Korean Culture
By Zach Dicken
Texts I've read
I have read four different texts. I started off with the Blue Lantern by Kathy Song, Stone Grilled Rice by Koun, Bibimbap by Pun Choi and Taste of Asia by Shin Kyông Nim. One was a short story and the other three where long poems. The story I choose was Blue Lantern to describe all three aspects of are culture.
Kathy Song Bio
Cathy song was born on 1955 in Hawaii to a Chinese mother and a Korean father. She received her M.A. in creative writing, and went on to wright famous poetry's and short stories.She both rights about the Hawaiian and Korean Culture.
"Blue Lantern"
This story is mostly based of a girl who father plays a bamboo pipe that represents the sorrows of his lose and the kids love listening to it or helps them sleep to the sound of his mellow music. "Who lay stricken by the music transposed to her body, waiting for the cry that always surprised her; like a glimpse of shadow darting through the room before she would drift off into sleep" (Kathy Song pg 153) this shows how slow and full of life the music is that it's not really a fast song where used to listening in America. It shows how back then times the old culture of Koreans and how they would play emotional, slow songs to express their life or story. "Listening, my eyes closed as though I were under water in the blueness of my room: I felt buoyant and protected"(Kathy Song pg 154). This shows how the emotions and art can easily spread through a person who understand what the the instrumental is thinking and feeling.
Work Cited
Song Cathy "Blue Lantern" Asian American Literature. New Jersey. Prentice Hall Literature: Upper Saddle River 1999
Song Cathy "The Grammar of Silk" Asian American Literature. New Jersey. Prentice Hall Literature: Upper Saddle River 1999
Song Cathy "Asian American Literature" New Jersey. Prentice Hall Literature: Upper Saddle River 1999