Social Stigmas From Rejecting Alcohol (Brian Park)
One clear telltale watermark of any Korean drama or movie is not the melodramatic romance or the feel-good original soundtracks, but the ever omnipresent drinking scene that allows characters to vent their feelings about stress from work, life, or anything on their minds. In the popular Korean drama Misaeng, which aims to reflect the competitive lifestyle of office-working salary men in South Korea, there seemed to be at least one scene in every episode where the boss would take his workers out for a drink as a way to show that he cared about them. This type of drinking culture in dramas seems to directly transfer into the real world, as alcohol can be found in nearly every supermarket and convenience store—as well as posters, billboards, and advertisements—bombarding us to keep drinking. Then, it comes as no surprise to find that the average person in Korea downs 13.7 shots of hard liquor a week—more than any country in the world—according to the Daily Mail. But if drinking is so common and socially acceptable, why are we taught in school about all of the serious health risks of alcohol, including heart disease, stroke, and liver disease? The list of negative side effects goes on and on, but why keep doing it if it harms our health?
The problem and its solution are not as simple as it seems. I would like to believe that people, especially Koreans, drink not because of curiosity or taste, but because of societal pressures to drink and how they might be stigmatized if they don’t fit in with their peers.
This does not just happen in the workplace, but in college as well, with 44 percent of college students reporting blackouts from excessive drinking in a 2010 Korean Alcohol Research Foundation survey. When students become of drinking age, their education about the risks of alcohol are ignored as the traditional Korean drinking culture takes over and children are taught drinking etiquette from their parents as a way of showing respect to elders. We are taught that drinking allows us to bond closer to our friends and colleagues and that it is ok to drink as long as we control how much we drink. However, this line of thinking is ridiculous and people who do not want to drink should never feel obligated to do so.
We have bonded with our family and friends all throughout our lives without alcohol, but how come alcohol seems to be necessary when arriving at college hangouts or parties in order to bond closer as a group? This seems to remain only an excuse for those who decide to drink so that they can pressure others into doing so to feel socially accepted themselves. If the tables were turned and no one felt like drinking at a friendly dinner, how often would someone pop open a bottle of soju and offer it to everyone? And as for controlling the amount we drink, even if we are confident that alcohol will not get the best of us, we must not forget that alcohol is addictive.
According to WebMD, alcohol causes the release of feel-good endorphins in our brains, making us crave alcohol more and more. So even drinking moderately would make you more vulnerable to losing control of drinking, leading to social, psychological, and physical problems.
To this day, the power of the situation cannot be avoided when it comes to alcohol. Even if some people have a strong determination never to drink alcohol in any situation, they will find their resolve weakening if they are socially stigmatized, left out of a group, degraded, or forced by superiors for sticking to their principles.
Nevertheless, knowing the long-term consequences of conforming to those types of situations, there should be a greater push for saying “no” to alcohol and we should learn to respect individuals’ decisions until this societal pressure is extinguished. But until then, I’ll be carrying around a fake doctor’s note as an excuse for not drinking with everybody else.
-04/28/2015
The problem and its solution are not as simple as it seems. I would like to believe that people, especially Koreans, drink not because of curiosity or taste, but because of societal pressures to drink and how they might be stigmatized if they don’t fit in with their peers.
This does not just happen in the workplace, but in college as well, with 44 percent of college students reporting blackouts from excessive drinking in a 2010 Korean Alcohol Research Foundation survey. When students become of drinking age, their education about the risks of alcohol are ignored as the traditional Korean drinking culture takes over and children are taught drinking etiquette from their parents as a way of showing respect to elders. We are taught that drinking allows us to bond closer to our friends and colleagues and that it is ok to drink as long as we control how much we drink. However, this line of thinking is ridiculous and people who do not want to drink should never feel obligated to do so.
We have bonded with our family and friends all throughout our lives without alcohol, but how come alcohol seems to be necessary when arriving at college hangouts or parties in order to bond closer as a group? This seems to remain only an excuse for those who decide to drink so that they can pressure others into doing so to feel socially accepted themselves. If the tables were turned and no one felt like drinking at a friendly dinner, how often would someone pop open a bottle of soju and offer it to everyone? And as for controlling the amount we drink, even if we are confident that alcohol will not get the best of us, we must not forget that alcohol is addictive.
According to WebMD, alcohol causes the release of feel-good endorphins in our brains, making us crave alcohol more and more. So even drinking moderately would make you more vulnerable to losing control of drinking, leading to social, psychological, and physical problems.
To this day, the power of the situation cannot be avoided when it comes to alcohol. Even if some people have a strong determination never to drink alcohol in any situation, they will find their resolve weakening if they are socially stigmatized, left out of a group, degraded, or forced by superiors for sticking to their principles.
Nevertheless, knowing the long-term consequences of conforming to those types of situations, there should be a greater push for saying “no” to alcohol and we should learn to respect individuals’ decisions until this societal pressure is extinguished. But until then, I’ll be carrying around a fake doctor’s note as an excuse for not drinking with everybody else.
