KBL: Their World To Our World

KBL: Their World To Our World
By Yewhan Choi

On the 13th of October, the Korean Basketball League began its long journey to the end of the 2012-2013 season. Basketball fans all over Korea who were tired of waiting were finally relieved from their wariness. However, it wasn’t only the basketball fans who were excited; the players were also excited to show their improved performances that they have trained for during the summer. This 2012-2013 season is expected to be the best season ever since the 1980s and 1990 as the overall ability of players have improved due to the deep draft pool that has formed since the 2009 draft. Not only has the overall performance level increased, but potential stars such as Oh Se Geun (Anyang KGC), Kim Si Rae(Ulsan Mobis), and Lee Si Jun(Seoul Samsung) are beginning to show their full abilities. For a long time, Basketball had been in the shadows, unable to appeal to sports fans. However, it is now being illuminated once again due to enhanced performances in international competitions and the general expansion of the NBA. Now seems to be the right time for KBL to attract more fans to the game of basketball, appealing some fresh and hard-to-find traits from any other basketball league.
The first great aspect of KBL is the great team spirits within teams. As KBL is not a big league, there is less movement of players among teams. Naturally, players tend to stay in the team that drafted them and remain loyal to their fans. Due to these reasons, it is hard to find major changes within a team’s roster except the movement of foreign players. This eventually leads to better chemistry within a team as players play with the teammates they had been playing with for several years. This phenomenon presents many benefits for the team; the quality of passes goes up as players can predict how their teammates move based on experience. In exchange, having better quality passes leads to much more spectacular and fabulous plays during the official games. There is also a scientific research conducted by the Korea National Sport University that states the KBL scored the highest in the category of plays lead to score by passing per games surpassing the Euro League by far.
The second great characteristic that KBL has is that it is difficult to predict who wins and who loses. As KBL is a small basketball league, the opportunity to get drafted is given fairly equally to all the teams, greatly reducing the differences in the abilities of the players. Also, as teams have games with each other many times, the coaches’ game strategies are the biggest factor that determines the final results. Every game, coaches investigate for the flaws in the opponent’s tactics; these flaws can be used in turn to counter attack their opponent. For instance, on 9th of November, LG beat KGC by far. KGC seemed to be the winner before the game according to many experts, but LG slowed down the tempo and led the game to more of half-court offense which reduced fast break points that KGC could have earned. The unpredictable game outcomes and the suspense generated from them are what make basketball fans await every game.

Questionable Cuisines

Questionable Cuisines
By Kyung-Shin Kang

Food has always been one of my great passions. I like the smell of it, the texture of it, and the way a home feels when there is something cooking in the kitchen. It is not so much the eating of the food that enraptures me, but the whole process of preparing for it and looking forward to what might come up. Many of the most memorable pieces of literature I read as a child always had some sort of feast scene in them—complete with a roast boar biting an apple. It is no wonder then that I have continued to profess an interest in looking into our food culture. One of my interesting observations of Koreans is that the majority of our appetites are based upon Western standards as these foods have come into our food arena. Most people in my elementary, middle-school and even high-school classes would answer that their favorite food is spaghetti or steak; nowadays some people even proudly announce a fancy French dish to show off their palettes while few of them mention the familiar kimchi jjigae. In fact, the majority of kids who respond with Korean dishes will say ddukboki, samgeupsal, jjajangmeun or kimbap. Technically speaking, these cannot really be defined as “Korean”, since the red-hot version of ddukboki only came out a few decades ago, samgeupsal was actually conceived during the Japanese occupation when all the mine workers had was a pot lid to cook on, and kimpab is quite obviously a celebrated Japanese dish. The irony here is that although most of its citizens do not seem to appreciate Korean food any more than they do Italian spaghetti, the country is going great lengths to promote Korean food internationally. The problem is, the old cuisine our ancestors have enjoyed is long lost and forgotten and food has come into the arena.
You may ask any 7 year-old you can find on the street or a random foreigner what the main characteristic of Korean food is. Nine times out of ten, they’ll answer that it’s the spiciness, accompanied by a vague comment like “매워요” in broken Korean. We take this as a symbol of pride and go as far as to test foreigners on who can eat the hottest pepper, declaring the winner as the most-Korean-esque person. We describe ourselves of being a hot culture, impatient in its needs and constantly on a quest for spicier foods.
Hot food is good, and when you think about our old saying which declares that “food is only as good as the jang”, it becomes evident that individual flavoring is indeed an important part of the Korean cuisine. This is not to say, however, that Korean food is over-seasoned, or that everything you eat is supposed to be spicy, as most foreigners and even Koreans seem to believe. The fact is, our ancestors did not use spices very often because they thought it killed the original taste of all the other ingredients and instead preferred to use it in small quantities. Since gochujang only came into the Korean scene in the late sixteenth century, many of our recipes were created without the use of it. Like all ingredients that have been celebrated by our ancestors, spice and seasoning only work their magic if they are in harmony with the other ingredients used. In fact, many of our ancestors declared that food which preserved the ingredients’ original taste was the best kind of all and hence our food was always a bit mild and bland. Though it may come as a surprise to most, our food culture does not end at spiciness.
But as Korea went through a series of wars that left them quite destitute, people had to make do with the few ingredients at hand and took to covering everything edible (and sometimes non-edible ingredients) they could find with gochujang. Some say that chili sauce was created by traveling cowboys who needed a way to preserve food for a long time and tasted pretty much the same. Indeed, this is inherently true for the hot and spicy Korean dishes that can be found even today, as making something spicy is the surest way to ensure some degree of tastiness even while completely ignoring the more delicate details of cooking.

