Holidays

     Today, I'd like to talking about holidays. What is your favorite holiday? My favorite holiday is New Year. Because everywhere is lively and everyone enjoys a party at New Year season, I like the atmosphere and liveliness. Actually, I usually celebrate two times of New Year.

     One of two times is the first day of the year likewise other countries. I usually go to a mountain or the beach to see the first sunrise of the year with family or friends. In a mountain or the beach while I see the first sunrise, I usually wish that the year will be good for everyone who I know. Some people go to Bosin-Gak, was made in 1398 to tell time to the public, to hear the sound of Jeya Bell. In Bosin-Gak the sound of Jeya Bell rings 33 times to celebrate New Year on 12 at night of the first day.

     Another of two times is Seol-Nal: the first day of the year based on the Korean lunar calendar. In Seol-Nal, all my relatives go to the house of the most old member. In the house, we prepare many kind of traditional foods and wear Han-Bok, name of the traditional Korea cloth. We have a memorial ceremony for ancestors. After the ceremony, usually males including my father and brother visit graves of ancestors. While males are visiting graves, females including my mother prepare a meal. One of the foods is Tteog-gug, name of traditional ricake. Eating Tteog-gug means getting a year old. After every relatives enjoy the foods, young members and I bow to old members, so we can get words of blessing and lots of money as well from old members!!

Marriage Traditions

   Today, I'd like to talk about marriage traditions in Korea. In traditional wedding ceremony, there were 3 steps. First, older family members of a bride and a groom discussed each other's opinion about marriage of a bride and a groom. After they had decided a marriage of a bride and a groom, a groom went to a bride's house to get a wedding ceremony. Because past Korean lived in Hanok, a type of Korean-style house that had a big empty front yard, a traditional wedding was held in the yard of house. In a bride's house, a groom gave a wild goose to parents of a bride. It means to promise to live together forever even if a spouse die earlier than another one. Ans then a bride and a groom stand in front of each other and bowed to each other. But at this procedure, a bride had to hid her's face by wild sleeves. And then they shared each other's glasses and gave a little of food to each others. Also, they prepared 2 of gourd dipper and It meas to declare that they got a married like a gourd became one by two. 

Opinion

   Actually I like to watching movie so I watch movies on free weekend. One of my favorite is Harry Potter series among many movies. I don't remember when I watched Harry Potter movies initially. I've known the movies since I was a kid. I watched the same movies many times because the movies make me feel to be like a kid. Even though I already know the story of movies, the films are very interesting and amazing; there are many fantasy such as spells, invisibility cloak, flying bloom, secret map, dragon and so on. Also I like musics used in the films, variety of characters. When I was a high school student, one of my friends had read books of Harry Potter series written in English and she recommended the books to me; however, at that time I was not good in English so I gave up to read the books. I think now I can read the books written in English so I'd like to read the books written in English. 

Travel

What can we get from mud? Have you ever enjoyed mud? There is a crazy mud festival

in Korea. The biggest mud festival is Boryeong Mud Festival and It last for 18 years. The festival is held on every July for about 10 days near by Boryeong beach and the mud has some substance be good for the skin such as mineral, germanium, and bentonite so you can feel that your body skin turn to much softer than before. In the festival people's body get covered with the mud completely and they throw mud to someone else's body each other even though you've not met before. Also there are lots of activities that you can enjoy with family, friend, or couple: mini marathon in foreshore, big mud pool, mud slide, making mud soap and so on. In the night we can enjoy music concert; they usually invite famous singer of Korea at that time. Let's enjoy mud festival !

Language

How many languages and letters are there in the world? Approximately, there are around 3,000 to 4,000 languages and about 100 letters. Among those, I can speak two languages barely: Korean and English. To be honest, It's hard to learn languages and letters not mother tongue; however, I'd like to speak more than 2 languages. Nowadays I'm interested in Japanese and Spanish because I have been meeting lots of friends who are native speakers of Japanese and Spanish. I think Japanese language and letter are very unique. Japan is close to Korea as geographic but we have a very different language and letter. That makes me more get interest in Japanese. Moreover recently I'm learning Spanish from Patricia and that's so exciting. Also, Spanish is the second common language in the world and I think Spanish language is so cute. Although It's difficult to speak other language perfectly, It won't be a problem to communicate with someone who have different mother tongue if I try to learn other language.

If I Win $10 Million in the Lottery

Let's imagine If you win $10 million in the lottery, what do you want to do? It 
makes me smile. If I win the lottery, I'll spend half of the money for present and enjoy a rich life. For example, I'll buy lots of thing that I've wanted to get: a big house, luxury cars, jewelries, clothes and so on. Also I'll travel the world by a cruise for several months with family. It will be very wonderful experience. On the other hand, I'll keep of invest half of money for my future. For example, I'll buy a building that assure a regular money so I'll let out a building to a company of a institution. Also I want to keep money on a bank because I don't want to lose money for a short time. Although some people won a lottery spend and lose their whole money, I don't want be like them. Moreover, Even if I win $10 million in the lottery, I'll keep going my work.

Crime

It is not too much to say that we are living in crimes world. The more technology develop, the more crime is happened. For example, in the past people was concerned about arson, extortion, assault, kidnap, theft, fraud and blackmail. But now people should concern for cyber crime such as virus, hacking, stealing personal information, spam mail, cyber stalking, cyber terror, cyber banking crime and identity theft. Even now new cyber-crime was occurred constantly. In regard to cyber crime, Canada is more safe than Korea, my home country. A few years ago, there was a big cyber hacking that steal personal information of a lot of people even president and banking information too from some bank websites in Korea. Almost of citizen was stolen important information so they had to renewed or deleted their bank account. Eventually the bank employees had to work overtime until 10 pm for a long time. In order to protect our personal information from cyber crime, we should change our password regularly, use internet security programs and conduct virus inspection. Also, government should make more strict punishment than before, manage security of a bank website periodically and bank should check, update their security program too. By using those method, we can make our personal information stay safety.

Hello and welcome to the World of Jiyun blog !
I'm Jiyun and I'm studying English in University of Calgary. I'm from South Korea. These days, I'm so exciting to study English in Canada. It is nice experience to me! So, I hope to improve my English communication skills; reading, writing, listening, and speaking by at the end of fall semester. my hobbies are watching movie and musical, listening music, exercising in a gym, going to an art exhibition and music concert.  Also I'm interested in architecture, landscape, historic, fashion and travel.