-04/28/2015
Is College Worth It? (Mary Jane Chang)
As you are standing in the hallways reading this article, try to answer this question: Why are you here? By here, I mean this school, which is originally supposed to be an institution that provides children with necessary education in order for them to lead successful lives in the society.
Despite such a conventional dictionary definition, there is little conviction that children actually value the process of grade school for the education it provides. It seems as though they merely view school as an institution that has the capacity to give them an often misleading or exaggerated evaluation of who they are to universities so that they can be done with the unbearable mandatory torture of enduring countless assignments and examinations. They value the end result, the diploma and an acceptance letter to a top university, more than the process they go through until their high school graduation. Simply said, they come to school to get into college.
Many of the students hold “acceptance to a prestigious university” as their goal. They constantly worry that not getting into one of the top universities will make it impossible for them to succeed in life or become happy. What they do not realize is that university should be a tool, not a goal. Life does not end with the acceptance letter: It begins. In other words, what you do in university is more important than where you get accepted.
For instance, a survey from Samsung Co. revealed that they employed more graduates from Seo-kang university than those from Seoul National University. The company stated that they liked the fact that students from Seo-kang University were more diligent and meticulous in their work habits. Students of Seo-kang University had used university as a tool to improve their skills and habits, so their efforts had bypassed the significance of their university’s ranking. This example is surely enough to prove that the process of an individual’s development through available resources and incessant effort can outshine the name value of the number one university in Korea. University is where life with infinite possibilities begins: It is where you find out what you like and want to do in the future.
Some students are concerned due to the uncertainty of their talents or preferences, but it is only natural that they do not know yet before experiencing life after grade school, where they are given the opportunity to choose what they want to experience among a wide range of fields. Although there are some fortunate students who have already discovered their interests and talents before others have, among them are those who have been seeking to become lawyers, doctors, etc. from a young age just to ensure stability in their lives. Unfortunately, they often realize later in their lives that they are dissatisfied with their majors or careers and choose to start over with an entirely different field of interest. Of course, it is never too late for anyone to change their direction in life, but so much of their youth has to be sacrificed in order to earn a position that they do not end up appreciating in the future. Why do children aspire to hold these particular careers that require so much effort and time? Well, parents certainly seem to play a great role in their decisions. In the United States, Lawyers.com surveyed 1,001 people regarding the profession parents want their children to pursue. It turned out that 64 percent of parents “hope their children will group up to pursue legal careers.” They seem to have disregarded the countless lawsuits filed against law schools over their seemingly deceptive employment statistics and stories of young lawyers who often drown in student loan debts or suffer from unemployment.
Most importantly, they go through such turbulence just to end up disliking their jobs. Parents urgently need to change their view on how to achieve happiness for their children and face the reality of the doom that awaits their children when they are forced upon a path they do not want. People in the Korean society often say that by sacrificing their happiness all throughout grade school, they can become more satisfied and happier in the future when they gain success and security. But we are only young once for a short moment and there are things that we can only experience in this certain period.
During this period of youth, we enjoy the privilege of young love with the most intense physical and emotional passion, pursuit of selfish desires without a strong attachment to a group, wild partying and trouble-making stemming from fearlessness, and holding seemingly impossible ambitions, all at the same time. The reality is that we sacrifice all these to endless dark hours at hagwons. Why sacrifice our happiness now for the unknown future? College is supposed to be the place where we find ways to become happy, but it seems as if it has become the source of our unhappiness all throughout the twelve years of grade school. Is the name of the college really worth our fleeting youth?
-04/28/2015
Despite such a conventional dictionary definition, there is little conviction that children actually value the process of grade school for the education it provides. It seems as though they merely view school as an institution that has the capacity to give them an often misleading or exaggerated evaluation of who they are to universities so that they can be done with the unbearable mandatory torture of enduring countless assignments and examinations. They value the end result, the diploma and an acceptance letter to a top university, more than the process they go through until their high school graduation. Simply said, they come to school to get into college.
Many of the students hold “acceptance to a prestigious university” as their goal. They constantly worry that not getting into one of the top universities will make it impossible for them to succeed in life or become happy. What they do not realize is that university should be a tool, not a goal. Life does not end with the acceptance letter: It begins. In other words, what you do in university is more important than where you get accepted.
For instance, a survey from Samsung Co. revealed that they employed more graduates from Seo-kang university than those from Seoul National University. The company stated that they liked the fact that students from Seo-kang University were more diligent and meticulous in their work habits. Students of Seo-kang University had used university as a tool to improve their skills and habits, so their efforts had bypassed the significance of their university’s ranking. This example is surely enough to prove that the process of an individual’s development through available resources and incessant effort can outshine the name value of the number one university in Korea. University is where life with infinite possibilities begins: It is where you find out what you like and want to do in the future.
