NewsTracker Answers for week of Mar. 24, 2014

Q: A South Korean soap opera called “My Love from the Star” has taken China by storm, leaving officials bemoaning why China can’t make a show as good and as big of a hit. Where is South Korea?

Circle the area on this map

Q: The domination of Japanese comics and Korean soap operas in Chinese pop culture upsets officials. China imports the most goods from which country?

A. Japan

B. South Korea

C. Taiwan

D. United States

B. China gets 9.4 percent of its imports from South Korea, followed by Japan at 8.3%, Taiwan at 8%, and the United States at 7.8%. China is South Korea's largest trading partner for both imports and exports.

Q: South Korea's pop culture has spread to nations ranging from India to Romania, including the last foreign country to rule over the entire Korean Peninsula . . .

A. Japan

B. Manchuria

C. Russia

D. United States

A. Korea was occupied by Japan from 1910 to 1945. After World War II, antagonism between the Soviet Union and the United States eventually led to the establishment of separate Korean governments, the division of the peninsula and the Korean War.

Q: South Korea shares a heavily fortified land border with North Korea and oversea borders with China and Japan. What body of water is west of South Korea?

A. Sea of Japan

B. China Gulf

C. Korea Strait

D. Yellow Sea

D. The Yellow Sea is located between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula. Its name comes from the sand particles from Gobi Desert sand storms that turn the surface of the water golden yellow. The Sea of Japan is east of the peninsula, and the Korea Strait separates the tip of the peninsula from Japan.

Q: Korean culture dates back thousands of years. What was first invented by the Koreans?

A. Paper-making

B. Gunpowder

C. Movable metal type

D. Noodles

C. Korea created the metal movable-type system for printing in 1234 – about 200 years after the Chinese first made movable type from fragile ceramics and about 200 years before Johannes Gutenberg first used movable metal type in Europe. The Chinese are credited with inventing paper, gunpowder and noodles.