파랑새-A blue bird perched on GyungBok Palace

Stuck in a library

2020-04-28T15:40:00.002-07:00

Life is made up of a bunch of stories. There are sweet ones and sour ones. The sweet ones are treasured and they are taken out to be reminisced like my daughter's drawing that was made when she was little. The sour ones are buried deep and never to be taken out so often; they are the ones that keep pulling me back making mr stand still and pause to think while I am on the bus looking outside of the window, or sitting at a park bench, but neither two cases are often have been rendered into my daily living nowadays. However, I have come across another sour grape that I had to chew and take it out of my mouth; I would bury deep and take out in the future or perhaps never be taken out as I have already accumulated lots of them and I don't have a place to put it in the jar as it is full.

Have you ever been fired? Yes, I have been, but today I am sitting in a library reading the New York Times after being dismissed from my work in the morning. Upon arriving at work, my boss summoned me to her office upstairs and talked about an incident that happened this other day claiming that I was being insubordinate to the supervisor. Couple of days ago in an earlier meeting with her about the incident, I told her that I did not know she was my supervisor and she did not dispute the claim. I thought things were going fine as I was having an interaction with the "new supervisor" and followed her order as I told her to do something conceding to be subordinate to her. However, it seems that resolution did not go through and the issue came resuscitated by the upper managers: it looks like "insubordination" is a big thing in this business.

When I went to work this morning on 2/24/2020 just to be pulled into an office, he told me that my behavior was not proper and I would be on what is called "leave of absence for the day" and she commanded me for dismissal without saying anything else. Immediately, I left the workplace and got in my car to get out of the parking lot, but thoughts came across my mind where I was supposed to be heading. After driving aimlessly for a while, I pulled into an empty parking spot to catch a breath trying to keep myself calm: I am not fired but I had a trepidation of getting fired, which is rather an odd thing to happen: for all the cases that I have encountered in this situation, there was no such thing as this sort of thing "prelude" termed as in music called "leave of absence for the day." Capitalism has come a long way, and as it developed further its jargon has increased. One thing true is that my boss has not fired me yet. What is also true is that my boss knows that I am such a valuable worker for the company, and they would surely feel sorry for letting me go since the company is in the depth of needing more manpower to run the business. They may have to carry out more discussion today with additional people, and I will find the outcome tomorrow as I was told to come back in the morning. I have been working for the company almost one year and my review is due immediately: the company is taking this as an opportunity to reevaluate me and decide to send me home permanently or keep me for another year.

Anyway, I can't go home now to tell my wife that I was dismissed at work: I am stuck in the library. My lunch is kept out of the refrigerator in the trunk. I feel that capitalism has become so tyrannical lately although I have been fortunate to not experience it for a good chunk of my career, but nowadays it seems like an avoidable element in my life. I live with it thinking that not much of its trade has been left in my life to withstand corporate manipulations, exploitation and racism as my time is drawing near to walk out of the quagmire, and say enough is enough.

An eulogy for a woman from MaPo

2019-12-07T14:29:00.001-08:00

This morning, we are gathered here to bid farewell to my mother. Our lives are shaped and moulded by various events took place and by circumstance into which we are born, and it rings bell more true for anyone who were born in her generation: her life marred with tragic events happened in Korea and in her personal life caused great suffering that no one would desire. Nevertheless, if you are a man and woman with common sense, you would not avoid listening to her story because there is so much we want to listen to her story: we renew ourselves to draw lessons from her: we want to find a reference point in our lives and in our history as a citizen and as an immigrant. A person said that young people do not understand the hardships and sufferings that the older generation went through. I, myself, in young generation with respect to my Mom, and has not clear understanding what my Mom's generation had to go through, born after the war and never had lived under Japanese occupation. Nevertheless, I listened to stories how the country and the people had suffered from all sorts of turmoils. We can not avoid suffering in our lives, and I think it is important to listen to anyone's story of suffering. She lived through such tumultuous time in Korean history as a woman. She was born in Korea during the Japanese occupation. She was not allowed to speak and write in Korean at school. She started learning to write in Korean- after Japan surrendered as a result of dropping two atomic bombs in Japan- in her middle school. Then the war broke out..that was just about the beginning of a long tumultuous time lied ahead, but she endured all the hardships all along the way as a woman. She advocated woman's right to her friends and to neighbors saying that woman need to have her own occupation and have her own financial independence to raise a family. She was a little giant lived among us. She demonstrated two key elements in character that I will be in awe for a long time, that is her willingness to sacrifice for her family and her indomitable will to survive. The womanhood was still hard; having to follow mores of the society instilled on women, having to have will to survive with resilience and perseverance that were asked for every woman in hard time of her generation. What was a chance of living a happy life for anyone who were born in a country torn by war and being colonized, one in a thousand probably? Everyone has his or her own story to tell in her generation. The sad memories of her time is not too distant even to us sending shrills down to our spines.. That deep scars that the history have left in hearts of the every women remained throughout their lives, and the echo of their pain reverb in our ears.
And here we are again to listen to another story of her generation, from a life of a woman who went through the time. Their sorrows, pains, hopelessness, and courage and fine qualities that she demonstrated in midst of their hardships. This is what I know as her son:

My mother was born in Mapo, Korea, as a 서율 토박이, 1932, at the time when old were interwoven deeper than new, she was a beloved child of a family. Her mother, being a dress maker, dressed her well on every holiday occasion with beautiful Hanbok. She must have been like her granddaughters, a very talented and cute; she was very good with sewing machine and knitting. A Singer sewing machine has been her long time companion all throughout her life, and her knitted wool sweater was my favorite thing to wear in cold winter. She was an honor student and she won a prize for not skipping a day in school. The prize is meaningful in a sense that, for six years taking more than two hours each way, she commuted to the school changing two buses, first at Sodaemun, second at Eulziro 6 Ga going to WangshipRi. Getting off at the bus stop, she then walked for 20 minutes to her school. In winter times, the bitter cold poked needles on her face. Like all woman of her generation, she was a deeply family oriented person. Her dedication to herself and to her family shown throughout her life was beyond any measure. For instance, there were times when North Korean soldiers coming after young men hiding searching door to door. The men found were taken to the communist army, but she safeguarded his brothers hiding them and bringing food to them for six months. It was a horrible time. Routinely, she walked 8 miles from Anyang to Mapo carrying a heavy bad of rice on her head in order to feed his brothers. Once, she carried a sewing machine in order to exchange it with rice taking all day long. Can you imagine walking the distance carrying such heavy thing on your back? Once, I was in a grievous danger when a pea got stuck in my throat, her motherly instinct saved me: poking her finger down to my throat to unblock out of the passage in her desperation. I would have died on that day chocking. I can imagine her helping her mother doing chores and cooking for the family. She knitted to late at night waiting for her husband to come, and sound of her sewing machine running was often playing lullaby to my ears. Not only she dedicated herself to her Maiden family, but also to the family she married into as a good mother, good wife and good daughter-in-law. She could have been easily found to be a good member of family and welcomed as a hero, for instance, saving my life, giving love and care to her younger brother who lost his parents over the war and became an orphan. She would have been found easily as a jewel of the family in modern time, but things did not correlated well; she had not been much appreciated by the people around her. She demonstrated all the good qualities as a woman of her generation, following rules with unyielding endurance as an educated woman, yet the people were dissatisfied with her, being blind-sided by their lack of maturity and ignorance. To the plant, she was a cactus living in a barren desert, and to animal, she was an elephant who traveled far looking for food and shelter for her family. The only other thing that I wish my Mom had possessed was a sense of humor. I wish that she had been more playful and taking things easy. Perhaps, it was hard because her life had been already painful born into a country occupied by Japan, and then a war broke out at her tender age 18. Taking a look at the pictures taken with my Mom dressed in beautiful Hanbok in her childhood or impeccably worn high school uniform, a moment of thoughts would pass across my mid thinking how these seemingly happy moments eclipse only momentarily the hard life that she had to endure during tumultuous chapter in Korean history. It is something to look closely into for every man and woman of her generation, of their lives that had been torn by war and smitten in poverty. Marrying to my father who was an eldest son of a large family further deepened her hardship taking part of brunt of her responsibilities as his wife. When I was dating in Korea in 1990, and attribute of being eldest son of a family would still make the man not a favored bachaular for a woman to marry with. As someone said to me, ?\"Your mom is the last woman of Chosen Dynasty." In fact, she was born in 1932. There maybe last thing in each women's generation, but the pain of her generation would not be forgotten. A composer would have thrown a peaceful melody or rest marks at this juncture if it had been a musical progression, or a writer would have taken her away to a wonderland if it had been in a fantasy story. The society demanded obedience to elders - that was a virtue, taking car of them daily and dealing with unwelcome criticisms from members of the family when the demands were not met- that persisted for centuries and still was going on string in my Mom's generation! The people who were much older did not accept her well with love and kindness; the people around were arrogant fools, hardheaded with no appreciation for their blessings received because their lack of understanding and comaredry, as bystanders of general inconsiderate mores of the society to women. My mother followed the mores imposed on her, like a soldier serving military duty, following the womanhood dutifully for more than twenty years rain or shine. She mentioned about the ills of the mores time to time, but I could not comprehend much as a boy. After all, she was an educated woman of her time. Once I asked her, "Why you did not make an educated guess about marrying an eldest son of a family?" But it was an easy thing for me to say: marriage was only alternative to most of women at that time until turn of the century and still it was couple of decades ago. She had a critical mind of her own about the society that was lopsided in human rights of women: she mentioned instances of young boys and girls not allowed to talk one another, and her high school friend got kicked out of school after having been found that she met a boy after school. It some like a light years ago that such mores ruled the society, and yet it happened only three quarters of a century ago.
Her life would have been easier had she been politically savvy dealing with people in such environment, but isn't the lack of it we found ourselves in quite often, putting using in conflicts and uneasy relationship with our family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers and other in our modern daily lives too? One of my relatives would argue that her large part of suffering is self-induced, being a sensitive nature and should could have taken things easy, not making a big deal out of it, but it was easy thing to say as a man. When was last time that men in general really pay attention to women and be kind to them? It is not that her second half life was a smooth ride either; countless curved balls were thrown at her; she had to handled each with all her might against all odds, like a tightrope walker walking on a rope 50 feet above ground. My mom is the one who made a bold decision to move out of the country, like a sunflower turning it face toward sun, to start a new life for her family when she was forty years old. She mad a bold decision, and it was an expression of her individuality. We often wonder what in the world her decisiveness and boldness would have come from? Those were her strength that we can not duplicate well. What could we ask for more in a woman of her generation, who dedicated herself to her family nurturing her children and keeping her brothers safe and alive? How could characterize the modern woman nowadays? What is characteristics of a successful woman nowadays? She handled all the consequences of her decisions, good or bad. She stepped into the uncharted land. Hoer decision coming to the U.S. led to my uncle have a new house that my family used to live. Her reaching the decision created a new dynamics, solving problems for may relatives. I have worked in may high tech start-up companies, and my Mom demonstrated may traits making the companies to succeed and thrive, which at the hallmark of the companies: weight risks, taking risks, taking measures, endurance, perseverance and etc. This woman saved her brothers, her children, parents-in-laws, brothers-in-law and other relatives back in Korea working hard every day, even on weekends. Her children are not here by themselves, it is through her hard sacrifices and insurmountable loneliness that she lived through that she made we are here today. Korea has its societal mores that demanded obedience, patience, airing personality in womanhood; a culture that demanded sacrifices to women dedicating to family raising kids and taking care of husband; she handled them all like a soldier at a war front. The burden fell much much bigger on her plate than others. The thing is that it was always her plate was much bigger! Her sacrifices touched so many lives in the family. As her son, I would say that if there had been a committee for Confucian mores which award its citizen, should would have won a dozen medals. Our suffering from out lack of maturity, shortcomings and imperfections were lessened because of her endurance and bold actions taken. Her unyielding will to survive; she made many people fell at her feet, affecting so many lives positively. She lived like a true general with a bunch of people pretending to be general, yet in real, they followed and took orders from her instead. She lived her life demonstrating WILLS TO SURVIVE taking responsibilities against all odds and chaos given its politically, economically very crude and harsh environments. She won 개근상 in her high school, which demonstrates her characters, such traits of dedication carries on so may facets in her life; she never dosed off reaching the final destination, displaying epitome of motherhood, sisterhood, and brotherhood that Koreans would put high esteem, yet so many people fail short in reality. Her life mostly revolved around her family, but she is a hero of her generation, a pioneer and a trail blazer. Nobody would carry such burden like her nowadays. We don't live as a big family any more, out family units have gotten much smaller...it's a new paradigm. The society can not demand much to people in old ways; whether they should marry or lead a certain life style. The people have much more rights as individual and freedom. She transplanted us to a new place to grow freely. It's now our turn to make ourselves and out next generations to grow more freely and happily, but we will never realize our happiness unless we are aware of the immense sacrifices that she made for us. There is no doubt that a dozen blockbuster K-drama can be made out of her life story. We will always fall short of understanding how the sacrifices that our forbearers have made transforming us, and that's how we become arrogant fools! In light of her sacrifices, our achievement to make better society and better human being fall far too short! After all we all have our own weakness, maybe her weakness largely due to circumstantial due to loss of parents, but very few people can ride high against all odds. The sacrifices that she made for us was epitome of her generations as a mother and a woman.
I have seen glimpses of her life, and I am an agent linking between her generation and the new generation in the family. A girl grew up in Ma-po, Seoul, Korea has demonstrated qualities that made Korea to be proud of themselves in modern age; making our lives turn, turn, turn; she did it all in her own way given the situation. Thank you very much, Mom, for all your sacrifices that you've made for us. You're a champion, undoubtedly a hero of your generation. The sewing machine that you gave me works well. RIP, Mother.

A call for shaman ritual with new flairs to stop racism

2019-11-16T13:56:00.004-08:00

When a person is hit by a car and hurt badly, there is a place has been set aside for the injured person to be taken immediately like an emergency room in hospital. However, when it comes to injuries from hate crimes, there is no such place would come to mind easily, and no person will pull over to rescue the victims in the dire situation. Despite hate crimes can be common occurrences in our daily lives for minorities living in the U.S., they often go unnoticed and victims are rarely exposed in the media. The cruelties of the crimes are not publicized getting brushed under the rug. In fact, such practice has been the norm for the century. However, I believe that the norm has to be broken and whatever the dark has to be exposed in order to bring changes the environments with free of the hate crimes. The society has to take many measures that can eliminate racism, but one of the ways that I would suggest is employing ancient rituals for shamanism as a tool to vanquish racism.

One of the major problems of blocking racism is that there is no effective tool to do it. As much as the country is smeared with racism, there should be a greater force out outcries that put the racism under bay not only in the police force but also enforcing the people not to engage in the hate crimes.

I come to concept of employing shamanism as a way for the society to tackle racism because racism is a human disease that would not be easily expunged, like a terminal illness, that has elements of enigmatic in human sphere. I participated in celebrating the first day of new millennium in a large crowd at downtown, wishing for better world coming ahead, but the racism is still prevalent in the U.S. even after twenty years later.

Growing up in Korea, I saw many religions coexist in peaceful manner, and even loud banging sound of the shaman ritual would be heard walking in the neighborhood. Witnessing a shaman ritual was being performed in my house when my grandmother was ill influenced me making it to be a part of my cultural identity.

Recently, I watched a primitive performance of Nam June Paik on Youtube video: he wore a traditional Korean clothing and performed a ritual when he was involved with Avant-Agrde artists in Germany. The ritual was performed in Western soil in Germany. The snippet of the ritual was performed by the artist ushering in a kind of society that he envisioned in the world, that is the western and eastern culture would be merged in the future as communication media become more advanced and widely used. After a decade of his parting, the reality is such that East and West have become closer than ever before culturally. I think that Nam June Paik performed this ritual as a way to hasten the arrival of dynamical cultural exchanges would be unfolded in the future when internet was not well developed.

As a way to showcase the event of his work, a hanging of a slaughtered cow's head was displayed at the entrance of the building. Such bizarre display may have been seen when he was young, living in Korea, even though it appeared new to me. I find this fascinating that a collaboration effort involved: putting the bull's head hung on the door: the man narrating on the video tells that he was involved in the event as a participant of the cultural merging, i.e. holding the dripping blood of the bulls head. This enactment is a symbolic gesture as if telling the world that world has come closer in understanding i.e. fetching a decapitated bull's head at the slaughter house for the first time, and carrying the blood dripping head 'to the location and hanging over the door, which seems to me that willingness for human understanding is widening, experiencing the task that used to be done solely by local exclusive people in Korea. It looks to me that Nam June Paik performed the elements of the ritual as a step toward merging different cultures. However, I am not trying to bring up his foresight or his artistic here, instead I want to mention the ritual was performed as an artistic gig, shedding fresh dimension of human expression. The idea that Nam June Paik showcased the event of his work with the ritual. I find it interesting to watch the ritual performed again, which gave rise of thought to me that what it means to watch the ritual performed by an artist instead after having lived in U.S. for more than four decades experiencing various racism including hate crimes.

I want to link the primitive ritual as an antithetical force against racism. I think a rebirth of the ritual is to be made in modern time especially in the Western countries, as a way of dealing with racism, as an antithetical force to the infliction. The ritual can be performed like a play: it can be developed further as some sort of a performance on stage dealing with angst from racism such as hate crime. There is so much toxicity to take from the racism, and the ritual can be utilized dissipating forces from the toxicity that would exert psychologically. My personal interpretation in the symbolism of presenting a slaughtered bull's head is to fend off the forces that hit upon us in crude way at calamity, such as in hate crime, trying to retaliate them in the gruesomeness, making them to retract and stop any further exertion or retroactively dissipate of negative power that the offender would want to exert to them. The problem with hate crime is the lingering effect of harmfulness in one's spirit, and I think that the gruesome display of the head can be interpreted as symbolically intervening to vanquish such negative forces.
When a person falls into a victim of racism, the person will become loss of beauty of surrounding and beautiful memories; smell of flowers, faces of his friends, and ability to smell the flowers. It will perhaps take a long to be rediscovered. In order to usher in the effect and restore one's spirituality, a ritual can be performed. For Farmers, it was called upon when their patience is running out after a long period of drought. For a woman who suddenly became a window, it was called upon to withstand the attack of devil swallowing up her spirit in despair.There comes in point in time when we run out of patience. What do we do then? Korean resorted to this primitive form of ritual. The first of its kind is performed with respect to nature when in drought. Korean culture is rooted with farming,so the ritual comes into play when in drought: I have seen in the neighborhood back
in Korea, where a performance of these rituals were performed, and in fact, a shaman performed the ritual when my grandmother fell seriously ill. As a person who was brought up in a culture that primitive religion such as shamanism survives and had been exposed, there have been times when I was seeking a spiritual refuge. The ritual has been performed mainly throughout the history to alleviate human suffering of various sorts such as bringing cure for diseases; however,
there are rituals that are emotionally charged. Such rituals are there as a means of expression through which our calamity is to put behind us for good. However, the latter kind of ritual is what I am
pointing at, which can be developed and employed depending on circumstance, like there are different flavors of ice cream and types of bandages, in such events as hate crimes for the victims(what I call this is third case): in handling angst associated injustice of society due to racism. The idea the second case is to call upon the spirits by shaman, and their victims or family members or friends are participated in reenactment of a certain incident or at the calling to resolve emotional issues that have been lingering, at the hands of shaman mitigating the two parties during the ritual.
For a typical scenario of latter case is as follows: when a husband( or a family member dies) died suddenly, the insurmountable sorrow fallen on family members would have to be addressed quickly in order to stop psychological damages and making come to terms with the unfortunate situation has risen and thus be comforted. To do that the shaman would ask the family member to bring a piece of clothing that the husband used to wear and perform the ritual to call his spirit to be present among the family members and explain what happened, and the shaman would in return convey his messages to the family member to lay their worries in rest for them to start a new life without him. The ritual is employed to avert psychological damages would be inflicted had no measure been taken, when an accident has rendered to ourselves suddenly in crude way in the first place, by creating an event through a ritual of which is conducted in gentle way for a party or an individual to be able to
understand (or to come to grips with) a certain tragedy "putting it down and "letting go" of it in gentle fashion. The gruesome way hanging decapitated cow's is hung at the door might signifies the gruesome way the tragedy has encroached upon so suddenly. When my grandmother was ill, a shaman was called upon and performed a ritual;however, not in the way of hanging a newly slaughtered bull's head on the door, but it was rather a pig's head laid on a table at which ritual was performed. I want to insert a new genre in the ritual, the third case,as a performing art that address racism, especially hate crime. The victim of hate crime is dejected, and can become depressed with emotional wound that has been inflicted upon, at the loss of faith in humanity. The individual is no different from a widow who become depressed at the loss her husband or a person like my grandmother who fell grievously ill. The problem is that remedies for averting emotional toils at the onset of the event is not readily available. For hate crime, there is no prospect that hate being thrown at them would be dissipated anytime soon that there could be a long road ahead for recovery in the aftermath. The objective of the ritual is to chase away the bad spirits that would hunt victim, in part, by applying gruesome element employed in the ritual. The gruesomeness in the ritual signifies an antithetical force of racism. The ill-effects of hate crime that is so damaging to the psyche, and putting the bad memories behind and recouped oneself to normalcy in life is hard. The effects of hate crime renders a shade of aspect that is so disheartening to the victims. The loss of faith is a major problem for them, and the solution to make oneself on the path of recovery may be varying depending upon one's religious background. As a person who have seen the ritual performed in Korea, I have been seeking ways in which I can part myself with bad memories from the past, and Nam June Paik's employment of the ritual rendered me a possibility of ritual evolve into a ritual performance that address the issue. Hanging a cow's may have been seen when Nam June Paik was young and it came to me as new, but I can correlate to fending off the forces that harmed us trying to make the retreated and stopped. The problem with tragedy is the lingering effect of harmfulness in victim's psyche, and I think that the gruesome display of the head is to vanquish such negative forces being exerted to the victim.

Feel-Effect of Racism

2019-01-17T11:16:00.008-08:00

It would be interesting how one's experience with racism encountered affect one's emotion and lead to further formulate one's character. I don't think that afflictions of racism would go away easily. it will manifest in some way or another molding the shape of the society exuding distinctive flairs in their culture as here I am writing down and have people to read in order to finger point of those memories to I have encountered a garden variety of racism living as an Asian in the United States, and certainly I feel that it affected my sense of perception of the world and the surroundings. For instance, I would avoid or reluctant to visit certain places where I have encountered racism, or hard time visiting the places with clear mind without apprehensions. When I think of racism, the first thing that comes into my mind is being stared at overtly by shop keepers without smiling at me. I am not a handsome person in Korean standard, but my physique does not seem to any relevance in any minuscule level attracting suspicious stares from the shop keepers. They were not pleasant experiences at all. The worst of it happened on one day afternoon at a store of university where I was attending. I was just killing time off in the store in between two classes. Apparently, I was followed by an attendant of the store while I was browsing picking stuff up and putting them down. As I was exiting the store, I was stopped by two tall men, and asked to follow them into a corner room. The manager waiting in the room asked me to take out everything in my pockets to have my body searched. I took out all my stuff out from my pockets and placed them on a table as I was asked to by the manager. When nothing unexpected came out of all my pockets, the store manager then let me go just saying "sorry." I was new to the country at that time, although the incident came as an event that I had never experienced back in Korea, I knew that I had to suck it off and treat it as a mere incident wishing never to happen again brushing myself off at that time: I could not defend myself verbally as I could not speak English well. However, nowadays, it bugs me making me feel that I should have done something other than merely walking out of the store as if nothing had happened. Although I am feeling regrets once awhile not having thrown a punch at the manager's nose to feel compensated from the humiliation felt, the incident has made an indelible apprehension on my part whenever I go to a store in the U.S.

