By: Kim Geon Yu Class:2A Blangah Rise Primary School

1. About my homeland, South Korea . By: Kim Geon Yu Class:2A Blangah Rise Primary School

2. Language • There are about 75 million people in the world who speak Korean, and according to a statistical ranking done in 2002, Korean is the 13th most spoken language in the world. • Hangeul is the Korean writing system. • Hangeul was devised by King Sejong the Great (r. 1418-1450), who wanted his people to have a writing system of their own. At that time, the learned and noble people wrote in classical Chinese. • The picture below shows King Sejong. (Left of the picture.

3. Culture Music: • Apart from the instruments used, traditional Korean music is characterized by improvisation and the lack of breaks between movements. A pansori performance can last for over eight hours during which a single singer performs continuously. La lala~

4. A great number of traditional percussion instruments are used including the kkwaenggwari (hand-held gong), the jing (hanging gong), buk (barrel drum), janggu, (hourglass drum), bak (clapper), and pyeonjong (bell chimes or stone chimes), as well as the eo (tiger-shaped scraper) and the chuk (wooden box). Janggu

5. Traditional Dress • The traditional dress known as hanbok has been worn since ancient times. The hanbok consists of a shirt (jeogori) and pants (baji). The traditional hat is called gwanmo and special meaning is attached to this piece of clothing. • I think hanbok is very beautiful, as well as attractive and colourful.

6. Weather • Korea have four seasons. Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. • I like Winter the most because I can make snowman and play with snow! I wish Singapore also have four seasons! Spring Summer Autumn Winter

7. Significance of Korea’s flag • The flag, called "Tae Kuk," symbolizes the thought, philosophy, and mysticism of the Far East. • In the upper right trigram, two broken lines separated by an unbroken line is the symbol of Water; opposite them is Fire, symbolized by two unbroken lines separated by a broken line. Symbolic of the nation is the white background (the land), the circle (people), and the four trigrams (the government). All three make up the essential elements of the nation.

8. Food Kimchi! • Its most common manifestation is the spicy baechu (cabbage) variety. Kimchi is the most common banchan, or side dish. Kimchi is also a common ingredient and combined with other ingredients to make dishes such as kimchi stew (kimchijjigae) and kimchi fried rice (kimchibokkeumbap).

9. Past olympic heroes • Following that, lifter Jang Mi-ran clinched an Olympic victory and three world records in the women's over-75 kilogram class and Lee Yong-dae and Lee Hyo-jung added in the badminton mixed doubles. This Olympiad was even more meaningful for Korea, in that her athletes gave brilliant performances in sports in which they had not been considered strong, including swimming, weightlifting and fencing,

10. Geographical Location • The Korean Peninsula extends southward from the northeastern part of the Asian continent between latitudes from 33 to 43 degrees North, and longitudes from 124 to 131 degrees East. The standard meridian of the peninsula is 135 degrees, 9 hours ahead of GMT. The Amnok and Tuman Rivers border both China and Russia to the north, and Japan lies just across the East Sea. • Since 1945, as a result of the Cold War, the peninsula has been divided into two parts: the democratic Republic of Korea, or South Korea, and communist Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or North Korea.