Article "Korean culture"

Article an “Korean culture”

The country we are researching is South Korea. It is located on the continent Asia, below North Korea, and it is near Japan and China. South Korea is 38,691 miles squared while the U.S is 3,797,000 miles squared. That is about 20% of the size of California! Even though South Korea is that small, it has a population of about 55.22 million people. South Korea consists of mostly mountains in the east, and has many coastlines and beaches in the south. Unfortunately, many of the mountains and coastlines are taken up by buildings, and apartments, but still many of them exist allowing one to travel these natural formations. Even though with many of the natural formations still around, South Korea is starting to lose many of their natural resources due to the resources being over harvested. Some of the natural resources are still around and grown, like food, but most of it are brought in from other countries because Korea had either gotten rid of these natural materials by building many factories and housing over them, or over harvested them. Going through the list of South Korea’s physical features, South Korea has very different climates all throughout the 4 seasons. The spring and fall are very short with temperatures that are between summer and winter. On the other hand, summer is very humid and hot while winter is long, cold, and dry.

Now the “tour” heading towards the South Korean’s culture, money holidays, etc. The currency for South Korea is called won. The country was created in around the 1950s after the war between North and South Korea. The main language for Korea is Korean, but other languages are starting to come in, for example English. Korean or Hangul was created by King Sejong in 1443 to help the common people to speak and write, before that a writing style called Hanja was used. The Capital of South Korea is Seoul. Like the capital Seoul, many other cities are urban cities, but that doesn’t mean that there is not rural areas. Most of the rural areas are inhabited by much older people, while the urban consists of many younger people. South Koreans eat many different types of foodsThere are many different holidays and events in Korea. The Two big holidays in Korea are Chuseok, Korea’s version of Thanksgiving and Seollal or Korean Lunar New Year. Both years are celebrated by seeing family and eating many different types of food. In Seollal, a tradition food called Tteokguk (rice cake soup) is eaten. Also, people play yutnori as a fun games. In Chuseok a food called Songpyeon, a Korean traditional rice cake which usually contains sesame seeds and honey as stuffing, but other ingredients such as black beans, mung beans, cinnamon, pine nut, walnut, chestnut, and jujube are used, is eaten and trade with neighbors. In both holidays, Koreans give respect to their elders and their ancestors, and wear traditional Korean clothes called Hanbok, hanbok is also wore during weddings by the bride and groom. Both holidays don’t have an exact date and change each year depending on the Lunar calendar.