What is real beauty?

First of all, I watched the movie which is linked to youtube. In the movie, heroine participated in Miss university as a representative of New Jersey and then she starts her mission. Another movie is Gothic Lolita Undressed. Actually, when I met my group member, we watched another movie because the movie was changed to “Gothic Lolita Undressed”. But I am so confused because I cannot find any relationship between the movie and beauty. The movie, Gothic Lolita Undressed, focus on only specific and weird field of beauty not general beauty. Anyway, the main story is introduction about Japan Lolita culture. So, this movie shows which one is real Japan Lolita or not.


We were all confused by the second movie in discussion about beauty. So, we discussed about beauty with the first movie. Actually, I can say the fact that there are only few differences about beauty. That means we almost agree with the common standard beauty such as curl body, long hair, white and clean teeth, and so on. Chile, Korea and even other countries pursue western beautiful standard. We can see this phenomenon easily in everywhere and anytime. Whenever we turn on the TV, almost all commercials use beautiful models in order to introduce their products and we can see that all dramas and movies tend to use handsome and beautiful celebrities as main characters. We cannot deny the fact that such beautiful people make us sometimes happy and pleasant. That means we have accepted such beautiful aspect made by media and entertainment unconsciously.


We agree with the standard beauty but there is little bit different opinion. Americans have a tendency of regarding beauty as mature beauty not cuteness. However, In Korea, we prefer cuteness to mature beauty. Except for this difference, we cannot find different things about beauty. However, there were sorts of different opinion about what real beauty is between Luis and me. Nowadays, it is almost trend to have plastic surgery at least in Korea. So, almost all Korean women want to have plastic surgery in order for beauty. But he said that such artificial beauty is not real beauty. However, in my opinion, if that is not real beauty, what is real beauty? Beauty is evaluated by appearance [I know inner beauty is also important, however I think we cannot deny outer beauty could affect people strongly] and some animals try to make up with feathers and something like that in order to attract a partner. Plastic surgery can be seen by such a way. But the different thing is only that we use medical science and animals do not use.


When we talked about who makes you think what it means to be beautiful, our answer almost corresponded with each other. We picked up the famous celebrities, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Megan Fox, blah blah blah. This means no matter how much we say that inner beauty is more important than outer beauty in order to determine who is a real beautiful person, eventually, we regard such people having beautiful appearance as beautiful people. It made us feel uncomfortable that we tend to judge others by appearance at first.

American culture

I saw several pictures in the video. Actually, the first thing to catch my eyes is fast food commercial, such as Mac Donald, Coke and so on. And interesting thing is that everyone has different opinions from each other about American culture. Actually, in my opinion, it cannot represent American culture perfectly. Of course, I agree with some thoughts but I cannot agree with anther thoughts. Since sometimes America is called immigration country, there are so many cultures which come from other countries and then some specific American cultures are made from them. In this process, each state has special and characteristic culture compared to other states. For example, this Mississippi culture is totally different from New York. I have been to my roommate’s house at thanksgiving holiday. Actually, my roommate is African-American. So I could feel directly southern home culture. They are living together and have many sons and daughters. Moreover, before I came here, United State, I thought that Americans do not have their special and distinguished food. But, I could eat real southern homemade food at my roommate’s house. That was very shocking to me. But when I went to New York, everything was different, including atmosphere, food culture, clothing style, vehicles, and even people’s thought. I know some differences are caused by different place between rural and urban place. However, I think that nobody can disagree with the fact that each state has their specific cultures. So, it is a shame that this video shows only surface American culture.


I could see diverse thoughts about American weather in the video. I think the biggest reason is huge continent. The United State has lots of states and some states are almost the same size as some countries and even bigger than those. In addition, it might take too much time from west to east in America. Therefore, it is so natural that they have totally different weather at the same time. That’s why people who are in the movie have different thoughts.


I think that it is depends on personality and personal environment to like music. As I mentioned above, my roommate is African-American. He is crazy at Hip-hop music and another friend who lives at next room always listens to Heavy metal music even at night. So, sometimes that makes me so crazy.


In Korea, especially in Seoul, there is no place where I can run around like here. So, I usually just go to watch movies and drink alcohol with friends. However, at least here, Americans play more activities. I played so many activities, such as baseball, basketball, and even shooting a gun. I think these amounts of activities that I did at here are almost the same as I did of my whole life.


To tell the truth, when I was in Korea, I always regarded American as white people. So, I thought that Americans have blue eyes, blond hair, long legs, and so on. But my thoughts were totally changed after arriving at here. I knew that some Americans do not have such characteristics and some Americans have totally opposite things and the MOST important thing that I realized is that foreigners including Americans are exactly the same as me.

medical differences

This picture represents demonstration to reject changing public management to private management of Korea medical system.




This picture shows the fact that Korea tend to eat a lot of medicinces.





