6th blog spot. wilderness of sweet

The Front Line. (GO JI JUN)

the story of the movie is basically about Korean war. It happened on 1950 in Erok Goji. It is located in 38 longitude; the boundary between North and South. The Erok Goji means Erok Hill. The owner of Erok Goji had been changed for more than hundred times. Since the Erok Hill shifted so much sides, North and South soldiers became SOMEHOW friends. They had been sending letters each other, give Liquors, cigarettes and matches. After few years, North and South declared truce but both Governments wanted to occupy the Erok Hill before the truce took effect.  Most of Soldiers died at the last part.


Even this film may be not truly accurate but there is some sense of truth since soldiers were Korean. 
They may be enemies because what the Government want them to do, this is true. Koreans are duty oriented, and they are obligated by their government because they are military man and of course soldiers on both sides want to protect their country but we cannot discount the fact that this soldiers are both Koreans.
the value of this work as counter or alternative history? is that the detail on history a history otherwise would have been very shallow. This stories show a side that is not evident if one would examine history as something from a history book.

5th blog post assignment.

1. When we compare the life between modern and contemporary life, first the life

in contemporary world was quite struggling. I would say that because

Philippines expereienced world war 2 and marchial law. Not only Philippines

but also in Korea. Korean experienced Japanese occupation, World war 2 under

Japanese regime and Korean war. the life back than was a disaster. People got

so poor that they couldn't afford to buy a rice for their family. My

grandfather used to tell me his life story after the Korean war. the life that

he lived was not easy. Nowadays, Philippines and Korea had passed those

suffering era. We have developed our economy. The life we are enjoying now was

a dream of my grandfather when he was young. so I beleive that the major

difference between contemporary and modern life is economic stance and the

technology that we are having now.

2. Advantage in modern life is technology. We don't need to send a snail mail any more, we can use wifi via cellphone. transportation is one of the advantage of  modern life. In Korea subways, taxi and bus are well developed and we could use them and it's convinient. Disadvantage would be the laziness of the people. We gained benefits from the technology and that technology make us to be lazy because most things could be done without moving that much.  

3.Technology have evolved very fast since year 2000. First colored cellphone was made and now we are using smart phones like iphone and galaxy. We could possibly say that young age like high school to college are mostly depending their lives on technology. I see many people using his or her cellphone for whole day. not just for call and text but other applications that interests them. I can't say that technology is always benefitial for us but they also have several disadvantatges. I agree on development of science to enlarge mankind's knowledge but sometimes I am afraid that sometimes we are going way too fast. What could possibly fulfill man's desire on knowledge? To seek more knowledge much sacrfice also be happen. (Animals and plants...etc..) So my Opinion is to slow a bit down on developing technology.



DLSC LITFILI - MARRIAGE

Critical analyses, i.e comparisons and contrasts between Nick Joaquin's "Summer Solstice" and Aida Rivera-Ford's "Love in the Cornhusks" have reaped rich material for cultural, gender, and class studies. For your fourth blog requirement, compose an essay on cultural or political issues, occurences, problems, etc. related to relationships, sex and marriage.
Use the insights you have gained from our discussions of the above-mentioned stories as take-off points or writing prompts. You may focus on one or more characters, the conflict/s of each story, the theme/s, symbolism, etc. embedded in the stories. You may do a comparison and contrast between the social conditions then and now, or you may talk about cultural differences between regions, countries, religions, etc.
Whatever you choose to do, do some research on your topic. Cite concrete situations, practices, events, etc. and support these with sources.


In summer solstice it was quite different the storyline of this story, because it deals on marriage. also the traditions that are shown in this story is quite awkward and different. the fertility tradition is quite shocking because i have never heard of this culture before, i know the main couple was catholic believer because they look educated and philippines under this time is very spanish, but the tradition that they adopted later after seeing other people do that non catholic tradition, shocked me because they changed totally in what is considered normal for western.

Also in Love in the Cornhusks the woman chose the marriage partner so that he can support her, i think this is very common in filipino society because many couples are very close then break apart then end up with an unwanted child, then it is usually the womens fault, so she will have to find someone to take care of her. But i think this is not problem of the tradition of marriage but more of the problem within the couple attitude. Maybe it is within tradition or upbringing of pilipinos that is why this story is relevant. because in korea many people believe that marriage is not just connection between boy and girl but also the connection between their families, that is why it is very hard to get married in korea, they must know if you are a good person to their son or daughter, in all aspects. Marriage in south korea is very important family business. This is one reason also, many koreans get stressed in relationships because they always need to do their best in what they are doing, like job or with family, so that they will always be ready for their girlfriends/boyfriend's family.          



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_South_Korea - Korean marriage

Assignment on jan-21-2012

1. Pick out one or more common themes or elements from both stories. Discuss what interests you about this/these themes or elements. Do they still occur/exist in the context of the modern family?

both stories were able to discuss how the filipino families lived before the world war. It was kind of interesting for me since Im not that aware of Filipino family culture before world war. When I read the story the "mats", it was an interesting story. Like in Korea, the father was a head of the family. The father keep the family tight by brining them presents after his trip. As I've notice, Filipinos are trying to keep their family as harmonious as they can. This culture could be find modern filipino family. I've seen lots of filipino families and when ever they have trip abroad, they bring them PASALUBONG to prove that they are still close to each other. In Korea, we don't usually buy them a suvenior all the time because we think that it wouldn't be necessary. The idea of PASALUBONG is very appreciative because it symbolizes friendship or peace within the family.