However, it is not necessary to look for such a faraway example as chili sauce. At Daewon, before the small revolution that happened a few weeks ago, the majority of our food was a mismatched combination of meat, squid, and other unknown ingredients along with a considerable amount of gochujang smothered all over. Seasoned squid tasted like seasoned chicken and seasoned chicken tasted like seasoned pork so there really isn’t much importance on what is being seasoned as much as the seasoning itself.
In the past, food was a considered as a bodily experience: therefore, there existed strict rules regarding the presentation of the meal as well as the preparation. Various dishes were presented in a certain order according to temperature, taste, texture, or color. Individual dishes, or ban-chan as we know them, were all intended to harmonize with each other as a whole experience, so there existed rules which guided where a meat dish should go, where a vegetable dish should sit and how a hot dish and a cool dish should be separated from each other.
On the other hand, when asked what they think a traditional meal looks like, modern people will imagine a whole family grouped around a table, sharing the same jjigae while haphazardly attacking the same bowl of kimchi, and altogether eating a pretty messy meal. Some people look towards this as a symbol of familial love and community life. In reality, however, Korean food was never meant to be eaten in large groups, unless it was a feast or festival of some sort. Rather, it was served in proportions for an individual on a single table. Each table setting would have rice, soup and an assortment of jangs along with typically 3 to 5 ban-chans. The colonial period was a crucial turning point in our eating habits and was the start of a completely different kind of culture, the one we are now familiar with. Because hunger was an ever-present evil, it brought about the notion that it is better to be full then to eat well. No one was particular enough to demand well-served dishes on a single table setting and opted with the more casual way of eating.
A country’s cuisine is its essence; it is a declaration, an exaltation of our people, our land and our culture. This can be attributed to a number of reasons: a country’s cuisine is the result of the unique geography and climate of the country as well as the tastes of the people and encompasses a wide range of cultural and traditional practices. Yet for a long time, we have started to define our culture and our people as spicy, messy and fusion. For some reason, we have come to delicately ignore the fact that our food should be harmonized and started to emphasize only one or two characteristics of our cuisine while flagrantly ignoring the rest. It is important for us to realize what our traditions are and be able to differentiate between them because believe it or not, we have a rich history of food and we should be proud of it.

