines.

With a couple friends of mine, we were able to have an action-packed day full of sightseeing around the city to see as much as possible. First we visited the Arashiyama bamboo forest, where we took plenty of pictures perfect for computer desktops.

Then after getting lost for a couple of hours in one of the rural rice paddy towns surrounding the city, we eventually found our way back to the action and visited Kinkaku-ji, a Zen Buddhist temple that is gilded with gold leaf and is one of the most popular attractions in all of Kyoto.

Following that, we visited the equally famous location of Fushimi Inari, a rather lengthy complex of Shinto shrines leading up a mountain. The shrine worships the Shinto god Inari, the god of business and commerce, and thus all of the iconic orange torii gates are each donated by various Japanese businesses and labeled as such. Aside from this, most of the shrines along the way are decorated with fox imagery and statues, which are seen to be the messengers of the gods. 

Pictured below are small wooden plaques called ema, on which worshippers write down their wishes and prayers with hopes that the shinto gods will answer them. As you can see, the ones at this particular shrine are fox-shaped and many people decorate them accordingly.

Finally, after exploring Kyoto, we traveled to the city of Nara which is about an hour away by bus, and also a former imperial capital during the 8th century's appropriately named Nara Period. There we were able to visit Todai-ji, a World Heritage Site and the home of Japan's biggest Daibutsu (bronze Buddha statue), even bigger than the one I previously visited in Kamakura. Not only were the grounds beautiful, but the sheer size of the temple and the masterpieces inside of it made all of us feel absolutely dwarfed and astounded considering they were constructed over one thousand years ago. 

However, the coolest thing about Todai-ji is probably the countless deer that roam the grounds and call it their home, thanks to their sacred status and generous tourists who feed them special "deer crackers" that you can buy from any vendor in the area. You're perfectly free to approach and pet the deer, although with caution because there's a good chance they'll go nosing into your bag and try to take the crackers by themselves. They're friendly enough to pose for photos, though.

The trip wouldn't be complete without a deer selfie.

After returning to Tokyo, my daily life has mostly consisted of going to classes and keeping up with classwork, attending circle and club events, hanging out with both Japanese and international friends, and spending time with my homestay parents. Altogether these activities keep me very busy, I have also had the time to partake in some traditional cultural activities as well. For example, I was able to attend my first sumo wrestling match and it was much more thrilling than I expected! The final match of the tournament featured a mid-ranking wrestler with a record of 5 wins and 5 losses versus a top-ranking wrester with not a single loss. It seemed like the results would be obvious but the underdog actually won, leading all of the audience members sitting in the front to throw their cushions into the ring, a gesture of respect shown when a wrestler beats a rival of a higher rank. I unfortunately wasn't able to catch this on camera, but I did take a picture of the precession of wrestlers lining up at the beginning of the tournament.

I was also able to try my hand at making traditional Japanese sweets, wagashi, which are made of sweet bean paste and molded into various shapes like flowers. The one I made can be seen below, and is supposed to replicate the appearance of a chrysanthemum, the Japanese imperial flower. It's definitely more challenging than it looks, so it's understandable why the craft and its stores are passed down within families for generations.

This ties up most of the cultural events I've been taking part in here in Tokyo, and with only about a month left before I return to the States, I'll be trying to fit in plenty more!

Wish me luck, and until next time, またね！

Tips for Field Research in Asia

1. Start before going. This is a list of things you should get together before leaving: letter from advisor(s); letter from university; letter from local affiliated institution (if you have one); business card; and short summary of your project. You will probably need this to access local libraries such as the Jawarhalal Nehru University's (below). Make a rough draft of your research schedule detailing the aims of your trip and how you intend to achieve them. Save up time upon arrival by making a list with addresses of places you want to go (e.g., libraries, archives, government offices, universities) and take some time to become acquainted with their location. The same goes for people who you might want to meet: make a list of contacts and email them in advance (but don't rely on this, see below). I'm assuming you have visited your research area previously, but if not, you need to think about items such as local phone, Internet and transport.

