UIC Newsletter

• Mar. 2021 (Vol. 6 No. 1)
• Oct. 2020 (Vol. 5 No. 1)
• Oct. 2019 (Vol. 4 No. 2)
• Mar. 2019 (Vol. 4 No. 1)
• Sep. 2018 (Vol. 3 No. 2)
• Mar. 2018 (Vol. 3 No. 1)

FOCUS

The Fifth Annual Kyoto-Yonsei Student Seminar, 2018

For the Fifth Annual Kyoto-Yonsei Student Seminar, students from Asian Studies Division welcomed thirteen students visiting from Kyoto University on March 17, from 3:00PM to 5:30PM. As always, through presentations and discussion, the students enhanced their knowledge over culture, politics, and history of South Korea, Japan, and East Asia in general.                     

The UIC student presenters, Jeongwoo Choi (ASD, ’16), Heewon Lee (ASD, ‘16), and Taein Hwang (ASD, ’13), respectively discussed: literature, pop culture, and food culture in South Korea; Korean job market and college life; and political issues in Korea such as unification and protests. In exchange, the Kyoto students gave three group presentations: “Differences between the Kansai and Kanto regions and their stereotypes”; “Aging society, general lack of proficiency in English, and common practice of premarital co-habitation in Japan”; and “Political academies and gender inequality in Japanese politics.” UIC’s Dean Taeyoon Sung also kindly participated and concluded the seminar with his warm message of welcome and encouragement.

After the seminar closed, the students individually exchanged their ideas about popular culture in Korea and Japan, the topic related to a class taken by some participating UIC students during the semester. Their intimate conversations further stirred the students’ interests in each other’s culture and history.

Since its beginning in 2014 initiated by Professor Helen Lee and then taken over by Professor Tomoko Seto in 2015, the Kyoto-Yonsei Student Seminar has received kind support from faculty members, office staffs, and student participants from both schools. The Asia Research Fund has annually provided generous funding. The Kyoto-Yonsei Student Seminar has piqued many UIC students’ interest in further multicultural learning experience and inspired some to proceed to the Kyoto Summer Program to study at Kyoto University for two weeks in August.