Indonesia has two kinds of Gamelan. Balinese Gamelan and Javanese Gamelan are not alike because Balinese Gamelan music is faster. On 2 December, musicians performed Javanese Gamelan and central Javanese dance at York University. 10 players played with traditional instruments like gong, banang, gender, and kendang. A famous artist, Didik Nini Thowok, presented the Asian tradition of cross-gender dancing. Musician Sutrisno Setya Hartana also gave a speech to visitors about the culture of gamelan music. This Javanese woman with her colleague played wonderful music and the Indonesian dancer showed us wonderful dancing: he acted like a woman, and he said this was a kind of traditional culture in Indonesia. He was very interesting, and a lot of fun. After the performance, most people in the room had a chance to play the instruments and dance with Didik Nili Thowok.
When I arrived there were lots of people sitting there. I felt a little bit nervous, but the wonderful music and dancing, and also the interesting Indonesian guy, they made me very relaxed. The Indonesian music was fantastic, especially the instruments which I had never seen before and never known. I was so excited about all the instruments; indeed, I asked Sutrisno Setya Hartana to teach me how to play bonang panerus because it sounded like a mythical instrument. We could play the musical instruments by ourselves, and we did together. It’s very beautiful .I liked it a lot. Also the dance was pretty good; however, most people cannot dance. I learned a lot about the culture of Indonesia and Java during the workshop. This performance was really informative for people who are like me and don’t know about Indonesian music and culture.
Here is a link with some pictures:
http://www.joglosemar.co.id/gamelan.html
Friday, March 2, 2007
U-Life: Greek Town
Yesterday Yukie and I went to Finch station by TTC 60. We arrived there at 2:15pm and met with Taeyoon, Joyce, Qiyoon and her friend. It was the first time I went with my classmates. Maybe because I joined the class late, I feel that they are quite close to each other. Qiyoon was a little bit tired and her stomach was not very well. We didn't have a lot of conversation. We went to Greek town.
The Greek Festival was held in the second week of August. Many people went there too. The street was very crowded with people. I felt like I was walking in the 1/7 demonstration in Hong Kong. The sunshine was so strong that we soon searched for a Greek restaurant. We went into aGreek restaurant nearby. The foods' names were quite new to us. Some of them were in Greek. But the others didn't try any Greek food. Joyce and I ordered one dish called "moussaka" and Greek coffee.
When I ordered the Greek coffee, I asked the waiter what's the difference between western and Greek coffee. He said that Greek coffee was more sticky and stronger than western coffee. I got a very small cup of coffee. I heard from my friend that if you have a good meal, you will not drink a large cup of coffee because you feel it's enough. If you have a bad meal, you will drink a large cup of coffee to fulfill your feeling insufficiency. Therefore the restaurant only gave us a small cup of coffee. But I didn't order any meal. I wanted more coffee!
As the waiter said, the coffee was sticky. If you don't stir it for some time, the coffee will stick together. When I put some brown sugar inside, the coffee was delicious to drink.Yukie, Joyce, Taeyoon and Qiyoon's friend had a try of my coffee. They also felt that the coffee was delicious. I find that western people enjoy bitter coffee. But many Asians like sweet coffee and so do I.
Taeyoon ordered a beer to drink. Yukie heard from his Korean friend that his birthday was coming. But Taeyoon only knew his Lunar birthday. As Japanese, Korean and Chinese Lunar calenders are the same, Joyce helped Taeyoon to find his western birthday this year. Joyce calculated that Taeyoon's birthday is today (if yesterday-> tomorrow, if monday-> yesterday)! Yeah!
Yukie brought her travel book on Toronto with her. She found a paragraph descibing Greek Town. But it was in Japanese. Fortunately there are quite a lot of Chinese words in the paragraph. Therefore I could guess what it talked about.
The Greek dish "Moussaka" is quite special. It is quite delicious. It is a cake-like food that egg is the cover with beef inside. We also tried the salad. There is an olive on the salad. It's first time I have seen the olive fruit. It's very salty. But it tastes good~
After the meal, we continued to walk foreward. But the sunshine was still so strong that we could not bear it and walk the remaining part of the Festival. Therefore, we stayed at an open area with shade.