Why Mitt Romney Lost

Why Mitt Romney Lost
By Beom Joon Baek

"President-elect Romney has a vision for an American century and has a strategy to secure our enduring interests and ideals. He believes that liberty, opportunity, and free enterprise have led to prosperity and strength before and will do so again. President-elect Romney knows many Americans are asking whether our country today—with our ailing economy, and our massive debt, and after 11 years at war—is still capable of leading. President-elect Romney believes that if America does not lead, others will—others who do not share our interests and our values—and the world will grow darker, for our friends and for us. America’s security and the cause of freedom call for strong leadership. "
If you had visited Mitt Romney’s transition web page on the election night, you might have seen those words. An objective look at it would reveal all the article mistakes and its parallelisms that might be traumatic experience to some. However, grammatical point aside, that website shows American people the arrogance and egocentric nature of Mitt Romney. No presidential candidate in history had the confidence as much as Mitt Romney. He spent $25,000 on fireworks placed at Boston Convent in Center so after he would make his victory speech, he would go out and see, along with his wife and family, fireworks focused on the colors blue, red and white. Seemingly patriotic fireworks must have been a suitable way to begin his new stint as the President of the United States. Instead, he had to deliver a concession speech, a speech that he did not prepare for. Mitt Romney only wrote the victory speech. He thought that he would win, but he was wrong. Very wrong.
The 16-month long campaign to the White House was possibly the dirtiest one in recent years. The television ads were attacking Romney on his business records during his time at Bain Capital. In another ad, President Barack Obama was described as an “outsourcer-in-chief”. And after months of political bickering, on November 6th, ordinary American voters came out of their houses and voted Obama as their president.
 Yet, Mitt Romney had possibly everything to become the 45th president of the United States of America, but he blew his chance. His disastrous campaign will be a good reference to any other future candidate on what it takes to become the commander-in-chief.
First of all, Mitt Romney needed an image. The primary election was political group-suicide for Republicans. It was essentially a battle between Romney and the other guys. Romney, during his run for the governor of Massachusetts, made comments that did not satisfy the Tea Party Republicans. For example, he advocated abortion. Also, he proposed the Romneycare, a government-run healthcare system that is the prototype of Obamacare. His actions were used by various candidates to paint Romney as a moderate, wishy-washy opportunist with a lot of money. The rule of thumb in American politics is that it is not good to be recognized as a rich guy, since other people will envy and hate you. The hostility towards Romney approached its apex when another candidate Newt Gingrich made negative documentary called “the King of Bain.” A collection of interviews from workers who lost their job because of Bain Capital, it was not actually true, but convincing enough to spread the image of Romney’s sinister ego. The Republican Party knew that Romney did not possess the qualities needed to defeat Obama. Senator Rick Santorum, during his run for Republican nominee, said that any other candidate could win against Obama, even Rick “Oops” Perry. Romney, on the other hand, could not. To counter these malicious comments, Romney had to aim to please the hardcore conservatives.
However, after Romney secured his role as the Republican nominee, he needed to lean more towards central ideas, in order to get the votes from the independents. Unless Donald Trump or Sarah Palin came into the election as a third-party candidate, it was sure that the conservatives would pick Romney over Barack, though with less intensity and interest. It was obvious that he would hold a firm grip within Republican mainstream voters; after all, he was the only eligible candidate. The Romney campaign started to be friendlier to the Latino and black voters, willing to show that Romney actually cared for minorities as well, and that he actually is not a white rich guy caring only for white rich guys.
That’s where the second reason comes in. His image-making campaign proved to be a futile effort as it started to run out of money. No kidding. Mitt Romney is the richest man ever to run for president, even if you consider inflation. And that guy needed money bad. Although political pundits and comedians have made fun of Romney’s fortune for the last few months, Romney’s campaign spent so much money in the Republican primary election that during the battle between Barack Obama, Romney could not get his point made. For example, Obama also attacked Romney on his actions at Bain Capital. This time, under the assistance from a former Bain executive Bob White, the Romney campaign team made an effective documentary delineating the benefits that various workers and business owners had under the so-called “Mitt Romney” business strategy: firing and rehiring. The documentary was convincing enough to shut that argument down for good. It was only that they had no money to air it. Team Romney used social media and internet to promote their documentary, but nobody watched it, and the argument against Romney raged on.
Lack of funds inhibited Romney’s campaign trail, as he had to visit states like California and New York to host a fundraiser. California is without doubt the most liberal state in America, with more percentage of registered Democrats than any other states. New York City might have Wall Street bankers and businessmen, but New York State is mostly under Democrats’ control as well. In a nutshell, Romney raised money but he wasted valuable time that could have been used in swing states like Ohio. Actually, his fund raising rallies aimed to help Romney win the election did the opposite. It was during a private fundraiser event in Florida that Romney made that “47-percent” remark.
The final blow to Romney occurred as he tried to flip the tide through the televised debates. At Romney’s Vermont estate, a panel of debate experts gathered and trained Romney on the basic rules of presidential debating. They told him to keep his answer under 2 minutes, get the facts straight, and always be confident. The training seemed to have worked as Romney crushed Obama in the first debate. The president was virtually unprepared. However, Team Obama struck back in the next few rounds, with Vice President Joe Biden being more aggressive than ever. During the second and third debates, Obama gained the upper hand as he had both the rhetoric and humor to undermine Mitt Romney. Romney was unprepared in the second one and nervous on the third one.
With the polls being neck and neck, Romney needed to reinvent himself. It looks like he failed, for good.

Debt Crisis In Egypt

Debt Crisis In Egypt
By Sally Hahn

NOTE: This article was originally intended for publication in September 2012.
Recently, the debt of developing countries received international attention after the shocks of Syria and Egypt shook off. With the millennium goal of reducing poverty and economic gap in the industrialized world, much focus was shifted into developing nations that are struggling to catch up.

Developing countries face a debt crisis with liabilities beyond what countries are capable of paying. The figures have been multiplied with several years of accumulated interest rates, some of which have unfairly been imposed on developing countries despite its having been used in military oppression of the citizens by the government. The world now faces an ironic situation in which poorer countries are paying back almost double the original debt, yet still are not free from financial debt burdens.

