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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Korean Traditional Culture

After one week and one day, finally I'm attending lectures. 1st lecture of the week and day is Korean Traditional Culture from 1p.m. to 3p.m. Oh, wat can I say bout this class? Hmmmm, AWESOME! The first thing v; Aliza, Sam and I, did was self-introduction (can never escape this). The people in this lecture are all aliens (foreigners; that's how South Korea identify foreigners). They are people from China, Cambodia, and Japan; newly added Malaysia (the three of us). Ahahahahah....

Our lecturer; Professor Shon, is very cute =). Though he mumbles sometime thru lecture but we can still understand and follow the flow. Topic for today is The Foundation of Korean's Myth. We learnt about Korea's 3 most important figure; Hwan-In (Heavenly God), Hwan-Woong (HIS son), and Tan-Gun (Son
to Hwan-Woong and also Korea's 1st King). We also learned the birth of Tan-Gun; his mother is known as Bear Woman. It started with one tiger and one bear prayed really hard to become human beings and thus, Hwan-In asked them to stay-in the cave for 100 days and eat only 20 garlic cloves and mugwort.


*Mugwort Leaves*

Hence they started to do so. As the days goes by, the tiger soon gave up whilst the bear still continued this journey. After 100 days, the bear turned into a beautiful woman and she was lonely. Thus, she asked God for a companion and God sent his son; Hwan-Woong to be a temporary human and married her. Hence, the birth of Tan-Gun; the 1st King of the Korea Peninsular. 

This is interesting as v don't have such story or myth in Malaysia; well at least how Malaysia was founded. Ours are more logic in a way; no room for mythical or magical stuffs. The foundation of Malaysia started from Parameswara; who 1st settled in Singapore then only moved to Malacca. AHahhaha... Of course we have our share of mythical stories; like Puteri Gunung Ledang. 

Oooo, then v also met three Koreans; newly established friendship! So happy, our network with Korean is expanding and hopefully it continues =) We sat and chatted for about 1 and a half hour. We talked bout travelling; Watermelon Unni traveled to Malaysia 2 months back and Soo, traveled to Singapore too... Then v also talked bout Korean Military Service a bit. Awe, they are all so nice to the extend that they offered to teach us Korean and bring us around places in Korea. Oh, so nice people =) I hope my experience with Koreans keeps getting better! 

*From left: K, Watermelon Unni, 
me, Aliza and Soo*

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