Answering My Main Inquiry Question

Have you ever wondered what Korean religion is or why it’s important? Well I didn’t know what it was or why it is important so I decided to do it for my Capstone project. When you think about religion, you probably think about what food people eat,  what music they listen to, what holidays they celebrate, their prayer, or their religious practices. Well, this is what I thought about religion. So it led me to find my main inquiry question. How has religion influenced Korea throughout its history? I will be talking about the first religions in Korea, the religions used today, why it changed, and how it influenced education and culture.

There are a couple religions that were practiced way back in time. Shamanism is the first religion in Korea that we know of. Shamanism, or Mugyo (a form of atheism), is a traditional form of the religion that went way back into 1000 BC.  In this religion, people believe that multiple gods watch over creation and affairs and that every object in the world has a soul.  Connecting to shamanism, a shaman in Korea is called a Mudang. A mudang is a priestess who uses ‘magic’ to effect cures, to tell interesting fortunes, to comfort spirits of the dead, and to push back evil.The priest (the male version of a priestess) is called a paksu. But the priestess and the priest are known by many other names. They had powers, but Dangun (according to Korean beliefs) is the founder of Koreans and the shamanistic powers.  Eventually, Shamanism gave way to more sophisticated religions but was also integrated into them.

The “Three Teachings” (Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism) from China, arrived in Korea by the 5th century CE. Confucianism arrived in Korea as early as 372 CE. Confucianism was founded before Confucius (Master Kong) was born, during the Zhou Dynasty in China which began as early as 1122 BC. This religion went to Koguryo in China, then went to Korea. A leading Confucian scholar, An Hyang, was responsible for introducing Neo-Confucianism to Korea in the 13th century CE. The three main beliefs of Confucianism are 1) being kind to others, 2) having a sense of doing what is right, and 3) being loyal, and doing good work in serving one’s superiors. Today, only a very small percentage of South Koreans practice Confucianism today(0.2%). 

There are 2 primary religions that are practiced in South Korea today. One of them is called Buddhism and is practiced by about 20% of the population. This religion came into the Korean peninsula from China in the 4th century CE. At this time, Korea was split into 3 kingdoms: Packche, Koguryo, and Silla. Buddhism first arrived in the Northern part of Koguryo, introduced by Monk Shun-Tao from China, then slowly spread to the other 2 kingdoms in Korea. Monk Malanda was the one who spread Buddhism further in 384 CE. Buddhists do not believe in any goddesses or gods. But even though most of them do not believe in gods, they look up to the Buddha, who founded the religion in the late 6th century BC. They do believe that when you die, the spirit from your body keeps going after death and may be reborn. 

The next religion that is mostly used today is Christianity, which covers about 30% of the population in South Korea. Christians in South Korea are primarily Protestants (20%) with some Catholic population (10%), and overall, this religion originated with the ministry of Jesus.  In 1900, only 1% of the population in Korea were Christions. Things changed a bit and in 2010, about 3/10 of them were Christians. This religion just has kept changing throughout the years in Korea. The government has been very supportive and sympathetic to Christianity in Korea. Christianity was first introduced to South Korea in the 18th century and primarily expanded from French and Chinese Catholic missionaries in the early 19th century. 

Why did religions change? A long time ago, Buddhism became the official religion in the Three Kingdoms subsequent dynasties. But now the official religion is Christianity which first came in the 18th century. The main reason why they changed is because of Korean nationalism during the Japanese occupation. This led to most of the people with religion, Christianity. So this became the new official religion. Back in the modern times, the only religions were Shamanism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. But today the new religions are Buddhism and Confucianism. This happened because again, the Japanese occupation. When Buddhism was the religion of the State, Confucianism replaced it. This happened in 202 BC. The practice of Christianity today is marginal in other areas but significant in South Korea where it revolves around the two branches. Protestantism and Catholicism. It also became more religious in 2005. 

Education is really important to Korea and so is religion. Schools in Korea think that higher levels of religion and engagement, can make people get better education and a better understanding. With religion, you also have a higher chance of being successful. Education and religion are inseparable in Korea. A lot of studies show that religious thoughts has affected the spiritual/practice worlds in contemporary/premodern Korea. Koreans have been teaching students about religion for a super long time and when they did, the students’ grades went up. Christianity (the religion used today) has exerted influence upon the development of higher education. Buddhism and Confucianism also have an impact on education. The religions have impacted  formal and nonformal education.  But there is a misunderstanding of the concept in how changes have been mandated by the government of Korea since 1969 but now have been resolved.