During colonization, unjust transfers were commonly made from the colonizing states to the colonized states. The more powerful countries had spent big sums of money on "modernizing" the countries, and all the financial burden was imposed on the colonized. In fact, $59 billion of debt was forced in total to all nations which attained independence in the 1960's. The interest rate at that time was 14%. Compare that to when the LEDCs started borrowing, in which the interest rate was less than the inflation rate.

Mismanagement of lending also contributes greatly into the severe problem. In the 1960's, the United States had lent more than it had. The Federal Reserve ended up printing more dollars, depreciating the dollar value. The problem was that oil was priced in US dollar values. The major oil companies and countries found that they earned less purchasing power than they had before. Therefore, they raised the oil prices to regain their profits. Then, they started investing most of that money into Western banks. At that time the inflation rate was overwhelming. It was more disadvantageous for them to keep it; at least the bank gives interests.

The Western banks were then engulfed with money, and desperate to loan, they turned their eyes on developing countries. These countries had just become independent and craved for money to finance their newly built systems. The banks lent money carelessly and recklessly, with no consideration of whether the countries will be able to pay it back. (Back then, the interest rate was lower than the inflation rate now.)

As time goes on, the calamity is only getting worse. Most of the countries are still in debt, merely providing financial assets for developed countries each year, while the poor are subsidizing the rich. Today, the UN and other international bodies are continuing to solve this detrimental phenomenon. International attention is to be needed to solve the matter at hand.

Korean Archery And The Heroes

Korean Archery And The Heroes
By Lorens Lee

NOTE: This article was originally intended for publication in August 2012.

“Every moment is a match. You are the genuine professional, so you should live with professionalism. At least if you are a leader of one group, you should be in time when you are needed for others.”

This is what an executive director of Korea Archery Association strongly said to Korean archery athletes. And this advice shows the reason archery athletes have dominated the Olympics. Then why do people in the world say Korea archery is a superpower that nobody can stop the landslide victory of? According to the statistics of the Korea Archery Association, female teams of Korean athletes have succeeded to consecutively obtain seven gold medals in the Olympics, including a medal won in this year’s London Olympic Games. Moreover, in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the word “perfect gold” was created because of Kim Kyung Wook’s successful shooting of an arrow. And finally, male teams of national Korean athletes broke a world record and they scored 699 points.

All of these accomplishments demonstrate the status of Korea archery. Then at this moment, most people are curious of the secrets of Korea archery. We can see two main secrets: fairness and purity.

Fairness
There have been some cases of corruption and lobbying to be a national Korean athlete in other sports, but archery, it has had none of those kinds of unjust actions. For instance, the committee and associated organization open all breakdown of budget execution to the public in every selection process. There is no recommendation or wild card policy for outstanding athletes, so every national athlete is selected solely by consideration of their grades during training and matches. Furthermore, there is no extra point for athletes who have won medals in the previous Olympics. Hence, since the steps for becoming national athletes of Korea archery are greatly fair, archery players in Korea are inspired to practice hard. Sometimes, a decomposed athletic environment during selection process makes comparatively poor players realize a harsh and cold-hearted reality, demotivating them. However, as the policy and association both are highly innocent and transparent, there is no excuse of failure or controversy in the archery field. Fairness in selection and treatment is the best way to distinguish the best athletes for satisfactory results in the Olympics.

Purity
Have you ever anticipated how many arrows are used at each practice of archery athletes? According to one news report, about three hundred to four hundred arrows are used during their training, which means the athletes shoot that much quantity of arrows during each training period. When extreme foreign reporters ask Korean archery athletes the question about secrets of their wonderful ability, they always answer “We don’t have any secrets or keys related to our talents. All we can say is that we have practiced harder than any others.” Some reporters are exhausted by their most simple and exemplary answer, but it is right and there are no other rather special keys of it – according to Korean archery athletes. However, after the reporters listen about their real daily discipline, nobody would have objections. Firstly, Korean athletes shoot nearly infinite arrows every day as already recognized above. Second of all, the coaches make numerous situations to prepare for abrupt changes in the Olympics, such as the changes in weather they face in various matches. Actually, it may sound humorous, but in this year, Korean women athletes have visited baseball stadiums and practiced shooting to adapt to unfamiliar atmosphere and a large number of spectators’ voice interruption. Moreover, they even went to an army recruit training center for the same reasons: to adapt abnormal situations and backgrounds. Korean archery teams anticipate all the matters that could occur in the Olympic Games and undergo strenuous preparation for them. Then, in light of the athletes’ efforts and strong will, they won the gold medals!

