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The first website I would like to talk about is New world encyclopedia found at http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Contemporary_Culture_of_South_Korea. This webbsite has all the information you need about the trends of such important parts of South Korean culture as in movies, music, and technology.
The second website I would recommend to someone about South Korean culture is every culture. It can be found at http://www.everyculture.com/Ja-Ma/South-Korea.html.This website not only has the South Korean culture including Gender roles, Etiquitte, and religions, but it has many other countries as well.
The second website I would recommend to someone about South Korean culture is every culture. It can be found at http://www.everyculture.com/Ja-Ma/South-Korea.html.This website not only has the South Korean culture including Gender roles, Etiquitte, and religions, but it has many other countries as well.
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Statistical World Maps (2006, July 2). In Earthli. Retrieved July 20, 2015, from http://earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=1339
This is a map of the world's major religions. In the corner of the world that I am concentrating on, Chinese religions are the major religions of the area. On the Cultural Universals this would be under Belief Systems, Religion.
The following information is found at the CIA fact book on https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ks.html. South Korea has a total area of 99,720 sq km. According to the CIA fact book that makes it "smaller than Pennsylvania, but slightly larger than Indiana." The population of South Korea is 49,115,196 people. The birth rate is 8.19/1000 and the death rate is 6.75/1000. What this means is that the population is able to grow, but not at an extreme rate. This rate is considered healthy as opposed to the numbers being too different one way or the other. Too many births to deaths you have a population boom and you might not be able to keep up. Too many deaths to births, and you may see the extinction of people in that country, maybe even in our lifetime. South Korea's GDP (purchasing power) is ranked 14th out of 195 countries making it one of the largest economies of the world at 1.781 trillion dollars. South Korea's GDP/Capita is ranked 46th out of the 195 countries at 33,400 dollars. GDP/Capita is the spending power per person in the country.
The first statistic that I looked at that changed over time is infant mortality in 1950 to almost present day compared to the number of children to women. At it's peak during the late 1950's there is about 6.5 children per woman. The number of infant mortality was dropping at the same time. The reasons that I believe this is the case is that medicine and birthing procedures started getting better, As you can see the number of children per woman decreases as well as the infant mortality rate goes down as well.
For the next two figures I had to do two different sets of charts. GDP/employee is the earning power of South Korea per employed person. It is different from GDP/Capita in that the GDP/Capita is the total population. As you can see in the pictures South Korea's life expectancy for both males and females increases as the GDP/employee goes up. As the spending power goes up in the country (GDP) more hospiitals, better medicine, and better living conditions in the country all contribute to living longer.
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From left to right; Chungdong First Methodist Church in Seoul, the Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul, and the Seoul Central Mosque (Itaewon, Seoul). All images found at http://www.korea.net/AboutKorea/Korean-Life/Religion. South Korea may be the most homogeneous religiously in the entire world. The most remarkable thing I find about it is that they do it rather peacefully. When have you ever heard of South Korean's fighting over religion?
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Food in Korea
Since South Korea is a mostly homogeneous country where less than 3 percent of it is comprised of foreigners, most of their cuisine is traditional Korean food. One meal in a South Korean household consists of a main dish and several (sometimes more than 10) side dishes, usually of the pickled variety. A very popular side dish in South Korea is kimchi. One of the only meat dishes to originate in Korea is bulgogi, which is actually a personal favorite of mine. It is a staple in my house and one of the few times I can actually get all of my kids at the table at the same time. It's really simple too.
1 or 2 pounds of thinly sliced beef or pork
seasonings (I use garlic, onions, paprika, and chicken seasoning)
Bulgogi BBQ sauce (you can even make your own with a cup or two of soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar to taste, and green oinions)
Mix the ingredients together and let marinade for about an hour. I usually do mine for at least a day if not longer.
Cook on a griddle, or if you have one a sukiyaki grill, which cooks it over an open flame. It tastes so much better this way. They aren't that expensive either. We got ours for about 20 dollars at Lam's Supermarket.
A traditional bulgogi meal
Since South Korea is a mostly homogeneous country where less than 3 percent of it is comprised of foreigners, most of their cuisine is traditional Korean food. One meal in a South Korean household consists of a main dish and several (sometimes more than 10) side dishes, usually of the pickled variety. A very popular side dish in South Korea is kimchi. One of the only meat dishes to originate in Korea is bulgogi, which is actually a personal favorite of mine. It is a staple in my house and one of the few times I can actually get all of my kids at the table at the same time. It's really simple too.
1 or 2 pounds of thinly sliced beef or pork
seasonings (I use garlic, onions, paprika, and chicken seasoning)
Bulgogi BBQ sauce (you can even make your own with a cup or two of soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar to taste, and green oinions)
Mix the ingredients together and let marinade for about an hour. I usually do mine for at least a day if not longer.
Cook on a griddle, or if you have one a sukiyaki grill, which cooks it over an open flame. It tastes so much better this way. They aren't that expensive either. We got ours for about 20 dollars at Lam's Supermarket.
A traditional bulgogi meal
South Korea does not have it's own resources for growing their own food. In fact over 90 percent of its food is imported, especially wheat and corn, of which almost all of it is imported. 16 countries have a hand in South Korea's food from over 60 of their companies. (Berthelsen, 2011) Rice and teas are pretty much the only foods that are grown and exported as well as consumed locally. With this great reliance on other countries for their food, if something were to happen to one of the countries it would cause a severe drop in supply, perhaps even causing a crisis.
Berthelsen, J. (2011, April 29). South Korea's Food Security Alarm. In Asia Sentinel. Retrieved August 7, 2015, from http://www.asiasentinel.com/econ-business/south-koreas-food-security-alarm/
Berthelsen, J. (2011, April 29). South Korea's Food Security Alarm. In Asia Sentinel. Retrieved August 7, 2015, from http://www.asiasentinel.com/econ-business/south-koreas-food-security-alarm/