Korean culture is important to religion. Korean culture includes folk music, a lot of plays, seasonal customs, and Korean medicine. Most Koreans are very peaceful and friendly in their culture, and good religion, the amount of crimes are very low.  Korean culture is unique because of diligence, hard work, filial piety, and the Koreans’ humbleness. Asian philosophies such as Confucianism, are not really always considered to be religious by Koreans. But they are rather more perceived as a way of viewing life that coexists with other religions. Korean culture is influenced by confucian principles. Confucian principles believe that humans are fundamentally good, teachable, improvable, and perfect through personal endeavor and self creation. Korea has more religious practices but the United States has more people with religion.

Overall, religion is really important to Korea and its people. Without religion, Korea would not be the same. It would have a lot more wars and fights. Today Korea has 2 religions, Christianity and Buddhism. Religion has changed a lot and influenced a ton of things in Korea.

https://www.wevideo.com/view/2733977154

Capstone Interview

For Capstone, the interview was an important part. We had to find someone who knew a lot about our topic and interview them. They were supposed to be an expert at the topic. This was supposed to help our research and get more info. Even if you didn’t know anyone, you would have to research sites, ask anyone if they knew someone, and write emails to people. But if you knew them then it would probably be easier.

Finding my interview was a bit challenging. I went home and talked to my parents of who I could interview. My mom reccomended someone but I still had to think of it. I was going to ask my family member but it couldn’t help my sub question as she didn’t know much about my topic. But my classmate recommended someone that I could interview. So I had the interview. But after a little editing I changed my sub and main inquiry question. 

  • How has religion influenced Korea throughout its history?
  • What were the first religions in Korea?
  • What are the religions used today?
  • Why did religions change?
  • How did religion influence education?
  • How did religion influence culture???

I thought about interviewing the person that my classmate recommended. But then I went home and I talked to my mom about it. She said that I actually could interview someone that lives with me since I changed my questions. So I decided to go with her.

Coming up with the questions for my interview was quite easy. I had to think of questions that could be easy to answer and I also mostly put the ones that I didn’t have the answer to. Since I had a lot of questions that were not my sub questions, I could ask her! Conducting the interview was interesting. It wasn’t what I expected. It was a long wait before I had to interview her. But that didn’t really matter. It took around 5 minutes and it was a little bit hard for her to understand but I think she got the general idea. The more we got into it, the more she could understand. It was not the information I was really looking for but I got a couple of things that I could use. 

Overall, I think the interview went out of a scale of 1 – 10 a 6/10. I hope you enjoyed my blog post.

Capstone #1

I am in fifth grade and it is the time of year that we will be starting Capstone. Capstone is the big project at the end of the year. You either have to make a TED Talk, a video presentation, or an ignite. A TED Talk is a presentation where you have a script that you have to try to memorize. A slide is in the background and you can move the slides. But with an ignite, it is basically the same but the slides move automatically. In my opinion, I think that ignites make me a little pressured. Last but not least, we have the video presentation. I personally think that this is the best option. You make a video and it will be presented on the big screen. The worst part in my opinion is hearing your voice on the big screen.

I had a bunch of ideas for my capstone project such as space, Covid, music, 911, and maybe the ocean. These were pretty good ideas but I decided to cut some of them. I cut space because I’ve done way too many things about it. Then I cut 911 because someone else was doing it. Now I was down to Covid, music, and the ocean. We did some work on questions but that was before I had cut it. I had just realized I did so much question work on Covid, Space, and 911. But I still decided not to do 2 of them. I then erased the idea of covid because I wasn’t too into it. Now I was down to music, and maybe the ocean. Since the ocean was maybe so I picked music. I mean I have a musical family and I’ve always liked it. So that’s when I decided to do music. Even though I could’ve done space and ocean pretty easily, I wanted to learn more about something. Not something that I already knew tons about. 