Nowadays, the technologies have advanced as stores equipped with many sophisticated surveillance cameras and tens of monitoring devices are equipped in corners of the area around the country. Before such facilities came about, the horrible stories of under scrutiny of suspicions were prevalent and often broadcast in the media. Such experiences are less likely encountered in major department stores and grocery stores anymore;however, they are still experienced in Mom&Pop stores or in public places where such facilities are not equipped. Being stared at stores or in public places is not a pleasant experience of which disturbing effect could induce tossing and turning at night lasting couple of weeks, knowing that its spawning is largely based on casting a dark could over one's head of criminality. The suspicions often based on faulty reasoning will not only impact negatively to the society damaging interracial harmony but also it will breed fears based on biases and damaged trust upon one another. The advancement in surveillance technologies may have not reduced underlying causes of racism, but, I think, that it has reduced hassles from racism on superficial level, on daily encounters of various sort, which, in fact, make up large racial glitches that are not reported in newspapers or on television. I would call this as a "feel-effect of racism." Handling the work of the suspicions set aside in a remote secluded area has made a great stride in advancement in surveillance capabilities, which, in turn, allowed reducing the feel-effect of racism, getting fewer wooing nights with steam rising above one's head when one think about how day has past.

Korean grapes, 한구ㄱ포도

2018-12-05T06:49:00.001-08:00

I love eating grapes, especially the Korean grapes. The Korean grapes taste very sweet with its distinct flavor and taste, which makes me to suck the last drop of juice out from the outer layer covering. There aren't that a whole variety of grapes sold in Korean market other than this kind of grapes, of which name I found in English: Concord Grapes. I grew up eaing the grapes in every summer in Korea before the cool breeze starts blowing in late August ushering in fall season. After I came to America, I missed eating the grapes as the grapes not sold in the supermarkets in my neighborhood, augmenting my homesickness. Nowadays, the local Korean markets sell the grapes imported from Korea. One time, I eat more than I had ever had eating a whole box of the grapes. Eating the grapes reminds me of the sweet summer days I spent as a child in Korea. It reminds of of a grape vine that as given to my great grandmother: she planted in the garden of my old home in Shinchon; she dug a hold near the root of the vine, and the following summer grew grapes much more wholesome than before. My great grandmother had loved in a farming village, and she knew how to take care of plants and animals. She knew how to get the dinner ready when someone brought over a live chicken. I saw her making all sort of food during holiday season.
Several years ago, I bought a grapevine sold in a store. I picked up the vine for it says Concord grapes on the label. I waited for good several months as the instruction says to plant in spring. Fortunately, the vine grew well baring grapes after couple of years. The tiny grapes grew and became large. When I picked them up and tasted it, the grapes taste so sweet and tasty almost comparable to the kind of grapes I had back in Korea.

서브 프라임 - Capitalism: Subprime mortgage

2016-02-26T11:14:00.000-08:00

It has been over eight years since the U.S. economy was tethering off the cliff at the verge of collapsing due to subprime mortgage. The shock wave it sent in aftermath of the crisis is still felt psychologically and monetarily, giving deep doubts about capitalism that went haywire and direction it is heading. The housing bubbles burst largely due to American lust for buying big and expensive houses to show off one's social status, which is common behavior in the American culture. The lifestyle of American is to have everything within reach in their backyard: swimming pool, mini theater and etc. Americans want to show off in their material possessions. One of the surest ways American classifies themselves in through possession of materials such as a good car and a big house. In a capitalistic country, money can mean everything, which can dictate human relationships, and it means power and success. The banks and mortgage companies took advantage of this universal weakness in ordinary people. Despite knowing what ordinary Americans are craving for, the folks in finance reached their dark hands to suck the blood off of the ordinary citizen by rigging the system through deregulating lending policies. The perpetuation of rising bubbles as they continued taking advantages of people's greed and desires until the bubbles finally burst in 2008, which triggered rippling effect sending Sunami in global economy. Millions of people lost their jobs and houses in the economic turmoils. The folks in the financial systems were culpable of creating the financial crisis, but their were busy protecting their assets asking the government for bailouts. Nothing of this major scale of magnitude was felt since the great depression in 1920. The Great Depression in 1920 was not as sinister as the financial meltdown occurred in 2008. The reason that the great recession in 2008 was sinister is that the folks in the finance were well aware of the consequences would be like when the system is rigged. Perhaps, they did not care much. As the subprime mortgage lending practice got worsen, it shook very the foundation of economic system, Capitalism. The Feds, banks and mortgages companies, particularly those people who were involved in deregulation of the lending polices brought damages to the economic system, faltering the wheels of economy running though their greed. In normal sense, those people should have been weeded out making the system run smoothly, but the system was jabbed at by the very own people who suppose to take care of them. The Fed knew what was going on; however, they never took the actions to prevent the collapse. They were supposed to be monitoring the system and blowing the whistle at any moment when it runs off the track. Many ordinary people were oblivious to the fact that subprime mortgage was toxic and dangerous. The banks did not give any information to ordinary home-buyers nor they explained the nature of subprime mortgage and risk involved with them. If the bankers rejected loan applications that do not show a person's credit in good standing, those people would not have been allowed to house easily, but the bank deregulated the policy. This rigged system created huge house bubbles without anyone intervening way before the bubble burst. The buyers would have responsibilities buying houses, but it was largely at the faults of mortgages and bankers who never willing to blow whistles to stop the financial collapse, making snowball getting larger and larger until it hit the boulder and crashed. The subprime mortgage happened as a result of the interplay between people's foolishness and a corrupt system. The ordinary people are wondering why it happened, and they want to see those responsible people get punished as affirmation that the government and the system have been restored.

In Memories of my Great Grandmother

2015-11-15T05:04:00.003-08:00

In late January afternoon when sunlight is shining through the windows lazily touching upon the wooden floor of my house, I think of my great grandmother who sits by sliding door in her room on sunny days holding a long bamboo smoking pipe. As often she was smoking in her room, I remember the most of her smoking when heart of winter has just passed and warm winter rays started thawing the frozen landscape. She would gaze upon outside puffing her long bamboo smoke pipe sitting on Ondol floor in her room. As shadows from the barn hanging lose in the evening in my house, I think about image of her head gently swaying like a tugboat anchored ashore on rippling effects. Her hair still not turned entirely white yet and her stooped back for so long gives her long enduring life. She picks up her smoking pipe as sliding door made with rice paper vibrates due to sound of a train passing by in distance. She would strike a match as the bulb of match sparks injecting the burning smell into the air, puffs of smoke rises above her white hair, and I would reach above her hair to disturb its movements that swirls like clouds as particles of dust in the air are shown with its vivid color in between the lights emitting through shadows of window panes. As I sit by her, I would then smell the smoke rise above her head as she puffs the bamboo pipe.

My great grandmother was a kind lady. Her innate calm demeanor had calming effects on my soul like the puffs of her smokes coming out from the bamboo pipe. She was when I was born and she had lived a long time since then until I emigrated to the U.S. She and I had lived together under a same roof in a big family; it was a last period in Korea when unit of a family was much larger than now. I had lived with her ever since I was born for seventeen years, I would remember her the most as someone who impacted me the most socially and psychologically.

She had lived through almost one hundred years without proper medical technologies were available. I remember asking her age when she was eight five years old, which make that she was already almost 80 years old when I was born. She was a first and far most old lady all along ever as far as I could remember her. In fact. Her longevity was probably a product of her harsh life working daily in farm and doing chores in her house in poverty. She knew how to do chores from making all different rice cakes, red bean porridge for celebrating winter solstice, making Kimchi in Kimjang season, making soybean and etc.

She passed away several years after I emigrated to the U.S. I had never seen her crying nor seen her outside, but on the day when I left Korea for emigrating to the U.S., she came out
crying. Much of my Great Grandmother's life prior to I was born remain in mystery to me largely for the reason that no one had ever told me much about her life, not even she. Perhaps, nobody had any inquisitive mind about her because her life had been revolving around doing daily chores in the house, day after day and year after year, and nobody found anything special. There probably had not been much things going around with her; nobody got yelled and spanked by her, she didn't even complained about anything to anyone; she was not talketive and always doing chores in the house quietly. However, her presence was large in the house; nobody showed disrespect to her not because not only of Confucian mores but also she spoke loudly by action. For instance, when a relative brought a live chickens, she was the one who carried the mission of doing the chores that nobody would want to do; killing them for them to be cooked. She was just an old grandmother to the generation above me, and the young people in my generation was busy playing and minding their own lives and spent little time talking with her. Even for me, her presence was largely taken for granted when I was growing up in Korea, and I had become to bogged down with myself living in the U.S. thereafter. Her past life would be presumed to had been very simple living in a farming country in North Korea and there might not be much to talk about. However, as I grow older, especially having lived away from the country where we both had lived together for almost four decades under the same roof, I can't relegate her large presence in my life; I cherish the wonderful memories that came from her sphere in my youth. To me, no one else exceeds grandeur of a old person than my great grandmother: her back was stooped bending almost 90 degree angle forward with wrinkled face, which might had caused partly from Osteoporosis in combination with perhaps largely working in farms over three quarter of a century, and yet she was still filled with full of energy working until late in the every evening, and defied the time causing infirmity seemed to have halted, never seem to be growing any older, looking same even ten years after. I have never seen her making anyone laugh, nor I have never seen her smiling or crying, showing a glimpse of what her past life had been like, darkened rugged skin reflective of harsh reality of survival; she probably had to endure poverty throughout of her life. She never smiled, and yet her face was showing glow of peace all the time, perhaps, due to living in countryside always with plants, flowers, beautiful natural things despite all the terrains. She probably had no time to complain and knew life other than what she had to overcome ,which might had formed callousness in emotion that would not surface any traits of her natural mischievous nature that might had in her youth even in twilight of her life. She was not educated and never tried to influence others busy making her own ends meet, but her living transcends far beyond showing her wonderful way of life; taking care of her children and carrying the old tradition of making food, and all the sphere that revolved around her.

Her walking holding a goad bowl in and out of kitchen or to the 장독대 ingrained my my memories as her signature. Her face was wrinkled and darkened with years of hardships, perhaps clamaty of losing her husband when she was so young, and much toils in labor working in countryside in North Korea for much all her life before she moved to South before the Korean War, which were largely unspoken part of her time in life. Presumably, she was born in 1881, before Korea was annexed by Japan, and during the time when the chapter of Choson dynasty was about to be ended. She wasn't a talkitive person at all.

I had seldom seen her talking other than relating to meeting our ends meet, such as food, clothing, living and heating , which would give a glimpse of what her life had been like in those years largely revolved around the sphere of surviving in harsh winters and feeding her children at the time when Korea had been a agricultural land. I've heard that her husband died when she was only in twenties, taken away by a tiger, When she was resting in her room, it was like her a taking a rest at the farm yard after a long backbreaking work that she had taken so many times before, feeling the breeze running through her hair and cooling her off; she would stuff her long bamboo pipe with a few ounces of tabacco and strike a match to light it up. I could see her sitting by sliding doors opened as puffs of smoke coming through in between two sliding doors made with rice paper as I was playing in the front yard. She would gaze me playing and i could see her head lightly swindling in silence. As soon as I got on my feet and about to walk anywhere I want to go, I was often called upon to go down to the convenient store nearby in my neighborhood to fetch a bag of tabacco for her; pungent smell of tabacco stung my nose as I drew the bag wrapped in a brown bag to my nose as I walked uphill leading to the entrance door of my house . I seldom saw her going outside of the house. She lived all her life in a big family. At the time when I was a toddler, there was 10 people living under one roof. The economic condition was not as harsh as perhaps when she was living in North. She haven't had any education to influence others and teach something, but she showed me wonderful tradition of Korea through her cooking and hardworks in the household. She would often ask me what day was a particular day to keep track of the date for a certain thing to be done according to the luner calendar.

Every year, in the beginning of December, I watched Kimchi pots getting buried underground in the front yard as flurries stated popping up from the overcast sky while my uncle was huffing and puffing digging the ground bellowing steam out from his mouth, and watched my great grand mother walking up to it drawing a bowl of Kimchi as a dog housed at the corner of the front yard noticed her coming and started barking to call her attention and then the sound of it turning into a growl in disappointments as she went out of sight going into the kitchen with no regards for him. On the fortnight, as the hallowing wind was blowing in the depth of cold winter, the dog, having not received much of attention from her, would moan sporadically interleaving its sound in the wind, upon which my great grandmother would open the sliding door from her room and peer out making a brief kind statement for him which surprisingly quelled the night.

My grand mother used to get the fire going on the inlet of Ondol outside at the front yard burning woods for heating her room every evening in the winter and some time later, she would gather the embers in a Wahro that made out of clay to be brought into her room for additional heating inside, and we would often gather around the Wahro after dinner and talk with great grandmother. She would toss in a sweet potatoes or chestnuts for a treat. What a bonding experience that it was!!

몬스터을 본 적이 있습니까?

2015-08-26T05:53:00.000-07:00

몬스터을 본 적이 있습니까?
이 몬스터들은 지기제어 장치가 없어 본인이 몬스터가 되어 있는지도 모르는 종족 입니다.
이들의 성향은 쾌쾌묵은 사고의 기름때가 얼굴에 잘잘히 묻어 있어, 몇번 이야기만 해도 대번 알아 볼 수 있지요 이 종족들은 세상이 어떻케 돌아가는지 관심도 없고, 이웃도 몰라라 하면서 자기안위에만 신경 쓰다가 50, 60, 70, 80을 바라 보는 하이에나와 같은 인간들 입니다. 전쟁, 가난, 기근을 겪으면서 지내온 세대인데도, 고생이 좀처럼 철이 드는데 보탬이 안된 종족들 이지요. 이런 인간들은 자식을 나아도 몬스터 종족이 되고, 같이 사는 식구들에게도 타격을 줍니다.

"한국은 유병헌, 윤창중, 강석진같은 인간들이 이 부류에 속 한다고 볼수 있지요.
이런 인간은 한국인의 자화상이 되어, 선량한우리을 괴롭히기도 합니다.
불량품이 많은 나라의 물건은 싸게 팔리는 것처럼, 몬스터가 많이 나오는 사회는
불량사회가 된다.
이런 몬스터들은 일찍이 사회에서 걸러지고 도태되어야 할 인간들인데
한국의 "물"은 정화되지 않고, 이들로 하여금 하이에나처럼 생존하게 하여 왔다.
강석진이 학생을 10년넘게 성추행했음에도 일찍 나선 동료교수도 없었고,
일이 터지자 듬듬이 커튼을 젖히고 나와 이제야 강씨의 심각함을 고발하니,
결국 주위에서 몬스터을 키워도 살찐놈으로 아주 잘 키운 셈이다. 얼마나
교수사회가 안이하게 돌아 갔으면 10년넘게 성히롱자을 그냥 놔 둘수 있었겠나!
미국같으면 상상도 못할 일이다 - 어린여아을 유괴하여 집 창고어 가두어 몇십년
성추행한 사건도 있지만, 공공기관에서는 극히 보기 드문 케이스이다.

미국 미디어에선 A교수니 하는 따위의 익명이 성추행 혐의자에게 사용되지 않고,
실명으로 보도한다. 성추행사건이 터지면 성추행자의 얼굴이 공개되면서 뉴스는 곧 퍼진다.

하지만 한국에선 미디어에선 얼굴을 공개하지 않고(모자이크), 경찰은 고개을 숙이게
하고 후드로 얼굴을 숨기게 한다. 미국 경찰 같으면 오히려 고개을 쳐들어 범법자의 얼굴을 미디어에 공개하려 들거다. 미국 먼탈리티로는 당나귀을 등에 업고가는 모습을 보는 것처럼 우스운 일이다. 한 은퇴한 미국인 신문 기자는 취재 중에 범죄자 후드로 얼굴을 가려
제치려하다 덤벼드려는 순간 옆에 있던 경찰으 도움을 받았다고 한다

범죄자가 보호을 받는 나라라고 밖에는 생각이 안된다..정말 골때리고 우스운 관습이다.
강석준이는 10년이 넘게 성추행을 밥먹둣이 저질렀어도 고작 2년 구형을 받았다.
미국같으면 족히 10년을 때릴일 이다.
법이 약해서, 멍청해서(?) 한국은 몬스터가 많은 걸까?

니이가 들어가며 주위에는 몬스터가 득시글 거린다.

여러가지 문제점이 있다 - 교육,사회시스텀, 패거리 문화을 꼽을 수 있다.
교육차원 에서는 인성교육을 등한시한 결과이다. 인성교육이 잘 안되는 이유는
선생들의 인성이 없어, 그의 파급효과가 전 학생에게 미치지 못하기 때문이다. 스승의 날은 있으면서, 학생의 인성함양은 선생의 몫이 아니라는 책임 회피에서 비롯된다. 올코/그름의 생각이 서로 토론이 되고, 그밖의 매너등등이 함양이되고, 학생이 서로 돕고 배우는 관습이 키워져야 하는데, 선생의 자질이 못 미치니, 스스로 포기한 상태다.

두번째는 패거리 문화인데, 이것의 실체는 남과의 교류 부재가 원인 이다. 마치 축구에
빗대어 이야기하자면, 축구경기의 코드가 바뀌었는데 아직 미처 인식을 못하고 참전하는
꼴이다 - 즉, 세상이 바뀌었는데 적응을 못한 격이다. 아무리 유능한 선수라도 팀멤버이다; 팀의 규율과 법칙을 준수해야한다, 그런데, 한국에선 실력만 있으면 걸림이 없이 특권을 누리게 한다; 열등감의 문제다.

세번째는 시스템이 잡초을 고르지 못하기 때문이다. 결찰이 성추행자을 구속하고, 그 기록이
남아있어, 언제든지 공공기관에서 볼 수있어 추행자는 발을 못 붙이게하는, 미국의
"CORI"같은 시스템이 구축이 안되서 이다.

한국은 유교문화이다. 유교문화는 부패을 유발시키기 좋다.
유교와 인간을 큰 항아리에 넣고 휘휘 저으면 몬스터들이 하나 둘 항아리을 기어 나온다.
다음번에는 어떤 몬스터가 기어 나올 것인가? 정말 궁금해 진다.
우리 주위에는 몬스터가 정말 많다.

학력병: 학력 질문-----뚝!!!

2015-08-26T04:50:00.000-07:00

   “Education doesn't make you smarter.”

   ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

   "Do not judge a man until you've closed his coffin."

   ― Lee Kwan Yew

"학력" 혹은 "성"을 사회가 얼마나, 어떻케 보느냐는 그사회의 세련됨을 나타낸다. 모든 사람이 갖고 있는 성을 사회가 어떻케 처리하고 보는지, 모든 사람이 갖고 있는 저마다의 학력을 사람들이 서로 어떻케 보는지는 사회가 얼마나 성숙되어 있는지 알수 있다. 사회도 옷이 있다, 하지만, 한국사회는 한 스타일의 옷을 입는 것을 고집 한다.

학력이 사회에서 학력적 대우 받으려면 성과나 결과가 있어야만 한다. 노벨상을 받는 다던지, 훌륭한 사람을 많이 배출한던지.... 그래서 년마다 학교을 따지는 랭킹이 있게 마련이다. 하지만 한국에선 아직 변변한 노벨상 하나 없이 학력에 맹신 한다. 이 맹신으로 인해 '간판'이란 말까지 나오게 됐다. 이것은 단지 학력이 사회의 발전을 지탱하는데 ㅆ여지지 않고 과장 되게 신분을 가르는데 이용되기 때문이다. 이렇게 다른 용도로 쓰면, 사회가 자기 성찰을 하여야 한다. 마치, 농약이 잔뜩 묻은 사과 라면 껍질을 벋겨 먹어야 하는 일과도 같다. 학력을 다루는 문제가 복잡할 수 있기에, 보통사람이 어렇고 저렇고 할 일이 용이 하지 않고 보는 게 좋다. 가령, "학력"을 사회가 아니면 개인이 얼마나 객관적이고 그것에 얼마 만큼의 가치을 두고 잘 보느냐 이다. 오십년전에 만원이 지금에도 만원 정도 밖의 값어치가 된다면 값어치는 떨어진 셈이다. 지금의 값어치는 그의 10배 20배 정도여야 제 값어치 이다. 또, 그 값어치을 50배 100배로 요구 한다면, 그 또한 잘못된 일이다.

학문을 통한 성취가 가져다 주는 기쁨이 있다. 하지만 학문 대신 학력을 추구하는게 솔직한 표현 일게다. 인류을 위해 학문과 연구을 하고 노벨상을 타는 사람의 정신을 살려 학문에 몰두하면 얼마나 좋을까! 한국에서 단 한개의 노벨상도 안 받아놓고 학력읗 운운 하는게 모순이다! 빨리 남에게 잘 보이고 싶은 마음에 학벌을 추구하고만 살아 왔다. 간판만 따지는 한국인의 습성 때문에 어느 정도는 이 때문에 한국은 발전했다고 볼 수 있을까? 그러나, 학벌을 너무 추구하고만 살아 온 나머지 우리 주변에 학력병에 걸린 노이로제 환자들을 종종 보게된다.

학력병 증상은 대충 말하면 이러하다:

"학력이 인간을 우선한다."

즉, 학력을 간절히 소망, 혹은 자랑하고 싶은 나머지, 인간, 인간됨, 혹은 인간미을 잠시,아니면 오랫동안 포기하거나 유보한 사람"이라고 말하고 싶다. 좀 좋케 말해 상식의 수준을 넘어선 상태 라고 하기에도 어렵다.

진정히 학문을 사랑하고 학문을 진정으로 추구하는 사람이 학력병에 걸릴 수 있을까? 이러한 전제을 놓고 보면, 한국인 중에는 진정으로 학문을 사랑하는 사람은 그리 많치 않은 것 같다. 미디어에서 부추기고, 수능일에는 비행기 이착륙이 지연되는 일까지 벌어지니, 오히려 국민이 노이로제에 걸리지 않는게 이상한 일 이다. 닭이먼저냐 아니면 달걀이 먼저인가 하는 소리 같지만, 우리가 갖고 있는 강박관렴은 벌써 우리가 인간을 제데로 알고 관계을 맺는데 우리의 눈을 흐린지 오래다.

별의 별 형태의 학력에 대한 편집증을 우리는 갖고 있다.
미디어가 김연아선수에게 굳이 갖다 붙이려고 애쓰는 고려대 태그,
고작 나이 16살에 수능에 실패했다고 자살하는 사람 등등....
혹은 16살에 세상을 얻었었다고 착각하는 사람..
묘비에도 "아무개박사의 묘" - 미국에도 "박사"칭호가 묘비에 적흰 이름에 까지 따붙는 지는 모르겠다만, 죽어서도 학력타령이다.
왜 학력병이 한국에선 심한가?
한국은 학력병을 키우기 위한 최적의 조건을 갖고 있다.
그래서 그에대한 시너지 효과도 아주 크다.

이러한 조건들은 한국인이면 다 아는 사실이고, 그리 쉽게 고쳐지지 않고 있다..
한국은 학력병 때문에 노벨상이 안나온다 - 학문을 하지 않고 학력을 하기 때문이다.
한 나라가 학문을 잘해 노벨상을 여러개 따면 얼마나 좋은가!
학력만은 알멩이가 비어 있는 느낌이고, 높은 문화수준은 아니라 느껴진다.

이제는 진짜 서로간에 문화수준도 생각해 봐야 하지 않겠나!
사실, 학력병에 걸린 사람은 학력 외에 소중한 것이 많다는 걸 모르는, 마치 사이비 종교에 빠진 사람과 흡사하다.

