The Institute of Philology, History and Asian Studies hosted an international round table in honor of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Russia and the Republic of Korea. The main theme of the round table was the diversity of traditional culture and way of life. The online meeting was attended by students of Sakhalin State University and Sungshin Women’s University (Republic of Korea).
The two universities have been cooperating for 10 years already. Students of Sakhalin State University periodically come to the Korean university on short-term programs to get acquainted with the history of the culture of the Land of Morning Calm. The Korean university was represented at the meeting by students and professor of the Department of Consumer Science and Living Culture Industry at Sungshin Women’s University, Juwon Baek.
Unfortunately, due to the spread of COVID-19 for more than a year, students from the Department of Asian Studies and Department of Linguistics of our university cannot participate in cultural or language internships or other educational programs in Korea, – said the organizer of the round table, Dean of the Institute of Philology, History and Asian Studies of the Sakhalin State University, Elvira Lim. – However, modern technologies allow us to communicate with the native speakers online.
Sungshin Women’s University is widely known for the fact that it has been actively developing programs related to culture studies and their promotion throughout the history of the university. Students of the two universities actively conducted their presentations and even showed their films to each other in Korean. Thus, students of Sakhalin State University spoke about the peculiarities of Russian and Korean cuisines in Sakhalin, Gzhel and Khokhloma, as well as the life and traditions of Sakhalin Koreans.
Korean students, in turn, shared how to make and diversify traditional rice wine called makgeolli, showed how to use the traditional paper hanji and talked about peculiarities of tea ceremony and its main steps.
Russian students shared their thoughts and impressions about the seminar and the presentations of Korean students:
The presentations were so engrossing that we can say that such meetings motivate us to study the language harder and deeper, – said the first-year student Alyona Korotkova.
The presentations were interesting. It’s great that the topics ran in parallel to each other. Koreans, in turn, approached the preparation process very creatively and showed in practice what to do and how to do it. It’s very nice that they made subtitles for the video and that at the very beginning the participants said a few phrases in Russian. It was extremely pleasant to hear those. It was a useful experience, and we will wait for the next seminar, – the first-year students Daria Vorobyova and Lolita Park shared their impressions about the round table.
Communication with native speakers is a wonderful language learning experience. The online format helps students feel comfortable and at the same time feel close to native speakers. Therefore, seminars in this format should be held regularly. After all, this contributes to the speedy assimilation of linguistic material. We are looking forward to the next similar meetings, – said the second-year students Natalia Demina and Li Sen Gym.
Translated by NARYNSKAYA Anna
Department of Asian Studies (Korea), first-year student.