Even though I knew a ton about music because music is everything to my family. I wanted to do something different. Like how it evolved over time. But then I eventually thought of music used in different cultures. I wanted to do both but I probably could only do 1. But I decided to see if I could combine them together. My question was , “How has music evolved over time and how do people use it in different cultures?” This was my original question and I put it into the organizer that my teacher shared with my class and I. Soon I saw that she had asked an alternative question to mine. It was, “How is music used across cultures?” She called me over during class and I told her that maybe I wanted to do Asion cultures. So next I had to think of 5 cultures that I could do. I did Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines. Now this was my new question. “How is music used in religion across Asian cultures? (Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines.) \

Coming up with the sub questions was interesting. At first I had my other question, “How has music evolved over time and how do people use it in different cultures?” But I had a pretty hard time coming up with sub questions. I thought and thought, and thought. I mean I would’ve done something like, “How was music back in the 1800?” or, “How did people use music in European culture?” I then talked to my mom about it and she was right. It was very broad and I wasn’t able to think of any sub questions. So with the help of my teachers, Mrs. Furgatch, and Mrs Cooper, I now have a good question. Now the sub questions. I had an idea about the sub questions but I knew that they would be very similar. So I told Mrs. Cooper about it and she said that it was ok if they were similar because of my question. So here are two of them. “How does music relate to religion across Chinese Culture? How is music used in religion across Thai culture?”

Overall I think Capstone will be very exciting, especially when I will see the final result.  I’m hoping that it will turn out great like other examples in previous years. I hope you guys enjoyed my blog post.

Immigration Reflection

We were supposed to make a video of us explaining the immigrant’s story. But not in a question answered type.

Creating the video was sort of complicated. I loved putting it together. It was super fun but not so much creating the script. Images were simple to find and weren’t too hard. The most challenging part was creating the voiceover. I think that the voiceover was quite annoying because it kept on echoing and glitching.

I learned a lot of things about the person that I interviewed. I asked her some questions and got a lot of info. I think I learned that when I conduct an interview next, I should probably have better quality questions so I got better answers. But I think for the first time, it was ok. Creating the video was a little easy but I learned next time to probably add more family pictures. 

In conclusion, this interview project was really fun and maybe one day I will do this again!

Immigration Interview

For our Immagration Project, we have to interview someone who immigrated to America. You have to have 10 – 15 questions to ask them. We have to put together a video to present to our classmates. I interviewed Penny (Penelope)

I had to prepare 10 – 15 questions. After a lot of deciding which questions to use, I went from 20 questions to 15. The pdf of example questions were super helpful because I could get some inspiration from the questions. For the interview the materials I used were my chromebook, my phone, and myself. I expected the interview to take around 15 minutes but it actually was much shorter. It took around 5 minutes! 

Conducting the interview was pretty easy. I just had to ask my questions and then record their answers. It didn’t take as long as expected because some answers were quite short, while some of them were super long. I got all the answers that I needed for my video. The next time when I am conducting I should probably speak louder so they could hear me better.  The most interesting thing that I learned was that she actually came to the United States to see her kids.

In conclusion, conducting the interview was exciting and you should try to interview someone too! 

Rube Goldberg Blog Post #2

I finally finished my build and recording. This blog post will cover the final process of the project, testing, and making the WeVideo. 

After I finished building the project, I had a decent idea to try to get it on my first try. I tried the ending to make sure that it worked. Then I tried the middle and the end to make sure that worked. Next, I tried the beginning and the middle and that worked. So after I tried all of that, I asked my dad to record my first try. Surprisingly I got a successful run! That was a shocker! I was super excited and that was way easier than I thought. I think that the most challenging part was getting the right size balls to use.

I changed a couple things from my first sketch to my final sketch. I swapped the first two steps because after I tried it, I realized that it wasn’t going to work. The swap made it much better! I didn’t really change anything. My machine wasn’t different besides the first two sides.

The video was exciting to make. Since my dad put all the clips of the project on his phone, I didn’t know how to put it on my chrome book. So I had to solve the problem. I logged onto my school account from my computer. Then my dad airdropped me all of the videos. This made putting the clips in easier. I added text and 2 clips of audio. It was a little hard getting to 3 minutes (which was my goal.) Overall I think I did an ok job on the video. I didn’t add music because I felt like it would be a little distracting.

All in all, the Rube Goldberg project was a really fun experience. If you like building, I suggest you try this! Thank you for reading!

Rube Goldberg Blog Post #1

At school, we started a project called Rube Goldberg. A Rube Goldberg machine is an overly done machine used to complete a simple task. For our project, we have to create 8 steps which include a transfer of energy like when a ball hits a domino and makes it fall down. For my simple task, I wanted to put a toilet roll into a box.

