Book cover of "Homecoming"

The book, “Homecoming,” is mainly about a family in conflict and dispute. Dicey Tillerman’s parents are very poor and his father leaves the family leaving him, his mother, and his siblings. The mother tells her children that they will travel to meet their aunt. However, in the middle of their travel, the mother decides to stop and leave their children in the car. Without having to seen their mother for hours, Dicey and his siblings realize that their mother has left them and will never come back. Despite the chaos, Dicey, as the oldest decides to lead his left family and help them feed and live. Eventually, Dicey and his siblings go through huge amount of adventures to survive, gaining food as cheap as possible and working anywhere possible. Dicey and his siblings finally find a place to stay in a house, where their grandmother comes to find them.

Personally, despite I don’t have much connection with the book because I have never been separated from my family before, I can still feel how chaotic and depressed my life would be if I was separated from my family. I cannot understand why both of Dicey’s parents can ever think that they can leave their children alone inside a car. I think that many children living in the developed part of the world, especially Korea, have too much parental care and do not know how it is like to not have parents in their lives. I think that this will be a great book for children  who think that they are suffering from too much parental care and want to be separated, when there are children who are dying because they lack parental care.

“Homecoming” uses many descriptive style of writing. Therefore, the book does a great job in giving the readers strong impact about the emotions that the characters might actually feel in the book. The book also emphasizes the importance of family relationships and love. This is the great merit about this book. It teaches the readers about how important love is and how much family should rely on each other. Also, the book represents the importance of leadership. According to the book, people can see how leadership of one person can lead and save lives of the others.

Cynthia Voigt is an American author who usually writes books related with adventure, racism, and mystery. Voigt’s particular book, “Homcoming” is a story based upon adventure. He is a reputable author as he earned several international prizes, while “Homecoming” was published into a movie in 1996.

DMZ

Soldiers patroling DMZ

It has been over 50 years since North and South Korea has been separated. Thus, the differences between the two countries cannot be ignored. Especially, compared to South Korea, North Korea protects traditional style of living. Thus, it can be said that North Korea has a more traditional culture, while South Korea has westernized culture.  North Korea has very different life styles compared to South Korea. For example, in North Korean schools, students learn wrong information compared to other countries’ in the world. Specifically, North Korean children think that they are the wealthiest country in the world and the U.S. army is torturing people in South Korea. I think that the demilitarized zone represents a war with no purpose or a war with only brutality. In my opinion I think that a country with same race should not be separated; in fact it should be united into one. I think that is what the defector will want to. I really wonder if most of the Korean soldiers wonder why they have to fight against their own race, brothers, and families.

Life of Ronald: the unfortunate visualization of modern families.

Book Cover of All the Pretty Horses

After reading the New York Times article, I was able to agree with many aspects that the writer has mentioned about McCarthy’s style of writing. The most apparently different style of writing that McCarthy used was excluding quote marks when writing character’s dialogues. Also, McCarthy focused on using pictures and images more than words to describe whats going on in the book to the readers. In other words, McCarthy wrote in very descriptive way for readers to easily imagine the plot of the book in their minds. “Dialogue rather than description predominates, and the comical exchanges between the young men have a bleak music, as though their words had been whittled down by the wind off the desert” (NWT article). I also thought that McCarthy’s book “All the Pretty Horses” had great themes such as violence, gender, and coming of age. McCarthy seems to teach readers a lesson throughout his books.

AAA

Default

Sub Prime Mortgage

Collatral Dept Obligation

Prime Mortgage

Sovereign Funds

Investment Funds

Hedge Funds

The clip was basically about how investments and money cycle throughout American economy.

In my opinion, I dont think that anyone can be blamed for the unstablness of “Crisis of Credit.” I think it is more like the America’s economy itself that has a flaw because no one can be blamed just because of greed. In a democratic society, people who work harder to earn money do earn more money. Therefore, sometimes balance may not always exist in the U.S. economy.

Our group’s final written response will be posted up at Engie Suh’s blog .