한국땅에 태어나 이병을 피해가는 사람은 몇 퍼선트나 될까?
명문대학을 나오고 미국생활을 오래해도 이병을 앓고 있는 사람이 많다;
이민 온지 사반세기가 지난 사람조차 몇십년 만에 만나게 되도,
"안녕 하세요?"라는 인사말이 나오기도 전에 "댁의 아이들 어느대학 갔어요?"가 더 궁금한 한국인.
인생은 도전의 연속이다, 그리고 완전한 교육가관 교육시스템이란 존재하지 않는다.
인간은 저마다 다른 재질과 다른 능력을 타고 났다. 어떤이는 순수 노력으로 어떤이는 노력과 탤런트로 16세에 도전에 성공한다. 타고난 탈란트을 자랑하고, 성공과 실패에 높은 비중을 두고 따지고 싶은 마음은 이해가 가나, 인생은 성공과 실패의 연속이라는 사실을 생까는 행동이다.

친하지도 않은 사람에게 아들 딸 자랑하는 사람이 있는가 하면, 자기 자식이 원하는 대학에 못갔다고 죽상인 부모도 있다. 이거 너무 적나라하게 본인의 교양과 매너의 수준을 보여 주는 질문 아닌가? 우습지 않나!

학력병, 이것 본인의 열등감 표출 아닌가! 이거 못살던 시대의 전유물 아닌가!
모든사람이 저마다의 환경에서 자기가 갖고 있는 탈란트 로 열심히 노력만 하는 걸로 용기있는 아량의 눈을 갖우면 덧나나!

남에게 질문하는 것도 세심한 배려와 기술이 요구된다. 한국은 G20 선진국이라 한다. 이제 이런 학력에 관한 일 이라던지 매너도 선진국 수준이 되어야 하지 않겠나! 다른 선진국 사람들이 생각해 봐도 보편적으로 느낄 수 있는 사고가치, 매너을 가져야 하지 않겠나! 한국에서는 고등학교만 나와도 미국의 무식한 백인보다는 교양과 매너는 낫다. 하지만 더 공부한 사람이 필리핀, 희스페닉, 흑인보다 어떤면에서 더 교양없고 매너없이 선진국 사람이라 불리울 수 있겠나!

학력병, 이것 본인의 열등감 그리고 미성숙의 표출 이다.
인간은 저마다 다른 재질과 다른 능력을 타고 났다. 하지만 어떤이는 운좋케 사회에서 요구되는 능력을 갖고 어떤이는 그렇치 못하다.
인제 진정한 의미에서 성공이 무엇이고, 인간의 참된 가치가 무엇 인지도 생각 해 봐야 한다.

나그네 - My encounter with the lamp

2015-08-23T06:43:00.003-07:00

When we are young we are not so much aware of fragile nature of our condition potentially riddled with freaky accidents. Maybe such the notion would not come easily into our mind for us to lead carefree living. Our awareness of our precarious condition may not be usually strong enough until we are stuck with a misfortune. For children, the notion of dying is hard to grasp even encountering death of beloved pets in their lives. Soon or later, we all come to realization that it's not just our pets are subjected to mortality, but humans are also fall into the same predicament. As we grow older, we more or less have experienced with "death" in accidents, illnesses and natural causes among the members of family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, which would lead to thinking about our own mortality. We all experience death in one shape or the other, but the degree to which the notion come to our consciousness may differ one another; some sages realize this early in their lives like Buddha, but for any ordinary human being it may not come so naturally. It is through internalization, meditation, and philosophical thinking as we gain spirituality.

My grandmother suffered from a long illness before she passed away. For that matter, when my grandmother died when I was a little, sadness did not encroached upon me harshly. My view of her death was more or like that of Lao Tzu, as an event that takes place naturally, not stirring up much emotion. However, as I grew older and became more sympathetic toward unfortunate events of human lives, Several years later, after passing away of my grand-mother, a friend of our family passed away early in her last 40's. Growing up in a large family living with my great-grandmother who was over 80 years old at that time, I figured that the lady passed away much early in her life. Her death struck me breaking the notion that a person does not have to be old to die . Unlike my grand-mother, the lady passed away too young. The woman had lived in my neighborhood, and I remember visiting her house for the first time when my father took me along with, and several times thereafter when my mother stopped by her house for chatting on the way home from shopping at the market place. One day, coming from school, I noticed a lamp hung outside the main door of her house. For I had seen the type of lamp lit several years prior when my grandmother passed away, I knew immediately what the implication of the lamp was for. The light shinning in the evening in late fall exuded a desolate feeling. Later when I I was told that the lady of the house passed away, my mother was shocked at the news and kept on saying that her life was cut too short abruptly only in late 40's. It was unbelievable to me that the lady who came to my house just several days ago to chat with my mother could be gone so soon. I have come across a number of abrupt events like her death throughout my life, and became feeling sad and deeper into realization how we are walking on thin ice. As a person who had experienced death right after marrying, through a miscarriage. I wonder any of my sibling has ever experienced such feeling in their lives like I have been through the moments, that seem to be so prevalent in our social lives and yet seldom experienced in their lives yet. Visiting the house following my Dad rendered a situation to think about death in my early life, and I wonder sometimes asking to myself, " why I was the one who was asked to come along with Dad, and why it was me who stopped by her house along with my Mom, not my siblings altogether, not with any of my siblings, on that day?"

About one year later, my father took me to an excursion to a mountain, which were accompanied by several of his friends, including widower of the lady. Meeting them at a cafe at the foot of the mountain, I heard my father consoling his friend encouraging him to get over his grief. While they were talking, I was bored, asking the a question to myself, "Why I came here with Dad alone, not with any of my sibling?"

I live in a town where not many Koreans live, but I have come across with another "Way me?" moment recently. I jug along the route 36 time to time, passing by an old cemetery in the town where I live. On one evening, I decided spontaneously to go up on the hill to see the cemetery, perhaps with a reason that it might help me to decide my body be buried in a cemetery instead of cremated when the time comes. As soon as I ran up, I noticed many tombstones, one of which popped out my eyes opened in surprise of a tombstone carved out in both in English and Korean. I did not expect to find Korean characters in the graveyard. I would have easily paid no attention to the tombstone if it had not been in Korean characters. The tombstone is of a young lady, whose age is too young, to be mourned for anyone; I could not think of myself laying there in such young age - my life barely started at that time, and I became sad thinking about fragility of human condition that had fallen on her in such young age. I asked to myself the the same question: "Why me? That I found myself standing in front of her tombstone today." On the next day, I bought a flower and laid in front of the tombstone to pay her a respect and to think of my finite time left here on this earth.

Sometimes, in our lives, we encounter moments that are too difficult to handle. In this moment, we contemplate that there is not much difference between dead and alive. There is some benefit of thinking immortal nature of human existence; ourselves laying in coffins several feet underground resting in peace. The moments can come as learning experiences, like a Judo master who said that part of Judo is learning how to fall down gracefully without getting hurt. After all, dying is falling from living. Longer I live, I would think of the extra time here on earth as a gift allowing us to do the things that we love, perhaps loving humanity, and more practice time for those who are afraid of dying, like in Judo which has great time spent on falling gracefully in order to minimize inherent risks and dangers involved with falling.

놀부의 정체 - My treatise on Nolbu

2015-07-09T10:07:00.002-07:00

Nolbu is featured on one of the most widely read Korean children's story of two brothers: "Hungbu and Nolbu." Nolbu's greed is represented in this story as a elder brother, who take advantage of his status in hierarchical order over his young brother Hungbu in taking possessions after his father passed away. The story is loosely formatted as it had been transcribed orally for generations. The story starts off tersely describing the environment in which they grew up; however, nothing much mentioning about their upbringing. In the story line, there is no depiction of sibling revery nore showing of Hungbu's disgusts on Nolbu's ill dispositions. It is hard not to speculate that Nolbu's parents were any good in their parenting skills in light of Nobu's ill dispositions; there is no trait of fairness found in Nolbu and it may have come largely from his parents' negligence in parenting. Hubu never goes against his brother, never arguing with him. Nolbu's unruly manner is sub par as a likable human being and Hunbu's unconfident demeanors, which are quite unfit for characteristics one would have for modern living. The story certainly need a significant patch work or revision to fit in modern context and to be more delectable to audience. However, despite all the loose ends, the story survives due to its significant values in entertainment and pedagogy of morality. In fact, the story would never die down because it touches upon universal human traits: greed and jealousy. The story makes us think about compassion, sympathy, fairness which are often loomed in our thoughts when failure, rivary, chaos, hurts, betrayal, or dispute occurs in our lives. Even though Nolbu's quirkiness and flaws may relegate such traits to that extremity in ourselves, greediness is a trait in mankind resonates in our lives even strong, and it may not be surprising to meet someone like Nolbu as it has always been, particularly nowadays in the societies driven by materialism and meritocracy. Greediness is not a abominable trait in mankind, through which mankind thrive developing new technologies; they are essentially fertilizer to our will to survive. Perhaps, the story renders harsh judgement on Nolbu because his greediness is void of fairness. What is he so repugnant is the fact that he does not play a fair game. What is so disgusting is the fact that he pays no attention to others. The trait of greedy person is that he does not know whether his behavior is bad. He never has a critical mind to review himself. He never criticize himself so he keeps on behaving badly with no regard to the fact that he has been hurting others. Perhaps, Nolbu's inability to fight for himself against is that he is so used to his mean demeanors and never growing spirits for fighting for himself. I would think that Hungbu should have engaged a war with his brother. He should have learnt KaeKwonDo and beat up and busting his brother's nose. Is Nolbu a bad person? Greedy person was a bad person indeed in hundreds of years ago in agricultural society, pre-industrialization, where people made their living with farming, which was labor intensive and needed much collaboration. In such society collective efforts were appreciated, which led to conformity and shared values. In such society, helping each other and sharing things was way to go, and Nolbu could have been easily be criticized, but is he still a bad person in modern context? Indeed, he is a bad person: he took the possession of his parents' wealth without sharing with his brother and any other person. How Nulbu had taken the possession of his father's wealth so easily? Has Hungbu let him do whatever his brother what he wants? What is the character of Hungbu? Does he have to succumb to the tyranny of his brother, Nolbu, to take the possession without throwing a punch at him? There is no character of Hunbu in protest of his brother in the story; he was depicted as a subservient brother as if his status within the family is not equal to his brother. The story is deeply flawed in this regard where Hunngbu perceived his brother as a tyranny with higher authority whom no resistance or revolts were allowed. There is no description in the story where Hungbu was beating up his brother. There is no storyline where the two brother were fighting over toy in their childhood. There is not showing of Hungbu of his will to live. After all, there is no man on earth without his desires and wants. Was it such a taboo that younger brother beat up older brother? Is it breaking the norms of the society. It looks like Nolbu was greed and hi made his own rules and expected Hungbu follow the rules. His greed overshadows anything good about him, enough to expunge any of our motivation to like him right off the start. He might have some good qualities. We often ponder how such person could be come about? What was his upbringings in a family and the society were like . Who were his parents? would it be possible that such person could be come about?

He was not a villain; he did not kill anybody nor raped anyone, so he was not a criminal, but his moral standards falls sub par in human qualities. Nolbu was an egomaniac and a sociopath. Basically, he never cared for anybody. He is portrayed as a greedy, unsympathetic, unfair, and jealous person in the story. Does society should play role of such person making advancement into society? What measures are taken to do that?

The story has been told to children with pedagogical values, so it describes Nolbu's character rather tersely. Although one might think that such character would not be born in modern time, history snub off that notion rather flatly as we have seen politicians and educators pushed themselves off the limit in corruption and misconducts. His greed and how they came about are not well described in the story telling. The folklore conveys a moral guideline to listeners: being greedy can lead to disastrous consequences. There was a version came about that fits modern context, describing Heungbu as not a very responsible person - contrary to what listeners would have heard before - whose sphere does not quite fit to modern socioeconomic and cultural context; nowadays nobody can afford to be raising so many children as Hungbu did. For that matter, Hulbu is chastised as a paragon of irresponsibility with naivete and lack of prudence. Unlike Hungbu, there is no comparable version of Nolbu exists, perhaps, it's due to the fact that greediness is pervasive in cross culture and socioeconomic and its value does not change over time: too much greed is bad. In fact, greed is prevalent in all culture and there is no lessening of its ill impacts; we now talk about downing of capitalism due to greediness of 1 % at the top of socioeconomic. When greed gets out of proportion, the story telling becomes all the more enthusiastically heard. The scope of Nulbu's greed is within a village and to an individual - although its impact is not described well in the story telling, the disappointments of being kicked out in a dead winter evening that Hungbu and his family had to face is unimaginable. Perhaps, the story employs overblown size of Hungbu's family to implicate potential harm a person's greed can bring. Certainly, Nolbu is not a villain, he did not kill anybody, he simply acted out, taking advantage of given situation mercilessly without giving too much thoughts of sharing it with his sibling; when his farther died and he took the possession of his father's asset all for himself. He was not a smart person, and yet he already knew instinctively that the society has lopsided policy in governing inheritance, mainly all in favor of eldest child, like him. Nolbu took an advantage of the situation all in favor of himself and he had no notion that what he had done was crossing over the mores of the society, not allowing any part of the inheritance to be given to his brother and any neighbors. Nolbu had no shrewdness of Shylock but he had apathetic mind like him; he knew how to get by with rules and take advantage of them. Realistically, the inheritance rule has been lopsided in favor of the eldest son in Korean society until recently, which was based on Confucian value that pervaded throughout its history.

It is understandable that the sheer size of Hungbu's family might have caused frustration on Nolbu and his family sharing one house with them. However, the manner which he employed was out of ordinary common sense; Nolbu treated his brother like a total stranger as if he has done something terribly wrong. The story owe to its listeners what prompted Nolbu kicking them out so abruptly and so harshly. How can story be so bizzaar not telling the reason!! It brings Nolbu to the level of a sociopath, an abnormal person. Nolbu was a abominable person, a real disgrace for a family to live with. Nolbu could have become frustrated with the chaos that children had brought upon, which led him to asking Hungbu to leave the house. However, giving him nothing in winter time for him to make living was very cruel and down right mean, enough to call him a sociopath. Was the rules of the society was such in favor of the eldest child that he can not fight for his portion of the estate! If he inherited a half of the estate, he would not have become so poor; he could support his family of ten children. Being greed is one thing, but when the matter is worse and cross the line with no consideration of others are taken in purely self-satisfying way, as story line follows Nolbu's greed become worse, it becomes cancer causing traits goes beyond individuals harming society.

What could have brought such traits to Nolbu? After all, he was born in a rich family. His greediness might have come from many venues, especially his depravity and lack of independence. Born in a rich family, he would be an ultimate example of "spoiled rich kid" in modern term. He probably had everything provided for him; he did not have to work hard for anything. The thing is that he had worst kind of education anyone could ever get: nobody scolded him for doing things wrong. Furthermore, he grew up with not much passion for anything; he had no interests in doing things, even having no particular motivation to look after himself. He was rich, but any woman to marry the person surely would have banged her head on the wall for regrets of marrying him. He probably had no decent look to get married, not to mention lack of will to support his family; that's was the main reason why he had to cling on his father's inheritance. Nulbu came about as a result of poorly educated from his parents.

There was nothing good about him. He was not a villain, but he was a egomaniac with no empathy for others. He never cared for anybody. I wonder how much he cared for his family. Maybe, he had love for his immediate family and shared his wealth, but if the money had run out, he would not take the responsibility to take care of them. Nulbu was a very rude person, and that's why we never hear that he had friends in the neighborhood. He married to a woman who was like him; She hit Heunbu, who came to seek help in cold winter, with a spartulla. He mainly focused on his welfare, not even coming close to the norms of society. Given the context of Confucianism that had strong commands in all mores of his time, he took advantage of it and seized the estate when his father died without sharing it with his younger brother, and never feeling sorry for it. Going even futher, he kicked his brother's family out of the house. He had no idea how his behavior would have been perceived by his nephews, who came to seek his help. His greediness manifested into becoming a bad person. There is nothing in the story telling that depicts his "bad behaviors" or where it might have come from. It might be an interesting thing to not even psycoanalytic prognosis on him.

something is closed and environment that is very hiaracal. Domestic violence. Nobody knows what is happening in the family.

한국교육 49제 언제오나 - It's time to say good-bye to the old Korean Education System

2015-06-27T11:30:00.000-07:00

All men can not be talked about without talking about their past.  Likewise, all school system can not be talked about without its past: the aspirations and efforts have been made for progression of it. Much positive results have been brought upon the society, which started off with from the few to many since the modern education was established; however, the questions regarding quality of education over the past twenty or thirty years in Korea has been a success is still looming in the dark cloud. Nowadays, more and more people are questioning quality of education in Korea particularily in improving quality of living. Education is no longer considered for selected few, encompassing wider spectrum in socioeconomic in the society.. However, like a flower needing good soil to grow, the questions arise that whether the environment on which children can grow healthy and wholesome. To me, for education is to succeed, the old soil needs to be changed. The biggest challenge of Korean education is changing the soil. In other word, the mores of educating children that has been adopted for centuries need to be changed. The Korean education system reflects that of Yi dynasty, which exudes images of scholars studying ethics in Confucianism, emphasizing obedience to authoritarian rules and respect for teachers, If ideal adaptation and evolution had been made into the modern era in pursuit of reasoning instead, Korea would have achieved best of its kind winning a dozen of Nobel prizes by now. Due to emphasis of obeying and respecting authoritarian rules and teachers as mores dictates in Confucianism, Korean students would be left at the mercy of inefficient system instead of getting ahead and being competitive. As a result, it exhibits inability filling up the gap between mores and thinking of the past and that of newly adapted political system, democracy, in modern era. Certainly, modern Korean education system can be characterized as superimposing western style educational elements unto old Yi dynasty's educational system, lacking qualities of educating holistic and humanistic approaches without much revisions, which resulted in creating environment that lack qualities of equality, justice and freedom of speech and fostering such treats among students. Korean education falter from its beginning. Despite the influx of western culture that emphasizes individuality and humanity, the educational system has been moulded and shaped without much of those qualities are nurtured and developing. As results, its impacts have been clearly palpable: lackluster performance of students with respect to amount of work put in by the students, huge waste of time, money and energy, and ill-effects on students' health with over stress in competition as results.

What is the main reason goal of educating people? Isn't education help to foster environment to communicate one another and bring good to society? These are the questions, perhaps, that need to be asked to all Korean teachers and evaluate with respect to their conviction for teaching.
Education to me is a double edged sword, helping to grow a person emotionally, intellectually and socially, and learning materials to become a doctor, an engineer whatever to gain skills for living.

Korean education system does not stand in line with pursuing lofty goals of education.
The Korean school system is largely characterized by focusing on gaining material goods or making a climbing up the social ladder for the people. It doesn't have any holistic approaches in which every students are accounted for; it's more like a group of people at a running stand all vying for reaching the goal first. For that purposes, it is like a spinning target to which people throw darts to get the good prizes, some of the darts hit the target in bull's eye and some don't, some of the darts do not go far hitting the target and fall short, and some darts hit the edge and bounce off. Another analogy might be pushing people into a swimming pool; some people gain skills immediately, and some don't, and some have never had any knowledge and some get drown thrown into a pool. Among the people managed to learn to swim and become a good swimmer. It's a system where there is no lifeguard, and there is no contingency plan regarding for those who get drown. Another analogy would be that of a driver of a bus keep focusing on getting to the destination with no regards for anything happening in or out of the bus, regardless of any passengers are vomiting or any abnormal symptoms of malfunctioning on the bus occurs.

One of the most primary example of this is the way English is taught in secondary schools; there is no accumulated knowledge of teaching English that can be used to fine tuning of further teachings in terms of implementing policies and teaching methods in order to suit the needs of the society; the society demands its people for its proficiency but old archaic methods are used over and over again with no improvements producing generation after generation with lackluster skills as they are mainly taught for picking up an answer in multiple choices in exams without laying the ground works for interests in learning and further studying.

The soundness of Korean education system has been sugar coated with the students' achievements in international test results given for science and mathematics. Using the test scores as a statoscope to detect the heartbeat of the system has been representatives of the country's needs for fast economic development in post war era, as main driving force to drive the country out from poverty. However, in 21st century, as world becomes more diverse and complicated, this simply approach would not help to keep up with educational qualities that 21 century calls for; it is rudimentary and demoralizing the philosophy of education. Why? It's because soundness of education can not be measured in very simplistic terms; it would only impede development of true sense of educational outcomes.

The heavy reliance on the test results to determine successes of of education system poses questions how good the education system is. As the evidences shows from its past history, the Korean education system has shown plenty of signs in its shoddy construction, like a foundation got sizable cracks and layers of brick are laid with no mortar and harnesses in between in shaky disposition. It's fair to say Korean education system, in retrospect, after decades of its implementation, appears like with no firm foundation on its educational philosophy nor having not shown solid commitments from the teachers. If there is any the talks on the educational changes and reforms, they are most likely be artificial and superfluous, going through vicious cycle of producing students in shoddy factories.

What are the most prime attributes come into mind measuring the quality of a education system? I would think that it lies in keeping a relatively small class size, where primary and secondary students are taught by highly qualified teachers who mainly focus on boosting children's confidence and motivation for building many aspects of their growth in terms of their characters, strengthening them to adopt well in meeting future endeavors for their learning. At least, for the six years in primary education be set aside with goals of achieving this educational objectives with firm conviction that the teachers' main responsibilities fall under this category. The environment should give rise to raising happy and bouncy children making the students feel that the society has done something good for them. The failure of Korean education can be summed up with one characterization: hastiness of raising children with lack of and misconstrued notion of education and teachers' inability with taking the responsibilities. In simple terms, it's virtually impossible to see in Korean educational environment where students pursuit their career goals getting inspired by their teachers.

I would regard "education" as a "gift" from any society, at least to primary through secondary schooling. That "gift" should contain lots of things including fostering of free thinkers. Yes, if society is doing well, its boon should be falling in the hands of its children in their education with teachers' generosity. In such environment, their generosity in kindness and willingness to help students would be the prolific soil to nature their growth emotionally and mentally. It's a gift of love from the society, prepared and packaged by the teachers. Any nation with good economic standing would produce good education. However, in Korea with years of poverty after the war, too many teachers have been interested in taking bribes and neglect teaching with complaints that the class size is too large to handle, nothing remotely close in bringing free thinkers of society came about with lack of benefits from generous love of their teachers, but instead too many students fell victims of teachers' greed and egocentric demeanors, treating students unequal terms depending upon the amount of bribes from parents and years of neglects and their incompetence. Korean school system would fail because it lacks guiding principles that dictate employing teachers and keeping of them: love of children and honesty. With lack of such principles, the Korean education system is well reflective of underdeveloped country, and that such characterization would persist even in the 21st century with unwillingness to look at themselves perpetuating without reforms. Due to failure in creating the environments that foster learning and building characters for students, the Korean education system is not and has not been working properly.

There are multi-faceted aspects that need to be looked at, starting from philosophical question such as "Do Korean educators really understand human nature?" "What is true meaning of education?" "What are their rights?" Korean education system started without addressing these questions. After all, it was started without proper design in the first place. And in light of progresses have been made in politics and economy, a design is needed, and to design, the Korean educators need to be really brave enough to build a new foundation.

The current Korean educational system is outdated. If you were to think that in terms of in the progression of computer processors development, it's comparable to Intel 286 which is not compatible running new apps.