Jawarhalal Nehru University, New Delhi

2. Don't rely on e-mails. Few things will hamper down your research as waiting for people to reply to your emails. The truth is that most people will never prioritize (or even read) an email from an unknown student posing strange questions about a remote topic. In the hierarchy of research communication, emails should come last, followed shortly by the telephone. Of course, getting hold of someone's mobile number is always better than having his or her office number. But even phone conversations can lead to dead ends. As many researchers discover, scheduled meetings often get cancelled at the last minute. If this happens, the fallback option is simply to show up at the person's workplace - sometimes you do need to be a bit pushy. Naturally, you must be careful not to come across as rude (i.e., apologize, explain that you won't take much time) but, in general, it's worth taking the risk. My experience is that once people see you they'll grant you a couple of minutes or so, mainly because it will get you out off their backs.

3. Sort out your office space. Unless you to intend to spend your day at home (and then you should be asking yourself why going?), you need to take some time to consider where you will be working. Researchers conducting archival research will have a slight easier life on this point. Nonetheless, they still need to think about library opening hours, where to have lunch/water and, most importantly, Internet access (none of the libraries/archives that I visited in India provides wireless access). Alternatives are, in my experience, limited to two options: (1) Internet cafes and (2) co-working spaces. In regards to the former, you should prepare beforehand a list of Internet cafes that are convenient for you and that will enable you to work for extended periods of time (i.e., a bar or a sports bar will probably not be a very good choice). Moreover, in India, I have found that many of the places offering Internet access online, do not once you are there (e.g., most Coffee Days and Costa Cafes do not). Ideally, you should check with someone and/or ask recommendations from locals. Online resources (such as blogs) often provide lists of Internets cafes in your research area (in the case of Mumbai, I found a very helpful map at the Mumbai Boss). The other option is co-working spaces. In Delhi, I was lucky enough to find a social networking cafe in Hauz Khaz village called Book Your Dream, which offers Wi-Fi, coffee with cookies and a beautiful lake view. All this in exchange for a contribution (left to your discretion) to an NGO promoting education in local slums.

My office at Book Your Dream in Haus Khaz Village, Delhi

4. Organize a photo library. Turns out your phone camera and tablet are an excellent field research tool. If you are like me, then you'll have filled their memory after a couple of days with pictures of libraries, interview subjects, street scenes, posters, slums, pages of books, documents and videos of political rallies. My advise on this unfolds in five parts. First, create a folder in your computer for all the photos that you will take during your field trip. Do not mix these with the non-research related photos that you might have taken during this trip. Second, you should to copy your phone/tablet photos to your laptop as often as possible so that you always have sufficient space for new pictures/videos. It is always frustrating to delete potentially important material from your phone in order to make up space for more. Third, once you have copied them, reduce the size of the files so that they do not take an inordinate amount of space. Fourth, after doing this, you should copy them again to a backup device (e.g., external drive, dropbox, self-email, etc). The thing to remember here is to have the photos saved in more than one source. Finally, when possible (this can be done once you're back from field research), organize the photo files in your computer into categories. This will facilitate searching through them.

Note to self: do not ride the Delhi metro at rush hour

5. Don't scare people with your CV. Extensive experience with grant application might give researchers the impression that listing their achievements is a natural way to introduce oneself. Yet, when it comes to field research, the opposite may well be true. Unless your CV increases the chances of interviewing someone or being entrusted with data, you should seek to reduce the information about you to the bare minimum: you name, your university and your field of study. In my experience researching in India, I have found that interview subject are sometimes scared off by too much information about my academic curriculum (or my personal trajectory). Instead, a much better strategy is to compliment the person who you are talking to and thanking her for the time granted. Naturally, this involves doing some background work about the person (i.e., if you want to talk to an academic, you should read some of her or his articles in advance) before meeting her.

