On Wednesday we had to read Two Mongol Documents from the Koryŏ sa. When first reading it before class, I was confused and the translations were not making that much sense to me. During class we did an activity where we went into groups and discussed the article and answered questions. That exercise really helped me understand the article more. Things that my group identified that these are letters and official documents. These were originally written in Korean and then translated to Chinese. Now it has been translated to English meaning it has gone through two translations. This is important because it changes the meaning of the words. If we read it in the original language we might be able to see more intensity and a different interpretation. A question that I might have missed or did not get to understanding was if I was an intended reader of these documents. We also had to read chapter 5 of the textbook. It is Military Rulers and Mongol Invaders. This textbook chapter brought up terms that I have not seen before or heard of in a while. For example aristocracy, Confucianism, and feudalism.
On Thursday, I got to comment on four blog posts. I was interested to see which option my classmates chose to read, since I chose to read the Introduction of Buddhism. In addition I looked at what information they got out of the test and what I got out and I absorbed that information to learn more. I also looked at what others commented about my blog post.
On Friday I chose a possible topic for my project. I chose the Korean War or contemporary North Korea. I chose this because after reading about the Three Kingdoms and how they joined together I was curious on how Korea split and had the war. I also thought of doing contemporary North Korea because many people might have also thought of doing the Korean War, so this was another option. I thought this would have been a good topic because the information we have about North Korea is limited and it would be interesting to find out as much as I can. I want to see the lifestyle of people, the rights they have, and the influence the leaders have on the residents.