I find that Koreans speak with low voice. It is their habit. I look forward for another gathering to go to another place!
Here is the website for the Greek Festival:
http://www.toronto.com/tasteofthedanforth
The Greek Festival was held in the second week of August. Many people went there too. The street was very crowded with people. I felt like I was walking in the 1/7 demonstration in Hong Kong. The sunshine was so strong that we soon searched for a Greek restaurant. We went into aGreek restaurant nearby. The foods' names were quite new to us. Some of them were in Greek. But the others didn't try any Greek food. Joyce and I ordered one dish called "moussaka" and Greek coffee.
When I ordered the Greek coffee, I asked the waiter what's the difference between western and Greek coffee. He said that Greek coffee was more sticky and stronger than western coffee. I got a very small cup of coffee. I heard from my friend that if you have a good meal, you will not drink a large cup of coffee because you feel it's enough. If you have a bad meal, you will drink a large cup of coffee to fulfill your feeling insufficiency. Therefore the restaurant only gave us a small cup of coffee. But I didn't order any meal. I wanted more coffee!
As the waiter said, the coffee was sticky. If you don't stir it for some time, the coffee will stick together. When I put some brown sugar inside, the coffee was delicious to drink.Yukie, Joyce, Taeyoon and Qiyoon's friend had a try of my coffee. They also felt that the coffee was delicious. I find that western people enjoy bitter coffee. But many Asians like sweet coffee and so do I.
Taeyoon ordered a beer to drink. Yukie heard from his Korean friend that his birthday was coming. But Taeyoon only knew his Lunar birthday. As Japanese, Korean and Chinese Lunar calenders are the same, Joyce helped Taeyoon to find his western birthday this year. Joyce calculated that Taeyoon's birthday is today (if yesterday-> tomorrow, if monday-> yesterday)! Yeah!
Yukie brought her travel book on Toronto with her. She found a paragraph descibing Greek Town. But it was in Japanese. Fortunately there are quite a lot of Chinese words in the paragraph. Therefore I could guess what it talked about.
The Greek dish "Moussaka" is quite special. It is quite delicious. It is a cake-like food that egg is the cover with beef inside. We also tried the salad. There is an olive on the salad. It's first time I have seen the olive fruit. It's very salty. But it tastes good~
After the meal, we continued to walk foreward. But the sunshine was still so strong that we could not bear it and walk the remaining part of the Festival. Therefore, we stayed at an open area with shade.
I find that Koreans speak with low voice. It is their habit. I look forward for another gathering to go to another place!
Here is the website for the Greek Festival:
http://www.toronto.com/tasteofthedanforth
U-Life: Tea ceremony
Oct.18, I went to a Tea Ceremony at Vanier College. This event was organized by JISA-the Japanese International Student’s Association – which is a club at York University. I found this event information advertised on a flyer at Steacie Library by chance.
On the day, the tea ceremony was small event. There were thirty people in the hall. Most people were non-Japanese. The atmosphere of the hall was like Japan because some furniture was changed into Japanese furniture. There was some equipment for the tea ceremony. Three Japanese women were wearing Kimonos. One of the women is a professor of Japanese culture at York. The other girls are students in that course.
At first, they introduced Japanese culture and what the tea ceremony is. They were all knowledgeable and also they had good English. After their explanations, they picked two volunteers from us for doing the tea ceremony. The tea ceremony was similar to a real Japanese tea ceremony. A total of four people, two Japanese and two Canadian volunteers, did a demonstration. The two volunteer people did not know how to do the tea ceremony, so the professor and an assistant helped them. It was really interesting to me. I thought that is culture exchange. The two volunteers and also others in the audience were really enthusiastic. They sometimes took a picture or noted something during the demonstration. Moreover, after the demonstration, they asked many questions to the professor. The professor answered politely.
