The first two pictures were taken on E Broadway Street towards Whole Foods Market. It was right next to Lane 5 Crossfit Center.

And then the last two are on posters that were being sold at the fair that was at the school.

1.  As I enter week 3, this class has peaked my interest in learning one of the languages. I think it’s fascinating how these languages are written and interpreted, and I want to see how it compares to Arabic. It’s funny, because a lot of the times when people look at Arabic, they get totally overwhelmed and  wonder how the heck people read it. When we go over slides in class that show Korean/Chinese/Japanese characters, I can’t help but feel the same way. But it only drives to want to learn the language even more. I’m not sure which one yet, my instincts wants to learn all 3, but I know right now, I only have time for one. My study habits for this class is heavily based on keeping ahead and turning assignments in early. On top of that, I like to print out the readings so I can annotate them and easily find my notes which summarize certain sections, and highlight important parts. I can’t really read while the text is on screen, and having the paper to visually see next to me, and not having to read back and forth between text and quizzes really helps. Overall, I feel like I’m learning a lot. Not in just East Asian cultures, but in mine as well. I think in class is when I learn the most. I like reviewing over what we read, the material just sits easier in my mind. There really isn’t anytime where I am confused in lecture. If I am, I would probably ask the teachers or someone next to me. I came into this course looking to see what comprises this culture as well as how it compares to Middle Eastern culture. The research report greatly extended my focuses, as I research topics of my culture that I have never really considered (politeness). And it is opening new sections of cultures that I never realized, and these are usually geared to they WHY aspect of certain gestures, language changes while speaking, writing and how those are carried out in the public.
   

   

   E Broadway 1

   

   E Broadway 2

   

   Fair 1

   
   

   

   Fair 2

   
   

This past weekend, my friend and I went to the East Asian Market on 11th street. The store is right next to our dorm so it is very convenient for us to go here to get some snacks or food to make for dinner. The sign outside of the store looks like this:

The sign reads 亞洲龍 (亚洲龙). The first two characters are Yàzhōu, meaning Asia, and is specifically written in Traditional Chinese characters. The final character, Lóng, means dragon and is also written in Traditional Chinese. Firstly, this is a great example of how Chinese characters are monosyllabic and disyllabic in nature. The first two characters are disyllabic, there are two characters to pronounce but there is only one meaning to the “word”. The final character is monosyllabic and has one pronunciation as well as only one meaning.

Some meaning of this could be derived from the pictures on both sides of the word and can symbolize the cultural icon of the Chinese dragon. In China, the dragon is a huge part of the culture, so this sign may appeal to the sense of home and culture for any people from China living in the Eugene area. The traditional Characters will also be able to draw in more people because although simplified Chinese is more common, many people who live in the south of China or Taiwan will be able to read these characters and enjoy the experience. (an interesting and funny fact about the Chinese characters is that there is a Toyota model of car that is also called 亚洲龙 in China. )

So far, class has been very interesting. I think that it is easiest for me to read before the class and take notes that way I can reference them while we are talking in class. I like to be able to check that I wrote everything down and make sure that I am getting the key points. Right now, I am very interested in the metaphors that we are looking at from both the Chinese and North Korean media. Now that I can understand some Chinese and Korean, it was very shocking about how they were speaking about other people. I think that this class has been pretty cool so far and I hope that it will only hope to get better.

– Hanna LaPointe

This is the Gravity Auto Area in Eugene, and it is located at West 11th Avenue. It is a Chinese car shop which the owner is Chinese. The name of the shop is above the door which says “聚点车行”. These characters are in simplified Chinese. “聚”  means gather, “点” means point, “车” means car and “行” means shop. It shows that Chinese characters are logographic because each of the characters in the pictures has one meaning and it makes a new phrase when they are combined. Chinese writing is used here because the owner of the shop is from China, and there is a lot of Chinese students in Eugene. So this car shop mostly serves all the Chinese students that live in Eugene.

I only have a little bit questions of what we covered  which is the morphological typology for Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. It is kind of confusing. I feel like I learn a lot and engaging with the materials when I am reading the materials for the quiz. When I am confused about something in class, I will spend more time reading the materials on canvas.

There are a lot of East Asian eateries in the Eugene area. Two Chinese ones are located fairly close to campus both down 13th Ave. The writing above Spring House translates to flavor garden. There’s writing next to Lucky Bamboo but the picture isn’t clear enough to make out the characters (and I don’t have time to go there and translate them). Since most of us English speakers can’t read Chinese, I think that the writing is put there to add appeal and authenticity to whatever restaurant puts them up. This is not true for all East Asian eateries, however. There are a lot of cities that have a little China in them where the writing is actually for the Chinese people living there but in this predominantly American population, it feels like it’s more for show.

I’m really liking this class so far and I’ve already learned so much about the languages and cultures of the three EA societies that we are studying. I’ve also learned a lot about English as a result of breaking the other languages down into their constituent parts and analyzing the ways in which they are used. I learn the most from the lectures and not as much from the readings. It’s a lot harder to focus on the text when you have other things that you could be doing and aren’t obliged to be reading, whereas in class it’s a lot easier to focus because of the fewer distractions. Maybe that’s just me and I have a hard time focusing but I’m not sure.

I found many examples of East Asian writing system. The first one is a Chinese restaurant. It’s name Noodle & Cafe, but its Chinese name is 面面聚到（miàn miàn jù dào）. The two translations have completely different meanings. 面面聚到 is an idiom, which means taking care of everything. It means that although everything is taken care of, everything is handled properly.

