South+Korea+Culture

Culture of South Korea
 * History || Geography || Culture || Economics || Politics || Class Activities || Resources ||

=**Beliefs**= Almost half of the Korean population do not have any religious beliefs. About 26.3 % are Christian (Protestant 19.7%, Roman Catholic 6.6%); 23.2% are Buddhist 23.2%, and 1.3% are other or unknown 1.3%.

=**Traditions**= Koreans celebrate two New Years because they follow two calendars: the solar calendar and the lunar calendar. The solar New Year's takes place on January 1, and looks a lot like how we celebrate it in the United States. In addition, South Koreans also pay respect to ancestors who have passed away on this day. On Lunar New Years, which is celebrated in February, people wear traditional clothes and exchange gifts. While each New Year's celebration has its own unique tradition, the main idea behind both celebrations is to wish everyone good luck in the coming year. Korean Independence day is celebrated on March 1 to commemorate an event called the Manse Demostrations which was lead by Korean resistance movement against Japanese rule in 1919. Children's Day is celebrated on May 5 every year. Children are given money on this day and taken on outings. Hangul Day celebrates the creation of the Korean alphabet. It is celebrated on October 9 in South Korea. On Valentine’s Day, February 14, girls give chocolates and gifts to their boyfriends. But a month later on March 14, known as White Day, boys give chocolates and gifts in white boxes to their girlfriends. Finally, single people celebrate Black Day on April 14. They get together with their friends and eat JaJang Noodles, which are black in color.
 * ==**New Years[[image:asia-isu-spring2012/New_years.jpg width="287" height="163" align="right" caption="In South Korea, people spend New Year's with their family and Christmas with their friends."]]**==
 * ==Korean Independence day==
 * ==Children’s Day==
 * ==Hangul Day==
 * ==Valentine’s Day, White Day, and Black Day==

=**Societal Expectations**= Affection between the father and son, known as filial piety, has been the normative foundation of Korean family life, and still plays an influential role in contemporary South Korea. Based on Confucian philosophy, this means the son owes his father unquestioning obedience. Family and lineage is extremely important to South Koreans. Traditionally, the most important issue for families was to produce a male heir to carry on the family line and perform ancestor rituals. In Korea, elderly people are highly respected and treated accordingly.

Since the 1990s, there have been a number of changes in traditional family and kinship institutions of South Korea. Complex kinship and families structures have weakened and been replaced by two-generation, nuclear families. There has also been a trend toward equality in family relations and improved status of women. In addition, because people in the cities no longer work among relatives or neighbors, but unrelated people, individuals view their location and associations to be transitory and temporary instead of permanent and lifelong.

Traditionally, gender and age have been the two most fundamental influences in patterns of social organization in South Korea. Housework is most commonly regarded as women's work even when a woman works outside the home. Industrialization and democratization have given women more opportunities to play diverse roles in public life, but the basic structure of a gender division of labor is observable in public life. As of April 1998, 47.7 percent of all adult females worked outside the home. Women's average earnings were 63.4 percent of those of men in the same jobs.

=Education= The literacy rate of people age 15 or older in South Korea who can read or write is 97.9%. In South Korea, everyone strives to be as educated as possible. The school system consists of 6 years of primary school, 3 in middle and high school and 4 years of college. Because education is so valued, getting into the best schools is extremely competitive. Also, there aren’t as many colleges in Korea as in the United States, so that also limits the number of students accepted into college. =Language= The primary language of South Korea is Korean. Korean has a close relationship to Japanese in general structure, grammar, and vocabulary. The form of Korean spoken around Seoul is regarded as standard. Koreans value their native tongue and their alphabet, han’gul, which was invented in the mid-fifteenth century.

Most South Koreans know some English. English is studied at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.

=Food= For many people a bowl of steamed white rice, a soybean-paste vegetable soup, and a dish of kimch’I constitute the basic everyday meal, to which steamed or seasoned vegetables, fish, meats, and other foods may be added as side dishes ( panch’an ). Meat dishes such as pulgogi (barbecued meat) and kalbi (short ribs) are popular among both Koreans and foreigners. Kimch'I is the national dish. It is a pungent, often hot, mixture of fermented and/or pickled vegetables. Some of the more unusual dishes in Korean cuisine include Army Base stew, which is kimchi with Spam or hot dogs cooked into it; chicken feet, raw crab, live seafood soup, silkworm larvae, dog stew and live spoon worms. There are no food taboos, although Buddhist monks may practice vegetarianism and observe other food taboos. Many people eat at a low table while sitting on the ondol floor, using a spoon and chopsticks.