Today, some Japanese people don’t understand about the tea ceremony because this culture is really deep and difficult. However, I was proud of Japanese culture that day. Moreover, I realized that I need to study about Japanese culture.
The Tea Ceremony is a kind of Japanese culture that is a really traditional event. A long time ago, in Japan, people sometimes got together in a tea room to enjoy Japanese tea. It has so many traditional rules: how to make a Japanese tea, how to drink it, how to enjoy it, how to feel it. Today, the tea ceremony is part of Japanese formal and historical culture in our life.
Here are some photos of the Tea Ceremony demonstration:
http://www.yorku.ca/jisa/old/photos/2005-2006-teaceremony.html
And here is a short essay about the tea ceremony:
http://buna.arts.yorku.ca/japan_week/tea.html
On the day, the tea ceremony was small event. There were thirty people in the hall. Most people were non-Japanese. The atmosphere of the hall was like Japan because some furniture was changed into Japanese furniture. There was some equipment for the tea ceremony. Three Japanese women were wearing Kimonos. One of the women is a professor of Japanese culture at York. The other girls are students in that course.
At first, they introduced Japanese culture and what the tea ceremony is. They were all knowledgeable and also they had good English. After their explanations, they picked two volunteers from us for doing the tea ceremony. The tea ceremony was similar to a real Japanese tea ceremony. A total of four people, two Japanese and two Canadian volunteers, did a demonstration. The two volunteer people did not know how to do the tea ceremony, so the professor and an assistant helped them. It was really interesting to me. I thought that is culture exchange. The two volunteers and also others in the audience were really enthusiastic. They sometimes took a picture or noted something during the demonstration. Moreover, after the demonstration, they asked many questions to the professor. The professor answered politely.
Today, some Japanese people don’t understand about the tea ceremony because this culture is really deep and difficult. However, I was proud of Japanese culture that day. Moreover, I realized that I need to study about Japanese culture.
The Tea Ceremony is a kind of Japanese culture that is a really traditional event. A long time ago, in Japan, people sometimes got together in a tea room to enjoy Japanese tea. It has so many traditional rules: how to make a Japanese tea, how to drink it, how to enjoy it, how to feel it. Today, the tea ceremony is part of Japanese formal and historical culture in our life.
Here are some photos of the Tea Ceremony demonstration:
http://www.yorku.ca/jisa/old/photos/2005-2006-teaceremony.html
And here is a short essay about the tea ceremony:
http://buna.arts.yorku.ca/japan_week/tea.html
Lecture: Introduction to Psychology
I went to a lecture in the course “Intro Psychology.” I went to the lecture hall, which was in the Computer Science Building. Although I was sleepy, when I entered the hall the loud music of Pink Floyd made me feel better and excited. Professor Mongrain was preparing her materials for lecture, and students were talking, eating, drinking, and some of them relaxing. At that time, the topic was “learning”, and she gave the students a lot of information about “conditioning.” There are several kinds of conditioning, and one of them is “classical conditioning” (CC). The most well-known example of this conditioning is “Pavlov’s experiments”. If you ring a bell every time you give food to your dog, the dog will salivate even though you just ring a bell without food. The next step of this conditioning is “Generalization.” This means that the dog tends to response to every bell sound as long as the sounds are similar. Then if you change the condition for a long time, the dog will not response to the previous condition any longer, and this is called “Extinction”. The other kind of conditioning is “operant conditioning.” The difference between operant and classical conditioning is that the controlling stimuli of operant conditioning come after the response.
She showed many visual materials, which were powerpoint, video clips and a movie, to help students understand. These efforts of the professor made me interested in the lecture. One more thing that I liked about this lecture was the atmosphere of the lecture. Because the students always asked questions and the professor answered very friendly, the lecture was very active. Therefore, I could feel that they interacted with each other.
She talked very fluently, and I could understand about 90% of her lecture and enjoy it. Also she is able to communicate nonverbally and with gestures with students.