Some students are concerned due to the uncertainty of their talents or preferences, but it is only natural that they do not know yet before experiencing life after grade school, where they are given the opportunity to choose what they want to experience among a wide range of fields. Although there are some fortunate students who have already discovered their interests and talents before others have, among them are those who have been seeking to become lawyers, doctors, etc. from a young age just to ensure stability in their lives. Unfortunately, they often realize later in their lives that they are dissatisfied with their majors or careers and choose to start over with an entirely different field of interest. Of course, it is never too late for anyone to change their direction in life, but so much of their youth has to be sacrificed in order to earn a position that they do not end up appreciating in the future. Why do children aspire to hold these particular careers that require so much effort and time? Well, parents certainly seem to play a great role in their decisions. In the United States, Lawyers.com surveyed 1,001 people regarding the profession parents want their children to pursue. It turned out that 64 percent of parents “hope their children will group up to pursue legal careers.” They seem to have disregarded the countless lawsuits filed against law schools over their seemingly deceptive employment statistics and stories of young lawyers who often drown in student loan debts or suffer from unemployment.
Most importantly, they go through such turbulence just to end up disliking their jobs. Parents urgently need to change their view on how to achieve happiness for their children and face the reality of the doom that awaits their children when they are forced upon a path they do not want. People in the Korean society often say that by sacrificing their happiness all throughout grade school, they can become more satisfied and happier in the future when they gain success and security. But we are only young once for a short moment and there are things that we can only experience in this certain period.
During this period of youth, we enjoy the privilege of young love with the most intense physical and emotional passion, pursuit of selfish desires without a strong attachment to a group, wild partying and trouble-making stemming from fearlessness, and holding seemingly impossible ambitions, all at the same time. The reality is that we sacrifice all these to endless dark hours at hagwons. Why sacrifice our happiness now for the unknown future? College is supposed to be the place where we find ways to become happy, but it seems as if it has become the source of our unhappiness all throughout the twelve years of grade school. Is the name of the college really worth our fleeting youth?
-04/28/2015
The Culture of Mental Disorders (Suzie Park)
A dissociative identity disorder, more commonly known as multiple personality disorder, has always been a topic of interest for viewers at home or at the movie theater. Some of the highest grossing films such as Psycho (1960), Identity (2003), and The Lord of the Rings franchise (2001-2003), have dealt with the subject of disorders due to the fresh appeal it brings to the audiences. Although a dissociative identity disorder has been the most publicized, producers and writers have chosen from an assortment of mental health problems to be an essential aspect of their movies, such as autism, bipolar disorder, depression, eating disorder, and schizophrenia.
However, South Korea, a nation that has remained relatively wary about the depiction of mental illnesses in the media, has been recently taking a surprising new turn.
In 2014, a drama series called “It’s Okay, It’s Love,” aired in Korea that commenced the country’s open discussion of mental health on national television. The show portrayed a female psychiatrist where she encounters several different people with mental disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia. This has been one of the first shows in South Korea that openly discussed the ideas of mental disorders to its audiences. And it had started a spark.
A new Korean drama called “Jekyll, Hyde, and I” that premiered in 2015, reflects the recent trend of Korean dramas focusing on various mental disorders. In this case, the protagonist struggles from dissociative identity disorder. Around the same time, another drama aired with a protagonist who also deals with a dissociative identity order (in his case, carrying six additional personalities).
These popular shows have well-depicted the different aspects of these personality disorders and have managed to win the attention of their viewers. The reason for their popularity, being that the characters were relatable and the viewers could empathize with their situation.
However, South Korea, one of the nations in the world notorious for having the highest suicide rates, ironically cares little for citizens with mental illnesses. The country has never been too keen on discussing mental disorders in public. Studies conducted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare stated that one in six Koreans has experienced a mental illness over the past few years. However, only 15.3% of those seek professional help. In Korea, finding professional help for mental illnesses has been regarded as a taboo. There is a societal resistance to the concept of therapy and psychological treatment. According to research by the department of Family Medicine at Hallym University, around 60% of the people who attempt suicide are suffering from depression. Only a few decide to retrieve professional treatment for their conditions, nevertheless, a third of those patients stop the treatment midway.
Many people who may have psychiatric problems decide to hide their symptoms because they worry about possible penalties from society, like social exclusion and discrimination. For instance, people who have a history of received treatments for mental instabilities are stigmatized, not being allowed access to certain rights such as acquirement of licenses, certifications, registration, and occupations. Those who do receive professional help are afraid of their doctors keeping records of their psychiatric treatment which may become unfavorable to them in the future.
Hopefully, this sudden influx of interest in mental disorders in Korean media culture will be a start for the people of South Korea to eradicate the stigmas associated with mental disorders. Changing this wrong perception of psychiatric treatment would be a stepping stone to improving the lives of Korean civilians. The people of South Korea should be able to openly discuss their psychological problems and search for professional help without the fear of social discrimination.
-02/16/2015
However, South Korea, a nation that has remained relatively wary about the depiction of mental illnesses in the media, has been recently taking a surprising new turn.
In 2014, a drama series called “It’s Okay, It’s Love,” aired in Korea that commenced the country’s open discussion of mental health on national television. The show portrayed a female psychiatrist where she encounters several different people with mental disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia. This has been one of the first shows in South Korea that openly discussed the ideas of mental disorders to its audiences. And it had started a spark.