Wordle for Archetypes and Stereotypes within Celebrities

Writing Prompt #1

1. After researching and observing several video clips and pictures, we were able to determine different archetypes and stereotypes within the celebrities. Our first archetype was Oprah Winfrey. She was officially the first woman host for a talk show, in which many famous movie stars, singers, and models were invited to. She also put her name into the show, which was unique compared to other TV talk shows. The show earned popularity as Oprah successfully managed to reveal many famous TV stars’ inside emotions and thoughts. The stereotype in this case may be Tyra Banks and the Tyra Banks Show. This talk show is also run by woman host and she used her name in the show’s name. Similarly, this show invited many famous TV stars to discuss about private life and feelings.
Second archetype was Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan was the first Asian Hollywood star who became famous for his martial arts skills that were viewed in most of the movies he was involved in. He was an icon that set a basic idea that Asians are good at martial arts. One stereotype of Jackie Chan is Rain. Rain has recently become a Hollywood actor from being a singer. Interestingly, in his earlier movies, such as Ninja Assassin, Rain is already involved in martial arts training for his movies.
The Third archetype is Yoo Jae Seuk, who is well known as the national MC in Korea. He has become a famous MC from being a comedian, which is a totally different job. A stereotype of Yoo is Kang Ho Dong who is trying hard to also become national MC, while his former job was a professional Korean wrestler.
The last archetype was Jessie Ventura, who set an idea of muscular TV stars getting professional jobs, especially related to the government. A stereotype is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Both Ventura and Schwarzenegger used to be buff actors who became Governors in the future.
2. Oprah Winfrey, Tyra Banks, Jackie Chan, Rain, Jessie Ventura, and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s images seems to fit international audience because all these people are well known around the globe and many try to copy off the archetype from all around world. However, Yoo Jae Seuk and Kang Ho Dong seem to have Asian audience because they are only well known in East Asia. Also, only people in Korea try to follow Yoo Jae Seuk to become famous MCs.
3. From our group’s images, it seemed that men around age 30 to 40 seemed best represented because our group selected celebrities for research and usually men among that age had enough TV broadcast experiences and weren’t too old, thus had more popularity around the globe.
4. Women around younger age seemed least represented mostly because women lack influential power in TV and younger women had little experience in mass media.
5. It was interesting how examples of stereotypes usually remains in the same job, race, and, sex. For example, there are many Asians who try to follow Jackie Chan, black woman who try to follow Oprah Winfrey, and Korean comedians and singers trying to follow Yoo Jae Seuk.

Writing Prompt #2

 Our group was able to observe that Asian people in the media, especially Asian celebrities, group together to follow a certain archetype. Many Asian people try to follow only one certain type of method to become successful actors, singers, dancers, etc. For example, many Korean people in media try to follow Yoo Jae Seuk to gain popularity and money. However, becoming like Yoo Jae Seuk isn’t the only way to succeed in TV career. There are always other options such as becoming great actor and going to Hollywood or becoming great singer and gaining reputation around Asia. It is common in Korea to see many comedians and singers trying so hard to become MCs of various different TV shows, just to follow Yoo Jae Seuk. This shows how narrow-minded people sometimes can be. However, we also learned how this idea of archetypes and stereotypes can help Asian people in media become more involved in the global community. Nowadays there are much more Asian actors becoming Hollywood stars as more audiences understand Asian culture. One big example is Jackie Chan. Because Chan became so famous for martial arts in his movies, and spread its culture throughout the world, it made Asian actors much easier to become Hollywood stars and easily get accepted to the audiences by doing martial arts. People no longer think of Asians as the less civilized people who just perform traditional fights. Overall, this project gave us more insight into how our global community works and how people are portrayed through media.

List of Vocabulary Words from our project

Sexy~Icon

Rich

Money

Brand

Buffy

Muscular

Asians

Hollywood~Star

Celebrity

Women

Stereotype

Archetype

Products

MC

Singer

Dancer

Actor

Dual~job

Martial~Arts

Kungfu

Red

Yellow

Talk Show

Movie

TV

Broadcasting

Pretty

Skinny

Tall

Plastic~Surgery

Influential

Beauty

Beast

Professional~Jobs

Senator

Popularity

Second~Jobs

Fame

Copy~Cat

Follower

It’s~Good~To~Be~Celebrities

Growing Up Online

Responses on the Film: “Growing Up Online“

1. Media, including television, Internet, and cell phones are big parts of my life that I cannot live without. To disconnect myself from all these media, I basically need to change the whole routine of my life. Usually, the very first thing I do when I return from school is turn on my computer and log on to facebook. To prevent me from any contact with the media around me, I need to schedule perhaps exercises or other extracurricular activities after school so that I wouldn’t have time to use my computer, watch TV, or use cell phone. Without these media for even a day I would suffer from lack of time for playing Internet games or chatting with my friends on-line. I will be forbidden from obtaining information easily because I cannot chat on-line or use cell phone. Without media for a week or a month is impossible to imagine because even one day without media is very hard to live through.

2. I spend time using facebook about two hours a day. This is pretty significant amount of time. Advantage of having such personal sites is that it allows me to meet and get to know much more people around my society and also allows me to represent myself throughout the world easily. I can put on comments on how I feel right now and many people around the globe can see the comment. However, the disadvantages may be that it is unrealistic and you are not actually making true friends. It really makes you waste time and prevent you from going outside and play.

3. I did know that there were advertisements in facebook or other related personal networking sites. However, I really wasn’t too concerned about them because everytime I’m on facebook, I’m more interested in looking through different pictures than looking at the advertisement. Basically, I didn’t really care about the advertisements.

4. I thought that the video was very interesting. I agreed with half part about what the film talked about, but disagreed with the other half. I thought it was important for parents to take more interest in their kids about what they are doing through the net because many parents actually do not know what kind of material their kids are dealing with through the net. However, I also thought that parents’ too much attention on their kids’ network activites was violating personal privacy. Seriously, being on personal networking sites like facebook really doesn’t affect people in bad ways. The websites themselves are just designed to keep people connected and close together, not to spread violatile diseases. The most important lesson we should learn from this film is not to spend too much time on facebook, but actually go outside and meet people to socialize.