The Korean education system emulates outdated educational system of Yi dynasty, which exudes images of scholars studying ethics in Confucianism. If ideal adaptation and evolvement had been made into the modern era in pursuit of reasoning instead, Korea would have achieved best of its kind winning a dozen of Nobel prizes by now. Due to emphasis of obeying and respecting authoritarian rules and teachers as mores dictates in Confucianism, Korean students would be left at the mercy of inefficient system instead of getting ahead and being competitive. As a result, it exhibits inability filling up the gap between mores and thinking of the past and that of newly adapted political system, democracy, in modern era. Certainly, modern Korean education system can be characterized as superimposing western style educational elements unto old Yi dynasty's educational system, lacking qualities of educating holistic and humanistic approaches without much revisions, which resulted in creating environment that lack qualities of equality, justice and freedom of speech and fostering such treats among students. Korean education falter from its beginning. Despite the influx of western culture that emphasizes individuality and humanity, the educational system has been moulded and shaped without much of those qualities are nurtured and developing. As results, its impacts have been clearly palpable: lackluster performance of students with respect to amount of work put in by the students, huge waste of time, money and energy, and ill-effects on students' health with over stress in competition as results.

Reforming Korean educational system entails having an honest look at its ill impacts to the society, which may requires reshaping people's thinking, changing of their educational philosophy, understanding depth of humanity in light of democracy that values human lives. Korea has achieved democracy, but its birth of democracy is not achieved through a major revolution and affirmations, lacking humanistic values, still governed by remnants of Yi Dynasty values.

Many of its staunch supporters have rosy pictures that their education system is working in order being tied down in old thinking ignoring its ill-effects, resisting to give proper treatments and to make reforms, and thus fundamental changes have not occurred yet. Korean education is crude in a sense that it's main functionality is focused on government's needs, not on individuals; It has strong flavor of old Yi dynasty's way of electing government officials; that is whoever writes a best poem or prose after years of studying alone in a test given once a year gets elected. It does not exude aura of either investigative qualities in finding talents of students and communicating with them to guide in right directions or flexibility in meeting the needs of students to reach their fullest potentials for students' sake, but rather tries to harvest hastily fruits that get ripened first without giving proper fertilizer and pruning in absence of educational principles and philosophy. This outdated archaic model has been employed even post Korean War era as a tool to elect people for government and to drive the country out from poverty. As a result of this rather crude system, the poverty has been driven out in fast pace and the country was put on fast track for economic development. However, Korea has long past its juncture to take a harsh look at its educational system and come up with something else because the system is not sustainable to meet challenges of 21st century. The old system has caused many side-effects; You can also see the ill impacts of this system on every sectors in the society, i.e. graduate of military academy or elite schools form social mafias have been charged with corruption and nepotism. The notion that education largely revolves around the sphere of narrowly defined term of one's "success" has been rather crude, not sophisticated way of defining totality of one's success. It is unfit to democratic society where each and every individual is to be respected and regarded as contributing member of society with knowledge, creativity and civility. The old education system may be snubbed off as having served its intended purposes for decades producing workers to work in fast pace, to develop the country from the devastation of the war; however, the realization that the system is deplorably outdated has not fully come to people's consciousness despite that it is no longer viable means to meet the challenges of the 21st century - a radical change in defining what education is needed, upon which new education system be made.

Couple of years ago, Mr. Obama, in his State of Union, praised Korean educators for their dedication in teaching. He seemed as though implying that U.S. needs to emulate Korean education system to get high scores in science and math for its middle and high school students. Hearing his statement, I could not help but getting an impression that he provided Koreans a lip service after failing to find areas to which he would give compliments. Many Koreans would probably have felt his statement rather gay. Koreans are not proud of their own educational system; Korea has not yet won a single Nobel prize in science nor in par with other developed countries in publishing mathematical journals.  Maybe, Mr. Obama has probably made a lip service to nudge ratification of FTA to be passed in Korean congress at that time, and it was a poor choice. However, it sparked another debate amongst Koreans for their education system. What Mr. Obama's statement makes so superficial is that it overlooks enormous prices that the Korean students have to pay: growth of individuality, compassion, emotional quality and cultivation of cooperativeness that are essential in 21st century. These qualities are treated as "not so important" in Koreans education system. Like the old system, the Korean education system serves no other purpose other than assigning students in social strata based on academic performances in crude way. Once every year, hundred thousands of students are vying for a handful of colleges. It is aspiration for the students to enter good colleges to secure their jobs in the future; however, no one made into one of these colleges would say that he successfully made into college because of his good educational environment. It is the game "despite of" bad educational environments. Every students come through a dark tunnel, and some are relieved and some are not to repeat the process for another chance in the next year.

Why then Korean educational system is in such deplorable state? I think that the fundamental problem lies on lack of understanding of humanity that can aide in establishing educational philosophy which can be planted for growth with strong root. In such environments there is elements of having inabilities and lack of flexibility for shifting between individuality and collectiveness and fostering of them. For instance, we define "car" having multiple functions like gearshifts to go forward and backward. What if you have a car only go forward, or only backward? Korean education problem is deeply rooted in its mismanagement and lack of pursuit of excellence, which doesn't procure its culture and tradition in light of evolving modernity. Korean culture has largely been based on neo-confucianism which mainly dictates mores of relationships in hierarchical manners, which may be classified as subset of mores that gives totality of such in the Western culture like in old Korean music governed by 5 notes as opposed to 14 notes in Western music. In Korean history, the movements toward achieving individuality and inception of concept of it has been a recent history and it has not succeeded to fully developed until the arrival of Christianity. Even after arrival of Christianity, it took a long time to shed remnants of Neo-Confucianistism to achieve true sense of equality among humans. For Korean, achieving success in education entails shedding neo-confucianistic mores in the society that keeps people from achieving individuality. To be able to become a success in education for any country is to be able to look far ahead and read what's lies ahead in the future. Seoul is known for blending old buildings and modern buildings in harmony, but Korean education has not made leap forward due to old Yi dynasty's thinking that keep from proactively creating or pursuing more advanced system.

The lack of awareness of these elements in education amongst parents and educators plus prematurely intercepted by foul plays of parents and educators led to chaos in Korean education. These are the two elements that they have to shed lights asking themselves fundamentals of education: what is education? After all, the triumph of education is to make individuals to experience satisfaction of learning. What can I do to help achieve my children/students to fit as a contributing members of the society in collective way? How can we create education system that can produce good citizens for the society? Is our education system is in line with fostering qualities of students meeting the challenges of the new global world? Am I, as an educator, fit for teaching students in school? These are very simple questions that all teachers and educators should ask to themselves and able to answer them in their own mind. To me, the ideal primary school education is laying foundation for producing good citizens who cooperate each other through democratic ways, and to support in building character and to help the students getting motivated for learning and to compete in fair opportunities. Also, the system should play the role as a conduit discovering talents not just in academics but also in sports and arts, and foster their physical and mental growth. The philosophy and principles that all children deserve good education with good care with conviction that the educators are primarily responsible for creating and maintaining environments in which foster learning for them. They should also realize that the educational environment should be designed to emulate the society in which the students will join in the future. I believe that Korean educators attend symposiums trying to grasp general idea what the nature of current Korean education system of its weakness and strength. However, there seems to be no driving force to push forward with reforms.

In order to understand current standing of education system in Korea, we need to trace back where the education starts; primary school. The Korean education fails from its start with no guiding principles and priorities. Main problem in early Korean education stems from lack of ideas how to go about filling up the lives of students. Ideally, the objectives of the education are to achieve the aforementioned goals, but lacking such elements lead to filling up the vacuum with harmful things first. The Korea school system fails because the timing of competition gets introduced is much early among students. In other word, the timing of competition is not well orchestrated as part of elements to have general sense of academic achievements and reaching civility, but educators let the ball lose, neither to raise students getting the general senses. As a result of the educators shoving students into competitions hastily, creativity is not well nurtured. Addressing teacher's ability is never questioned inheriting old colonial concept demanding unquestionable piety to the authority. There is no pride and no struggle within the society making the educational foundation to be universally accepted largely due to educators incompetency and lack of care.  Most of educators and even parents have wrong notion about education. The truth of matter is that neither educators nor parents are really concerned of raising kids well; they are basically interested in raising kids with hope of satisfying their ego, which would end up producing adults who are not well-rounded. Korea has been a poor country, and correlating education with one's meeting material success-getting their pieces of taffy- is introduced in much too early stage of one's education robbing them chances to cultivate emotional, cultural and social growth, which leads to lacking in basic social skills as we have seen rampant occurrences with bullying in Korean schools. In other words, the foreground work of cultivating fine citizenry is severely negated and neglected in primary education which drive students into premature competitions that harm the students' emotional well being, ending up going into middle school and high school with lack of social skills and organizational skills that lay the groundwork to be successful students and happy human beings.

To this end, the chaos in Korean education can be thought of as multitude of people all trying to go through one small door and they are getting stampeded. It's because Korean has notion of higher education largely related to getting a key to a good white color position with high salaries and good job security. Such jobs are much sought after as they are essential thing one to possess in the society where social strata is coarsely defined. Korean education is strongly revolves around assigning one's social standing based on academic successes that is defined in Korean term, which is through one's achievement on examination. In the environment where examinations are strongly correlated with one's social standing, true sense of learning can be distorted in many forms in various stages of one's schooling. To Korean, the definition for education is series of examination, nothing correlates to one's cultivation of character and achieving skills for developing team work.

To be blunt, Korean education system is providing mere functionality; it is not like a sophisticated machine with hundreds of parts working seamlessly, but rather an old car with basic parts working, waiting to fall apart. The education ministry has been mandating rules without planing out of necessity to react to quell public outcries, which resulted in many side-effects.  The ministry, instead making a major reform with new designs, often opted to making revisions trapped in old style of rigid thinking and indecisiveness, on top of old system. The ministry does not have blue prints to make the people to fit in 21 century, only repeating the old system making minor tweak every time when something goes wrong or parents complain....it has been going that way over forty years of modern Korean education. It's like an old house that needs a major renovation which has been deferred and put in patch works instead. The only thing that educators are suggesting is learning at your means; they wear nice suits visiting schools pretending they are doing something big for improving the system.

It's true, through this means, that all Korean students gain somewhat superior reading and math skills upon graduating from high school; every young citizen would know how to solve Calculus problems and Trigonometry. However, the skills are achieved at the sacrifice of something far greater, deveopement of creativity, individuality, critical thinking, personality, and capability of individual autonomy. After all, what are the tradeoffs with the current education system? What are we hoping for students to students have achieved graduating from high schools or colleges? Isn't it better off to have equipped to become a citizen of modern world rather than being able to solve problems of trigonometry or calculus?

The problem with Korean education -like any country with problem in educating students-stems from the fact that the notion of "cultivating motivation" as primary learning tool for students is void. Voiding this notion, the education is bounded to fail from the start. The teachers have no notion what children means; they simply think that they are small size adults. The teachers come to first class holding a stick for corporal punishment exuding fear amongst the students. It's not through negotiation throughout the course which teachers carry the stick, but rather at the same time when students meet teacher on their first classes as early as when students are seven years old, without students' permission, totally undemocratic, in quite authoritarian way.   Boys get educated in an environment that is similar in military in certain aspects; all students wear uniform. The teachers are allowed to carry a stick and use them whenever necessary. The teachers carry them, and students see the teachers in fear of sticks ever be used on them even if it would never be used. In this environment, students try to keep distance from their teachers with some strange notion as if they are some sort of an entity in higher power, never to criticize but to obey all time. To young students, the teachers are the mostly frequently encountered adults, and they come largely as mystified figures, holding sticks, not in same category of human race.

In this environment, learning can't be fun activities, but potentially would make oneself feeling like a horse driven by a lousy master. In this environment, education doesn't have an aura of excitements and fun to students, but something of baggage that has to be carried. In this environment, there can be lots of finger pointing between the parents and teachers, but parents have to concede to the way things are. When education fails, the first thing that the educator should look into is whether the students are well motivated to learning and whether the teachers are doing the good job putting them on the right track, motivating the students, but probing into and monitoring academic and personality growth are severely crippled by teachers because teachers themselves are not well fit for the posts. To succeed in educating students in school systems, there have to be several factors that are crucial: mindset of teachers, good curriculum, and cooperations from parents.

Taking occupation as an educator is something not to be taken lightly; educators are drawn with so many aspects; depth of understanding on human development with his or her own positive experiences, integrity, fairness, positive views of the world, educational philosophy that he or she is dedicated himself/herself for the mission of making children into decent citizens of the society, who foster and encourage learning trough discussion and cooperations and with competitions combined.   Likewise in many countries would have problems, the sure symptoms of failure of education in Korea can easily be attributed to the educators; you can see rampant violence and bullying occur even in primary schools.

Sustainability of motivation for students is often abused and neglected largely by irresponsibility of teachers who constantly seek bribes from parents. Basically Korean educators are evasive of their responsibility,  aching to line them up for examinations to load off their tasks and to finger point others, like bettors on horse race tracks. Once every examination is conducted, no efforts on the teachers are made to make improvements; no suggestions, no feedback and no praises are made. Children at young age are already go through primary school taking myriad of tests. Even more, they are given more tests at home through Kumon to enhance their test skills. Their Kumon tests are returned in their mail boxes, and sometimes, it gets delivered wrong in neighbors' mailbox.

[The problems with elementary school]
One may argue that one learns well would do well on the tests, so getting good test scores sort of justifies of good learning. This is true in a sense; without good learning, test scores won't be good. However, true sense of "learning" is negated at the very start of educating a child in Korea. The most important thing in early child education is to inspire them that learning is fun, which entails teachers utmost efforts in trying to spur up their curiosity. Curiosity is fuel for learning; that's how great achiever achieved. There should be no emphasis on fostering curiosity of learning in early stage. Each and every children should be given ample time for fostering curiosity and thus setting good stage for driving up their motivation for learning in later stage. However, the skills of teachers spurring up curiosity in child's mind are severely lacking. Furthermore, the regards for this aspect is severely crippled in Korean administrators. Korean elementary school teachers want the students succeed, but they don't know what it takes and how to make learning happen; Korea teachers like to count them and line them up first in height, or ranking them first based on their test results. The teachers would like to a session in early in the morning, all line them up in the front field.

In American school system, giving grades in A,B, C's are deferred until 5th or 6th grade, giving general sense that educators are not in hurry branding students. American primary school educators are not in hurry lining up the students in the classrooms or in any meeting with students. American students go through their primary school having sense of interacting with each other and with teachers academically and socially. American students, upon graduating primary school, would have sense of map drawn in their mind what bricks to be laid in order to make their mind bigger. Their minds are already germinated with inspiration from teachers and through their hand-on practices in educating their mind.  They get this sense of start of blooming through their teachers giving ample praises and encouragements. American teachers know that they major role as a teacher is to motivate students and pay attention to the students who fall behind. During this time, in principle, the American teachers lay the groundwork for students ready to meet the challenges they will meet in their middle school years or high school. However, in Korean school system, such time for laying groundwork is not omitted due to lack of concern and motivation from the teachers. It's not that Korean teachers have lack of time, but they spent time rather weeding out students who are not motivated instead of putting efforts into help them. In Korea, teaching is an easy job. There is no phase for setting up the arsenals; the teachers simply do not know how to spend their time effectively helping students in this aspect.

The Korean education fails in this aspect; lack of qualification and skills of teachers is the biggest problem. Because lack of understanding and goals of this on the teachers in this regard, the Korean education tends go stray in very early stage; basically, lots of children lose interest in learning by the time they finish their elementary education. For them, they acquire notion that education is a baggage in their primary school years. Teachers may then say,"What about parents? Wouldn't the burden of spurring curiosity for leaning be responsibility of parents first?" Yes, they may be. However, there maybe students who are not juiced up, but they would avoid their responsibility as a serious educator doing something about them. The Korean educators, in general, are much interested in teaching (or pretend teaching) children who are already good, instead rolling off their sleeves and really educating students. The students are asked to perform well, but they can't be inspired by the teachers.

[The problems with Middle School]
Then, by the time when they graduate primary school, a new concept that had been hidden surges up; it's called "competition." Competition for college entrance exam is slowly introduced. From then on, the teachers, who still lack of skills motivating students, have excuses for their lack of talents in teaching; they attribute everything to the students for lack of their motivation. The ball that was in their hands have suddenly tossed over to students; the students have to perform. For students, learning is a "must," and they would do whatever necessary to shove in with rot memorization with sole purpose of preparing for the entrance examination to a college that they want. By the time when students enter high school, the ideal driving force for learning, curiosity and fun, has long been gone; the only fun part of studying is that their examination scored higher than their classmates. Koreans learn for the purpose of getting good results on exams, molding one's learning style in early stage of their education. Even the school does not deviate from this norm; teachers help students guiding what would be expected of in the examinations and spend less time covering the depth or making sure that students are learning the subject. The tests are given in predefined pattern, so students learn the stuff what is expected on the examination. The examinations are made with mostly in multiple choices so that luck can play into it. The crippling effect of this type of learning is depriving the growth of students' creativity at the time when it needs to be fostered in their education. Students are not learning with trial and error in the environment where natural learning based on curiosity, motivation and through cooperation, but rather in an environment of apprehension, pressure and extreme competition void of fun of learning. In such environment, crucial elements of learning is not taken off. We all know that for learning to take place, a certain level of pressure is needed.

[Cultural Predisposition]
Why Korean students, teachers and parents are so uptight of the test results? It's because Korea is a hierarchical society. where people are categorically viewed with one's occupation. For Korean, occupation is regarded as fluid and changing over one's life span, but rather fixed and rigid, a sort of viewed as one's status in the society as in old days. In Choson Dynasty, government official jobs were regarded highest of honor, and business people was regarded as lowly status of the social stratification. That classification still remain in 21st century intertwined with old concept based on one's age, only that it has become more diverse and reached wider population. The old concept of taking one examination leading into a honorable government job still applies in terms of national college entrance examination; those who performed well in the examination will go to high ranking colleges, which allows them to be put on fast track for promotion in government or private company positions. The difference between old and new is that once social status is not predisposed; anyone can work hard and climb up social strata and become powerful, even a president. Unlike the Western world where long history of people fighting for freedom and individual rights and thus have arrived to the point that individual rights are established, Korean individualism is based on accepting one another with one's achievements. The society sets the mores who would be accepted and who are not as individuals; people with only high school diplomas are tended to be looked down, and people who don't understand English can be looked down, and etc. In this environment, Korean have to strive to achieve in many things. The society impose high standard on many aspects, not to make the system better or to achieve something as a whole, but rather to make oneself feel superior over the other. Setting high standard for its citizen have many negative impacts; the citizens develop the notion that major reason of academic achievements is to make one to position himself/herself on social strata, not as a means to further persuit of career development. That's why there are so much haughtiness among the good college graduates; their tickets to position themselves in high social strata have been acquired, and they feel at easy, not having to further develop their abilities. For instance, the society set high standard that everybody should be able to read, write and speak well in English. Korean language is one of least language that share commonality with English; it is much too difficult for any Korean to achieve high level of English; Korean society, instead having its citizen to read books to become better citizens, would impose spending time on learning English that they would never have chance to speak in or write to except in time learning. In other words, Koreans generally tend to think that they are not O.K. by inherent dignity as inalienable right as a human, but rather it is something that should be attained during the course of academic years. Therefore, passing the college entrance examination is reaffirmation of O.K., which is to remain, and they finally feel that they have joined the goodness of mankind. They feel relieved, and their celebration last well into middle party of their college years. As results, the education is largely based on getting good scores on examination, instead of focusing on learning.

[Coexistence]
Korean schools is not close come to being the true reflection of the society in gender makeup; boys are separated from girls in their early stage of their education, starting from 3rd grades. The boys don't meet girls in school setting for next 10 years to come. Their channels for broadening their mind in social skills is blocked completely. The skills for interacting with opposite six is so retarded, and they would have to catch up when they go to colleges through artificial meetings.

[Lack of praises and attentions]
In western countries, or at least in the U.S., the education system is such that merits are given to those students work hard and demerits are given when the students do not perform well. Ample praises are given to those students who perform well, through the comments on the report cards and awards. When students do not perform well, the educator intervene discussing it with the students and with their parents. The teachers do not ignore the students performing well; the teachers do not hesitate becoming a whistle blower. However, in Korean education system, the teachers are very stingy in giving praises to the students perform well; they do not contribute making the students work hard to achieve more. Furthermore, they do not become a good whistle blowers paying attention to the low achieving students; the teachers DO NOT HAVE NOTION OF EDUCATION AS A JOURNEY FOR STUDENTS, WHICH NEED STRADEGY AND GUIDANCE FROM TEACHERS. The teacher are not real time players, who have no general notion of education as ever evolving and dynamic state that requires much caring of students.

In Korean school system, There are debates whether to separate classes based on student academic abilities; some teachers say that separating classes based on students' academic abilities are desirable and some teachers say otherwise. The debates are there because teachers have notions what help the students to learn. However, the platform which such debates occur is different among Korean educators. There are many factors involved that can affect the students' academic performance; large class size, unqualified teachers, pressures, overloaded work, lack of guidance, peer pressures, lack of physical activities and etc. The teachers are not good whistle blower. The teachers are not very sensitive about students' need. They want to focus on students who are very good, no willingness to offer help other students. In other word, the teachers do not see education as a whole, not striving to motivate students. The teachers are mainly interested in keeping status quo; they seldom offer help outside the classes that teach. They seldom encourage students to catch up, or give extra time to help. The teachers say that they are overloaded with many tasks at school.

[RESPECT for STUDENTS]
The Korean education system has evolved from deeply rooted neo-Confucian in Choson Dynasty; the scholastic people who were called "Sunbi" traveled to the capitol city to take an examination for electing government positions after years of preparation. To do much weight fall on the shoulder for the Sunbi and passing the government examination for them was considered a highest honor for himself and his the family. When a Sunbi passed the examination, the whole family celebrates and the joy of it would be extended to its relative as a bigger family. The status of the family is upgraded and his honor will be recorded permanently in the genealogy book called "Jokbo." The aristocratic people hired teacher to mentor their children for the preparation of the examination to follow the footsteps of their fathers. Much of that sentiments have been transpired over centuries. In such society, "teachers" were given high authority over students. When a student is viewed as "unfit" to the eyes of a teacher, it's very hard for the student to thrive in the classroom especially when they are young in primary school. In such environment, students learn to adapt to the environment to please teacher, instead of putting great efforts in growing in his or her own thinking or fostering creativity. In such educational system, a notion that "teacher" is omniscient and some sort of supernatural human is fostered, neglecting pupil's individuality and respect. The teachers don't have notion how to treat students fairly and humanly as corporal punishments is routinely exercised. When much respects are given to teacher, the vector of pendulum would swing toward robbing respects for the students and corrupting the system.

[FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION]
Students are not encouraged to speak up in the classroom. The teachers have notion that discussing would lead to damaging their authority and they have to guard it at any cost, and thus teachers do not foster environment for learning through discussion. The teachers do not encourage students to ask questions. The desks are always laid to face the front where teachers stand conducting classes, and it never get changed to a circle for discussion. The teachers are obsessed with looking super human being who never go to bathroom.

[Environment that does not foster individualism and creativity]

The lack of creativity in Korean education system can be correlated with the variety of modes in which students listen and interact amongst students and teachers. The desks are arranged always in one way facing teach and students always sit on chairs; there are no class does otherwise not even 5 minutes. There should be a variety of ways students have chances to sit in circle, even on desk to be able to interact with environment. Academic growth can increase with creativity. This is one aspect that really hamper the growth of students academically. Learning should be fun. Most of parents let the teachers do the good job. Korean students still find themselves difficult to express themselves even after graduating from a college. Their long education have been solely dedicated to preparing for college entrance examination, that retards growth of personalities.

[Fairness]
Teachers treat students differentially. The notion of fairness is rather loose; teacher takes bribes from students' parents and give differential treatments to students. Students will perceive the notion of unfairness, and it does not correlate to the society that they will be joining in the future. The teachers do not think that their unfairness is extension to the society that the student will be joining in the future.