A new Korean drama called “Jekyll, Hyde, and I” that premiered in 2015, reflects the recent trend of Korean dramas focusing on various mental disorders. In this case, the protagonist struggles from dissociative identity disorder. Around the same time, another drama aired with a protagonist who also deals with a dissociative identity order (in his case, carrying six additional personalities).
These popular shows have well-depicted the different aspects of these personality disorders and have managed to win the attention of their viewers. The reason for their popularity, being that the characters were relatable and the viewers could empathize with their situation.
However, South Korea, one of the nations in the world notorious for having the highest suicide rates, ironically cares little for citizens with mental illnesses. The country has never been too keen on discussing mental disorders in public. Studies conducted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare stated that one in six Koreans has experienced a mental illness over the past few years. However, only 15.3% of those seek professional help. In Korea, finding professional help for mental illnesses has been regarded as a taboo. There is a societal resistance to the concept of therapy and psychological treatment. According to research by the department of Family Medicine at Hallym University, around 60% of the people who attempt suicide are suffering from depression. Only a few decide to retrieve professional treatment for their conditions, nevertheless, a third of those patients stop the treatment midway.
Many people who may have psychiatric problems decide to hide their symptoms because they worry about possible penalties from society, like social exclusion and discrimination. For instance, people who have a history of received treatments for mental instabilities are stigmatized, not being allowed access to certain rights such as acquirement of licenses, certifications, registration, and occupations. Those who do receive professional help are afraid of their doctors keeping records of their psychiatric treatment which may become unfavorable to them in the future.
Hopefully, this sudden influx of interest in mental disorders in Korean media culture will be a start for the people of South Korea to eradicate the stigmas associated with mental disorders. Changing this wrong perception of psychiatric treatment would be a stepping stone to improving the lives of Korean civilians. The people of South Korea should be able to openly discuss their psychological problems and search for professional help without the fear of social discrimination.
-02/16/2015
The Perks of Being an Expat (Brian Park)
Having been to North Korea, physical education teacher Daniel Clem has gotten the best of both Koreas, and by doing so, has gained a unique perspective on the Korean peninsula, something hard to imagine for anyone who was actually born in South Korea.
"The strangest thing about being in North Korea was the complete lack of commercialism and materialism and advertising,” Clem said. “The only advertisements I saw was government propaganda.”
Traveling to North Korea as a tourist, Clem only represented a small fraction of the foreigners who come to visit Korea, as most come to stay or visit in South Korea. Along with Clem, many of the teachers who currently teach at CDS can offer perspectives for how living in Korea has affected them.
Although Korea continues to remain a mostly homogenous society into the 21st century, the number of foreigners deciding to live in Korea is rising on a year-to-year basis, as stated by government reports. According to data compiled from the Korea Herald, there were 1.57 million foreign residents living in South Korea last year, accounting for 3.1% of the country’s population. By looking at the influx of nonnative people working more within Korea, we are able to get a glimpse of a new, outside perspective on Korea we previously haven’t seen before.
Regarding students, however, Meg Bhatia (12) is the only student in this year’s graduating class not from Korean descent. Born in India and having lived in Japan for five years before coming to Korea, her family moved to accommodate her father’s job.
When she first came to Korea in January of last year, she got the impression that Korean people were physically bigger than Japanese people, as well as the fact that Koreans speak better English.
“Like grocery stores and all, in Japan, literally, if you go and ask them ‘is this a tomato?’ [and] because they don’t speak English, they just giggle at you,” Bhatia said. “So when there’s a foreigner asking, they call on their walkie-talkie and then they come and giggle together.”
As she had moved nearly every year in her childhood, she was excited by coming to Korea, and enjoys eating tteokbokki and Korean BBQ.
As for science teacher Kimberly Hunter, she decided to teach overseas two years ago looking for a new experience. Out of the places she was offered a job, with opportunities in Prague, Abu Dhabi, and South Korea, she chose South Korea because she didn’t like the hot weather.
Teaching at CDS, what she found that she greatly appreciated, coming from a teaching background in the US, was the amount of respect the students have for the teachers.
“While I was in America, I had a chair thrown at me, I had stuff stolen from me, broken glass under the classroom, purse stolen, watch stolen, cash stolen” Hunter said, “I had kids who would stand up and cuss me out in class. So the respect from kids is a whole new world, and I really love that.”
Although many foreign students and teachers in CDS come from many different parts of the world, they are the ones that make Korea such an interesting place to live.
-02/16/2015
"The strangest thing about being in North Korea was the complete lack of commercialism and materialism and advertising,” Clem said. “The only advertisements I saw was government propaganda.”
Traveling to North Korea as a tourist, Clem only represented a small fraction of the foreigners who come to visit Korea, as most come to stay or visit in South Korea. Along with Clem, many of the teachers who currently teach at CDS can offer perspectives for how living in Korea has affected them.