Here is the answer of the question – who deserves to be praised of successful archery in the Olympics? We can say either it is athletes’ couches who have prepared strategy for them, or the fans who wait and sincerely cheer for the athletes. However, overall, athletes themselves deserve to be praised of their victory. They would have had agony from harsh training and pressure that they should win medals, and they eventually overcome those hardships. They are the best heroes of the Olympics in Koreans’ hearts.

Samsung VS LG

Samsung vs. LG
By Steve Lee

             Samsung and LG have been fighting with each other for over 40 years but, this fight is unlike the one between Samsung and Apple. It is more childish.

             The most recent clash between them was over their refrigerators. LG advertised their new LG DIOS V9100 refrigerator as the world’s biggest refrigerator, with a capacity of 910 liters. Soon after, Samsung published a video titled “The Inconvenient Truth of Refrigerator Capacity”. This video showed a comparison between Samsung’s Zipel T9000 and a “third-party refrigerator”, LG’s DIOS V9100. The video starts with the ring of a bellas personnel pour water into the empty refrigerators to show how much each refrigerator can hold. The winner is, obviously, Samsung,holding 8.3 more liters. What Samsung was trying to say was that LG’s 910 liter refrigerator holds less than their 900 liter refrigerator.LG, enraged by this video, immediately accused Samsung of false advertising and requested an apology and censure of the director.

Instead of an apology, Samsung’s reply was an extended version of the video, this time with coffee cans. Experiment personnel open the refrigerators, both of which are filled with coffee cans. They start to take the coffees out, one at a time. When the “third-party refrigerator” seems to be empty, the referee comes to check and fids some more cans concealed in a small compartment nudged between the door cells. One of the personnel scratches his head as if he is embarrassed and continues to take the coffees out. The result is, however, Samsung’s victory with 67 more cans. The experiment personal does his “horse dance” from Gangnam Style as a victory dance. Round 3 is done with tuna cans, although I’m not sure if it makes any difference: after all they are both cans. It goes through the process and the result is, again, Samsung with 90 more tuna cans. The series of videos finishes with a score of 3 to 0, a complete win for Samsung. LG immediately sends anapplication requesting the banning of the commercial to the court. Samsung only replies that the LG people engaged in similar behavior with their video of butter melting on top of a Samsung phone, showing the high temperature caused by the phone. LG also released videos explaining how the Samsung videos were not reliable with three reasons. One, water leaks into unused spaces within the refrigerator. Two, the door detached from the refrigerator created non-existing spaces. Three, error can be caused by external pressure.

Like this, there have been similar clashes between them throughout the 40 years. Ever since Samsung came into the market, LG and 59 other electronics company said “If Samsung enters the narrow domestic market with limited consumers; the electronics industry will gobankrupt”. The most active protestor was LG. Samsung and LG argued for six months through their newspapers “Joong-AngIlbo” and “Gook-Jae Shin Bo”. The first clash started with the competition over their slogans. LG advertised with their slogan “The symbol of technology”, and Samsung replied with “The symbol of the state-of-the-art technology”, then with “The latest symbol of the state-of-the-art technology”. In 1985, Samsung organized a consumer movement contest on January 10 to advertise their products. LG quickly went on and scheduled their consumer movement contest on January 7, three days before Samsung’s. Silly competitions like this continued. The most funny one occurred last year when Kim Hyun Seak, Samsung executive director, said “All the LG display engineers seems to be stupid motherf**kers”.This case eventually ended with an apology from Samsung.In addition, both of them do not trust each other’s announcements of market shares: sometimesthe sum of their market shares exceeds 100%.

These are just some of the incidents that happened for the past 40 years, but it seems like the two rivalsare not completely against each other. In 1987, two companies were charged with manipulating the prices on their television sales and limiting the warranty repairs. In 2001, they were charged with jointly increasing prices of television and air conditioning during the negotiation for the Government PPS system. In 2008, they agreed to discontinue the production of the cheapest washing machine, reduce the incentives for television, and increase the factory price of their laptops, illegal actions which they had to face fines for. What can you call them but“enemies with benefits?”

The Miseries Of A British Accent

The Miseries of a British Accent
By Robin Lee

I lived in Britain, commonly known as the island of posh people, for slightly more than six years. Having been surrounded by these people, it was natural for me to adopt their accent throughout my years in Britain, but it never occurred to me once that I had an accent; how was I supposed to know when my accent is the same when compared to all my friends and teachers? Over there, I was not teased by my friends for having a British accent but rather for having an Asian one. However, this does not mean that I was not aware of my accent and Korea’s general perception towards it.