[diabolical turnaround]
The Korean education system is not geared for achieving higher learning but rather to sort out who is superior of learning given a period of time. Korean society doesn't really much care about what comes after individuals achieving up to 20 years old in their lives. Korean will often ask to each other "What school did you graduate from?" with no hesitation or restriction from social mores, and Koreans would often say "When I was in college..." to let other people know that he is a graduate of a college, a man who has achieved higher learning. Because there is too much weight on the examination, much growing up gets sacrified. Even in the primary school, there are students who boast for studying until 12 O'clock midnight. In such environment, childhood would get lost. While the time of their childhood should be spent for the growth of many facets of one's personality, the students are not encouraged to speak up nor foster growth of their character. Basically, time is wasted at the hands of teachers, the reality comes slowly and it becomes a monster upon entering high school. Even at the middle school, one can feel the heat rising. The school hold the students until late on some nights as practices for what would be coming in their high school as a way for them to experience the lifestyle they will run into. The kids who have been preparing well for mentally would survive this diabolical turnaround. The elementary education is not geared for raising good citizens nor spurring up children's curiosity for learning, but instead they graduate with no clear satisfaction of learning something so important, and as ill-educated children at the hands of mostly unqualified teachers.

[TEACHER'S QUALIFICATION]
People become teachers with not much thinking in their aptitude for teachers. They think that they are qualified to become teachers despite their lack of aptitude for it and when they have little passion and what it takes to become a teacher. The system also support producing many unqualified teachers. The teachers are not often highly trained. Korean teachers are paid with top salaries, and yet they often shout to students exhibiting poor skills in teaching. Teachers often show not much respect for students. After all, good teachers should know how to motivate students and bring their highest potentials for learning. In Korea, becoming a primary school teacher is not tough, more than half of the teachers came from bottom quarter of college bodies. Even though teachers who teach at middle schools and high schools, they often spent enjoying Soju sessions with colleagues after work getting drunken and come to work in the morning to teach; some of the teachers had hard time staying awake. Their motivation to stay awake during the class is strongly dictated by not to damage their authority and tarnish the perception. They good at image control; they would not come near to students in classrooms if any hit that students would notice them of drinking on fortnight. You would rarely come across math teachers making mistakes since they would have practiced the questions and answers hundred time teaching the previous classes over their career, so it is hard for them not to look bad in front of students.

[Adoption of Japanese School System]
The modern Korean School System developed from two sources: the system that was instituted by Japanese occupiers and the influences of western education that was instituted from that were founded by American missionaries in early last century. The higher education has largely been adopted by the latter, but secondary school system is largely from the former. It is the intermix of these two influences with lack of forces to push toward achieving a complete western style education system results in loss of competitive edge. The remnants of Japanese style education during the colonial time would cease to exist; the mandates of wearing uniforms to students during the colonial time still persisted well into 80's, some forty years after the country gain its independence in 1945. The rot memorization that is indispensable tool in Japanese education to memorize Kanji and Kana, has been indiscreetly adopted leading to lack of critical thinking, allowing to set wrong foot for studying math and science for many students.

Because of this social mores put high respect for teaching, the teachers would not foster environment for discussions to take place in classes. The students are mainly put on LISTEN ONLY mode, not encouraging to ask questions and thus creating grounds for discussing challenging ideas ; this is Korean students weakest aspect. It's like a fish put in a bowl with expectation is to stay in the bowl, but the society expectation is much different outside of the school. Much angst is developed when the students go to high school. It is fair to say that high school education in Korea is not for developing one's character. Character development is so crucial at this stage, but it is deferred until college. The Korean schools put so much weight on college entrance and neglect all others.

Unlike students in the U.S., there can be up to 60 students in a class. The classroom was packed with desks and chairs. The teachers were not highly trained often shouted to students with not much respect. That class size pretty stayed the same in high schools. After all, good teachers know how to motivate students and bring their highest potentials for learning. In Korea, becoming a primary is not tough, more than half of the teachers came from bottom quarter of college bodies. Even though teachers who teach at middle schools and high schools, they often spent enjoying Soju sessions with colleagues after work getting drunken and come to work in the morning to teach; some of the teachers had hard time staying awake. If the motivation to stay awake is strongly inclined as social mores putting high respect to teachers and regard them not fallible. You would rarely come across teachers making mistakes not to look bad in front of students.

[Neo-Confucianism]
Korea is a country where Neo-Confucianism dictated over five hundred years ever since Lee Sung-gye founded the Choson Dynasty. Buddhism that flourished proceeding to Koryo dynasty was declining during the dynasty, making the governance dictated by Confucianism transpired all aspects of society. The one prominent aspect of Confucianism is hierarchical order in human relationship and ordinance of government officials. The social stratification was divided by four classes, honoring scholars and disrespecting butchers and discrimination based on occupations. The concept of this social cast system was untouchable and good portion of the dynasty was ruled by strong influences from aristocrats who want to keep the mores persists. However, toward the last several decades of the dynasty, and protests occurred and the system was getting eroded. Some lowly people bought the "Yangban" status going though changing their last names and falsifying their status. After the liberation from the colonial rules and the Korean war, much of this social system was broken; the country no longer ruled by king or queen or relative of loyal family, and no distinction and discrimination could be made. However, metamorphosis of the caste system emerged, that no longer dictated by birth to an aristocrat family, but instead one's achievements on school performance, especially that of high school. In U.S., there is still a second chance even one wreck the havoc of his/her high school years. However, in Korea, this is not possible. Passing the college entrance examination for a good college allows one to join in a good company setting one's career path with high earning salaries. In this environment, students can't feel that learning can be fun, but rather to work hard at all cost. Korean society expects a certain level of academic proficiency. It's a pressure that drive students, not the motivation, such that the society expect everybody know how to read and write and certain level of math.

[Lack of Communication]
The social mores is such that puts high respect for teachers, the teachers don't often engage in conversations with students in discussing academic topics. The students are put on LISTEN ONLY
mode. The students are not encouraged to ask questions, challenge thoughts. This is Korean students weakest aspect. This lack of interaction or discussion being a faculty for learning made them to be very good with knowing many things, but instead they become severely handicapped in critical thinking. The thing is that the primary school and middle school are in quese state. These are the years when students are still far from the date for taking the college entrance examination, and yet the education system is such that not fostering the students to acquire basic skills in critical thinking. What I mean by this is that the methodology adopted for learning is not for learning sake, but rather following the pattern of high school learning geared for college examination; no books were asked to read and no followup discussions would be conducted-- if it happen, it would be such a rare instance. After the class over, students would have foul mouths after spending most of the days without talking.

It's like a fish put in a bowl with expectation to stay in the bowl. However, the society's expectation has been changed drastically, and much angst rises by the time students go to high school. It is fair to say that high school education in Korea is not geared for developing student's character. Character development that is so crucial for our lives gets deferred until students go to college. The Korean society put so much weight on college entrance and negate all others. Teachers are inapt interacting with students, and students spend most of their time in school busy doing rot memorization having less time talking and cooperating with their peers. Because of so much peer pressure, In this environment, there is not much satisfaction pursuing for personal fulfillment doing the hard work, but rather being overly competitive unnecessarily. Unlike students in the U.S., the student's social life is virtually non-existing. The society does not let young people to freely. At the time, when the youngsters enjoy burgeoning youth, so much peer pressure and high academic expectation are put on, and the challenges of making successful high school lives is hinged on apt characteristics that have been developed or environment which they were born is well suited to engaging in the challenges. So, when you see the students have made successful pass the college entrance examinations, they have certain attributes of super kid.

[Governance of Education]
You would never see any administrator treating educational aspect of the country as something to nature and care for. You would never see politicians mention about caring education as if they are taking care of plants; something that they need to put efforts in order to grow and become wholesome. You would never seem them talking about quality of education in class size and teacher's qualification that should be at the top of the list.   The administrators and politicians treat education as if it is a static being or like a wild flower that will somehow grow into a beautiful flower with no or minimum efforts. They never envision and have goals for the education of the country; they would treat it as a dead horse instead of a live one that needs constant attention. You would never see a politicians mentioning that such and such "reading" and "mathematical skills" are important for the society, or we need to focus on creating environment for high quality education in engineering in order to produce good engineers. The politicians and engineers are like the teachers who are only interested in looking at the end results instead of thinking what they can contribute to the growth of the educational system.

[Lack of Interoperability]
Like as I pointed out earlier, Korean education system is based on getting good results on examinations, which could negate depth of learning process. If an analogy is applied to eating an delicious apple, the Korean education system would score how many apples have been eaten, as opposed to, perhaps, Americans would savor the tastes of different apples have eaten. This is a huge difference in educational philosophy. Many Koreans students come to the U.S. to study, but they are faced with huge obstacles not realizing this differences. Many students return back to Korea without getting the diplomas and degrees feeling dejected-the doors that manufactures in Korea should be able to fit in the U.S. with little bit of twig, but it needs to be made start from the scratch- that they would have to soul searching on the methodology of learning that they acquired in Korea.

[Conclusion]
The problem with Korean education system lies on imbalance of two forces on a seesaw: educating students for its own sake and setting and educating them for their career path. The overall quality of education is not only hinges on the quality of education that the students receive, but also where the tipping point is set at and at what stage of their education. To be able to set at right position to maximize growth of majority instead of selected few as principle and collective efforts is lacking.

In order to achieve greater quality of education in Korea, the society has to cut down on giving too much merits are given based on one's academic successes and promote "strike-out" policies.

Three pillars that help to shape individual characters and mental strength in any society are education, religion and role
models. Korean society has failed in all three categories.
5. Failure of education Korean education has served well in teaching knowledge by memorization (rather than rationalization). This is an
unmitigated failure in helping to shape the character of individuals. In other words, a person should be educated
fostering "solid citizenry" as the first order of educational priority. 6. Failure of religion

[That's the game]

For Koreans, going to universities have special meaning other than merely as a means to making a living. In Korean relationships, one way or the other, knowing the name of which college (it used to be high school) one has graduated is the primary concern because through which relationships form and one live evolves. Koreans do not much care what one majored in a college or has graduated or not, but rather concerned of which school one has entered as one's college entrance examination results is the only criterion being used to evaluate one's academic achievements for acceptance to a good college one desires to go.

Many middle school and high school Korean students come to the U.S. to go to good schools. Some people want to go to good schools in Korea and thy come to the U.S. to transfer to the Korean schools.

Most of Korean students come to the U.S. without understanding the U.S. school system. Most of Korean students do not understand that the game is different in the U.S. They have to understand the game. In Korea, there is a game to go to a good college. However, same methodologies can't be applied to going to comparable colleges and universities in the U.S.: IT"S A DIFFERENT GAME. Without understanding the game, it is harder. The American schools see two things, and merits are given to those who have covered both when choosing two candidates with equal academic achievements. Even if they understand the concept, it may be hard for Korean students to adopt to the game; it's another different game. Applying the same methods to the rules of game are different is a hallmark of not being able to achieve the colleges one want to go. Korean students just study hard, and they might feel more comfortable doing that because that's what they used to do in Korea. When Korean students first come to the U.S., they might be surprised by fewer number of classes and subjects and faced with ample free time; they may find happy to have more free time, and yet they feel frustrated not knowing how to spend their free time. American students' life can be view as juggling number of balls, not just one : studying.

Scent of religion

2015-06-24T16:08:00.002-07:00

Is religion necessary? I think that the main reason religions exist is because we are mortal and suffering due to disease and infirmity. We can all lump this under "suffering," and one of the reasons that we choose a particular religion could be the one which explains it the most well. All living creatures perish eventually and human is no exception. Even if we are deemed to be living double or triple times longer beyond our normal life expectancy, religions would still be around given the fragility of human condition that is riddled with illnesses, diseases, natural disasters and accidents. Humans face infirmity, illness, accidents, and any point in our lives from accumulation of fears coming from these elements, manifesting in our desires for spirituality. If all of a sudden, all absurdity, infirmity and illness are expunged in our lives today, religions would exist in humanity due to pervasiveness of such fears that interject into our lives.

It is what this euphemistically called "spirituality" drives us to seek religion. To me, gaining in spirituality mean reducing fear of death. I think that this fear of death led to Paul hallucinating meeting of Jesus on the way to Damascus. It was easy for Paul to believe in Jesus for he believed that he saw Jesus right in front of his eyes; Paul spread the gospel based on the hallucination or lies. However, we are not as religious as Paul, or perhaps, we can not blow things out of proportion as Paul might have done. Or, We may not be as fearful of death at least for now, and thus we don't fantasy about supernatural force such as God.

Which leads to the question: Religion doesn't come to us like in the case of Paul, but we have to go to the religion, more specifically, how one gets exposed to religion? Religion smeared into our mind without filtered like songs played on radio, making us think about it in a sort of getting brainwashed. Some people are exposed to religion early in their lives as their baptismal ceremonies are held in hands of their parents, or following their parents going to temples as soon as they start walking right after they are born like getting their first radio. It's fair to say that humans are drawn to religion some point in their lives because they are built on true nature of human existence such as mortality.

I was not born in a religious family, and my going to church started off with motif of getting a free gift given from a church nearby my home in Christmas, my objective was not clear. church or temple regularly, my first encounter with religion came with no choice as having born in a town where a shaman live in neighborhood. I grew up with no choice given to opt out from listening noises associated with religious ritual: rattling of cluster of mini bells, clashing sound of simbals in constant fashion, and banging of drums. The noise become quite bothersome to my ears as ritual last more than two hours . The next encounter with a religion came to me in rather spontaneous fashion, in unpredictable way. It happened one day when I was five years old, laying down on foyer of a Korean house with nothing to do. Seeing no toys were held in my hands, my grandmother asked me to come along. She took me to a temple nearby home in Shinchon. As soon as we arrived, my grandmother hopped on to the main room in the temple. Standining in front of an alter in front of a Budhha stature. As a toddler who knew nothing about life, putting my shoes on and following my grandmother going to temple was how religion came to my life. I smelled insents burning as I entered the entrance door leading to a courtyard. Waiting for my grandmother finish praying outside in the courtyard, I saw a small pond in which gold fish were swimming in hazy hot summer day. I sat by the pond and gazed at fish and then stared at my grandmother praying, having no notion of what religion is for. She was standing in the main saintuery in white cloth wearing traditional socks praying; her hands went up slowly over her shoulder and they met together. She was healthy, and I was wondering what she was praying for. Many people I saw at the temple, and I was also wondering why they come to temple instead of resting at home. Yes, they were my questions about religion: Why they come to temple instead resting at home? And I wanted to ask my grandmother, "Why did you come to the temple for?" 봉원사(Bongwon Buddhist Temple) located at the foothill of Mt. Ahn, not used to taking a long walk. I don’t have recollection for the entire trip, but I remember instances when I was coming home, walking with her coming from the temple on a scorching hot summer day. My grandmother was wearing a light colored traditional clothes holding a parasol. The oppressive heat and poignant sunlights made me to trudge and caused unbearable irritations on my skin. Her white traditional socks, 버선(Bersun), and her shoes, 고무신(Gomooshin), were too bright to see with its reflection with my bare naked eyes, which made me to immediately turn my head away to lay my eyes on her dress instead. Grandmother was holding a parasol, that formed a shade behind her. So I moved over to follow behind her under the moving shadow. Entering the one end of field hockey field at 연세대(Younsei University) and then gazing at the field, a moment of undue feeling of vexation spurred into my mind as I saw a long distance of walking still lies ahead. I experienced scorching weather in August on that day, as I trudged along behind my grandmother regretting myself follow along with her, stepping on the moving shade following grandma walking holding parasol.

One may come across with a thinking, as young as fourteen years old, that religion is created by man. Without the human existence, there would be no need for religion. God needs human. Think of the scenario where earth was created by God with no men living, there would be no one to worship him or sing for him. So, it's not God who created men, but rather men created God. Human needs God because human suffer from poverty, infirmity, calamity, failures, sickness and death. Our dependence on God diminishes as we become less dependent on God. If modern medicine cures deadly diseases curing all kind of cancers and allow people to live health for a very long life, we would be less dependent on God. However, still our dependence on God will never be ceased for our lives are bounded to end. Religion is about life, and it is for living. Religion is necessary in time of hardship in facing death of love one, but it may be we would knell down and pray to God when going gets smoothly. No life going smoothly, so we need religion. Christianity was drawn upon during tumultous time in Korean history. Nowadays, nobody would believe that the face of Jesus drawn on paintings do not truly reflect face of Jesus; nobody saw true face of God, and how can his face be drawn; it's silly. And depicting Jesus' face as a white person is grossly misrepresented given the geographical area where he might had lived. As there is no picture of face coming close to its authenticity, his birth is also questionable, the existence of Jesus is largely based on hypothesis or speculation under the name of "Christian faith"; there is no trace left of him, at all - we don't even know where exactly he ascended into heaven, nor trace left where he was born and where he resurrected. I treasure the memories of love of God by others such as beautiful gospels or literary and moral values on Bible. The beautiful religious music help our mind clear of debris and words of priest refresh us spiritually, which is necessary in our daily hectic lives. We may still need prists and we may still need churches, but there is no need to build another church or add producing more priests.

인성교육이란 무엇인가? - 한국어린이, 미국어린이

2015-06-05T07:27:00.000-07:00

한국에서 예전에 교육을 받은 나로서는 요즈음 한국 젊은이들은 어떤 참신한 교육을 받았을까 호기심이 난다. 호기심이 나는 건 당연하다. 내가 자란 나라에 잘난아이들이 주렁주렁 자라면 나로서는 조국이 잘 뻗어 나가고 있다는 기쁨이니깐 내 주변의 친척이나, 우연히 만나는 사람, 심지어는 멕도널드에서 아르바이트하는 젊은이에게 까지 나는 때때로 요즈음 젊은이들이 받은 교육과 내가 받은 교육을 나 나름대로 호기심에 관찰 해 본다. 왜 호기심이 있을까? '될성 부른 나무는 떡잎 부터 알아 본다'하지 않나! 나라가 잘되려면 그만큼 떡잎이 좋은 아이들이 많아야 하지 않나?

세월이 많이 지났다. 세웰이 지났으니 교육도 더 좋은 방향으로 나아졌겠고, 좋은 떡잎들이 여기저기 눈에 많이 띄어야 함이 당연한게 아닌가? 나는 될성부른 나무들을이 되는지 젊은이에게 말을 건네 본다.

하지만 나의 생각은 비록 조그만 생활 반경에다 짧은경험에 의거 하지만, 그 첫번부터 신통치 않고 시큰둥하다. 왜 그리도 신통한 청년을 만나 볼 확률이 낮을 까! 즉, 여지껏 참신한 젊은이을 아직 만나보지 못한게 나의 고백이다.
미국에 사는 나는 신통한 백인, 인도계, 중국계 청년을 보게 된다, 하지만 한국에서 자란 청년들은 늘 싸하기만 하다. 미국서도 세대간의 차이는 있긴 하나 세데끼라 반목은 별로 없다. 생각이 보수적이냐 아니냐가 주된 차이정도이다. 하지만, 처음 보는 이가 말을 걸면, 그냥 수줍어 말 못하는 경우도 아니고, 싸가지가 없는 경우의 인상을 받는다. 왜 처음만난 사람에게 반목을 할까? 즉, 나로서는 좋은 떡잎은 커녕, 보통의 선선한 젊은이조차 보기 힘들다는 말이다.
나는 이 외에 어린 사람과 조금 시간을 같이 할 기회가 있었는데, 결국 미흡한 결론은 함국 젊은이가 화의적으로 느껴졌고, 이런 인간형을 만나보며 한국교육에 대한 의구심만 늘게됐다.

나는 나보다 나이든 선배가 몬스터일수 있다는 생각이 든다. 그러나 호기심은 안든다. 그네들이 받은교육과 나와의 것은 별 큰 차이가 없고, 권위주의적인 환경에서 자란 사람들이니 할수가 없다는 생각이 든다.

나보다 훨씬 더좋은 환경에서 자란 요즈음 젊은이가 더 좋은 인성을 같고 있어야 함이 당연 한게 아니 겠는가! 하지만 세월이 마냥 약이란 맞는 생각이 아닌가 보다. 요즈음 한국 젊은이는 무례하고 생각은 어리고 경쟁력도 없고 별로 환영 받지 못하는, 미국 젊은이나 중국사람 보다도 못하다는 깊은 의구심이 생긴다. 이것은 심한 인성교육의 부재에서 오는 것이라 생각한다.

어린 아이는 천진난만 해야 한다.
어린나이에 놀이는 중요한 공부다.

이나이에 놀이와 공부는 별개의 것이 아니다.
잘 놀줄 아는 아이들이 공부도 잘 하고, 장차 훌륭한 사람으로 성장할 수 있다.

이 놀이의 질적 역량이 계속이어져 인문에서, 학문에서 열정이 생긴다

한국교육과 미국교육의 차이을 한단어로 표현 한다면 "놀이"라고 말 할 수 있다.
한국 부모는 놀이와 공부을 별개의 것으로 생각한다; 학교나 사회가 보는 관점도
이와 흡사하다. 한국교육의 특징은 어린이 놀이에 교사거 빠져 있다는 것 이다 - 교사는 가르키는 사람이지, 놀이을 하는 사람이 아니라는 개념이다 . 미국교육을 잘 받았다고 할 수 있는 것은 놀이 공부 얼마나 잘 있혔느냐 이다.

친구들과 같이 놀고 유익한 시간을 보내는 것이 교육의 원동력이다.
놀이는 "선택"의 기술을 익히기 위한 좋은 방법이다. 어느 장난감 고르냐 부터, 친구 사귀기, 선택의 요지는 많다. 놀이도 공부인데, 한국에서는 언제 책상을 떠난 학습이 공부로 인정이 되었는지는 잘 모르겠다.

한국어린이와 미국어린이들의 놀이 문화을 비교해 보면 어떨까?.
먼저 "잘 노느냐?"을 어떻케 "정의"하고, 지켜보면 어떤 차이가 있는지...
가령 60여명의 한국어린이와 미국어린이을 각각 교실이나 빈공간에 있게하고, 인원이 놀기에부족한 장난감을 공급해 준 다음에 얼마나 같이 싸우지 않고 서로서로 재미있게 지내는지 보면 어떨까? 동네도 동네마다 다르겠지만, 보통 잘사는 미국 동네수준을 기준으로 본다면 아마도 한국어린이가 미국어린이 보다 잘 못 놀거라 생각 된다.

아이들이 열심히 영어 공부해 타임즈까지도 읽을 수 도 있다는 뉴스을 얼마전에 보았다 - 부모가 못하던 걸 자식은 초장에 이루어 놨으니, 공부몰이을 안할 수 없으리라 생각 된다. 여전히 한국의 어린이는 "놀이 공부" 보다는 사회의 선택에 따라 "공부 공부"에 초점이 맞춰 있고 볼 수 있다.

결국 한국어린이는 초판 부터 미국어린이와는 전혀 다르게 키워진다고 볼 수 있다.
그이유는 한국의 어린이는 일찍부터 "공부", "입신", "출세" 등등 유교적인 면에 초점이 맞춰 있고 , 미국의 어린이는 먼저 초등교육이 "규율안 에서의 선택","자연에 대한 사랑", "표현"등등, 인간이 살아가기에 익혀야 할 휴머니즘에 접목이 되어 있고 볼수 있다.
유교와 휴머니즘은 서로 다르다. 휴머니즘은 인성에 가깝다면, 유교는 인성을 한번 걸러내 양념을 한 형태다. 영어을 직접 이해한 것이 아니고 번역본을 보는 형태이다. 유교가 왕정통치에 가깝다면, 휴머니즘은 민주주의을 쉽게 이룰 수 있는 쪽에 가깝다.