Although Korea continues to remain a mostly homogenous society into the 21st century, the number of foreigners deciding to live in Korea is rising on a year-to-year basis, as stated by government reports. According to data compiled from the Korea Herald, there were 1.57 million foreign residents living in South Korea last year, accounting for 3.1% of the country’s population. By looking at the influx of nonnative people working more within Korea, we are able to get a glimpse of a new, outside perspective on Korea we previously haven’t seen before.
Regarding students, however, Meg Bhatia (12) is the only student in this year’s graduating class not from Korean descent. Born in India and having lived in Japan for five years before coming to Korea, her family moved to accommodate her father’s job.
When she first came to Korea in January of last year, she got the impression that Korean people were physically bigger than Japanese people, as well as the fact that Koreans speak better English.
“Like grocery stores and all, in Japan, literally, if you go and ask them ‘is this a tomato?’ [and] because they don’t speak English, they just giggle at you,” Bhatia said. “So when there’s a foreigner asking, they call on their walkie-talkie and then they come and giggle together.”
As she had moved nearly every year in her childhood, she was excited by coming to Korea, and enjoys eating tteokbokki and Korean BBQ.
As for science teacher Kimberly Hunter, she decided to teach overseas two years ago looking for a new experience. Out of the places she was offered a job, with opportunities in Prague, Abu Dhabi, and South Korea, she chose South Korea because she didn’t like the hot weather.
Teaching at CDS, what she found that she greatly appreciated, coming from a teaching background in the US, was the amount of respect the students have for the teachers.
“While I was in America, I had a chair thrown at me, I had stuff stolen from me, broken glass under the classroom, purse stolen, watch stolen, cash stolen” Hunter said, “I had kids who would stand up and cuss me out in class. So the respect from kids is a whole new world, and I really love that.”
Although many foreign students and teachers in CDS come from many different parts of the world, they are the ones that make Korea such an interesting place to live.
-02/16/2015
Is Love a Choice or a Feeling? (Mary Jane Chang)
Us hormone raging teenagers constantly broach topics such as, “dating” and “love” into our conversations, dreaming about the possibilities of finding our soulmate or true love. However, since the definition of love is often indefinite and differs by individual, we come to question ourselves: What exactly is this magical thing called love?
To begin with, people commonly distinguish love into two different categories: Platonic love and romantic love. Obviously, this article is going to focus on the latter one.
When multiple senior students at CDS were asked the question, they seemed to gear towards the idea that love is a feeling that cannot be controlled. They said that falling in love is not a choice, but rather a feeling because they have had experiences where they fell in love with someone unexpectedly or they wanted to love a person, but simply could not do so. They also mentioned that while falling in love is rather easy, falling out of love is extremely hard. So are there ways you can stop loving a person? A close friend of mine suggested an answer to the question.
He says that falling in love is uncontrollable, but falling out of love could be a choice. While you do not choose to fall in love with someone, you can stop yourself from loving someone by distancing yourself, repressing memories, or turning love into hate. It is unfortunate that there are times when you must force yourself to stop loving someone, but two people falling in love with each other at the same time is a rare occurrence that almost seems like a miracle. As sad as it is, people are bound to go through some heartaches and heartbreaks before finding the right person at the right time.
To conclude, it seems as though effort and feelings play an interactive role in initiating and maintaining love in our lives. Physical attraction and active hormones might be necessary in creating the feeling of infatuation in the primary stages of love, but in order to stay in love for a long time, two people must persistently try to understand and appreciate each other because true love is reciprocal. When one side stops trying and chooses not to love the other person, love is bound to fail.
-02/16/2015
To begin with, people commonly distinguish love into two different categories: Platonic love and romantic love. Obviously, this article is going to focus on the latter one.
When multiple senior students at CDS were asked the question, they seemed to gear towards the idea that love is a feeling that cannot be controlled. They said that falling in love is not a choice, but rather a feeling because they have had experiences where they fell in love with someone unexpectedly or they wanted to love a person, but simply could not do so. They also mentioned that while falling in love is rather easy, falling out of love is extremely hard. So are there ways you can stop loving a person? A close friend of mine suggested an answer to the question.
He says that falling in love is uncontrollable, but falling out of love could be a choice. While you do not choose to fall in love with someone, you can stop yourself from loving someone by distancing yourself, repressing memories, or turning love into hate. It is unfortunate that there are times when you must force yourself to stop loving someone, but two people falling in love with each other at the same time is a rare occurrence that almost seems like a miracle. As sad as it is, people are bound to go through some heartaches and heartbreaks before finding the right person at the right time.
To conclude, it seems as though effort and feelings play an interactive role in initiating and maintaining love in our lives. Physical attraction and active hormones might be necessary in creating the feeling of infatuation in the primary stages of love, but in order to stay in love for a long time, two people must persistently try to understand and appreciate each other because true love is reciprocal. When one side stops trying and chooses not to love the other person, love is bound to fail.
-02/16/2015
A Dying Trend In The Webtoon Industry (Suzie Park)
A man dreamed of becoming a professional go player ever since he was a child. However, as he failed to accomplish his dream, he was thrown into the real world to take a regular office job in the corporate world of South Korea.