The second one is Eugene Chinese Christian Church. Its Chinese name is 雨津基督教华人教会 (Yǔ jīn jīdūjiào huárén jiàohuì). “雨津 (Yǔ jīn)” means Eugene, but many people call Eugene as “尤金 (Yóu jīn)” that the same means but in different words. “基督教 (jīdūjiào)” means Christian. “华人 (huárén)” means Chinese. “教会 (jiàohuì)” means Church. This Chinese and English can be a perfect contrast. At the same time, we can also find that some phrases in Chinese can be directly replaced by an English word.

So far, this class is very interesting. I enjoy tanking this class. Professor Idemaru introduces a lot of cultural and historical information about the three languages. I review the whole week’s knowledge with lecture slides every weekend. The Iclicker questions and discussions in class have solved most of my confusion. Secondly, my native language is Chinese. I learned a lot of Chinese knowledge that I didn’t know at the beginning of the class.

It is very interesting to really start paying attention to the incorporation of culture around town, specially when it comes to the interrogation of Asian languages through out the streets. So when my friend visited from Bend, I wanted to take the opportunity to get a good photo while showing them around. We were on our way to a friends place out towards Spring Field actually when I saw a good example of signage with Asian lettering on it.

Now I am not sure how accurate the translation is, but I think for a simple sign, the red, white, and blue color scheme emphasizes the lettering even further. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the time to stop and visit in order to investigate what kind of place it really was, but from the title I would assume it was intended to be an Asian inspired food market. Both of the fonts to me seem pretty traditional when it comes to what I would expect to see in either case.

Also I wanted to include this example of Kanji that has been incorporated into the design of my friends wallet. This one I can tell more accurately translates to the English included directly above the text. I think the Asian lettering adds an interesting touch the composition of the wallet because it has been done vertically unlike everything else done on the wallet. I think this is also a great example of incorporating multiple cultures together because “lunch money” is a common reference made, so seeing that done with another culture on a wallet designed to hold money is a really cool idea.

This class has been a good mix of challenging and interesting. I am very excited to learn more about several Asian languages, but it is a bit challenging to get each concept aligned with the right culture since I am very new to most of these languages. I have a pretty good understanding of Japanese, which means I have a vague understanding of Chinese, but I struggle with understanding some cultural idea’s and concepts in Korean culture since I have no previous background in that area. Of course I show up to every class and make sure to write everything down and do the home works, it is just a lot of new information to digest. The most challenging part I think may be the homework just because its hard to keep up with through out the week, but I appreciate you taking the time to talk about them in class as well.

I guess we will see after this midterm, how much information has actually stuck and I will be sure to keep my eye out or more Asian lettering around this area!

This is a photo of the entrance to the Eugene Asian Market located down the road just past from Hilyard Station and the address is on the wall.

The Chinese writing on the wall, when translated means Asian Dragon, which when the character symbols are broken down follow the same sentence order as English, adjective and then the noun, Asian being the adjective and Dragon being the noun. This example also falls under the mono-syllabic and di-syllabic as the word for Asian is di-syllabic and Dragon is mono-syllabic.

For learning strategies, since I am an auditory learner, it helps to do the reading the night before and take notes on the lectures before class so I can sit in class and listen to see if there is anything to add to my notes. I feel like I am learning the most during the lecture classes. I engage with the material the most when I do the reading and take the quizzes. Most times the lectures are pretty clear however when they aren’t the discussion classes help clear up any confusion and also going back to look at the lecture slides helps.

I found two examples. The first example I have is a few games from East Asia. I found them at the Mills International Center in the EMU. The one in the lower right is a Japanese traditional card game. It is called “かるた(karuta)”. The interesting thing is that the word, karuta, is originally from Portugal, not Japan. A similar game that uses clam shells in the Heian era is thought to have existed before Japan interacted with Portugal. This game and other European card games merged around the late 17th century and became a way of playing today. “五子棋(wuziqi)” and”象棋(xiangqi)” are traditional Chinese games and these are also famous in Japan. “街コロ(Machi Koro)” is a relatively new game, and we can see one of the writing systems of Japanese, Romaji. Since it is written not only kanji and katakana, but also Romaji, I think it is an English version and not an original version.

The second one is some magazines that I found. I also found them at the Mills International Center in EMU. From left to right, thetitles of the magazines are “(读者duzhe)”, “MEN’S NON-NO”, “25ans”. 25ans uses all three types of Japanese writing: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Also, it contains English words such as “ON” and “OFF”. Recently in Japan, I have often seen such cases that simple words are written in English. Another interesting thing is the word in the upper right, “御美脚(omiashi)”. The correct kanji is “御御足”, but it is also good, it is a polite way to say “legs”. In Japanese language, changing suffixes are not the only way to show politeness, but also changing a noun into a polite one is another way to show it.

I think that the reason they have these games and magazines is that they would like East Asian students to remember their home countries and relax, and have a lot of students get an opportunity to know East Asian culture. I think these things have an influence on promotion of international exchange.

So far, I like this class, and time really does fly when I am in class. In regards to the learning process, I think it is a good way to learn a wide range of topics by reading first, and then cover in depth on a specialized topic with lessons and iClicker questions. I’m able to double-check the lecture point through this learning process. It is especially interesting to learn each basic structure and sound system of Chinese, Korean and Japanese. It was difficult for me to hear the difference between the Korean words that GE 김현지 교수님said. So, I’d like to learn how much influence is the number of vowels in a first language on accuracy of pronunciation of another language. I really look forward to the rest of the class!