우리나라에는 중국에서 부터온 유교가 조선시대 부터 널리 사용되었다.
하지만 중국에서 조차 유교는 근대사에서 신랄하게 비판되어 왔다. 중국은 서양에게 문화적 정치적으로 뒤쳐진 이유을 유교에 탓하고 책을 태워 버리고 유학자을 처단 했다.
하지만, 한국에서 유교가 핍박을 받은 경우는 드물다. 한 중국인 친구는 나에게 "중국의 문화는 문화혁명 때 많이 말소되, 그의 흔적을 보려면 한국에 가 봐야 한다"고 말 했다. 유교의 흔적을 말한 거였다. 유교가 중국에서 탄압 받은것은 바로 부르조아지 기득권자을 위하기 때문에 공산주의자의 이론에 어굿난 다는 결론 때문에 그동안 간직했던 유교가 탄압을 받고 박살났다. 유교는 민주주의에도 어굿난다; 공평함과 정의, 합리함을 추구하지 못하는 관습을 유발 시킨다. 공자가 아무리 위대하더라도 실질적으로 개인에게 일반 대중에게 떨어지는 알멩이는 빈털터리가 되곤한다. 결국 중국이 서양에 뒤졌다고 빡쳐서 "soul searching"을 한 이유와 타당성은 한국에게도 고스란히 남겨져 와 있었다.

중국에는 문화혁명으로 인해 유교가 없어 졌지만, 중국의 문제는 유교가 없어진 빈공간을 인성을 발달시킬 다른 사상이 채우질 못하고 있다는 사실이다.
한국에는 떨어지지 않는 유교가 있다.
유교가 한국에 남아 있는건 자본주의의 기득권층의 이익과 맞아 떨어지기 때문이다. 유교가 요즈음 중국에서도 다시 고개을 든다 한다. 그이유는 중국이 자본주의을 추구하기 때문이다.

인성이야기을 하면서 왜 유교을 꺼내 말하냐면, 그동안 유교의 관습이 인성이 있어야 할 자리을 차지한 까닭이다. 서양에서 휴머니즘의 바람이 불때 우리는 유교을 붙잡았다.

한나라의 미래는 인성교육에 달려있다.
한마디로 얼마나 초등학교 아이들은 천진나만하고 배움의 싹이 잘 자라고 있는지, 중고등 학생은 그토양 위에 정직하고 남을 배려하고 사회의 일원으로 책임있는 행동을 실천 하고 배우는 교육이다. 인성교육이 잘되려면 주위사람의 자질이 좋아야 한다. 즉, 이는 교육자와 부모들의 자질에 관한 일이고, 사회의 분위기에 관한 일이다. 어른들의 인성을 제꼐놓코 아이들의 인성교육을 말할 수 없다; 어른들은ㅊ아이들 앞에서 우쭐거리거나 호박씨 까는 행동을 보이면 안된다 . 인성교육이 안되는 큰이유는 어른들의 자질이 부족하고 사회의 위선 때문일 것이다.

이교육은 기존의 유교방식을 철폐하고 새로운 가치관아래 우리 모두가 가춰야 할 기본 자세이고 지표다. 한나라의 교육의 발전, 문화 그리고 국민의 애국심의 높고 낮음을 인성교육을 제껴놓코 다룰 수가 없다. 한마디로 이는, "너의 집안이 어떤 집안이냐?", "너의 생각, 사고, 행동은 사회에 영향을 미치는데, 너는 어떤 사고와 행동을 할꺼냐?"라고 묻는 것과 도 같다.

나의 아들은 10년전 쯤에 한국을 방문 했을 때 산 모자을 잃어 버리고 왔다. 여행 중 깜빡 벤취두고 온 모자는 다시 가보니 없어졌다. 삐싼 물건이 아니여서 다행 이었지만, 한국에서는 아직도 무엇을 잃어버리면 되찻는 경우가 드물다.

인성교육의 목적은 다같이 사는 방법을 모색하고 그렇케 삶을 사는 행동 방식이다.
세대간의 대화가 끊겼나? 인성교육이 안된 까닭이다.
교수가 학생을 성희롱? 사회가 인성교육을 몰라라 한 무지한 까닭이다.
도로 한복판에서 티격태격? 인성교육이 없는 까닭이다.
자식이 부모을 살해? 유교가 무너고 인성교육이 뒷받쳐 주지 못한 까닭이다.
부잣집 동네에는 있는 놀이터가 가난한 동네에는 없는가?
인성교육의 개념이 없는 사회인 까닭이다.

유교의 관습에 젖은 한국사회에서 참다운 인성교육 키우기란 정말 힘든 일 인지도 모른다.
사회적으로는 한국 기독교가 유교적 관습을 타파하고 새로운 인성교육 함양에 힘을 기울여야 했는데 기회을 놓치고 제 구실을 못했다.

한마디로 안성교육은 민도을 나타낸다.
인성교육은 사회을 잘 굴러가게 하는 윤활류이고 밑거름이 된다.
길을 묻는 사람에게 적당한 친절을 베푸는 것 또한 안성교육이다.
인성교육은 매너로서 나타내지고, 매너는 곧 "나는 몬스터가 아니고 사람 입니다."라는 의미이다. 한국사회의 대부분 문제가 사람들이 인성교육이 부족함에서 부터 비롯 된다.

지금에는 어떤지 모르지만 예전에 한국의 인성교육이란 도덕책이나 읽게하고, 선생은 어른에게 인사나 잘하라고 다그치는 정도로 그쳤다. 아이들은 생각도 해보게 히지 않고 그저 하라는데로, 극히 유교주의 관점, 즉 어른 들의 이기심에 치우친, 단편적인 개념의 발상이다. 이렇케 자란사람들은, 어른은 어른데로, 아이들은 아이들데로, 서로의 교감없이 세데차이 탓이나 하며, 이렇케 자란아이들은 윗사람에게 아부나 배우고, 나중에 정치,교육,경제 분야을 담당하는 윗사람으로 되면 온갖 비리를 저지르게 되는 몬스터가 되는 것이다.

신문이나 방송에서만 보게되는 몬스터을 옆에서 같이 말하면서 느끼게 되는 경험해 보았는가? 유교문화는 권위주의을 키우고 기득권을 보호한다, 그래서 몬스터가 나오기 좋다. 사회에서 만들어진 몬스터가 다시 인간이 될 수 가 있겄는가! 어려운 일 이다.

인성교육은 성교육과 비숫하다. 성교육을 사회가 잘 시키지도 않으면서 성폭력을 없애려고 하는 것과 같다. 내가 성을 갖고 있으면 남도 갖고 있는 것 이다. 그저 억누르거나 없는 것 처럼 행동하고 숨기면서 사는 전근대적인 유교적 방식이 아니다.

인성교육은 나이가 많고 적고을 떠나 서로가 인간임을 인식하고, 돈이 명예 그리고 권력이 전부가 될 수 없으며, 누구나 욕구, 인권이 있고, 행복하고 평등하게 살 권리가 있다는 개념을 확실히 심어주는 생활 철학이며 개념이며, 사회의 모든 일원이 서로서로 이개념을 생활 속에서 친절과 관용으로 서로 일깨워 주고 실행하며 사는 방식의 모태이다.

인성교육의 최전방은 교육자들이고 종교인이다. 이런사람들은 태권도의 검은 띄 사범님들 처럼 모든사람들이 인성교육에서 검은 띄을 따도록 사회의 모범이 되어야 한다. 그저 책이나 읽고 읊조리는 것이 아니고, 서로서로을 대할 때 상대방의 인격과 존귀함을 염두하고 친절과 관용을 베풀 수 있는 훈련이다.

오만가지의 식물이 자라도 토양에서, 화분안에서 뿌리을 내리고 자란다. 인성교육은 사람으로 하면 이 토양, 화분에 관한 이슈이다.

고전책을 많이 읽으라 하고 권유하는 것도 이 인성함양을 하기 위함이다.

인성교육은 인간관계을 더욱 더 폭 넓혀 주고, 제데로 되어있지 않으면 인간관계가
쭈글쭈굴한 마른대추 처럼 재미도 없어진다. 구시대의 관습에 갖혀 새로운 형태의 인간관계을 형성하지 못하고 외롭게 사는 사람을 보게 된다. 인성교육은 새로운 인간관계을 형성을 모색하기 위함이다. 새로운 시대의 인간관계는 학연, 인종, 나이을 떠나, 어떻케 생각하고 어떤매너을 갖느냐에 딸려있다.

잃어버린 물건을 주인에게 돌려 주지 않코, 길을 묻는이에게 "왜 질문을 하느냐?"고 흘켜보는 관습은 유교문화가 얼마나 쓸데없는지을 한눈에 보여지게 하는 것이다.

인성교육은 가타 줄의 G-String이 있는 것 과도 같다. 없어도 별문제는 없는 것처럼 보일지 모르지만 동네 콘서트을 떠나 더큰 콘서트을 하려면 꼭 필요한 것이다.

Traveling to Korea

2015-04-18T04:53:00.000-07:00

Korea is a country located in east Asia, in between China and Japan, which has five thousand years of history. People who visit Korea can enjoy touring various interesting places with historical background and natural beauty.

Following east coast, travelers may enjoy natural beauty and many historic sites of Korea. At first, Surak mountain located 80 miles east of Seoul, is often visited by people year round for its natural beauty. Each visit of different season will be a new experience, with water falls formed streams along valleys of the mountains and breathtaking views of snow covered mountains in winter and failge in autumn and etc. If you continue to go down further following the coastal line, you will meet "Haeinsa" temple, where buddhist scriptures were carved in 80,000 wooden blocks 800 years ago are kept. These wooden blocks were made when no great carving tools and modern printing technology were available in the spirits of guarding the nation in buddhist faith against looting from Japanese pairats along the coastal line.

Further down south is Kyungju; the capital city of ancient Silla Kingdom. This city preserves Bulguksa temple and Sukgulam's duddha stature built around 500 A.D. exhibiting highlist of the ancient Buddhist civilization.

Travelers may wonder with many small dunes along the streets; these are the tombs of ancient kings and member of royal families of Silla Kingdom. Several tombs were actually excavated fifty years ago and all the artifacts are being displayed at the tomb sites revealing ancient life styles of royal families.

When you visit Kyungju, you would probably well off taking one extra day to make a trip to "Hawhe" village located 20 miles north of Kyungju, where time was frozen going back to 500 years ago. This village has many houses of aristocrats which you have seen in historical K-drama called "Saguk" especially for the period of Yi Dynasty.

Another historic place which travelers may find interesting would be the capital of Korea; Seoul, Seoul has been capital of Korea since the beginning of Yi dynasty, which was established 600 years ago. People who visit Korea will be intrigued by the old blended with the new. People would find historic places in the middle of high rise apartment buildings. Korea also has four distinct seasons; spring, summer, fall and winter. Particularly, fall accompany with wonderful blue sky and pleasant temperature. Ancient people painted pottery ater the color of the blue sky which modern technology can not imitate. Unusally, many people visit to Korea to enjoy beautiful weather and taste of old intermixed with new harmoniously. People would walk on busy streets of Seoul among high rise modern shopping centers, shops and old building next to one another. Seoul has many palaces where Yi Dynasty Kings and their families used to live. These are now used as parks and museums for public. Also in Seoul, there are streets where hops are selling antique furniture and potteries. "Insadong" street in downtown Seoul is famous for collectors attraction selling artifacts dating as old as hive hundred years. In Insadong, exhibitions of art works are routinely held with free of admission fees.

Travelers may find Seould to be paradise of shopping opportunities and gourmet restaurants. Travelers would have variety of choices for different meals for many months starting from pizza to authentic Korean dishes.

Korea has four distinct seasons, and fall is the best with pleasant temperature as well as with breathtaking view of blue sky. Ancient people made potteries and painted after the color of the sky producing world reknown potteries; Koryo blue porcelain.

Usually many travelers who once visited Korea may find themselves walking down streets of Seoul again and again for its vivrancy that never ceases because they know one visit will never quinch their thirst for uniquness of Korea that hey have experienced.

수학천재의 추락 - demise of an arrogant genius

2014-12-07T17:59:00.000-08:00

In our lives, one might come across with individuals who would make one feel underachieved; these individuals are smarter, more talented and highly achieved one would consider himself/herself to be. They may come to our lives in verity of types and flavor, but they are largely received in our sphere with likes and dislikes to them. The former people would bring us gaiety and joys to be around, but the latter individuals have quite divergent characteristics, whose demeanor can be characterized with lack of compassion for humanity to be called "brat" with full of pugnacity. Any country would have arrogant people, but Korean soil would breed more of latter type of people. It is so strange that the way individuality goes out of bound in the society where collective way of doing things is much emphasized. The increased number of people in latter type is result of individuality went out of bound, giving them privileges. In the society where collectivism is honored, such "brats" need to be hammered out; however, the rules become lenient to those privileged. It is because the society has been historically lackluster in bringing a ruler of morality when such people commit wrongdoings. As needs for industrialization became greater in post war era, excessive favoritism on individuals achieved in academia in hiring high positions were routinely practiced. Due to such environment, the education has been thwarted largely associated with gaining social status, which led to creating environment where majority of its people view one's academic achievements to be at the top of the pedestal mainly in doggy race going after social recognitions, material successes and aristocracy instead of becoming true leaders of the society. Such environment led to creating social mafias. Instead of moving toward bringing betterment for the society, these social mafias have been helping each other with pretext of becoming high ranking officials or a professors of good universities for high pay and social recognitions instead of sacrificing themselves to make contributions to the society with their talents. In our casual encounter with such people, it is not frequent that such talented ones would come in our lives with sheer joys, but rather they would come upon our lives with repugnance. Their harmful effects could linger quite some time in our psyche. From the former, their innate humanism can come as blissful moments bringing boons to us. However, the latter folks - those ones who are smart and arrogant - can smear our psyche with toxicity, implanting us with poisons from their rude behaviors. For that matter, when such repugnant people are caught in traps - which has been seldom a reality in Korea where Kama of ingratitude, rudeness, haughtiness and arrogance would often defy gravity of demise, one can not help but showing gleeful mood watching they caught themselves in a cob of web . They have all along averted the quagmires as a privileged person, that ordinary people would have encountered. Has Korea instilled itself finally to be able to server the privileged ones? We now know that they are going though a hellava time finally like we all might be fallen into due to freaky nature of life itself. It's a moment reaffirming the freakiness of human condition - absurdity and normalcy ever so intertwined in our lives, in this case, inability of defying the gravity of evil person's demise as normalcy would prevail finally.

Sexual molestation charges being made against professors and politicians in Korea can not be viewed merely in terms of consensuality is involved. In Korea, sexual molestations or rapes charges are made against professors would often entail coercion on professor's part. Professors in Korea has so much power over students' sphere. In comparison with their counterparts in other countries, their power goes further even finding jobs for students, giving grades - getting good grades are weighed more important in very competitive society. As their power over the students even reach to coarse sex without getting punished. This is a typical formation of the society that the western system is imposed on tranditional Confucian society.

Following the incident of a politician sexually harassing an intern college student as he was accompanying the President Park in her trip to the U.S. recently, another sexual harassment change has been brought upon, this time, to a renowned mathematic professor who allegedly molested slew of his female students. The professor was convicted, handcuffed and taken away. What is shocking is that the professorship, an epitome of Confucianism of the society has been demoralized. The professor has achieved quiet a lot; he has chaired an international mathematical committee and written books, one of which is even used in Harvard and Wisconsin Universities. What is even more interesting is that he is a grandson of a famous scholar and a member of independence movements during the colonial era, who is widely known among young and old Korean, Jung In-Bo, and his father and mother were both scholars; a signature in-born of elite and aristocratic family. This conviction of a professor is first of its kind in the history of Seoul National University, not a simple case that can be brushed under the rug. What is even more shocking is of his mindset; he he even tried to escape the country to look for a job else where in foreign country.

Birth of a genius:

After graduating from Seoul National University majoring in Mathematics, he went on getting his PhD from the Yale University. A mathematical book that he published in 2012 has been adopted as a textbook in several universities in the U.S. and he is exonerated for having upgraded mathematical researches in Korea on higher order. He was a recipient of Young Scientific Mind Award in 1998 and Young Scientists in 2002 from the Korean government.

His colleagues regard him as a talented person who can accomplish anything whether that be a slew of research articles have been published in highly acclaimed international journals, his fine lecturing skills, his orientation to details, his humors, story telling skills, writing skills, etc. He has a baby face and he wears casual clothing and carries a backpack as though a student; nobody would recognize him as a professor.

How the mathematician became a sexual molester?

The professor stopped by at a park with a female student, on the way while his female student was giving him a ride to his home after having dinner with a group of students followed by attending a mathematical forum. The professor molested the female student sexually sitting at a bench. The professor asked the student to sit on his lap. When the student sat down in force, he then caressed her body. After the incident, the student spoke to the group what happened. She said that she is in state of shock, and resigned from her internship. After receiving the report, the police immediately launched an investigation, and filed the case with pending conviction. The case is then assigned to a prosecutor North Ward in Seoul.

The professor, in an interview with a news report from HanKeyRae Newspaper, stressed the fact that the student is a beloved student, and she gave him ride to home many times as he is hurt in a car accident. He said that they hug each other casually as they depart. He said that the intern student often sent text messages to him about mathematical mistakes she has made, so he took her out for dinner to cheer her up, and the incident happened inadvertently. The professor showed his emotion saying, "What a crazy man would do such thing in front of his house. I am crazy. I should be responsible whether my intention was misunderstood." After the interview was over, the professor sent a text message asking, "Would my name be mentioned on the newspaper? If it did, many people will be shocked. I understand the trouble that she is having, but I can't help being thinking about myself first."

Nevertheless, professor's transgression is not limited to this incident. After HanKyuRae newspaper published the interview, number of students posted their messages on the campus online message board anonymously with similar charges on the professor. One student claims that she has been sexually harassed by the professor over two years. According to her, the professor sent her text message saying that he wanted to see her. The student has been collecting such messages all along but she has never attempted to make this a public for she was afraid that revealing it public would jeorpadize her future career. The student want to substantiate the fact that the professor is a routine sexual molester, not of mistakes or misunderstanding from the victim, and want to encourage those people like her to come forward. The message board has been posted with 107 messages. One student posted a message that, in between 2009 and 2010, she has been received numerous message from the professor asking her to meet him with threats. She also mentioned that she was called for dinners, and he molested sexually in numerous occasions. One other student reported that when she said that she would have to go back to her home in remote province in response to being asked to meet her, the professor said that he would drive down to the province to meet her since he would be passing by the province on the way to a conference, where the place for the conference is 3 hours drive from her home.

After all, he was a man who was born in a aristocratic family, having a Ph.D from Yale University with recognition from the world academic community, pursuing excellence in writing, playing Hip Hop, mingling with students in no walls, bona fade, meeting the image of idealistic professor to students.

HIs power within the department sored up, nothing in the path of achieving unbounded confidence, seizing a tyrannical power to bring demise any student who would disobey him. Even the school that is craving for world recognition would not snub off his bizarre sexual behavior.

The victims then gathered together and organized a committee and collected evidences to be used against him in the court. The evidences were collected in the file name called "X" as a variable that the professor would use as a single method in molesting his students. For four days of work collecting the evidences, there have been 22 victims. The first case on the list dates 10 years ago. According to the X file, the predatory approach that the professor employed has not been changed much. He took the approach by sending a text message saying, "It's raining, and I am thinking about you. What are you going to do this evening? Can I buy you a dinner?" Almost all the student say that it was hard to ignore his message. When the students ignore his message or express resistance, he would respond saying, " You're getting overboard. Would I think of you as someone for a date? I am baffled that you would think that way." He would take the approach getting angry at students belittling them and he tried to find their personality and how far they can be pushed to get what he wants. When the students resisted much, he would then stop calling them. The committee, based on the evidences have been gathered, reported a laundary list of sexual charges made against professor Kang, and called him "a habitual sexual molester." The report revealed that the professor would keep on asking the students' schedule for next two to three weeks in order to set up a time to molest them. despite their resistances to meet him. The professor would meet one student at a time, and upon meeting the student at dinner table, the professor would treat her as if a girlfriend. He would dinner and insisted on having liquor along with so that student gets intoxicated, and then change the place for sexual advancements.

According to the Kang's acquaintances, they all say that what had to happen has happened. According to one of the acquaintances, he knew what the word "K" on the newspaper refers to "Kang Suk-Jin" instantly. Other acquaintances also could easily identify who the alleged sexual molestor "K" referred to on the newspaper, and it is well know fact that he was such person not only in the campus but also mathematical community in Korea. They say that Kang's thinking is grossly overblown, mainly due to the fact that both his parents and his grandfather are renown scholars and he himself was well spoken, a good writer and athlete, to the point that all women like him, and it made them to think Kang is crazy.

Kang claimed that the condition for research is not up to par and he moved his location for his research in different place outside the campus, and he moved back three years later. He revealed the reason why he returned in an interview with Campus Newspaper in September 4, 2004, saying that he missed time doing research in close proximity with students. One professor told that although he heard indirectly that students have been molested by the professor, actually hearing the news of his alleged sexual charges is shocking.

Kang's incident is only a tip of iceburg. This is not simply a Kang's incident, but it goes into further as an incident that symbolically unsurfaces the obligatory condition that the students are subjected to put themselves in with their professors in Korean educational environment. One student in KAIST referred to his professor as though a CEO of a small company. According to him, his professor has a too much power over his sphere as a student: from rights not to pass his qualifier for graduation and even to rights to allocate how much financial assistance for the project that he is involved with. He said, "There is nothing that goes through without his supervision, and if he is disked by the professor, there will be nothing getting done." He also said that number of professors in KAIST have been charged with sexual molestation by their students, and there has been an incident where a professor hit one student with a notebook computer on his head, and these things happen more frequently in graduate school where professors would have more power over students' sphere." One person who graduated from SNU as a mathematic major says that Kang is an exceptionally gifted professor, and whoever studies under his guidance with his liking of him/her would receive good ideas for their thesis, and if anyone raises issues about his sexual advancements would surely jeopardize his future career ruining his/her chance of getting hired. For this reason, many of the victims would not go public and try to forget the past once he/she found a job, and that's why his sexual behavior has not been revealed.

The victims said to the committee that they have not been able to bring the issue due to the fact that there lies no laws that protect from the professor's sexual abuse when they go on public. The committee proclaims that the main reason that the issue has not been publicized is the fact that the binding contract, although they are not spelled in papers, is putting more disadvantage to students than the employer and employee relations with regard to sexual abuses. The reason is that in employment, there is option to change the job, but in school in Korean context, there is less degree of freedom to change school. The grades that professor gives is reflected directly on his/her career, and if one pursuit a career in academia, his whole career hinges on his liking of that student. The committee also blames the school trying to protect high achieving professor. According to a person who has received a Ph.D from SNU says that the school's interests lie on keeping high achieving professors for its name recognitions in international stage. Unless the accused professors are not reveled with solid evidences of sexual abuses, the school would not punish the professors, it is especially the case in SNU where high achieving can mean being forgivable in every transgressions.

--Being forgivable in every transgressions--

SNU has been criticized with "laying-off" the professor instead of "firing" in 26th of November, within 24 hours after the incident, due to the fact that "lay-off" is not as harsh punishment in comparison with "firing." In the case of "lay-pff," Kang would receive no adversary in benefits; his retirement fund will be intact and he would have no problem finding other job as his record in paper has no blemishes. When the uproar occurred as a result of the decision, the SNU reverted the decision and stated that the school will not process his resignation until the court decides. Finally, Kang was arrested on December 3rd, 2014 with charges on habitual sexual molestation and abuses. According to the head sectary of the University, Mr. Paik Seung-Whan, "Upon conviction of Kang with sexual charges have been made, he will instantly lose his professorship from the University, and a hearing will be held whether to fire him as soon as the results of investigative findings are published from both Human Rights Center on Campus and the prosecutors.