This is how the story of the popular Ko-rean drama series, Incomplete Life, goes. The show, directed by Kim Won Suk, also goes by its original Korean title “Misaeng.” The television series is based upon a well-known South Korean webtoon series written and illustrated by Yoon Tae-ho. The adaptation of digital comics into television shows and movies has been a recently growing trend in South Korea.
For a few years, Korea’s digital comics, more commonly known as webtoons, have been gaining phenomenal attention from the public. Naver and Daum, Korea’s top two search engines, provide a webtoon platform for both online and mobile, in order to satisfy the needs of over 10 million citizens that demand to read at least one webtoon each day. Due to this expanding desire for more diverse comics to select from, private websites have been growing as well to satisfy the public’s demand. A recent example would be the industry of Lezhin comics, a private website company that has been gaining increasing revenue from their viewers.
The largest archive for webtoons sponsored by Naver has over 520 webtoons published since 2004. According to KT Economy Research Institute, South Korea’s webtoon market in 2012 had an average of 6.2 million readers per day with total revenue of around $96 million. The researchers predict this total to increase substantially in the near future since webtoons have been gaining new revenues in forms of partnerships with movies, dramas, advertisements, and online games. The data presented by the KT institute predicts that by 2015, the webtoon industry will be worth around $195 million.
Due to its immense popularity, South Korean publishers have been trying to globalize Korea’s webtoon market by providing translations and partnering with North American comic book markets to publish some of South Korea’s webtoons. However, despite a clear boost in online reader-ship, the lives of many Korean cartoonists have not improved. Korea’s industry of published comic books has been steadily declining since 2006, causing many cartoonists to cease publications in the form of books but to serialize their stories on the Internet. Nevertheless, a majority of independent cartoonists who are publishing their work online still have difficulties earning a living. The main problem is that Koreans enjoy reading their daily webtoons online, so long as it costs them no money.
The modern community thrives on the misconception that comic books can be downloaded online. With growing illegal databases for books and cartoons, many publishers and cartoonists have been suffering substantially. The advancement of technology has heightened the popularity of webtoons but will also be the cause for its ruin in the future.
-12/01/2014
This is how the story of the popular Ko-rean drama series, Incomplete Life, goes. The show, directed by Kim Won Suk, also goes by its original Korean title “Misaeng.” The television series is based upon a well-known South Korean webtoon series written and illustrated by Yoon Tae-ho. The adaptation of digital comics into television shows and movies has been a recently growing trend in South Korea.
For a few years, Korea’s digital comics, more commonly known as webtoons, have been gaining phenomenal attention from the public. Naver and Daum, Korea’s top two search engines, provide a webtoon platform for both online and mobile, in order to satisfy the needs of over 10 million citizens that demand to read at least one webtoon each day. Due to this expanding desire for more diverse comics to select from, private websites have been growing as well to satisfy the public’s demand. A recent example would be the industry of Lezhin comics, a private website company that has been gaining increasing revenue from their viewers.
The largest archive for webtoons sponsored by Naver has over 520 webtoons published since 2004. According to KT Economy Research Institute, South Korea’s webtoon market in 2012 had an average of 6.2 million readers per day with total revenue of around $96 million. The researchers predict this total to increase substantially in the near future since webtoons have been gaining new revenues in forms of partnerships with movies, dramas, advertisements, and online games. The data presented by the KT institute predicts that by 2015, the webtoon industry will be worth around $195 million.
Due to its immense popularity, South Korean publishers have been trying to globalize Korea’s webtoon market by providing translations and partnering with North American comic book markets to publish some of South Korea’s webtoons. However, despite a clear boost in online reader-ship, the lives of many Korean cartoonists have not improved. Korea’s industry of published comic books has been steadily declining since 2006, causing many cartoonists to cease publications in the form of books but to serialize their stories on the Internet. Nevertheless, a majority of independent cartoonists who are publishing their work online still have difficulties earning a living. The main problem is that Koreans enjoy reading their daily webtoons online, so long as it costs them no money.
The modern community thrives on the misconception that comic books can be downloaded online. With growing illegal databases for books and cartoons, many publishers and cartoonists have been suffering substantially. The advancement of technology has heightened the popularity of webtoons but will also be the cause for its ruin in the future.
-12/01/2014
2014 Asian Para Games Remains A Part Of CDS History (Brian Park)
I had no idea what to expect coming into Incheon Asian Main Stadium my first day of volunteering. Coming on a Saturday, I had cancelled all my planned activities that day, actually that week, for that matter, including school. After I had arrived on a bus, I walked around the stadium, trying to find my way in, and eventually met up with my friends. And good thing I did not have any expectations, because I would have been severely disappointed.
All day long, I sat in a waiting room with other volunteers doing just that—waiting. People were sleeping or on their phones waiting to do something, anything, instead of just uselessly wasting time. My only job that day was to deliver a box of Gatorade to some officials—which was definitely not the job I signed up for.
I had volunteered, along with most students at CDS, to work at the 2014 Asian Para Games, which opened on October 17 and ended on October 26. This unique high school experience provided valuable memories and will remain a lasting part of both the athletes and the volunteers.
