_WHY
ARE KOREANS INTERESTING?
South Korea. “Land of The Morning Calm”, is a land of opposites existing
in conjunction of each other. It combines ancient oriental tradition with
modern technology. Following its miraculous development over the last 50 years,
Korea is now a modernised vibrant nation that still maintains its traditional
culture. Han-in or literally “great
people” in Korean language practice kibun
or their code of living which turns their social harmony into a crucial
culture. Having interviewed one of them recently, we noticed Koreans are
interesting because they have their own unique way of keeping tab of their age,
consider our food are similar to theirs and listen to their particular
homegrown music genre which is K-Pop, specifically songs from the “Shinhwa”
K-Pop group.
Firstly, the curious case of Korean age makes them interesting. The
first rule for counting Korean age is that Korean babies at the moment of their
nascency, is one year old precisely. Let’s say a Korean baby was born in 2013.
On that year, the baby’s age was already one year old. A Malaysian baby, on the
other hand, was born on the same year. Yet, the baby’s age was still not one
year old until the year 2014. Furthermore, Korean age keeps on adding at New
Year’s Day instead of birthdays in contrary to popular belief. For instance,
Ji-young Jang is 22 years old in Korea. However, her age is not added one year
on her birthday that is on 23rd of December 2013. Her age is added
one year on the 1st of January 2014 instead. Nobody knows how this
peculiar canon started yet it has been carried out for such a long time until
it is an official way of counting age in Korea. In conclusion, the bizarre way of counting
age in Korea truly amuses us.
In
addition, the issue that raises our own curiosity is the fact that Koreans
consider our food is quite similar to theirs. Much alike to ours, their food is
largely based upon rice and chicken meat. Their steam-cooked short-grain rice
are similar to the rice we eat. Dolsotbap is a cooked rice in a pot
which is then serve with some side dishes called bachan. Our people in Malaysia practice the same style in serving
the rice too, although at here we called it as nasi campur. Chicken meat is often served roasted or braised with
vegetables or in soups. Similar to Malaysian, we also serve it roasted which
called ayam goreng and in soup namely
sup ayam. All parts of the chicken are used in Korean
cuisine, including the gizzard, liver, and wing. The wing of the chicken,
called dakbal, are often roasted and
covered with hot and spicy gochujang-based
sauce. Malaysian, on the other hand, roast the wing of the chicken and served
it with spicy chili sauce. They called this dish as the kepak ayam madu. To conclude, the Asian culture does not really
differentiate the texture and zest of culinary between Malaysia and Korea.
Lastly,
K-Pop is certainly food to the ears of all Koreans out there and among the
K-Pop groups that flourish in this era of Korean music is Shinhwa (myth). It is
a South Korean boy band which consists of six members. Shinhwa is famous
because of their talent in dancing. Their dances are often filled with heavy
choreography, with a few free style moves once in a while. They also feature
break dancers in the background of many of their performances as well as female
dancers dancing with and around them. Their dance moves has been describe as
"evil," "complicated," and "difficult-to-follow"
with few people being able to copy their dance moves. Shinhwa is also well-known
for their variety of musical styles. Shinhwa has changed musical styles many
times throughout their existence, beginning with typical bubblegum pop songs
(as seen with their song “Eusha, Eusha”) like other pop singers at the time.
They also did regular pop songs as well, with the release of their 4th album “Hey,
Come On!”. It would be in the release of their 7th album, “Brand New” that
Shinhwa would transition into dance songs. With the release of their 8th album,
State Of The Art, Shinhwa can still be seen having dance songs as well as,
though their hit song, “Once In A Lifetime” shows a more slow pop style. As a
conclusion, Shinhwa are famously renowned for their amazing dance performance
and for their creation of variety popular genre of musics.
In a nutshell, Koreans are interesting due to
their own unique way of determining one’s age, similar choice of food and
awesome preference of music. As stated previously, their inner kibun enters
into every facet of their lives, enfolding regardless of any aspect palpable.
Intertwined between the rapid growth of modernisation and perennial tradition,
Korea advances through this aeon under the flagship of its own citizens.
Righteously stands up to its status, the “Land of the Morning Calm” aspires to
embrace the opposites on a same cause of constructing a better nation. A nation
widely known as South Korea.