Professors at SNU say, "We have to reflect upon structural flaws exist in our academic community."
The head of professorship committee states that the school overlooked misbehaviors of those high achieving professors. When such professors publish more articles in international academic journals or praised by the international academic communities, their misbehaviors would not be brought against them. It has become more important in hiring process of their achievements than their ethical standing as a professor. The environment has become so thwarted that , after employing professors on merit basis, professors has become competitors to each other, when a professor achieves more, his/her transgrassion becomes ignored. We need to discuss in depth for the cases such as Kang's. According to Ms. Lee, a committee member for Strategic approaches to Women's Issues in Korea, " The academic environment is more leaning toward individual's transgression than industrial sectors in Korea and thus it is important for individuals in academic coming to realization of the importance of self-control on this matter seriously, not abusing the freedom with their own interpretations, and the more important thing is that school itself should take the matter seriously and make improvements"

Kang, who loves sports, mentioned the basketball player, Her Jae, in his book, "A mathematician sitting on a football," where the player gets disqualified to play for Asian Men's Basket Game as a result of being found sneaking out of the camp, getting drunken and then got into an accident in driving a car. Kang expressed his view of the incident that Her Jae should not have been disqualified for the misdemeanor.

여기에 대해 강 교수는 이렇게 썼다. “형편없는 직업의식을 가진 선수가 투철한(?) 직업의식을 가진 다른 누구보다도 농구를 잘한다면 그의 직업의식을 트집 잡아 국가대표팀에서 제외시킬 수는 없는 노릇이다.” 이 챕터의 소제목은 이렇게 달려 있었다. ‘오만한 천재의 추락’.

서영지 기자 yj@hani.co.kr

청도이야기- My lovely aunty

2014-12-06T06:34:00.000-08:00

A recent headline news about a traffic accident happened in Chung-Do drew my attention bringing a string of memories of visiting the place once in my teen years. It was summer of 1973 when Korea's industrialization took off less than a decade ago yet its impacts had not touched upon the place, exuding its rustic countryside atmosphere that was so unique and fragile. As with landscape of any farming village in Korea at that time, the place was drenched with amusing sceneries of summer: green rice paddies on which growing rice plants with their stalks drooped under scorching sun, weeping wallows by a stream swaying it branches gently in hot summer days in breezes, and mountains around simmering in scorching heat of August; these were some of the most beautiful sceneries to the eyes of a young man. In Korea, summer weather in beginning of August accompanies scorching heat with clear blue sky making one feels unbearable to stay outside with no shade even for ten minutes. Monsoon season comes in mid July and ends before arrival of this sheer scorching hot weather that last for couple of weeks in August. As the season ends and strands of cool breezes are felt on cheeks as precursor for coming of fall. In this segment of hot season rice crops go through last phase of maturation process growing with its grains getting larger and weight of it make it stalks droop; the natural colors and scents one feels looking at farm houses over a stream beyond rice paddies would provide quietness of farming village atmosphere, of which scenery perhaps would be so hard to grasp nowadays due to urbanization and industrialization has pulverized the scenes, so soothing and so peaceful. Sitting by bank of the stream and having the view would be the ultimate place and moment for relaxation in mind and spirit, so peaceful, untainted, and refreshing. This town is where my aunt was born. If it had not been for my aunts' affiliation with the town, perhaps, the news would not have opened up my eyes wide.

   My aunt grew up in Chung-Do and lived in Busan briefly prior coming to Seoul. She married to my uncle when I was four years old, and had lived briefly in bigger family with her parent-in-laws as a newly-wed. Her marrying my uncle brought traditions from Chung -Do; she brought spices, jests and beautiful memories to my life. I remember the time when she was wearing Hanbok speaking in heavy provincial accent. Her accent was so stringent to my ears for quite some time at that time when my notion of having accent is not too well established as I recall, often times unable to catch her meaning quickly enough, wondering why she spoke differently. However, her accent became agreeable to my ears as she gradually learned to speak in Seoul's tonality. Her accent diminished perceptively after ten years of living in Seoul although I felt the residual accents still remaining throughout her life.

   In each year, when Kimjang season arrived, she would come to my house and help out my mother making lots of Kimchi for winter. Image of her sitting by a big bowl in the foyer, putting the prepared ingredients in between the leaves of cabbages had ingrained in me as her signature. At an instance, walking by her, she said, "Come over here, and and this," and she would shove a mouthful of kimchi in my mouth even before I said,"Yes." And she asked, "It's delicious, isn't it?" waiting for an answer while my mouth was still full of Kimchi. I responded to her by nodding, unable to speak. When she moved in, she brought heritage of her old town along with her, and I witnessed her heritage is getting transferred over; the way she prepared Kimchi during the Kimjang season was one of them. For several winters when one Kimjang seasons started, she would suggest to my mother to make Kimjang in KyungSang style by adding new items such as fruits such as pears. And one year, she convinced my mother to add something new(i.e. raw fish). And in another year, I saw the fruits being added in the pot of that year, which I found rather unusual and interesting for I had never seen anything like that is added in the Kimchi that my mother prepared. When the fresh Kimchi was on a dinner table, I had chance to taste red meat fish fished out from the clay jar. That winter, I had chances to eat the unusual ingredients that had been added, and I loved it!!

   One day, my uncle bought a nice stereo set with amplifier that had a turn table. The turn table was encapsulated in a nice lacquered compartment outside with two small red lights get turned on as arm is moved and placed on the vinyl. The system had lots of vacuum tubes in another compartment below where the turn table sit, which also had its shinny front side lacquer painted nicely. I used to visit my uncle's house and enjoyed listening to music coming from the stereo set. One day, not long after the stereo set was purchased and brought into her house, an unfortunate thing happened; cranking up the volume a bit, I heard a sound something "pop." Apparently, one of vacuum tube was blown out. Taking a look immediately inside of a compartment, I noticed that a tube got a black mark quite visible inside. Drawing my finger and touching it, I had to take my fingers off instantly feeling hot. I was baffled how could the system got broken so easily with toggling in volume. The power to the system was completely shut off - no red light would get turned on inside the compartment staying black; the stereo system was totally broken. A thought just came across my mind, "I just wrecked the expensive stereo system that my uncle bought!" and a feeling of guilt rushed down though my spine! I could not believe that the stereo system could have gone bad so easily. Nobody was there in the room, and I pulled my hair for using the system. The hour until my aunt came was dreadful for I did not know how to fix the damn thing. When my aunt returned home, I told her that I broke the system waiting for a reprimand, but suprisingly she told me not to worry, and told me that she would call a repairman to come and fix it. I was feeling relieved and yet sorry for the rest of the evening despite the fact that my aunt told me not to worry.

   During the summer vacation when I was in middle school, her elder brother from the city came over to visit her. The man had even a thicker accent. He was a gentleman, and he invited all his nephews and even neighbors' children over to his place in Chungdo over the summer.

We were all excited and could not wait for the day to come. We headed out to Seoul Station and hopped on the lowest fare train (완행열차) heading to Chung-Do. For I had had a trip down to Busan taking the same route down several years earlier, the ride didn't come with much unfamiliarity; whenever the train stopped, there would be peddlers selling snacks, and when it stopped at ChunAnn, I could not resist my temptation to buy its famous snack, walnut crackers.

Arriving at Chung-Do train station late in the evening, the gentleman came to the train station to show the way. We walked along the path in between rice fields carrying a backpack on our back. We trudged along the rice paddies in the dark. Upon arriving at his house, we unloaded our backpacks. While we were resting sitting on 툇마루, he brought some Makgolli in a jug with a long spout from his winery nearby his home and passed around bowls. We poured the drink in the bowl and started drinking Mogolli out of the bowl to quench our thirst.

   On the following day, waking up early, my cousins and I walked around the village and found a wide stream running nearby. On that after noon, we played at the stream well into the afternoon. We learned how the local boys catch fish using a glass bottle with both end opened, which was sold in the convenient store. My cousins and I decided to try the same, so we rushed to the store and bought several glass jar and set it up to catch fish. We had luck to catching several fish, but we ended up destroy the glass jar when it was pushed by the steam and crashed hitting pebbles. Later in the afternoon, the gentleman's younger brother came to the stream to catch fish; we were sitting by
the bank watching him drawing a net and catching in first try more than what we had for all day long.

   Next day, my uncle arrived driving his car. He came with aunt along a girl in his neighborhood. My uncle was a gregarious person who had many friends in the neighborhood. He went to Korean army joining a band; she showed me his old trombone that he used to play w/ at the band. I saw the girl time to time in the neighborhood, the girl was one year older than me, but we had never talked each other until the trip. We went to the stream together and she was wearing a swimsuit. We visited an elementary school, and we took a rest nearby a parallel bar in a hot summer day at the conner of the school as cool breeze was blowing through.

   On that evening, We all visited his liquor store and the gentleman showed us around the winery and offered us each a cup of Makgollie to drink in the end. The winery had full of smell of the liquor.
On the next day, We went further down in the stream where it gets deep as color changed to green. The water ran fast with sound of running echo underneath the bridge. The water seemed to be running faster near the rocks. We swam to the rock, each time climbing up on the bounder and sitting in the middle of it on top.

   On that night, the gentleman took us a river in distance and we camped out on sandy beach. It was hot weather and the temperature kept rising well into the night. There were hundreds of mosquito making buzzing sound and biting us, and we could not fall asleep.   We tried many methods to chase away the mosquitos, but none of them found to be useful. As I was restless and feeling itchy all over our bodies, we heard a rumble of thunder, and it started raining all of a sudden. The rain was pouring quite heavy and we were well into the night unable to move out with no transportation; we stayed there until the morning. When we woke up, the river swelled up and the river looked quiet again. My cousins and I were counting number of mosquito bits, and I counted over fifty all over my body, and one of them was so itchy that scratched so hard and it started swelling up with pinkish red.

   The middle school girl came along looked fine with no bits, and I was wondering why I fell victims to the mosquitos. The girl's mother was a neighbor of my aunt came along. She had two pony tails as mandated to most of middle school girls, and she became mature physically. One time, I saw my aunt chatting with her mom when I visited my aunt's house. My aunt referred to the lady as "lady from bean sprout house" for her family ran a bean sprout factory close to my aunt's house. The factory had been in business for a long time before my aunt moved into the neighborhood. I can recall first time taking a little tour inside of the factory following my aunt. My aunt wanted to buy some bean sprout, and she was ushered into the factory get fresh bean sprout. Standing along with my aunt, I could see all the beans sprouting in large partitions with water hoses drawn into. The place was damp and lights were dim. The moisture had to be kept inside with the door firmly shut, and I was feeling a little stuffy. It was at the time when I saw an article on a newspaper reporting that a bean sprot grower was indicted with allegation of adding illegal chemicals to expedite the process of growing bean sprouts. For this reason, I was looking around a bit suspecious whether I would run into any suspicious chemical containers around the area. The girl went to high school located nearby my middle school, and I often saw her waiting at the same bus stop where I normally wait for at the bus stop. Sometimes, I met her in the bus already, and I would bow to her to say "hello." She asked, "are you going to school?" frivolously. She was wearing a uniform with a white color and a school badge on her chest. Standing by her, I did not know what to say. The bus was very crowded and occassionally when bus made an jerky stop, I would bump onto her shoulder. I was fully aware of her standing besides me, and I would smell fresh smell of shampoo thinking that it's her smell. After we got off the bus, we briefly walked together and then she said, "I go this way." and reached out her hand for a handshake. I felt the warmth of her hand until my history class that was taught by a teach who looked like a bulldog.

On the day we finish the trip, I found that one mosquito bit that I scratched hard became an infection; it was on my right wrist. Upon arriving home, I went to a local clinic in Shinchon Rotary l to get treated. A young doctor treated me squizzing the pus out; dark blood spewed out, and cleaned the infected area with swipes; there was a large whole. The scar that was formed from mosquito bites still remains as a permanent reminder of the trip I had to Chung-Do in the summer of 1972. The beautiful memories of the place where she had lived - I treasure them so dearly as marked by a mosquito bite on my wrest.

There is not much trace of history left in Shinchon - 신촌에는 역사의 흔적이 그리 많치않다

2014-09-13T06:25:00.000-07:00

In my recollection, fifty years ago, there was a small old wooden hut in the neighborhood made for Confucian ritual. I saw one day it was getting demolished, and soon after, an apartment building was being built on the site. Several years later, the apartment collapsed killing many people as a result of shoddy construction. The demolition of the Confucian building was disturbing to my eyes; the thought of something that old could be gone all of a sudden saddened me. Every time when I passed the site where it stood for centuries my mind would go blank with a big question in mind: "How could people do that?" Thinking that many historic buildings could have been demolished as easily as it with no regulations and deterrence caused me queasy feeling, knowing the destruction and plundering of old artifacts that the country had to endure from Imperial Japan during the colonial era prior.

Artifacts and historical landmarks that should be preserved to teach and show trace of its past to the generations to come were not treated with respect. In that respect, Korea rid of many valuable voluntarily. How many artifacts must have been disappeared and gone in our memories in the process of industrialization!! I guess that there was no old folks who could have protested against demolishing the tradition even if that alter meant only to a certain family.

In considering the fact that Shinchon was already urbanized as far back as I could remember five decades ago, Shinchon does not exude historical aspects of its past. Korea has been mainly in agriculture, and Shinchon may well had been reflective of its landscape baring nothing but rice paddies as what my grand-father attested to me, recalling what the surrounding area of my house looked like before I was born. However, bustling atmosphere of Shinchon often erased my memories of what my grand-father said, "I could see all the way to Shinchon rotary standing on the hilltop where our house was built, and there was nothing but a long stretch of rice fields stretching all the way to there."
Despite what my grand-father had said how agricultural landscape of Shinchon, the bustling place would make me to forget his testimony asking to myself spurring curiosity again: why the place has no trace of its history?

I had to employ a recollection of my childhood to quell the burning curiosity once: the landscape of neighboring town Yunhee-Dong that I know of, as a reference. I can speculate what Shinchon may had been looked like recalling Yunhee-Dong in my childhood, when it had begun its facelift getting urbanized after Shinchon. I witnessed YunHee-Dong transforming itself well into my teenage years.
All throughout my childhood. I remember walking a long path in between rice paddies there and I had even seen several thatched roofed houses without hick-ups in YunHee-Dong.

Founding Yunsei University in late 19C may have played a major role why was Shinchon urbanized much earlier than YunHee-Dong. Shops frolicked along the road that stretched from the main gate to Sinchon rotary.

When my mother got her a Canon camera as a gift - after learning how to take pictures from her younger brother - first thing that she would do was taking her children to different places in Shinchon to take pictures of her children. It was my first experience getting to know broader view of Shinchon, following my mother, going beyond the boundary of daily sphere of living visiting periphery of Shinchon. One of the places that she took us was a ancient tomb site near Yunsei University. I think that the tomb is still there, but may not be in exact physical forms as what I saw five decades ago. It was an interesting place as a child because it was not only my first place ever visiting an old tomb site but also a place where I was staying in close proximity of death at the time when the notion of death was seen too remote to come into my consciousness. At the site, there were statues of various animals carved out from marble standing guarding the tomb. So, naturally, the place exuded senses of mixed feelings where aura of death and an atmosphere of merry-go-around in a town fair intermingling together. Hopping onto a pony statue for a photo shot and looking out, there was an old building at the bottom of the hill painted in brown exuding an eeriness with tall weed growing all around it. The building was probably was used by son of deceased person to mourn the death of his father as the mores of Confucian culture dictated in hundred years ago, and it bore no trace that it had ever been used recently making me to wonder when it was last time a person stayed in there.

It may not had been a desirable place for taking pictures, but moments at the tomb site left me indelible memories. I want to visit there to see how much it has been changed over time. Although I have not visited the place despite my numerous times visiting Korea; I regretted that the thought of going to visit never occurred to me all the time.

After so many years of living in Shinchon, at least to my knowledge, there is not much trace of its past. I would speculate that Shinchon may had been regarded as outside of enclave of loyal residence, with four main gates at the periphery, from which would take at least half a day to reach one of the four gates that led to loyal residence by walking, Namdaemun. Shinchon must have been largely a rural area cultivating crops, not much different from Yunhee-Dong or MoRaeNae. I would suspect that the urbanization of Shinchon started as the universities, such as Yunsei Unversity, were found and started growing.

In my recollection, the tomb and Shinchon Train Station are about the only historic sites that I can even think about in my birth place; the old clock town in Shinchon rotary was gone in early 80's and the Shinchon Market is shrunk down hardly suit the tastes of my visits thereafter when I was little.

Does society owe its people a certain level of retaining obligation for keeping old buildings and shape of streets allowing the people to be reminiscent about a period of time that they had lived some twenty, thirty years later? In light of Shinchon had been mostly a farming place which would not have accrued or played a pivotal part in Korean history until turn of 19 century, it has accumulated fairly good substances of it since the time has past and have had a history of being urbanized. Even when I was little, there were skating place converted from rice paddies in winter time and there were strong wind blowing scents of people working hard to survive their living; it was a place where people gather and sell stuff and see each other making their living.

It would be even better if the air they had felt or the smell of wind coming from afar still feels as good as before. I recently bought a box of Korean grapes from a Korean grocery which has the same taste that I had enjoyed every summer when I was living in Korea, which I had solely missed for so long after coming to the U.S. Wouldn't it be great, at least, a certain district in Seoul, preferably the place where I had lived - Shinchon, has been kept frozen in time at least the physicality has been retained. At least I would love it to be. In Europe, there are places where Mortzart and Beethoven grew up, and not only they birthplace are retained but also the surrounding area, and even town retain its old physique as it was hundreds years ago. In Korea, the old palaces are retained, but as a person who have not often visited the old places, my sense tells me that the notion of town or places trying to keep old places is. Nevertherless, it is virtually impossible to expect to still that is the case some 40 years later, it is impossible to see the old Shinchon; it maybe only a dozen things that I can think about. For instance, it would be impossible to see the street vendors taking baked sweet potatoes out from their signature makeshift baking equipment made out from oil drum. Furthermore, it would be impossible to see the old Confucian ritual alter that had been demolished, located at the periphery of Shinchon when I was so little, to be rebuilt after 20 years later when I visited the town. The alter is gone permanently, maybe even without any indication placed, to most of young people that it ever existed; out of sight, even ten years ahead for the project of building an apartment nearby. I guess that why folk village is there nearby Seoul for people to come to see the old village with all sort of old style house lumped up and clustered in one big place, but antiquity of old and old life style have its own spiritual elements that can not be compromised with in the forms of touring folk village or eating sweet potatoes made from electric oven.

In Korea, everything physical changes as if old things are not worth keeping. The old house that I used to live in Shinchon has gone, and pretty much all the churches in Shinchon could no longer keep their old physique out of necessaity to get larger to accomodate more church people other than testifying the fact that it still reside on top of the hill at the same place although some churches have moved to a different part of the town.

The Korean churches bolding bears no responsibility contributing anything to the cause of retainability in its architecture; the old churches have been demolished and a new one is built on the spot to accomodate increasing capacity of church goers. The small size with wooden floor whose heating was provided by kerosine burner installed in the winter time was gone. And of its wooden floor and heard sound of children playing heard through the windows in the summer time can seldom experienced nowadays. Although, we are all in the wind of governance of time, we wish and often keep defienance that something is kept still without changing.

뽀다구 타령과 세월호

2014-06-15T10:54:00.002-07:00

누구나 뽀나구가 나는 걸 좋아한다.
뽀다구가 잘 나야 이성도 생기고 직장도 잡을 수 있는 확률이 올라간다..
성공한 사람은 반짝반짝 빛나는 검정색 세단차에 운전사가 있어야 했던 때가 있었고, 반바지 입고 데이트에 나가도 뽀다구 구겼다고 그다음 부터 만나주지 않는 경우가 있고, 스타벅스 커피는 뽀다구의 대명사가 됐다.

나라도 그러하다. 전번 월드 컵의 우승국 포투갈은 이번 10강에 끼지도 못하는 참패을 맞이했다. 가뜩이나 경제가 어두워 무직률이 25%나되 축구왕좌에 앉아 그동안 위로을 삼았는데, 이제 그신세도 바닦났다. 한국은 어떠한가? 축구는 세계인의 비아냥 거리, 세월호, 윤창준 등등 뽀다구와는 거리가 먼지 오래됐가.

한국은 가난 했었기에 뽀다구 나는 걸 무척 좋아하고, .뽀다구도 많이 나야한다. 누구나 뽀다구가 나는 걸 좋아 한다, 하지만 이도 어느정도 내용이 있어야 제 빛을 발할 수 있다.

뽀다구도 나고 내용도 아주 알 차다면 얼마나 좋을까!
뽀다구는 저절로 날 것이다.
하지만, 내용을 알차게 하기 위해선 얼마나 각고의 노력,개혁, 혁신과 시간이 필요한가!

그래서 뽀다구와 내용 중에 하나를 고르라면 대부분이 뽀다구나는 쪽을 선택한다.

미국이 잘나가던 80년대에 다니던 회사의 어느 미국백인은 요령을 피우는 짓을 "중국인이 도랑판다"고 중국사람을 빗대어 비하하며 말한 것을 들어본 적이 있다.
이런 말을 듣고 있던 한 중국인은 나에게 10년 전에 일어났던 삼풍사건을 들먹이며, 사실 찐짜 도랑파는 사람은 종종 한국인이라며 나에게 놀려댔다.

세월호 사건이 한국의 뽀다구을 왕창 구겼다.
선장의 직무유기, 해양경찰은 "꽝"이고, 검찰은 물빠따, 나라의 위기대처 능력은 바닦, 도망간 미꾸라지 회장놈하나 제데로 못잡는 무능력 - 미국은 미꾸라지 하나 잡는데 일주일이면 족하다 . 한류에다, 정말 즐비한 고층건물들, 깨꿋한 거리, G20 멤버...한국은 뽀다구가 났다. 이러한 뽀다구가 사회 모든 전반에 깔려 같이 뽀다구가 나는 착각을 나게 했다. 천안함 사건도 대충 넘어 가고, 폭설에 가라앉은 지붕도 대충 넘어 갔다. 하지만, 세월호 사건은 G20멤버 답지않는 뽀다구 "빵"이다.
한국이 뽀다구 "빵"나는 거 좋아하는 나라는 많다.
특히, 이사건이후 그때 중국인이 더욱 더 좋아하리라 싶다.
만약내가 그 회사을 아직도 다니고 있고, 그녀석이 내 앞에서 세월호을 운운했다면 내심정이 어떠했을까? 이제 그 직장을 다니지 않치만, 생각 만해도 그 중국인을 만날 수 없는게 다행이다.

뽀다구도 어느정도는 내용이 있어야만 한다.

세월호사건은 내용을 팽개친 결과이다. 뽀다구는 없어졌다.

인간의 굴레 - Philip and Sally

2013-07-16T18:46:00.005-07:00

My sister, who is six years older than me, started buying monthly women's magazine beginning of her college year. Every month, the magazine came with a thick paperback noble as a complement, of which from a list of top 20 world classic literature. She had kept the nobles on her desk, collecting dust, and it started piling up as months turned a year. I often went into her room to read the magazines out of curiosity, but reading those thick nobles printed in fine characters made me feeling a bit queasy prompting me just to flip through randomly to see any pictorials might be seen and then close the cover to read authors' name written on the front cover page. One of the books was written by Somerset Maugham: On Human Bondage. I read the book recently four decades later, not in Korean, but rather an abridged version published in America with Maugham's introduction on the front section of the noble. Whenever I see this noble, it not only reminds me of the image of my sister's old wooden desk upon which it had been placed so long, but also the time in which I had lived through in Korea early in 70's - Sally's father Trophe Athelny talking on marriage was reflective of the time. Like what Trophe told to Philip, my uncle once talked about his view on marriage to me in 70's. It seems to me that Thrope's thinking on marriage manifested upton his daughter, Sally. My uncle told me, "You should marry someone who has full of amicability and beautiful. That's all you should ask for in the woman." Sally would have been an ideal type of a woman to be married in early 70's in Korea. As a person who grew up in Korea, I dreamt of meeting someone mature like Sally. The abridged noble describes Sally as a person who has high level of maturity despite her youth and her caring mind. Philip was astounded with her fine qualities. In fact, I met someone similar to Sally back in 70's although she was four years older than I, which was inconceivable even to think about getting married with someone older back then. In fact, when I was dating her, she even said a phrase exactly matches what Sally said, as my eyes were fixed to a couple kissing each other on a corner of street once, "They are busy." As I was reading the book and reading every word that Sally said, this phrase she uttered at the moment popped into my mind reminding of the her. Nowadays in Korea, the societal norm is such that marrying a woman 10 years older is acceptable; how societal norm changes has changed so quickly making me feel somewhat betrayed.