From CDS, more than half of the available students applied to volunteer, with 82 students serving as volunteers out of 197 high school students. In actuality, however, only 155 students who are current sophomores, juniors, and seniors could volunteer as the application process started the previous year. As one of those volunteers for this global sporting event, I was honored that students from CDS were given this incredible opportunity to give their time for an event on a massive scale. And even though I was disappointed on the first day, that was a complete misrepresentation of what I experienced afterwards.
The very next day, I was assigned a role to do some translating for the long jump event, despite the fact I had never done it before. After hearing from fellow volunteers about how difficult it was to translate on the field, I was a bit nervous, but that fear subsided as the athletes and officials were friendly and cooperative —at least those I worked with.
Although many of the athletes did not have a complete understanding of English, I was still able to communicate to them through basic phrases and ges-tures.
By doing this, I was able to make new friends with the officials and volunteers, as well as gain a sense of appreciation and motivation by seeing these athletes with disabilities competing at such a high level despite all odds. As this experience provided memorable experiences for students, CDS should strive to provide more volunteer opportunities outside of school so that students will have a well-rounded high school experience. To create better awareness for these volunteering opportunities, CDS should announce events or create a service bulletin board so that students who are looking to volunteer will not miss out by not knowing. By informing the entire student body effec-tively, more students who wish to volunteer will have greater chances in volunteering in what they enjoy.
Hopefully, by looking at the incredible turnout for the Asian Para Games, CDS will further realize the importance of volunteering and will be able to provide more opportunities to volunteer to current CDS students—and the students to come in the future.
-12/01/2014
All day long, I sat in a waiting room with other volunteers doing just that—waiting. People were sleeping or on their phones waiting to do something, anything, instead of just uselessly wasting time. My only job that day was to deliver a box of Gatorade to some officials—which was definitely not the job I signed up for.
I had volunteered, along with most students at CDS, to work at the 2014 Asian Para Games, which opened on October 17 and ended on October 26. This unique high school experience provided valuable memories and will remain a lasting part of both the athletes and the volunteers.
From CDS, more than half of the available students applied to volunteer, with 82 students serving as volunteers out of 197 high school students. In actuality, however, only 155 students who are current sophomores, juniors, and seniors could volunteer as the application process started the previous year. As one of those volunteers for this global sporting event, I was honored that students from CDS were given this incredible opportunity to give their time for an event on a massive scale. And even though I was disappointed on the first day, that was a complete misrepresentation of what I experienced afterwards.
The very next day, I was assigned a role to do some translating for the long jump event, despite the fact I had never done it before. After hearing from fellow volunteers about how difficult it was to translate on the field, I was a bit nervous, but that fear subsided as the athletes and officials were friendly and cooperative —at least those I worked with.
Although many of the athletes did not have a complete understanding of English, I was still able to communicate to them through basic phrases and ges-tures.
By doing this, I was able to make new friends with the officials and volunteers, as well as gain a sense of appreciation and motivation by seeing these athletes with disabilities competing at such a high level despite all odds. As this experience provided memorable experiences for students, CDS should strive to provide more volunteer opportunities outside of school so that students will have a well-rounded high school experience. To create better awareness for these volunteering opportunities, CDS should announce events or create a service bulletin board so that students who are looking to volunteer will not miss out by not knowing. By informing the entire student body effec-tively, more students who wish to volunteer will have greater chances in volunteering in what they enjoy.
Hopefully, by looking at the incredible turnout for the Asian Para Games, CDS will further realize the importance of volunteering and will be able to provide more opportunities to volunteer to current CDS students—and the students to come in the future.
-12/01/2014
Why Your Life will Never be like a Korean Drama (Mary Jane Chang)
Korean television shows have the magic of making impossible fairy tale lives seem possible. Unlike Hollywood films where the audience can clearly differentiate the fiction from the reality, Korean TV shows let us dream about experiencing that Cinderella moment, when a plain-looking girl who lives an ordinary life meets an arrogant, but handsome, man who saves her from poverty and provides endless care and service (from an expensive hair salon).
Korean TV shows throws in subtle lies here and there to slowly brainwash the viewers into believing that the imaginary world the characters live in is indeed possible. It is easy to believe in their deception because we believe what we hear in the fictional world and apply it to our perception of the characters. The most obvious manipulation comes from the visual effects. Shows create the degree of the characters’ visual attraction through indirect characterization. Characters in the Korean TV shows tend to describe the main actress or the minor male character as “ugly,” but are they really ugly?
We all have to realize that the seemingly “ugly” characters in TV shows are not ugly at all. The most ordinary and supposedly “plain-looking” character in a TV show is an actor or an actress in real life, who, in comparison to a typical human being, is fairly attractive.
