Graduation from Adroit College Beginning Korean 1

박영섭

I am happy to post that I made it through my Korean presentation for our graduation ceremony at Adroit College last night! Beginning Korean 2 here I come!

Here are some pictures from the event (showing my classmates). Enjoy!

-Ron

2012 Adroit College Spring Quarter Graduation

민영 씨

태오 씨

Letter to My Relatives in Korea

1995 Family Reunion near Santa Barbara, California, United States of America (미국 산타 바바라, 캘리포니아, 미국 근처의 1,995 가족 상봉)

한글:
안녕하세요? 저는 박영섭이에요.
저는 45 살이고 나는 4 세대 한국어 미국인이다.
이제 시작 "2 학년"한국어 학생입니다.
하지만 아직 난 잘 한국말하지 않습니다.

우리 할아버지 박영섭는 1918 년 한국에서 왔어.
할아버지는 미국으로 박족보를 가져왔어.
할아버지는 젊은 나이에 사망했다. 제가 태어나기 전에 그는 1963 년 주위에 심장 마비.

미국에서 우리 가족은 한국에서 우리 가족과 다시 연결하고 싶어.
가족의 대부분은 영어로만 말한다. 나는 몇 한국어 스피커 중 하나입니다.

그것은 한국에서 나의 친척을 찾기 위해 내 꿈이다. 지금은 한글을 공부하고 이유입니다. 그래서 우리는 언젠가 말할 수 있습니다.

-박영섭

2008 Family Reunion in Saratoga, California, United States of America (미국 사라토, 캘리포니아, 미국 2008 년 가족 모임)

English: 
Hello, how are you? I am Ron.
I am 45 years old and I am a fourth generation Korean American.
I am now a beginning "2nd grade" Korean language student.
But yet I do not speak Korean well.

My grandfather Pak Yeong Seop came from Korea in 1918.
Grandfather brought the "Pak jokpo" to USA.
Grandfather died at a young age. He had a heart attack around 1963, before I was born.
Our family in the United States wants to reconnect with our family in Korea.
Most of the family speaks only English. I am one of the few Korean speakers.
It is my dream to find my relatives in Korea. That is why I am studying Hangul now. So we can talk someday.


-Ron

Homemade Kimchi is Un-Freaking Believable!

Homemade kimchi from the class on Saturday, June 2, 2012

I just got a chance to open up my four day old homemade kimchi (ie, Korean spicy picked cabbage, or 김치 in Korean) from the "I Love Kimchi" class that was sponsored by Adroit College and the Republic of Korea's Consulate General. Here's what it looks like after fermenting in my kitchen.

OMG, this tastes un-freaking believably good! I am talking eyes rolling around the back of your head good. It is the best kimchi I have had this side of the Pacific, ie, not in Seoul!

By the way, I'm graduating today from my Korean 101 class at Adroit College, but when we are done I'm heading to the Korean market and buying some napa cabbage and rock salt. This stuff is that good! And then I'll throw the store bought kimchi out as soon as the homemade batch ferments.

Check out the recipe at the bottom of my "I Love Kimchi" Event post.

저는 김치를 참 좋아요! (I really like kimchi!)

Learn to Read Korean in 15 Minutes

This cartoon on learning to read Korean made me laugh!

Click on the link below for the full learning to read Korean in 15 minutes comic strip:

http://ryanestradadotcom.tumblr.com/post/20461267965

My Grandmother Planted Korean Cherry Trees in 1943 with Syngman Rhee

Most of my family tree research has focused on my father's side of the family. But I also have wanted to share some artifacts from my late grandfather's photo book that I recently came across: pictures of my grandmother Doris Yoon back from 1943. In Korean, grandmother is halmoni (할머니). These pictures are an interesting part of US and Korean history for a couple of reasons: 1) Because grandmother is standing with Dr. Syngman Rhee (이승만) in Washington D.C., who was to become the first president of the Republic of Korea and whose presidency was quite controversial; 2) She was working for the Korean Commission in Washington D.C. at the time; and 3) The trees were acknowledged as "Korean cherry trees", a gift from the Korean Women's Relief Society of Honolulu, Hawaii. 

To the right, here's a scan of the original picture in the article below.

"I Love Kimchi" Event

I just got back from the "I Love Kimchi" event at Daesung Presbyterian Church in Sunnyvale. It was sponsored by Adroit College and the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea.

We learned how to make the traditional cabbage 김치 (kimchi), and then we had some lunch together. Many of my 선배 from Beginning Korean 2 were there that I had met at a dinner last week. I met a lot of KPOP and K-Drama fans there as well.

Now I'm full and heading for a workout....

Artifacts From the Past!