By: Sung Justin Kim (Period: 2)

Rating:

Fast Food Nation Book Cover

      The Fast Food Nation can be divided into two big parts. In the first part of the book, “The American Way,” Eric Schlosser concentrates on depicting how the fast foods have spread throughout the U.S. after the World War II. It starts out with describing the McDonalds brothers and Carl N. Karcher, who Schlosser represents as origins of the fast food market. They had much influence on the spread of fast food industry, which branched out from southern California. Also, Schlosser mentions about the eye-catching advertisements of these fast food industries on young children and how this contributes to the cause of extreme health problems. Lastly, Schlosser comments on the bad working conditions and the low wage workers in the fast food restaurants, emphasizing not only the negative affects of fast foods on costumers, but also the harsh lives that fast food restaurant workers have to live through. The second part of the book, “Meat and Potatoes” describes how the fast food industry produces their foods, including bad working conditions of the meat industry and the harmful affects of eating those meats. Moreover, Schlosser explains the chemicals that are used to produce the fast foods and why those foods taste so good. Moreover, he comments on the shabby conditions in which the cattle are raised and how they are killed. Finally, he ends by pointing out that the rest of the world is catching up with America’s increasing obesity rates.
       Personally, I had strong connections with this book. I have lived in America for about six years and I’ve been addicted to hamburgers and pizzas since then. I have gained almost twice as much kilograms of weight as I used to weigh before I first went to America. I thought that Schlosser did a great job of writing a book related to this topic. I personally thought that many people in the world are unaware of what they eat in their daily lives. It was crucial for someone to actually bring this issue to the society. This book really caught my attention and once I started reading, I found it hard for me to stop. The book was organized in a way that anyone can understand easily. The book sounded a bit like a school textbook when it started to talk about the history of fast foods, World War II, and the Cold War. However, the author did a great job of comparing these facts with different examples, which made the book much more fun and easy to understand. This book really made me think about limiting the amount of fast foods I eat a week and looking for other various kinds of healthy meals.
       Fast Food Nation is a non-fiction book. This means that the book deals with only the true events that have happened. This certain characteristic was insightful because it showed how reality can be more dangerous and harsher than non-fictional novels. The most important literary merit that I’ve found in this book was raising awareness in the American society about the dangers of fast foods. Fast Food Nation contains many facts, in which Schlosser often makes comparison and contrast with other examples of famous events in history. The structure of the book is divided into two big parts, in which the first act as introducing the topic to the readers and the second describes what kinds of affects the fast food industries have on peoples’ lives today. Also, Schlosser mixes humor within the texts to mock the current fast food industries, which emphasizes his main opinions.
       Eric Schlosser is an awarding winning journalist who is also famous for writing muckraking journalism. He was born in Manhattan, New York and spent most of his childhoods in LA. Schlosser have lived most of his life in America and found inspiration to be a journalist from his father, who was the President of NBC in 1974. Although Schlosser is most famous for his book Fast Food Nation, he also wrote other books such as Reefer Madness and worked for The Atlantic Monthly in Boston as a reporter. Most of his works were investigative and criticized various aspects of America.

Article 2: US teens lie, steal, cheat at ‘alarming’ rates

Korean students studying at a hakwon

       When I first read the hagwon article, I felt that globalization is happening at rapid rate. I have always thought that globalization cannot be seen easily in my daily lives. Hakwons isn’t a new thing for Korean students. I thought it was crazy when many other foreigners and universities in America know about this hakwon thing going around in Korea. Hakwons really limit the abilities of students to think creatively. Hakwons force students to think and memorize their studies in a particular fashion and students have hard time solving problems in alternative ways. Personally, I first knew of Hakwons in elementary school, when my parents forced me to go, just because my other friends have. I think that parents’ anxiety of “what if my child falls behind others” really instigates them to send their children to hakwons. It really could get the parents worried if all other parents send their child for intense studying in hakwons, while their child just goes to school.

       The first article really made me wonder how these Koreans get accepted to these colleges in the first place. I believe that the college applications process does not do good job of selecting the right students they want. For example, colleges require students to take SATs to examine their reading, writing, and math skills. However, it is obvious that many students take many practice tests in Hakwons, which allow them to get better scores, without really improving their reading or writing skills. It was very ironic that these students who are going  to prestigious colleges are actually suffering most from English ability.

New Ways of Cheating

       The alarming rate of cheating among high school students mentioned in article two also really surprised me. I was wondering whether this increase in cheating rates are related with the increased number of Korean students going abroad to study. As several people may know, Hakwons can really promote students to cheat in school. Because many Korean students lack the ability to study independently, students might be forced to cheat on a test that they weren’t able to study by themselves. And this cheating could have spread over the American high schools after other Americans get influenced by other Koreans’ way of cheating and receiving good grades.

       Education should really depend upon the students themselves. And the students with the most diligence and motivation should succeed in the end and no unfairness of students taking the easy way should happen. I wish Korea could get out of this hakwon craziness. Students should use their free time to study school works and develop their hobbies and academic interest instead.