I also talked with a student beside me, and asked about her major which was dance. She was very pleased with the professor, and she said to me that this course is one of her favorite courses.
Here is the website for Professor Myriam Mongrain's course, Introduction to Psychology:
http://www.psych.yorku.ca/mongrain/
She showed many visual materials, which were powerpoint, video clips and a movie, to help students understand. These efforts of the professor made me interested in the lecture. One more thing that I liked about this lecture was the atmosphere of the lecture. Because the students always asked questions and the professor answered very friendly, the lecture was very active. Therefore, I could feel that they interacted with each other.
She talked very fluently, and I could understand about 90% of her lecture and enjoy it. Also she is able to communicate nonverbally and with gestures with students.
I also talked with a student beside me, and asked about her major which was dance. She was very pleased with the professor, and she said to me that this course is one of her favorite courses.
Here is the website for Professor Myriam Mongrain's course, Introduction to Psychology:
http://www.psych.yorku.ca/mongrain/
Ph.D Survey (University Life)
I was at York lanes in the food court eating my lunch when a guy approached me. He quietly asked me something I couldn’t hear. So I asked him to repeat it loudly. Then he said "could you please fill out a survey", he continued "it’s a survey for my thesis. I am a psychology Ph.D. student". So I said, "ok, just let me finish my lunch and come back in 10 minutes". When he came back he gave me the survey. It was a survey about an earthquake that hit Busan (capital of South Korea), a city with a population of 3.8 million people. The earthquake killed 155,000 people and 310,000 suffered injuries. The city was not built with seismic standards.
After reading this short story the questions started. There were about 30 questions, all related to how I feel about the story. There were questions like, "how did you feel when you read the story?", "would you be willing to help these people?", "do you think that the earthquake was Busan people’s own fault?", etc. At the end of the survey I read that by filling this out my name was being entered in a raffle for $20 dollars. Not much if you ask me but we are all students and we have to help each other with this kind of assignment. Interestingly enough, the survey also asked, "if you win, would you like to donate the money to an organization helping with disastrous relief?". Obviously I marked yes. I could actually pick the organization among a list of 5 names. I chose Doctors without Borders.
After finishing the survey, the student and I began to talk. His name was Zdravko Marjanovic. He told me he is investigating the factors that influence helping behavior. The purpose of this survey was to examine whether individual judgements of responsibility influence people’s experiences of anger, sympathy and willingness to help others.
It was a good experience for me because I could help him. I really like to help people. I told him the survey was a win-win experience. I could use it for my University life. The vocabulary was not difficult.
Here is the website for Doctors Without Borders:
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
After reading this short story the questions started. There were about 30 questions, all related to how I feel about the story. There were questions like, "how did you feel when you read the story?", "would you be willing to help these people?", "do you think that the earthquake was Busan people’s own fault?", etc. At the end of the survey I read that by filling this out my name was being entered in a raffle for $20 dollars. Not much if you ask me but we are all students and we have to help each other with this kind of assignment. Interestingly enough, the survey also asked, "if you win, would you like to donate the money to an organization helping with disastrous relief?". Obviously I marked yes. I could actually pick the organization among a list of 5 names. I chose Doctors without Borders.
After finishing the survey, the student and I began to talk. His name was Zdravko Marjanovic. He told me he is investigating the factors that influence helping behavior. The purpose of this survey was to examine whether individual judgements of responsibility influence people’s experiences of anger, sympathy and willingness to help others.
It was a good experience for me because I could help him. I really like to help people. I told him the survey was a win-win experience. I could use it for my University life. The vocabulary was not difficult.
Here is the website for Doctors Without Borders:
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
U-Life: Exchange
I did a language exchange with a York University student who is studying Japanese. We went to the TEL Building at York after class. My exchange partner’s major is IT- Information Technology. His class is also there. There is a Tim Horton’s on the main floor in this building, and so many students were in line to order there. There were plenty of tables and chairs to sit in a lounge. Many students were using their own laptop computers. According to him, this building is the newest building in York University. We can use wireless internet system anywhere in this building.