Before I moved to Korea to go to Daewon, I had various tastes on non-British people’s perception towards my accent. First off, I noticed that many people found the fact that a kid, who looked completely and utterly Asian, not only spoke good English but also spoke in an outrageous British accent; this is when I noticed that my ethnicity was of an extreme minority. When I once went on holiday to Thailand, an group of American tourists were intrigued by my British accent. Also when I visited Korea on holidays and went to English hagwons, the teachers and the pupils were pleasantly surprised.

However, these experiences were not enough for me to be ready for the adventures to come in Daewon due to my British accent.

On my first day at school, I had to give a short introduction about myself to my class. When I talked about what I liked and how I was and all that, they seemed indifferent and bored. However, as soon as I told them about my long stay in Britain, their reaction was formidable. Girls uttered cries of jubilation that rivalled the ecstasy the Jews expressed when Jesus was resurrected. Boys roared as thunderously as the crowd of 5000 people who were fed by Jesus with bottomless baskets of bread and fish. The ground shook as the students jostled around to get near me to hear my teachings, making noise that not only brought attention from the neighbouring classes but from the entire school building. In seconds, a large crowd had gathered outside my classroom. Then, I placed my right hand’s index finger on my lips as a gesture of silence and when all was finally quiet, I gave my introduction to the crowd. The crowd listened well, but there were whispers; some said that I was a prophet others even claimed that I was the son of god, that I was the messiah.

Ok… perhaps, this is not the most honest recollection of my first day at Daewon and this is my point: my British accent is just another accent. Yes, it is true that each accent has its own characteristics; I have heard friends say that the British accent is distinctive and somewhat influential; even Mr. Dranginis talked about the unfairness of the British accent sounding so official and how it makes him want to believe that everything I say is right. However, I think the real misery of having a British accent is not that friends tease me and try (but fail miserably thus creating a weird and stupid sounding accent) and imitate me but the fact that people think more about my accent and care less about the real and the meaningful side of me. When I want to talk about things that interest me, people are more often commenting about how great my accent is; I did not even ask for this godliness! It is frustrating when these things happen over and over again and it really does grind my gears.

So, now that you know, can you please stop telling me how marvellous my accent is?

Let's Love French (Aimons Le Francais)

Let’s Love French (Aimons Le Français)
By Daniel Minkyu Choi

             The first thing you’ll notice about this article one part of it is actually written in an esoteric language. This arcane part was written in French. Why would I write an article in French when everyone else in this newspaper writes in English? I could simply say that I did so because I wanted to, but I would like to give you a more convoluted explication. To state the reason briefly, I dedicated half of my allocated amount of space to French because I love French, and I would like to convince you to have the same opinion.

             Historically, France has continuously been one of the most powerful countries in Europe from the Middle Ages, especially from when Charles The Great reigned as the king of the Franc kingdom. Because the Franc kingdom had later become divided into segments that now consist of Germany and Italy, French naturally assimilated into various European languages either profoundly or shallowly. As for Great Britain that has consecutively been the worst enemy of France, its royalty and nobles only used French among themselves to flaunt their statuses just until few centuries ago—Britain is still educating French as their number one foreign language. Internationally, French has been the only diplomatic language in Europe up to the first World War and is still one of the five formal language of the United Nations. Now, one might ask himself: “What’s so special about French that so many people have been using it? Isn’t it simply a ‘romantic’ language that guys use to seduce girls?” It is true that the unique phonic system of French creates a somewhat romantic ambience, but I have more reasons that prove why French should be revered.

             If you stroll around your house right now, you would soon be able to find one reason. Most of the weird brand names with alphabets such as “Tous Les Jours,” (“every day”) “Monami,” (“my friend”) “Ma Monde” (“my world”) are in French. It is difficult to say that it is practical but you can simply brag about the fact that you know these words. Second, you can acknowledge one reason when you apply to a college or a company. In this era of globalization, most of the people who head to top universities and top companies are fluent in the usage of English. Even though French is still used in many parts of the world such as in Europe, Africa, and North America, comparatively less people speak it than English. It would be an enormous advantage to be fluent at French due to its practicality. Lastly, since most of the diplomatic records were written in French, people who want to study the international relations of the past and the present would be ignorant to neglect French. Again, for its academic profundity, French is an admirable language.

             You might not have sufficient time to respect French by learning it. However, if you are ready to love the language when the opportunity comes, I think that would be fulfilling my purpose of writing this article.

             La première chose que vous trouverez après avoir vu cet article sera qu'une partie est écrite d'une langue bizzarre. Cette partie anormale est écrite en français. Pourquoi est-ce que j'écris une article en français quand tous les autres écrivent en anglais? Je pourrais simplement dire que je l'ai écris comme ça parce que je le voulais, mais je voudrais vous donnez une explication plus compliquée. Pour vous dire ma raison en bref, j'ai écris la moitié de mon espace assigné en français parce que j'adore le français, et j'aimerais vous convaincre pour avoir la même opinion que moi.