For my Rube Goldberg project, I had to look at some videos of a Rube Goldberg project to get some inspiration. I got some ideas and then I looked on Amazon. I searched for supplies that I might need for my project. Looking on google and more on Amazon, I found all my things. YouTube, Amazon, and Google were really helpful to find materials and get inspiration.

I had to make a draft on paper after I thought about what I wanted to do. I started drawing and it took around 5 minutes to draft.I had to use at least 3 simple machines. The ones I decided to use are an inclined plane, a screw, and a lever. I needed to label all the steps where the transfer of energy took place as well as the simple machines. But after I looked at it a little closer, I didn’t really know how it would work. I tried building it using things that I found around my house such as toilet paper and cardboard. After a few days, I knew that my drawing of the machine wasn’t going to work. So I completely scrapped that idea and started a new one. After watching some videos on YouTube of Rube Goldberg to see the final project, I finally got a good sketch. It took around a few hours trying to build the first couple of steps. It took a while because my project kept breaking and I had to keep on building it because as I was putting it in the storage room, it dropped. But anyway, I did pretty well on my project so far!

The Rube Goldberg project is a really fun project and I enjoyed building it so far! My favorite part was probably sketching! I’m super excited to see how my project finishes! I hope you enjoyed my blog post!

Feature Article Reflection

We finished our feature articles and I really enjoyed writing it. The topic was pretty easy to choose. I just had to think about something that I knew a lot about. I could’ve done space or the ocean but space would have so many categories. The ocean, I knew about some stuff but couldn’t write a whole lot about it. I thought of what I should choose. Maybe my instrument? I mean I have been playing my instrument for 2 years and I know a lot about it. But I did have a few problems with coming up with my categories.

Even though I did know a lot about it, I couldn’t think of categories. I knew I could do about history, reeds, and that is all I could think about. I had to have at least 3 categories so maybe all the keys? I didn’t know much about it so I decided to do a little bit of research. I read on a lot of different sites but some didn’t have what I was looking for. But I kept on looking and finally! I found a site that told me a lot of information! I took a ton of notes and made sure that it would be enough to write a whole category. It was enough and then I just wanted 1 more category.

This part was really hard. 3 wouldn’t be enough and I really couldn’t think of anything. My head was blank. No ideas. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. UGH. It took forever to finally think of something. But then I realized that I couldn’t find anything about it! I mean I found very little but that wouldn’t work! Oh god. I had to think of something else! This was tough! I was struggling so much! I actually couldn’t think!! I was doomed! 

After a few hours, I thought of one thing. Posture. I feel like that is really important to know and I think I could write a category. I did some research and found some things. I put it all together.

After all of that, I had 4 categories! Now I worked on a few things. I had to add some examples and somewhere in each category, you would have to go back to the message of your feature article. Now doing that was a little hard but I did it. Adding examples was not that bad. I thought it would be really hard but it wasn’t!

Next, I edited and revised. I had to tweak things to make it better. It wasn’t that fun but it was important. I had to look through my whole feature article to check punctuation and capitalization. It made it better and I liked it!

 I was ready to make my feature article. I used slides and used shapes and pictures. I had different ways to have my feature article. This in my opinion, was the most fun part! I got to experiment with different shapes! 

I had so much fun making my feature article! I really like it and it was so fun making it!!!  Thank you guys for reading my Feature Article Reflection! Bye! (7,3,37! My lucky numbers!)

 

 

Reading Timeline Reflection

When Mrs. Cooper said that we would be making our reading timeline, I was like I don’t even know what books I will put. When she showed her own, my mouth was wide open. It looked so cool! How would I ever make something like that??? But I’m not going to worry about that. What books would I put on it?

I thought about when I was small and what books I read. I didn’t know what books I read. I mean I read a ton of books but I didn’t know which ones to put. I was struggling and then I remembered the first book I read. It was a famous picture book. I put all the pictures on a doc and printed them out.

I couldn’t just put it on paper and write my summary because I could only do a hybrid or make the whole thing. This made me a little more nervous. I’m not a good drawer, so I didn’t know how I would do it. Hmmmmm. Maybe I could cut out the title and write it myself. But the only problem was that the title was in weird places on the cover. Plus my handwriting was not the best.

Anyways, I had a lot of fun putting this together. I think it turned out pretty good! I hope you like it!! I will see you in my next blog post! Thank you for reading my blog post!!! See you!