Yesterday, a small package arrived for me from my uncle Richard Park, my dad's older brother. Inside was the Park family "jokpo" ( 족보 ), which is the Korean version of my family tree. My hands shook while I opened the package, which contained four small parchment paper books with Chinese writing on them. The jokpo is here! I was very excited and curious as I opened these relics of Korean history, which had been transported over from Korea by my fraternal grandfather.

Here is a picture of the four books.

The biggest book looked like this!

This was the smallest book standing on its side. It is about half the size of a pack of baseball cards and the pages were folded like a fan. 

The next step is to figure out how to get these translated into Korean and English!

-Chairman P

Korean Made Easy for Beginners

My Korean class uses the book Korean Made Easy for Beginners, and I've posted the flashcards for the chapters in the book on Quizlet. I've been using both the web based and the iPhone/iPad versions.

Here's the introduction chapter:

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards | Study korean flash cards

Here's Chapter 1:

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards | Study korean flash cards

Learning 한국어 vocabulary

I started out learning Korean vocabulary the traditional way, by creating flash cards with the Hangul on one side and the English definition on the other. Then the software engineer in me said "there's got to be a better way", and I searched the 'net for a solution. Low and behold, I found a good one!

Quizlet!

It's online, it's free, and there are free iPhone and iPad apps for it. So I signed up and gave it a whirl this evening. It was really good at creating a web-based, online flash card testing experience. I even downloaded the cards on my iPhone and it was great.

Here's the result:

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards | Study korean flash cards

Give it a try if you are learning Korean!

박영섭

No Romanji Texting, Please. Hangul only!

One of my past mistakes in learning Korean both on my own and in a class was to try to learn Korean by Romanizing the alphabet. Serious teachers of Korean say that "Romanji" doesn't work, and in retrospect I think it was holding me back. I have now taken the time to learn the correct pronunciation of the consonants and vowels of the Hangul alphabet, and I've found that my progression is much faster now. Now I just have to get the other KAs (Korean-Americans) to stop texting me in Romanji. It's hard to figure out what they are saying!

One extremely useful thing to give up Romanji was watching the videos of a native Korean speaker (Professor Koo) making the correct sounds of the Korean alphabet (vowels and consonants). I put the clips on my iPhone and watched them over and over again. The flash cards and notes for pronunciation for the various letters were also very useful. This YouTube clip below is similar and I found it useful to watch.

This site below (www.sweetandtastytv.com) I just found is absolutely hilarious! I got there from the more serious video above. We probably won't learn much Korean slang in class, but this blog with YouTube videos called "KWOW" Korean Word of the Week has helped me know how to use the word 바보 "babo" in a couple of different ways:


Peace out!

Adroit College Korean I Class 4

Last week's class at Adroit College was the fourth class this quarter. We worked on putting Hangul consonants and vowels together to form words. I haven't summarized the first couple of weeks because I have just started blogging, but here's a recap:

• Korean culture (한국문화). The big difference between the Milpitas class and the classes in San Leandro and Palo Alto is an extra hour every week. The extra hour focuses on Korean culture. I find this quite useful as we learned about jikji (직지), the oldest movable metal typeset book.  Here's a YouTube video about it: 

  Jikji-The Missing History of Metal Type Printed Books

   

  I had always learned in World History that the Gutenberg Bible was the first, but apparently Gutenberg was first in the western world, and second worldwide with the discovery of the jikji's publishing in 1377.  Finally, for you K-Drama fans, last week we saw a video about the Korean Wave (한류) of KPOP and drama idols.

Jikji is pictured above. This is the Korean equivalent to the Gutenberg Bible.

• Music to learn the alphabet. Professor Koo (구은희 선생님) has incorporated music with learning Korean. This is a great way to have it stick in your mind. I find myself singing the Korean Alphabet Song (yes, it is on YouTube. Think ABC song in English) during my work day almost subconsciously now. 

• Dance motions for letters. Well, we are not really dancing, but using hand, arm and body motions to remember the vowels. This is also another innovative way to learn Korean that helps it stick. 

 That's it for now. Gotta run!

Korean Roots: Start of My Korean-American Journey to Find My Roots

When Alex Haley published "Roots: The Saga of an American Family" in 1976, his journey to find his family history started long before the book was published. In a similar way to Haley, my personal journey to find my Korean family history begins here. Who knows, maybe someday I will write a book!

This is a picture of me on the Subway Line 2 in Seoul, South Korea on my first trip in 2009. It was this business trip that awakened my desire to find my Korean roots. Since then, I have traveled to Seoul multiple times for business.

As a fourth generation Korean-American (well, a"3.5" generation to be exact), I view myself as distinctly American but of Asian and specifically Korean ancestry. As I grow older, I find myself wanting to know more and more about my culture from Korea. And to find my long lost relatives!