1. The Korean War. - From History TV channel

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1 1. The Korean War - From History TV channel On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed North Korea and the pro-western South Korea. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War era. By July, American troops had entered the war with South Korean forces. As far as American officials were concerned, it was a war against the forces of international communism itself. After some early back-and-forth across the 38th parallel, the fighting stalled and casualties mounted. Meanwhile, American officials worked anxiously to fashion some sort of armistice with the North Koreans. The alternative, they feared, would be a wider war with Russia and China or even, as some warned, World War III. Finally, in July 1953, the Korean War came to an end. In all, some 5 million soldiers and civilians lost their lives during the war. At first, the war was a defensive one to get the communists out of South Korea but it went badly for the South Korean Allies. The North Korean army was well-disciplined, well-trained and well-equipped. Also it was one of the hottest and driest summer on record. But by the end of that summer, the Korean War became an offensive one for the Allies. It turned to a war to liberate the North from the communists. Initially, this new offensive strategy was a success. An amphibious assault at Inchon pushed the North Koreans out of Seoul and back to their north side of the 38th parallel. But as American troops headed north toward the border between North Korea and Communist China, the Chinese started to worry about protecting themselves from American troops. China sent troops to support North Korea and warned the United States to keep away from the border unless it wanted full-scale war between China and US.

2 In July 1951, commanders of both sides started peace talks at Panmunjom. Finally, after more than two years of negotiations, they signed an armistice on July 27, The agreement allowed the POWs (Prisonors Of War) to stay where they liked; drew a new boundary between North and South Korea near the 38th parallel; and created a 2-mile-wide demilitarized zone (DMZ) that still exists today. Unlike World War II and the Vietnamese War, the Korean War did not get much media attention in the United States. The most famous representation of the war in popular culture is the television series M*A*S*H, which was set in a field hospital in South Korea. The series ran from 1972 until 1983 on CBS channel, and its final episode was the most-watched in television history. Since the Korean War, Korean peninsula has been divided into North Korea and South Korea for more than sixty years.

3 2. Survey on immigration. - from migrationpolicy.org Immigrants maintain a strong connection to their country of origin. Not surprisingly, many immigrants stay in touch with folks back home. They regularly phone family abroad and send money at least once in a while to help with their families. They also closely follow current events in their home country through TV, newspaper or online news media. But immigrants' desire to stay connected with people and events "back home" does not contradict a desire to stay in their new US home. In fact, majority say they plan to stay in the U.S. and only small number of immigrants say they will move back to their home country sometime in the future. Interestingly many of them say they would still come to the U.S. if they were making the choice all over again. The overwhelming majority of immigrant parents who have children under 18 say it is unlikely that their children would want to live in parents country of origin. The national origins of immigrants to America are changing in step with both world events and evolving U.S. policies. But regardless of their countries of birth, they end up with a shared understanding of what it means to be an American.

4 3. Please Look After Mom. - From Vanityfair.com In 2012, Kyung-sook Shin became the first woman to win the Man Asian literary award for her book Please Look After Mom. The basic plot of the novel is that an old woman goes missing after disappearing at a Seoul subway station, and her family goes looking for her. Along the way, though, her relatives have to ask themselves serious questions about how well they really know their mother and what kind of life she had outside of being a caretaker for others. Shin told CNN she had wanted to write the book for 30 years before she actually attempted it: It took me so long to write it because my concept of mother changed so much over all those years. I had to think long and hard about my own mother in that time and I found that thinking about your own mother is really thinking about yourself. Shin has also said that the book which sold 10 million copies in Korea alone deals with the Korean concept of Han, which is sometimes translated in English as a feeling of sorrow and oppression or profound, prolonged sadness. Shin said that completing the novel that had been at the back of her mind for so long had given her a sense of release. "I will be able to write fresh and new things because I have completed this book," she said.

5 4. Hallyu (Korean Wave, 한류 ) - From Korea.net, Wikipedia. The word Hallyu comes from Mandarin. Translated as the Korean Wave, the word was coined for the first time in the late 1990s. The word emerged when Chinese newspapers and broadcasters were talking about the 1997 drama Star in My Heart" ( 별은내가슴에 ). The soap opera aired first in Korea and was then broadcast across mainland China, initiating the first ripples of the Korean Wave. The main actors and actresses starring in the show rocketed to stardom overnight as it hit Southeast Asian markets after China. The media started to call the stars Hallyu and it was the beginning of the first generation of the Korean Wave. The show aired in Latin America too, becoming the first Korean soap opera to make inroads in the Spanishlanguage market. Starting in Peru, the show was broadcast in Panama, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Colombia and Venezuela, in turn. Since then, many Korean soap operas have been sensational hits from their very first episode, not only in East Asia but also in TV markets in the Americas, Europe and the Middle East. Mainland China, in particular, has gone beyond simply importing Korean content, and has now jumped onto actually investing in South Korean productions or joint productions with Korean producers. Since the turn of the 21 century, Korea has emerged as a major global exporter of popular culture, a niche that the United States has dominated for nearly a century. This Korean Wave is mainly driven by K-dramas and K- pop. Much of the success of the Korean Wave owes in part to the development of internet media like Social network services or YouTube. It has allowed the Korean entertainment industry to reach a sizeable audience globally. Use of these new internet services have facilitated promotion and

6 distribution of the Hallyu materials in global market. The Korean Wave now encompasses different aspects of Korean culture including Korean language, Korean foods, and manhwa. The global audiences who become interested in Korean culture through Hallyu also visit Korea to experience Korean culture directly.