This picture indicates the problem of medical insurance in America.





This picture (johns hopkins hospital) expresses that America has established main medical system in the world.


I chose the second one (hospital “ER”) of the movies. The brief story of the episode is that someone who got accident cannot be recovered and doctors regard his life as end in terms of medical aspect. In this situation, doctors asked his mother for donation of his body to others. Even though his mother insisted possibility to stand up again because he squeezed her hand, finally, she accepted and made a decision to donate his body to other people.


First of all, I think Korea medical system is almost the same as medical system of America, such as medical devices, references and so on. Since America has established main medical system so far, almost all countries follow America medical science. However, if I look at inside of Korea medical environment, there are some different things between Korea and America.


Actually, I do not know well about organ donation but I can say that I know about circumstance of Korea hospital because my left leg was broken when I was in military service. At first, I do not know America hospital atmosphere and system, however if the environment of this movie is true, Korea’s thing is totally different from America’s thing. In Korea, it is hard to expect that main doctor tries to contact with patients deeply. They usually have a lot of patients per one main doctor compared to America, so they do not have the time to consider specific people. Normally, patients can have only official and really essential treatment. Another big different thing is insurance and cost. I heard about insurance system of America from my roommate. He said that America medical system was changed to private management and then insurance price has been increasing rapidly and price of surgery and another treatment is unimaginably expensive. For example, if someone calls the ambulance because of injury, he or she should pay around 3,000 dollars just for ambulance. When I heard this one, I was so surprised because injury is not people’s intention. Who can know when we will be hurt? In addition, when I went to health center about 5 month ago in order to cure my cold, I could not help having suspicion on my eyes. I got about 400 dollars just for a prescription and medicine. In Korea, it is sufficient to pay only 6~7 dollars if I have medical insurance. Even if I do not have, the price will be only 20~30 dollars. Of course, there are several reasons why this America medical system became like this. However, if I look at a big picture, these two things are big different from Korea.


Additionally, In Korea, people tend to visit a doctor so much. If they feel little bit strange, almost 50% people go to a doctor or take a medicine. I think the big reason is relatively cheap medical price in terms of normal prices.


The only one thing that I hope in Korea is that people are willing to donate their body after death. Fortunately, nowadays, people’s thinking has been changing but it is not sufficient to cover demand. I hope someday Korea medical system and American too will be much better than today.

Superhero

At first, Luisfe who is from Chile said “a superhero of my country is condorito”. Condorito is normal man but looks like condo and has some feathers and tail. This character represents Chile culture. The most interesting thing is that this character is almost for adult not children because this comic satirizes society and sometimes government. He lives in virtual city, Pelotilleahue, and the city name comes from meaning of stupid in Spanish. This character is very famous and important in Chile. There is no person who does not know this condorito in Chile. He can be anybody such as priests, vendors, and political persons. He also has girl friend (He is better than me, he looks like the bird though). Actually, he does not have any superpower like superman. However, this character represents Chile’s comic culture and industry.



This character is "Condorito"


We do not have many superheroes in Korea because cartoon industry of my country could not develop as much as America. We have only own character. The character name is Doli who is a baby dinosaur. He was in big iceberg and drifted and then after melting the iceberg, he came out and went to one of houses in Seoul. Actually, this character is only one and last one representing our comic industry and comic culture in Korea because Korea government gave him social security number officially. Another superhero is “Hong-gildong”. He is a kind of robin hood. Actually, he was real person in 1440. He resisted corrupt government at that time. He was also leader thief guild and stole properties of corrupt political persons and distributed them to poor people. This story is quite similar to robin hood. Although we have also some characters who have superpower, such characters are not popular even in Korean. Therefore, I think these two characters are most popular and famous in Korea.




This character is "Doli"





This character is "Hong-gildong"


In America, there are a number of superheroes. Jess said that we cannot count how many superheroes exits so far. Her favorite superhero is “Tank girl” that I have never heard before. However, the story is similar to “Hong-gildong” and “Robin hood” but the age of background is future. The superhero also opposes corrupt government. While she, Jess, explained her superhero, she said very interesting information how such superheroes were made. Most American really needed someone who can save their country and life during World War 2. Ironically, at this time, so many superheroes were made. Superman is one of them. People contained their hope into such superheroes and American could achieve their wish indirectly through superheroes comic series. Actually, it is not fiction that most superheroes were made by America in the world. This is most different thing between American and other countries, including Chile and South Korea. Even though Chile and South Korea also has some characters, nobody knows the superheroes except their own people. In addition, I felt this different thing how much a superhero is familiar. I mean, in South korea, people who like cartoon are considered as this people who are incapable. However, I often saw someone who spoke like this “I have a feeling that I became a superman” which means this comic culture including superheroes is settled deeply in Americans’ thinking.



This character is "Tank girl"