            Historiquement, la France était inlassablement un des pays les plus puissants en Europe depuis l'époque médiévale, particulièrement depuis quand Charlemagne est devenu le roi du royaume de Franc. Parce que le royaume de Franc avais été divisé par des morceaux qui sont maintenant l'Allemagne et l'Italie, le français s'est assimilé dans de varieuses langues Européenes, profondemment ou superficiellement. A propos de l'Angleterre qui a été l'enemi le plus mauvais de la France pour longtemps, les famille royales et les nobles utilisaient juste le français pour étaler leur position jusqu'à peu de siècles avant(le royaume-uni est toujours en train d'éduquer le français comme leur première langue étrangère). Internationalement, le français était la seule langue diplomatique en Europe jusqu'à la première guerre mondiale et maintenant est un des cinq langues formales des Nations Unies. Maintenant, une personne pourrait se demander: "Mais qu'est-ce si spécial sur le français que si beaucoup de personnes l'utilisaient? Est-ce que ce n'est pas simplement une langue romantique que les gars utilisent pour seduire les filles?" C'est vrai que le système phonique du français produit une ambience romantique, mais j'ai plus de raisons qui prouvent pouquoi le français doit être respecté.

            Si vous vous promenadez en dehors de chez vous juste maintenant, vous pourriez trouver vite une raison. La plupart des marques avec des alphabets inhabituels comme "Tous Les Jours," "Monami," "Ma Monde" sont écrites en français. C'est difficile de dire que c'est pratique mais vous pouvez simplement être fier que vous savez ses mots. En second, vous pouvez savoir une raison quand vous postulez à une université ou une entreprise. Dans cette époque de globalisation, la plupart des gens qui postulent pour les meilleures universités et les meilleures entreprises parlent l'anglais couramment. Mais même quand le français est utilisé en Europe, Afrique, et l'Amérique du nord, peu de personnes le parlent relativement que l'anglais. Savoir parler en français serait une avantage énorme à cause de sa practicalité. Dernièrement, parce que presque tous les documents diplomatiques étaient écris en français, les personnes qui veulent étudier les relations internationales du passé et du présent seraient idiot de négliger le français. Encore une fois, son profondeur academique rend le français admirable.

Peut-être vous n'auriez pas assez de temps de respecter le français par l'appendre. Mais si vous êtes prêts d'aimer cette langue quand vous la chance vient, je pense que ça sera suffisant pour mon intention d'écrire cet article.

Teenage Suffrage, Part Two

Teenage Suffrage, Part Two
By Hyeyoon Jeon

 

             My last article was about the justification for teenage suffrage—why teenagers should have the right to vote according to the Constitution. In this article, I’m going to deal with the necessity of teenage suffrage: why teenage suffrage is necessary for the welfare of teenagers and eventually, the general public.

             Teenagers have always been isolated from politics, and politics have been isolated from teenagers. Most people believe that the subject of politics is inappropriate for teenagers. They think that teenagers should be innocent, so they try to keep teenagers from the dirty subject of politics.

However, this isolation is a very dangerous approach. The distance between teenagers and politics makes politicians apathetic to solving problems associated with teenagers, such as suicide, bullying, a competition-oriented education system, and the lack of adequate protection for non-student teenagers. Because teenagers don’t vote, politicians aren’t interested in solving such problems. Most of the policies that seem related to teenagers are mostly targeted toward parents, who comprise the majority of the voting base. Take, for example, how politicians have handled the topic of free lunches. The policy, strictly speaking, benefits most parents rather than students. In most cases, parents pay for their children’s lunch. There are only a few policies that are directly concerned with teenagers.

Even in the upcoming presidential election, there seems to be no candidate who is interested in solving such problems. The candidates make countless promises for all kinds of people—the working class, the poor, the disabled, and so on. But teenagers are excluded. Asunaro, a teenager human rights organization, asked the three leading presidential candidates—Park Geunhye, Moon Jaein, Ahn Chulsoo—about their policies for teenagers. Park Geunhye answered that she hadn’t prepared any policies yet; Moon Jaein replied that he would create a “happy” education system that prioritizes students; Ahn Chulsoo pretty much repeated what he wrote in his book, showing concerns towards the current competition-based education system. One candidate did not even have any policy, and two other candidates pretty much stuck to their basic policies, showing that none of them had thought deeply about policies concerning teenagers. Such a phenomenon is not new: politicians have always neglected teenagers. Teenagers have to have influence on the ballot to get politicians to listen. Because teenagers don’t have the right to vote, problems related to schools and teenagers are never properly dealt with, and because of this apathy, the problems grow bigger and become harder to solve. After women’s suffrage was granted, politicians began to deal with gender equality. Shouldn’t teenagers have the same influence on policies that affect them?