Diogo Lemos

PhD candidate 

Department of Political Science 

GWU

Jackie in Japan: Spring in Tokyo

Hello there, everyone! This is my first time posting on the Asia on E Street blog, and I'll be doing so regularly for the rest of the summer while I study abroad at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan.

My name is Jackie LaReau and I'm a recipient of the Estelle Sigur Grant for Japanese Language Study in Japan. I'm a current GW junior majoring in Asian Studies at the Elliott School, and I've been studying abroad in Japan since last August. I spent the fall and winter semesters studying at Akita International University (AIU) in the northern rural prefecture of Akita, and now I have transferred to the very different Sophia University in Tokyo under the CIEE exchange program. 

初めまして！どうぞよろしくお願いします！(Rough translation: Nice to meet you!)

Now although GW has just finished its spring semester and everyone is heading home for the summer, in Japan, the spring semester has only just started. On the Japanese school calendar, the spring semester goes from April all the way through the summer to August, and then they get about a 1 month summer vacation before starting school again in September. Thus, I'll continue to be here until about mid-August. Good-bye summer vacation, you will be missed... But getting the opportunity to complete my stay in Japan for a full year is definitely worth it!

Where do I start? Well, this semester I'm living with a homestay family for the first time, and it's absolutely so much fun! The family is actually sort of unorthodox, in that I only have a homestay mother and father, and they're both in their 70's. But don't be fooled! They're very active and love life, meaning that they always take me out on day trips and spoil me like their own daughter while teaching me all about the Japanese culture and language. I'm very glad I chose this housing option, because it's really given me an opportunity to interact with Japan more than I would have simply living in a dorm!

As for school, we're about a month into the semester and classes are going great. The Japanese language program at Sophia University is definitely challenging, which I'm very happy about, since it gives you the structure and tools you need to learn the language while you practice your speaking skills with Japanese friends and students outside of class. 

However, by far the coolest thing about the beginning of the spring semester is that it aligns with the peak of cherry blossom season. Here's a few shots that I took all around the Tokyo area while doing hanami (flower viewing).

And here's one of me, dressed appropriately pink for the season.

This next one is my personal favorite. CIEE's staff organized for all of the exchange students in the program to go on a day trip to Kamakura, a city about an hour away from Tokyo which was Japan's imperial capital from the years 1185-1333. It is rich with history, temples, and shrines, and is now

a beautiful tourist spot that many Tokyo locals like to visit when they're itching to escape the big city.

As you can see, one of the biggest attractions is the Daibutsu (big Buddha), which is made of bronze, considered a national treasure, and is one of the biggest Buddha statues in all of Japan. You can even go inside of it for a mere 20 yen (the equivalent of 20 cents)!

Kamakura also has some stunning hiking trails, zen gardens, and a bamboo forest, which I made sure to visit before going home.

I also went on a weekend trip to Nagoya during Golden Week, which is a city about 200 miles from Tokyo. By bullet train it would only take a couple of hours to get there, but my friends and I decided to be adventurous and take the regular trains there and back instead. After about 6 hours of trains and transfers, we arrived!

Spending a couple days in another city was great fun, and we managed to visit all the major attractions. We visited Osu-Kannon temple, Nagoya Castle, and various local shopping districts.

We also made sure to try out all the local delicacies, such as this dish called hitsumabushi, which is grilled eel served over rice with tea you pour over it. It was absolutely delicious! I definitely understand why Nagoya is so famous for it now.

Aside from traveling, I have very much settled into my life in Tokyo. I've joined a couple of intercultural exchange clubs, which like to give Japanese students and international exchange students opportunities to hang out with each other, become friends, exchange cultures, and practice each other's languages. If you're looking to get better at Japanese and hang out with some of the nicest people around, joining clubs are the best way to do it!

I think I've hit all of the most exciting points of the semester so far, but I'll make sure to update again soon with new stories, pictures, and cultural tidbits.

For now, see you next time!

じゃあまたね！♪