My exchange partner was enthusiastic about studying Japanese. He had lots of questions for me. Actually, I couldn’t answer his questions clearly, even though I am a native Japanese speaker. This was especially because I had to explain Japanese in English. That was really hard work for me. However, I tried to explain in English. It was also good practice of speaking skills for me.I have had some experience with language exchanges before. It’s sometimes just conversation. It’s sometimes question and answer like this time. I’ve heard that Japanese pronunciation is not difficult for English speakers. The problem is the grammar. Japanese grammar is totally different from English grammar. It is really frustrating to students.
My exchange partner has also good pronunciation. That day, we spoke Japanese loudly in the lounge. There were so many other students around us; however, none of them cared about our language because they are used to listening to languages other than English in York, and also in Toronto. This is proof that Toronto is a multicultural city.
Here is the link for York University's "Language Links" program:
http://international.yorku.ca/students/langlink.htm
My exchange partner was enthusiastic about studying Japanese. He had lots of questions for me. Actually, I couldn’t answer his questions clearly, even though I am a native Japanese speaker. This was especially because I had to explain Japanese in English. That was really hard work for me. However, I tried to explain in English. It was also good practice of speaking skills for me.I have had some experience with language exchanges before. It’s sometimes just conversation. It’s sometimes question and answer like this time. I’ve heard that Japanese pronunciation is not difficult for English speakers. The problem is the grammar. Japanese grammar is totally different from English grammar. It is really frustrating to students.
My exchange partner has also good pronunciation. That day, we spoke Japanese loudly in the lounge. There were so many other students around us; however, none of them cared about our language because they are used to listening to languages other than English in York, and also in Toronto. This is proof that Toronto is a multicultural city.
Here is the link for York University's "Language Links" program:
http://international.yorku.ca/students/langlink.htm
First York Lecture
I attended the lecture, “Physical Geography,” this morning. I went to school earlier than usual.
The class started at 10:30 a.m.When I entered the class, I was surprised. There were a lot of students and the classroom was very big. Many students had their own laptops and studied with them. In my county, Korea, it is not common that students bring their laptops to class. I just used my laptop when I had presentations.
Today’s theme was “Temperature.” I learned about Net Radiation. Net Radiation is affected by latitude, cloudiness, and time of day and year. Also I was taught that inversions are common in the Arctic because surface net radiation is normally negative. And the urban temperature is higher than the temperature in other areas, because there are many buildings downtown.
During the class, I couldn’t understand everything exactly, but I felt what a university class is. Some students who were sitting near the professor studied hard, but the other students who were sitting in the back of the classroom did some different things, such as using the internet messenger or playing games. That is something in common between North American students and Korean students. When I was in Korea as a student, there were students who concentrated on doing other things which were out of the topic in class. It is a little bit funny. *^^*
I will join other classes. It makes me interested. I want to enjoy lots of university lives at York University.
Here is the website for the department of geography at York University:
http://www.yorku.ca/geograph/
The class started at 10:30 a.m.When I entered the class, I was surprised. There were a lot of students and the classroom was very big. Many students had their own laptops and studied with them. In my county, Korea, it is not common that students bring their laptops to class. I just used my laptop when I had presentations.
Today’s theme was “Temperature.” I learned about Net Radiation. Net Radiation is affected by latitude, cloudiness, and time of day and year. Also I was taught that inversions are common in the Arctic because surface net radiation is normally negative. And the urban temperature is higher than the temperature in other areas, because there are many buildings downtown.
During the class, I couldn’t understand everything exactly, but I felt what a university class is. Some students who were sitting near the professor studied hard, but the other students who were sitting in the back of the classroom did some different things, such as using the internet messenger or playing games. That is something in common between North American students and Korean students. When I was in Korea as a student, there were students who concentrated on doing other things which were out of the topic in class. It is a little bit funny. *^^*
I will join other classes. It makes me interested. I want to enjoy lots of university lives at York University.
Here is the website for the department of geography at York University:
http://www.yorku.ca/geograph/
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