             Another concern has to do with the public’s awareness on politics. Nowadays, after every election, the press reports how voting rates have decreased, especially among those in their twenties. Though this decrease seems counterintuitive, considering how sudden people are granted with suffrage, what could we honestly expect? In many cases, soon after newly qualified voters graduate from rigorous high schools where they are forced to think about nothing but studying, they are suddenly asked to vote for the politicians who are going to lead them. The process is rather too sudden. They were too busy to think about politics during high school years; all of a sudden, they become adults who must vote and have interest in politics and the world around them. At last, they simply choose not to vote, not because they are satisfied with the status quo, but because they are apathetic to politics, like they have been trained to be when they were teenagers. Thus, starting to vote from a younger age may actually encourage people to adapt to the process easier. There might be a different awareness towards politics. Teenagers are usually in environments where discussions of sensitive topics are tolerated, at least better than among adults. When teenagers start to vote, they would discuss politics among their peers much more actively than they do now. Since teenagers are free in their speech, they are likely to exchange diverse opinions from diverse peers, and such discussions would help to create individual opinions. If the government is truly concerned with the public’s apathy towards politics, there is no reason not to accept suffrage to teenagers. Having suffrage from a younger age can change people’s attitudes towards politics.

             All in all, teenage suffrage is necessary not only for teenagers but also for the general awareness and benefit of all Koreans. Now, the government ignores the voices of teenagers, but when teenagers have suffrage, inevitable changes are going to be come. The adults now neglect politics for being corrupt, but when they start voting from a younger age, they are likely to be less ignorant on the topic.

Mitt The Same Guy

Mitt the Same Guy
By Beom Joon Baek

             Mitt Romney, after finishing degrees from both Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School, went to work in Boston Consulting Group (BCG). After co-founding Bain Capital, a private equity firm, he went on to become a multi-millionaire, CEO of Salt Lake City Winter Olympic games, and governor of Massachusetts. He is now running for the presidential election, and although many doubt him for various reasons, following the trend, he will be the one against Obama this November. I never heard about Mitt Romney, nor the term ‘private equity’, before I read about him on Wall Street Journal.

When I first encountered that word, private equity, I did not know what that meant, nor did I know how it is done, but I did know one thing; you sure can make one big pile of money. From that day, I could see the rows of people who decided to follow the steps of Mitt Romney and various other businessmen; graduate with a major in business or computer engineering, work for a technological firm for 5 years, enroll in a Harvard MBA/JD joint course or an MBA in Hong Kong University, get recruited in a major consulting firm(I am looking at you, McKinsey & Company!), move to an private equity firm (probably Blackstone or Goldman Sachs), set up a private firm specially devoted to technological management, and when the time is right, run for an office.

             The story of Mitt Romney is indeed a special one, as he is from a privileged family (his father being the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1969 to 1973), from a privileged neighborhood, from a prestigious school. And one might say, he is the perfect role for the president! He has all the experience needed, so I’m sure he’ll do one hell of a job. If that was your opinion, I beg to differ.

             One first perception that one gets after doing some research on Mitt Romney is the fact that he and his father are possibly the same person. Like father, like son they say, but in the case of the Romneys, the parallel seems too uncanny. To list some queer similarities:

l  Both served as Mormon missionaries in Europe and considered the experiences formative.

l  Both pursued high school sweethearts single-mindedly until the women agreed to marry them several years later, then had families with four or five children.

l  Both had very successful careers in business and became known for turning around failing companies or organizations. Both presided over a stake in the LDS Church.

l  Both achieved their first elected position at age 55, as Republican governor of a Democratic-leaning state.

l  The two bear a close physical resemblance at similar ages and both have been said to "look like a president".

l  Both staged their first presidential run in the year they turned 60.

l  Both were considered suspect by ideological conservatives within the Republican Party.

Their uncanny similarities point out that Mitt Romney might be dominated by his father’s legacy and that his actions are like what George W. Bush to his father: an act of proving better than his father.

Mitt Romney might be having oedipal complex as we know. In a $50,000-per-plate fund raiser, Mitt Romney said that 47% of Americans are “dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.” This 47% comment goes directly against the values hold by his father. As one political comedian puts it, Mitt Romney could not even get a vote from his father. Is it an act of ignorance, or an act of defiance over his father? Whether it might have been, this complex he has towards his father hinders his road to presidency. It renders him uncommunicative towards the general public. Sorry, Mr. Romney, you’re not that good enough to be a president.