Blog 7 - Project Explanation

My group will be shooting the video about the Japanese cuisines near Hanyang University.

The video includes the name, price, menu, and my group member's interview about four Japanese restaurants.

Every group member will be interviewed for each restaurant.
So the number of restaurants is four.

We will evaluate the restaurant for the criteria including cleanliness, service, distance, price and the most important thing, taste.

After visiting all the four restaurants, we will meet and discuss which restaurant is the best.
So the rank of four will be rated.

At last, we will award the best restaurant of MEW1 to the owner of that restaurant.

My role of this project is being interviewed after eating the food of Il-lak or Obake.
And I will edit the video and combine them all together with my group members.

We will discuss which music we insert after we combine all the videos together.

I hope this video would be great.

:)

Editing movie

:)

Campus Images

Those pictures on this video were taken around the campus.
As the day when I took pictures was rainy day, the weather looked a little bit blue.
I feel sad because it is my last semester to look around the campus like this.
I will remember those places after graduation.

Living together before marriage.

<Living together before marriage>

1. Introduction

“We got married”, which is the famous TV program in Korea, gets more popular for many years throughout Korea and even other Asian countries such as Singapore, Japan and China. 

This program is showing couples which are living together virtually like married couples. The popularity of this show suggests changing attitudes toward cohabitation before marriage in Korea.

You can refer the video below how this program shows their virtual marriage life representing the changed attitude toward living together.

2. Description

First, you need to know the difference between living together before marriage and real marriage. These two are different regarding right protect by law. Living together before marriage is exactly as same as real marriage except the protection by law.

Second, you need to consider why this culture is highly discussed in Korea. As Korea is the part of Confucian culture, the single man and woman's behavior is regulated by some standards.

3. Pros and Cons

There are some pros and cons on cohabitation before marriage.

  3.1 Pros

    3.1.1 Better understanding of each other before marriage

-       People can understand each mate better before marriage and experience in advance how their marriage life would be.

    3.1.2 Economical

-       By living together, people can save their money spent on house and cost of living such as electricity, food and so on.

    3.1.3 Reducing divorce rates

-       If they think it is not good to marry that person, they can easily break up before engaging in marriage by law, resulting in decrease of divorce rates.

    3.1.4 Changing views and attitudes on cohabitation

-       Many couple is thinking cohabitation for some purposes, and the attitude has changing positively. The below line graph shows the percentage reporting “Living together before marriage is an acceptable option.” It shows the positively changing view to cohabitation.

  3.2 Cons

    3.2.1 Irresponsible

-       As couple can break up easily, their attitudes toward each mate are very irresponsible.

    3.2.2 Still seen as “improper” in the heavily Confucius-indoctrinated society

-       As Korea is the part of Confucian culture, cohabitation is considered highly improper especially by the elderly, which would be their potential mother and father-in-law.

    3.2.3    Not protected by law

-       If some problem arise between two, their right to each other is not protected by law unlike real marriage. When dividing properties, it is very hard to divide them by law if the country does not accept the cohabitation.

    3.2.4 Social problem such as abortion

-       Some severe social problem such as abortion can arise because of their irresponsible attitudes. The below chart can show the abortion rate among the relationship status, showing cohabiting status shows the highest abortion rate.

For further discussion, you can refer this video.

4. Expression my opinion

[Should cohabitation before marriage recommended?]

Cohabitation is very sensitive subject causing intense debate between pros and cons.

Many people still think this culture is not proper in the view of Confucian. And they think this is not moral. Though, the culture has changing, and it is time to think more with open-mind.

  4.1 My recommendation

I agree for the today’s couples to use the chance of experiencing their future marriage life in advance.

  4.2 Reasons

There are many reasons why cohabitation is not improper and should be recommended.

    4.2.1 

It is more economical than living alone. Two people can save their living cost by living together, so they can use their money on other purposes like self-improvement, hobby and so on.

    4.2.2

They can experience their marriage life in advance, preventing them from divorcing and regretting. What if they found their spouse is hitting when he or she is mad at you? They can find their potential spouse’s bad habits or good things and they can use it for better marriage life. This short cartoon can make you understand more easily the cohabitation as a “trial”.

