Let's talk about mental program; values and culture

This chapter deals with definition and measurement of mental programs in people in general, and values and culture in particular. Mental programs distinguished into three levels of uniqueness; universal, collective, and individul. the least unique but most basic is the universal level which is shared by all, or almost all, mankind. This is the biological "operating system" of the human body, but it includes a range of expressive behaviors such a laughing and weeping and associative and agressive behaviors which are found in higher animals.

The collective level of mental programming is shared with some but not with all other people; it is common to people belonging to a certain group or category, but different among people belonging to other groups or categories. The whole area of subjective human culture belongs to this level, for example the language in which we express ourselves, the deference we show to our elders, the physical distance, etc.

The individual level of human programming is truly unique part-no two people are programmed exactly alike. This is the level of individual personality, and it provides for a wide range of alternative behaviors within the same collective culture.

The values are distinguished into values as the desired and values as the desirable. Values itselves are those things that really matter to each of us. in fact, values determine our subjective definition of rationality. Because our values are programmed early in our lives, they are non-irational.

The term of  "value" or "values" is used in all social sciences with different thought bot completely unrelated meanings. Values have both intensity and direction. Mathematically, values have a size and a sign: they can be represented by arrows along in a line. If we "hold" a value, this means that the issue involved has a certain relevance for us(intensity) and that we identify certain outcomes as a "good" and others as "bad" (direction).

When we talk about values as the desired and the desirable we have to distinguish between as what people actually desire versus what they think ought to be desired; they should not be equated.  In most of the psychological and socialogical research literature, "social desirability" is treated as something undesirable to the researcher.

Culture consists in patterned ways o thinking, feeling, and reacting, acquired and transmitted mainly by simbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values (Kluckhohn, 1951: 86, 5). Cultures is treated as "th collective progrmmingogf the mind which distinguishes the members of one huan group from another. The word "culture" is usually reservedfo societies (in the modern world is speaked of "nations") or for ethnic or regional groups, but it can be applied equally to othr human collectivities or categories a profession, or a family.

Contemporary Korea at Glance: Korean Dish Part; a pickle of Kimchi (by Z. Balqis)

The wellknown kimchi is a kind of  Korean traditional fermented dish made from chinese cabbage with little bit sour, spicy and hot taste. Koreans sereve kimchi at almost every meal. Kimchi seems like koreans soul. Moreover, Koreans said, " I can't imagine live without kimchi" even in fact, kimchi was originally from China but without spicy taste and it little bit salty.

Recently kimchi not only as a dish or pickle but it also transform to another kind of  main menu, for example kimchi soup, kimchi noodle, rice-roll kimchi (kimchi kimpab), even as a western meal; burger, pizza, and spaghetti.

Kimchi also become an export commidity for Korea. It earns about one million US dollar every year. Moreover the export of kimchi to foreign countries is rapidly increasing. While Korens immigrant to other countries they continue to eat kimchi as a side dish. It gradually gain popularity even among foreigners. Accordingly kimchi could be find wherever Koreans live.

Contemporary Korea at Glance: Korean Clohing Part; Today Hanbok (by Z. Balqis)

Hanbok is Korean traditional clothing. Recently Korean people doesn't wear that kind of cloth as a daily clothing. They'd prefer to wear it when be present at such a traditional ceremony; chuseok, seollal, etc, also at the wedding ceremony and 60th or 70th birthday celebration.

Basically hanbok is consist of 2 parts; top and under. For female top one is shape of a vest or waistcoat named cheogori, and the under one is a skirt called chima.
Male Hanbok seems almot same, also devided into two parts. The top is also called cheogori and it's weared with a shape of trousers called paji.

Nowadays, Korean hanbok pattern not only available in traditional style but also in recently fashion style. One of Korea designer started to modernize hanbok by putting such a western touch on the under part of hanbok. Lee Young-Hee (Korean designer) changed the skirt ( chima ) by trousers, and the other designer change the traditional hanbok style into you can see plastic patchwork dress. Modernizing hanbok make hanbok changes in many parts, but Korean designers still keep the original hanbok essence; elegance with the simplicity.

Modernizing Korean Traditional Clothing (Hanbok)

Type       : Summary

Source   : Modernisasi Pakaian Korea (Novi Siti Kussuji Indrastuti – Kepala Pusat Studi Korea UGM)

Before western-style clothing influenced Korea, Koreans wore Hanbok as their daily clothing. But now, they wore the more flexible and practical cloth for their daily clothing and pull-off their hanbok in special occasion. Chuseok, Seollal, and 60^th and 70^th birthday are the common special days when they usually wear hanbok.

                  As national clothes hanbok reflects the Korean’s characteristics. Basically either woman and man clothes has 2 pieces. For woman, a kind of blouse called Cheogeori –similar with bolero- and Chima for the skirt. For Man, the Cheogori is a bit longer till the waist and a trousers called Baji. Each model and design of hanbok indicates gender, profession and social status of the wearer.

                  Combining  both modern aspect and traditional taste, Korean designers are playing with colours and lines to create a modern hanbok but still reflects the characteristics of Koreans.

                  Sharp-vertical-cutting is the favourite of most modern hanbok designers. The main principal of traditional hanbok is its minimalism of detail and decoration and also pastel colour that represents colour of sky.

The other traditional element of traditional hanbok is its bright-rainbow colours. Sol Yoon-Hyong is one of modern designer who combines the colours with skirt covered by plastic which symbolizes futuristic aesthetics.

                   There is also a creation that uses western clothing and hanbok itself as one outfit. Such as Turtle neck collar for the top and a vest for the outer. The cutting of the vest is similar with traditional one. Any unique creation of Hanboks are successfully catches fashion-observers’ eyes.

                  Lately, modern hanbok not only available in two-pices-outfits, but also the one-piece-outfits do exist. 

Contemporary Korea at Glance; Movie Part: Five Facts about korean movies industries (by Zahrani Balqis)

There are 5 important points we need to know about korean movie world.

First, start from the beginning of 21st century korean movie industry has been more popular in international movie world, and korean government has a great concern for it. The government joins with the private enterprise hold such a film festival every year, for example The Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF), Blue Dragon Film Award, Seoul Independent Film Festival, and 9 anothers.

Second, at the beginning of 21st century Korean cineplex business was dominated only by several big koreancapitalist but recently foreign enterprise also cntributes to subsequent deveopment by buying The Megabox cineplex shares.

Third, 3 years recently korean movie industries agree to decrease their national movie screen quota. Previously, every cinema was required to present Koreen movie least 8 weeks in one year.

Forth, since the beginning of 2008 Korea have been have a payment of wages standardization for low level movie workers.

And the last, Korea has 2 movie organizations that have a great concern and actively take care of their national movie. The organizations are KOFA (Korean Film Archieve) and KOFIC (Korean Film Council)