Marriage in Korea has had twists and turns in Korea over generations. It was O.K. young girl as young as eleven years old to get married. My parents met during the war did not have much monetary help being given to them to start their married life, and yet they managed to spend so many years together. Since their time, marriage has been accruing expenses; by the time when I get married, people spent millions of Won without complaints as though they are expected of. However, rising cost of getting married seems to have hit the ceiling; skyrocketing cost involved in getting married to someone made many people to abandon their marriage which has long been considered important part of living. Marriage has survived for long in human history because it gives joy of raising family and pleasures of various of sort despite it surely entails difficulties and hardship. Nowadays, people avoid getting married because they feel too much burdened by all the cost involved. The rise of cost in getting married and maintaining marriage skewed the seesaw up and up making people married life unaffordable; the once important element is losing its air to make marriage to happen: pure love.

I think It is important nowadays for all "would like to be married" Koreans make the seesaw tipped over, making "pure love" become the sole factor to make the marriage happen, ridding all the societal norms and constraints that would make the marriage become tainted and make less materialized. As the way Philip falls in love with Sally, our parents married because of their love and attractions for each other, and so be it he way without age constraints, racial barriers and materialism. Falling in love and getting married is the purest humanistic endeavor; how much human are you, that's the question.

A Shepherd Boy - 양치기 소년

2013-07-13T18:28:00.000-07:00

I remember reading a short story written by a French noblest, Alphonse Daudet, in which he depicts a young shepherd living in a remote mountainous region on a hillside keeping a heard of sheep, away from a village. On one summer day, following a heavy torrential rainstorm, the mailman who usually deliver mails from the village could not come, instead a girl - owner's daughter, whom the shepherd adores, delivered mails instead. She was caught in the shepherd's eyes as her bonnet appeared and then her full picture over the hill. The boy was feeling delighted and joyful seeing the girl walking slowly up the hill carrying a handful of mails in her hand. The story is culminated as the girl had left for home could not go across inundated brook and returns back crying ended up staying over for a night with the shepherd boy. The owner's daughter is curious how shepherds spend in the mountains feeling lonely. To her question, the boy would answer that watching so many stars in the sky doesn't make him feel lonely, and the boy was thrilled to explain all her questions. When darkness fell on the hillside and myriad stars appeared in sky, they were star gazing sitting side by side. The shepherd boy was thrilled sitting next to the Stepanette talking about stars that he is so used to watching all alone in many lonely nights. The young girl fell asleep with her head rested on the shepherd's shoulder.

I remember the moments reading this story in a high school classroom. The story was so sweet and I read again during the break following and dreamt about about what would be like to be the shepherd when Korean school would not pay attention to sexuality of young people. My woman biology teacher skipped the entire chapter of human reproduction in the middle school by simply uttering a phrase, "I will skip this chapter. If any of you have any question about human sexuality, please come to my office." The society's negligence and suppression on human sexuality to young people was well reflective very crude militaristic society, making my dreaming about the girl all the more sweet. Her handling the matter, in retrospect, was rather disturbing now that I think, snubbing off the part of our living without proper acknowledgment and respect only augmenting it as a taboo, and negation and suppression of her own sexuality. After all, how impressive any biology teacher can be, who skip the chapter of human reproduction! This short story fell in the middle of the textbook, as if there had been a conspiracy, perfectly in line with time of sultry summer summer month of July had arrived - as mounting peer pressure amongst the students getting built - by throwing a spurt of cool summer romantic tale.

In the midst of our hectic lives there can be spurious moments that turns around throwing pixy dust giving fresh look at the surrounding. These moments sooth us and caress aches like sun's ray thawing frozen landscape in winter. Such sweet times are rare, and it is treasured later to be sparkled along with fireworks by the river bank long time after like the shepherd see one of the stars as if his adorable Stepanette.

The day I met Julia was on the Friday in a fall semester when I was taking a freshman English composition course which I had deferred taking it until 3rd year in the school. The campus became virtually empty on the fall day as I walked toward the building where English department was located; the students had left to home early on that day for upcoming holiday weekend. The emptiness of the campus oozed somewhat desolate feeling even though sun was setting with colorful hues in the western sky exuding its gaiety. As I was walking in the hallway heading toward the classroom, some lights in the hallway had already been turned off, giving me doubts that anybody would be present to help out students with English papers. As I approached to the last room near the other entrance, I saw lights emitting through door ajar. As I knocked on the opened door, a woman with long light blond hair raised her from reading a book sitting in the room. Through the windows sunlights were still shinning very peacefully like a silky dress in the western sky. Julia put the book away on a large wooden desk in front of her and asked, "Can I help you?" I told her that that I need someone to correct my English paper and handed out the paper that I had worked on. Julia placed it on table in front of her and started reading. I pulled a chair up across the table and sat down. She asked me whether she could make write on the paper, upon which I responded saying "O.K." Julia started correcting it with a red ball pointed pen. I was glad that such help was available for I had deferred taking the mandatory English writing course for two years.

Weeks earlier, I visited the English department office to seek any help might be available with correcting papers for students taking English courses, and the secretary told me that graduate students on work study program offers such help on weekly basis, and that I would be able to get the help needed.

I do remember how I became acquainted with Julia; it was over but I must have thought of taking her out after meeting her several times getting help from her. I do remember taking her out for a dinner at a Chinese restaurant in downtown after much thinking what to say to her during the dinner without having had much experiences talking in English with a woman. I admired her amicability and loved seeing her smiling. During our dinner, she made me feel comfortable. She was tall woman and her smiles had very charming qualities. She was kind and gentle woman. As the semester went, I found myself getting more drawn to the English department building. I even went there even at the time she doesn't work there. One day, I saw her studying at the library; I could see her from her back side.

One day, Julia called in distress telling me that her apartment was infested with roaches and the landlord would not do anything about it. She asked me whether it would be possible to sleep in my apartment. I told her to come to my place. Luckily, my roommate was gone over the weekend and I could let Julia come in. On that night, we talked and talked, and Julia slept on couch. I brought a pillow and a blanket that I had and had her lay down flat comfortably on the couch . On that night, I watched her sleeping like the shepherd boy finding Stephnette had fallen in sleep leaning her head over his shoulder under starry night as he was explaining to her about the stars.

하얀 오후 - The White Afternoon

2013-05-18T06:42:00.000-07:00

I was at work on the day of 9/11. It was a nice early fall day in a small town of New England where I worked. On that day, there was no stirring of wind, everything was calm as fall's rays shedding its last remnant of summer, and mellow ray of fall was shinning. The news of the incident spread out quickly in the company on that morning. Upon hearing the unfathomable incident happened, people in the building stirred up, flocking up in the dinning area to listen to a radio placed on a dinning table. The tone of voice heard from the newscaster was reflective of the chaos unfolding in the NYC. The tone of the voice was raised 10 decibel higher when the 2nd building of the trade center was hit by another airplane. On that morning, we were all in the state of shock and became speechless.

The company dismissed all the workers early one O'clock in the afternoon. It was very unusual that the dismissal was due to something other than Tornado or Nor Easter snow storm that would normally be attributed to dismissal. A hit of a cloud in clear blue sky reflected on the glass window as I was getting in my car. On the highway, heading back home, not much traffic was encountered that would have been savored in total contrast the heavy traffic encountered earlier in the morning. The thoughts of the incident happened in NYC was swirling in my mind, wondering who might have committed such horrendous act. A flash of memories of a news that I had seen on TV some 18 years earlier occurred in my mind, where the WTC was reported to have been placed with a bomb and search crew with snipping dogs were dispatched to look for it. As I was heading into the town where I lived, couple of fire engines were running in frenzy with loud siren sound as though some other disaster had happened somewhere in the town, adding more anxiety; it almost made me to think that they were heading to NYC at the scene of the chaos, unable to tell them apart. To me, the totality of chaotic scenes heard and seen before arriving home induced a high level of anxiety. The anxiety may come in all different flavor, but it almost tasted like once when I was wrongfully accused of a shoplifting in a shop being taken into an office in the corner of the store not knowing how to speak in English nor how to defend myself, standing in front of watchful eyes being looked at suspiciously by shopkeepers.

After the incident, the media kept on putting high rhetoric of fighting against terrorism and then the rhetoric evolved further going to war with Iraq and Afghanistan despite no direct correlation seems to have been found. People's frustration was running high due to the attack; I could see many cars fluttering American flags - that would normally be seen on wooden flower pots here and there - on so many cars on the road. Witnessing the horror of two airplanes going on suicide missions heading to the twin towner soon followed by incidents of hate crimes against non-whites. Some of the cars had oversize flags. In the media, there was talk of crackdown of terrorism day after day and year after year. G. Bush drove up the rhetoric of going to war. And in the midst of all this, a Rock'n Roll girls' band group mentioned a political statement opposing to go war and their remark was brutally bashed by the media.

I could feel the resentments and hatreds brewing in the air like a teapot that was about to make whistling sound and overflow. As the media reported that who were the suspects, many non-white were not living normally as eruptions of the resentments occurred, and its shard of struck me on one day, several years later when the brewing had not stopped, to a person who has nothing to do with 9/11 and wished that it never happened, living in a small town in New England:

My family made a weekend excursion to a tourist attraction in New England. As we were strolling in the area, me sipping coffee as I was walking holding a camera in the other hand. There were a group of young mens in 20's were hanging out standing in front of a tavern talking, giggling cracking jokes. They got drunken on that Sunday afternoon holding beer bottles on their hands. Seeing us walking by, one of the young man shouted, "He is holding a handgrenade!" and the rest of the group started laughing. Their voice was loud as though they were thinking that we were tourists who did not understand English. As I heard them laughing, I confronted them and walked up to them. I demanded that the person who made the statement come forward; the group of young men who made the statement should come forward and show his face in front of me, but the young man would not come. I told the group that the person should come forward and then moved over 20 feet away them and waited the person to come. After a while, a young man came and apologize. I demanded that the very person man who made the statement should come forward, not him. After waiting for five minuted, I walked into a restaurant and called police. By the time policeman arrived, they all fled.

한인사회가 잘 되려면...

2013-04-19T06:17:00.000-07:00

미국에 잘나가는 한인 사회가 몇군데나 될까?.
이 질문은 적합한 것이 못된다.
오히려 미국에서는 잘나가지 않는 한인사회가 정상 일 지도 모른다.
한인을 묘사한다면, 일본, 중국, 러시아의 한인과는 다르게 저마다 한국을 등지고
온 사람들이다. 미국에와서 한인 끼리 모여 오손도손 잘 살려고 청사진의 꿈을 꾸고
온 사람은 사실상 없다고 봐야한다.

미국에 온 사람은 새옷을 입는 것과 같다. 옛옷은 버리고 새로운 옷을 디자인하고
갈아 입어야 한다. 옛옷을 가끔은 입을 수는 있겟지만 계속해 입을 수는 없다.
우리는 저마다 새로운 옷을 입고 만나야 한다. 그러나, 한인사회의 문제는 가라입을 새옷이 없다

사실, 한인회의 발전을 갈망하는 사람은 미국에서 오래산 사람 일게다; 온갖 인종차별에다
외로움을 겪어봐 자기의 권익과 인권을 위해 도움을 받을 수 있는 참다운 한인회을 연민이라도 할테니깐..

한인사회의 궁극적인 목적은 이것이다 - 새옷을 만들어야 한다.
무에서 유을 창조하는 것. 마치 불모의 땅을 개척하는, 새마을운동을 해야 한다.

일단 사람들에게 관심을 끌어야 한다. 이괸심을 끌기 위해서는, 미국에서 오래 성공적으로 살고, 아름다운 한인사회을 꿈꾸는 자' 만이 할수 있다 - 새옷을 만들 수 있는 사람이어야 한다. 이는 미국사회을 잘 알고 리더쉽이 있는 사람만이 가능 한 것 이다. 한인회의 문제는 근본적으로 리더쉽의 부재이다.

그리고 리더는 한인을 도우려는 정신과. 전통을 이어 한인회의실에는 안창호선생의 사진을 걸어 놓고 일 할수 있는 사람들 이어야 한다.

누굴 도운다는 '정신'을 키운다는 건, 마치 태권도을 하는 거와 같다. 먼저 태권도을 하겠다는 의지가 있어야 하고, 꾸준히 노력해 검정띄도 딸 수 있어야 한다 . 한인을 돕겠다는 의지의 발상이 있어야 한다. 이 의지의 불씨가 활화산 처럼 타올라야 한다.

한인사회의 두드러진 집합은 교회와 동창회 이다.
미국에 후세을 위해 아름다운 청사진을 꿈꾸는데 교회나 동창회가 필요할까?.

이 집합체들은 갈수록 많아지고, 정작 모든한인을 위해 중추적인 활동을 해야 할 한인회는 상대적으로 싹이 자라지도 못했다. 한국인이 좀더 포괄적으로 뻣어나가야 할 모태을 교회와 동창회들이 부지불식간에 시들시들하게 만들어 버린 것이다. 한국인/한인이 잘 뭉치지 못하는 이유가 바로 여기에 있다. 위대한 선조, 안중근의사, 안창호 선생의 얼을 받아 '한국인'이라는 자부심을 키워 왔어야 하는데, 모든 사회가 한국인 인것 하나만으로는 충분조건이 되어야 하는데, 사농공상따지는 유교문화가 이어져 '인간'이란 공통분모로 하나 만으로도 교감이 갈 수 없게 - 한국인, 학교,교회, 지역 출신,생김새, 등등 - 서로 만나기을 꺼려하는 별 희귀한 문화가 생겨 버렸다. 한국인은 쉽상 뿔뿔이 흩어져 다른 인종으로 흡수되기 쉽다.

미국에서 끼리끼리 하는 집단은 성공 할 수가 없다. 끼리끼리하는 일은 배재하여야 한다.
미국에서 흑인들이 성공 못하는 이유가 여기에 있다. 흑인들은 절대 남을 끓어앉지 않고 자기네 만을 위해 달란다. 백인들 중에는 흑인의 인권을 위해 일하는 사람은 종종 있는데, 흑인들 중에는 다른 인종, 남을위해 일하는 사람은 없다. 그래서 미국에서 제도적으로 흑인을 위하는 데도 흑인은 잘 못 나간다 - 서로 도우며 상승하지 못하고 , 별로 인정을 받지 못한다.

한국의 끼리끼리 구도도 이와 흡사하지 않은가?

끼리 끼리는 아름다운 구도가 아니다. 한인회가 얼마나 아름다움을 갈망하고 성공적으로
이끄느냐가 한인도 유태인처럼 미국에서 편하게 살수 있느냐 판가름 할수 있다.

끼리 끼리 형태의 한인구도는 한인들의 목소리을 모두어 미국에서의 한인의 위상을 높이는데 별로 도움이 안된다. 즉, 한인구도는 각기관이 저마다 역할을 분담해 한인을 도우려는 목적아래 기구의 조합이 되어야지, 교회나 동창회의 집합으로 서로 고향이 그리워 등이나 긁는 형태는 아니어야 한다. 한인구도는 모든한인을 포괄할 수 있어야 하며, 교회나 동창회는 한인회을 돕고 따라야하는 역할을 담당하는 서포트 구룹이 되어야 한다.

그리고 한인회는 미국주류사회와 호흡을 마추고 한인의 권리와 이익을 옹호할수 있는 기관이 되어야 하고, 항상초점이 멋진 미래을 향해 있어야 한다. 멋진 한인회관을 만들고, 곤경에 빠진 이웃을 돕고, 타민족과 호흡을 마추고 도와 주며 사는 이런기관이 되기위해서는 미국에서 교육을 받고 일한 경험이 많은 사람들이 교회와 동창회을 벗어나 한인회을 위해 활동해야 한다. 이들이 한인회의 초석이 되어 진정 후대을위해 거듭나도록 도와 주어야 한다. 한인회의 주인은 한인들이 서로 뭉쳐 도우며 살아야 한다는 강한 인식의 집단이어야 한다. 한인회의 진정한 목적은 한인들이 미국에서 살때 미국사회을 이해시키고 잘 살수 있도록 도와주는 것이고, 그들이 성공해 다른 한인들을 도와 주는, 파급효과로 이어져 후대에게 도움을 줄 수 있어야 한다. 다같이 모여 참여 하는 공간을 만들어야지, 끼리끼리는 안된다.

한인사회는 어떻케 발전 할 수 있을까?

종전의 의 끼리끼리 구도도 계속 이어지다, 공통분모가 이루어 지지 않으면 비누방울이 터지둣 자취없이 사라지는 형태 일까, 아니면 하나하나 놓인 돌이 싸여서 거대한 산을 만드는 일이 될까? 미국에 올때 청사진을 갖고 오지 않고, 새 옷을 지어 오지 않은 우리의 큰 고민 이다.

끼리 끼리는 아름다운 구도가 아니다. 한인회가 얼마나 아름다움을 갈망하고 성공적으로

이끄느냐가 한인도 유태인처럼 미국에서 편하게 살수 있느냐 판가름 할수 있다.

수동적인 교육과 데이트의 상관관계

2013-02-24T15:47:00.002-08:00

한국의 교육을 한 마디로 표현하면 "교사가 일방적으로 학생들에게 지식을 전달하는 수업 방식" 이다. . 문제는 이런 수업 방식은 학생들로 하여금 어떠한 흥미도, 창의성 등 아무것도 끌어낼 수 없고, 사실, 학생의 귀중한 시간을 허비하게 된다. 또한 학생들끼리 서로 의견을 주고 받으하면서 무엇이 맞고 틀린지 알아야 하는데, 그저 교사가 모든 설명을 다 해주니, 학생들은 그냥 듣기만 하는 수동적인 자세가 되고 만다. 오히려, 이런 환경은 쓸데 없는 경쟁심이나 불러 일의 키고, 대화을 통한 협동심이나 팀웍내지 개인의 창의성을 말살시킨다.

한국에서는 교사는 학생들에게 일방적으로 지식 전달만 한다. 문제 풀라고 하고, 답 맞추고, 모르는 문제는 설명해 주고... 한국에서는 대부분의 학교 수업 방식이 이렇다. 또한 한국 학생들도 이러한 교사의 수업 방식에 길들어져 버린다. 이러한 수업방식은 사실 인간의 창의성을 말살시키는 독극물과 같은 것이다. 사실, 이런 수업은 교육적으로 개인에 어마어마한 피해을 가져온다.

이런 수동적인 방법의 한국교육은 얼마나 한심한가! 그리고 그 한심한 교육은 언제 그칠것인가!

바람직한 수업 방식은 교사가 일방적으로 지식을 전달하기보다는, 학생들이 자신의 의견을 말할 수 있도록 끊임없이 질문을 던지고 흥미를 이끌어야 한다. 훌륭한 교사는 학생들의 의견에 보충 설명을 하면서 점점 사고 범위를 넓혀주고 학생들이 수업에 전적으로 다 참여할 수 있도록 유도 하는 겄이다.

이러한 교육을 받은 한국여성들은 데이트을 해도 느껴진다. 교육을 받는 과정에서 창의적이지 못하고 오랫동안 수동적 교육방식에 젖이 서로 별로 다른 개성을 찿아보기 힘들다. 교육의 진정한 목적은 성숙되게 '자기의 표현'을 할수 있는 사람으로 가꾸어 지는 것이다. 사회에서 원하는 데로 벽돌처럼 개성없이 키워진 사람들은 만나면 재미없고 빨리 호감이 가질 않는다. 데이트는 그사람이 어떤식의 교육을 받고 살아왔는지 여실히 드러난다.

시골다람쥐와 서울쥐 - A contrast in journalistic demeanor

2013-01-26T05:53:00.002-08:00

I took my family to North Conway, N.H. on a vacation when my daughter was about four and my son was two years old . The weather had been beautiful with clear blue sky throughout the vacation. On the 2nd day we stayed, the town held a harvest fair on a parking lot of a ski resort with collection of art works from the local artists. There were many tables laid out with all sorts of artifacts on top; jewelries and various arts and crafts were put out for sale. Seeing all the interesting stuff, my daughter, who was then four years old - enthralled by all the glittering and fancy stuff - was walking around browsing items along side with her Mom. My daughter's enjoyment of seeing the art works was clearly palpable on her face with excitement and joyful expressions on her face, and a glimpse of it was caught by a local journalist who happened to be there looking to capture moments of the festivity. As my daughter was touching a necklace hung from a jewelry-stand, the woman took photo shots of her at the moment. After taking the photo, the woman walked over and told me that she was a journalist for the local newspaper and complimented how cute my daughter was, and would very much like to publish my daughter's photo in the upcoming newspaper for the week asking for the permission to publish it. For the response, I said gladly that it's fine. The journalist then told me that she could send the newspaper mailed to me.

After several weeks later, a letter was arrived from the journalist, containing a small note saying how pretty and cute my daughter was and a cut-out from the newspaper with my daughter's picture which showed her with her tiny hand reaching out to a necklace with a star on a newlry-stand. The title of the photo was : Reaching for a star.

The letter brought lots of joy to my family; on the day the letter was received, we talked about the trip to the town over our dinner. My daughter was very happy to see that her picture came out on a newspaper for the first time ever in her life. Seeing my daughter in gleeful mood, my son sitting next
to her became jealous and started asking me when his photo would come on a newspaper like his sister. On which, I told him that moments will come soon or later without advanced notice.

A moment that would make my son's picture come out on a newspaper came five years later, one day, when a Korean women's field hockey team came to the city where I live, for a match with a team from a European country. I went to watch the game taking my family. We cheered sitting on the first row by the walk way. After the game was over, a woman, holding a camera, appeared to be in 30s approached me and introduced herself to me that she works for a Korean newspaper for the Korean community in the city and asked for an interview. On which, I gladly said "Yes," to have my son's wish to be on a newspaper come true. The journalist took several photos of my family and then took her notebook out and started firing off her questions as she was writing down our responses on the notebook. The journalist told me that the photos will appear in the upcoming weekly newspaper.

On the following weekday when the newspaper came out, I went to the local grocery shop to pick up the newspaper. After picking up the newspaper, I looked immediately at the sporting section in much anticipation that my family's photo that she had taken would be seen - especially my son's picture. Contrary to my anticipation, the newspaper had no pictures of my family; the newspaper had pictures
of the team alongside with other spectators, but it entirely omitted presence of my family there altogether. I am not going to speculate why my family's photo was missing. The journalist lied to me!!

When my son asked me what happened to the photos that the woman took, I just snbbed it off lying to him that I haven't had chance to pick up the newspaper yet, hoping that my son would never ask me the question again; my son would have felt that how negligent of his father was over his sphere.

My son's wish to be on a newspaper came into a reality without an advanced notice, just like what I had told him at the dinner table, five years later, when a town's newspaper journalist for the town where he lives captured moments of my son and several other students walking into a high school building happily on their first day in high school after summer vacation. Having just graduated from the Middle School earlier June of the year, the town newspaper depicted the boys in smile with title: Happy Freshman High School Students heading into classrooms.