    4.2.3

By preventing them from regretting their decision to choose the spouse after marriage, this can cause divorce rates to fall. This is very good for entire society.

    4.2.4

The attitudes toward cohabitation is very favorable these days. In France, cohabitation is not regarded improper. Many Koreans also think this is good for their entire marriage life. This graph shows how Korean has changed their attitude toward cohabitation before marriage.

The red line represents negative attitudes toward cohabitation. It decreases from 59.5% to 54.1% for two years. Also the blue line shows the positive view to cohabitation, increasing from 40.5% to 45.9% during the same period. These two lines can support the changing culture in Korea toward cohabitation positively. 

For further information about this topic discussed in Korea, you can refer this link.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2013/08/117_87211.html 

5B - How to get Insa-dong and Myeong-dong. (Informative Writing)

"How can I go here?" is the sentence spoken the most by foreign tourists in the subway station.

There are some tips for foreign tourists to reach their destination more easily by using maps and tips.

If you, the tourist, are visiting the place for the first time, it is highly recommended to take subway, not the bus. Because the subway is much more convenient to use and the bus is hard to understand the announcement which is just spoken in English and Korean.

Also the map for subway is well-organized enough for the tourist to understand easily.


Despite the map, someone who has difficulties reading this map still, the smart-phone application could be useful. There is an English version of the application like the photo below (Some applications have Japanese and Chinese version too).

By clicking the station for departing and the station for a destination, the application shows the fastest way. Also there are some tips for transferring such as the fastest door for transfer and the side of the door, making it faster to ride and exit. 

5A - The best and worst places where I visited for travelling in Seoul (Evaluating writing)

Have you ever been to Insa-dong or Myeong-dong for travelling?

Here are the two totally different places where I visited and almost every tourist goes for travelling. I want to evaluate two visiting places for potential foreign tourists coming to Korea.

The BEST: Insa-dong

Here you can experience Korean traditional culture easily. Along the way, many stores are selling traditional goods like the photo below.

Even though I am Korean, I don’t have many chances to experience the tradition easily. Whenever I go there, there are some cultural events like the video or many artists are playing their performances.

The WORST: Myeong-dong

I sometimes feel I am in another country when I go to Myeong-dong. I can see Japanese and Chinese much more than Koreans. Every announcement from all the stores like UNIQLO and ETUDE is spoken in Japanese and Chinese. I don't think this is bad. Actually it is a good phenomenon for Korea to have lots of foreign tourists from other countries.

But as I think this is too crowd for me, I don't want to go there again.

Look at these pictures of Myeong-dong on Christmas. It makes me feel terrible when I am stuck in the crowd. And there we can only do shopping not other activities can be expected because it is filled with countless cosmetic shops and clothing shops.

4. Websites with Different Purposes

(1) Entertaining - http://9gag.com/

This is the site where all the humorous postings are updated. Sometimes it posts photo with funny words or entertaining videos such as "Coffee table and lamp made from a corvette engine." with the awkward photo. With the photos and vides published by this site, you can enjoy them and be entertained when you have free time or do not have anything to do.

(2) Informative - http://edition.cnn.com/

Worldwide news articles are updated on this site. Political, economic and social articles are dealt in this site across the world. The articles are quite serious and handles real world such as  "The last moments of Flight 9525" so if you are interested in the current issue, you can search for it here.

(3) Persuasive - http://www.gumtree.com.au/

People can post their own advertisements on this site. In writing, they persuade site users to buy their items such as room for rent, used cars, used table or new cosmetics and so on. The writers post photos of their items to persuade readers much more effectively and inform the required information also. So this site can be categorized in persuasive writing and informative writing.

(4) Evaluative - http://www.tripadvisor.com/Many writers review the restaurants or hotels that they used before on this site. They can evaluate the place where they went from 1 to 5. The site has worldwide reviews so when people go abroad and have something, they find the evaluation of others here.

(5) Expressive - http://www.free-opinion.com/KR/EN/Worldwide users write their opinions on the specific issue that is published by someone else in this site. For example, the site asks people to vote and share the opinions on the topic like "Israel vs. Hezbollah, What do you think is peaceful?". But this is not as serious as the editorial or other formal writings because the opinions can be expressed by anyone else and the writing is very short and seems like a comment on a blog.