Take the actor Kwang-Soo Lee who acted as Soo-Kwang in the recently popular drama “It’s Okay, That’s Love” for instance. Compared to In-Sung Cho, can a majority of people confidently agree that Soo-Kwang is visually attractive? Probably not. So was it the character’s personality that did the trick to make countless fan girls squeal at his kiss scene? It probably did much of the work, but we cannot say that his visual appearance did not contribute to the magic. Lee used to work as a model. He is 190cm tall. If you are one of the girls who propose that height is not a factor that attracts you, let me explain it from the evolutionary point of view. Tall men are bound to attract women because tallness is a superiority that increases the chance of survival. (Apparently, taller men can punch other men from above, thereby giving them an advantage in surviving and attaining a higher position in the social hierarchy.) Apart from his height, the fact that he used to work as a model means that he should have a moderate face that would look good on camera. Hence, from both a scientific and statistical perspective, Soo-Kwang not only possesses an attractive personality, but also some appealing physical attributes that so many “ugly” characters also share on TV.
Thus, visual appeal is a given for all “pretty” and “ugly” characters we see on TV shows. With that visual ease to our eyes, it is easier to draw an emotional, romantic connection to these “normal” characters. Because, let’s be true to ourselves. Why would we relate to visually displeasing characters when we are already not perfectly satisfied with our physical appearance? It is in our nature to relate ourselves to superior beings so that we feel better about ourselves. When we say we love the inner nature and personalities of these “normal” characters on TV shows, the truth is that these supposedly “ugly” characters have relatively attractive physical features or at least bearable appearances in real life. So when we cling onto these characters as the role models of our lives, we are bound to be sorely disappointed in reality.
-09/26/2014
Korean TV shows throws in subtle lies here and there to slowly brainwash the viewers into believing that the imaginary world the characters live in is indeed possible. It is easy to believe in their deception because we believe what we hear in the fictional world and apply it to our perception of the characters. The most obvious manipulation comes from the visual effects. Shows create the degree of the characters’ visual attraction through indirect characterization. Characters in the Korean TV shows tend to describe the main actress or the minor male character as “ugly,” but are they really ugly?
We all have to realize that the seemingly “ugly” characters in TV shows are not ugly at all. The most ordinary and supposedly “plain-looking” character in a TV show is an actor or an actress in real life, who, in comparison to a typical human being, is fairly attractive.
Take the actor Kwang-Soo Lee who acted as Soo-Kwang in the recently popular drama “It’s Okay, That’s Love” for instance. Compared to In-Sung Cho, can a majority of people confidently agree that Soo-Kwang is visually attractive? Probably not. So was it the character’s personality that did the trick to make countless fan girls squeal at his kiss scene? It probably did much of the work, but we cannot say that his visual appearance did not contribute to the magic. Lee used to work as a model. He is 190cm tall. If you are one of the girls who propose that height is not a factor that attracts you, let me explain it from the evolutionary point of view. Tall men are bound to attract women because tallness is a superiority that increases the chance of survival. (Apparently, taller men can punch other men from above, thereby giving them an advantage in surviving and attaining a higher position in the social hierarchy.) Apart from his height, the fact that he used to work as a model means that he should have a moderate face that would look good on camera. Hence, from both a scientific and statistical perspective, Soo-Kwang not only possesses an attractive personality, but also some appealing physical attributes that so many “ugly” characters also share on TV.
Thus, visual appeal is a given for all “pretty” and “ugly” characters we see on TV shows. With that visual ease to our eyes, it is easier to draw an emotional, romantic connection to these “normal” characters. Because, let’s be true to ourselves. Why would we relate to visually displeasing characters when we are already not perfectly satisfied with our physical appearance? It is in our nature to relate ourselves to superior beings so that we feel better about ourselves. When we say we love the inner nature and personalities of these “normal” characters on TV shows, the truth is that these supposedly “ugly” characters have relatively attractive physical features or at least bearable appearances in real life. So when we cling onto these characters as the role models of our lives, we are bound to be sorely disappointed in reality.
-09/26/2014
Before We Drop The Buckets (Suzie Park)
A man on the screen dumps a large bucket filled with ice water onto his head. Then he proceeds to loudly shout words onto the video screen, starting with the phrase that has been popularly used throughout the summer of 2014, “I nominate…”
Unless a person has been living under a rock for the past few months, he or she would be familiar with the recent pop culture phenomenon, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. One drains a bucket full of ice water onto his head then nominates other participants to do the same within 24 hours of notice. By partaking in this activity, people would be able to raise awareness of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The challenge has gone viral on social networking sites ever since it began to gain popularity in June, 2014. It first received its media attention in the United States as celebrities began to contribute. World billionaires, like Microsoft founder Bill Gates, dumped a bucket of water of their heads. Celebrities made headline news: Matt Damon practically dunked his head in nice, cold, toilet water.
This idea, that by voluntarily plunging a gallon of water onto oneself one is able to raise awareness as well as encourage others to donate money to ALS research, has been scrutinized by many humanitarians and skeptics around the globe. To a certain extent, this challenge has been proven a success.
The ALS Association had announced by the end of August that they had already raised $100 million dollars from donations. Results show that it is a 3,500% increase from the $2.8 million dollars it earned last year. However, the data disclosed also portrays a pattern of decreasing daily donations. The Ice Bucket challenge reached its peak at over $100 on August 21st, but has been dropping ever since. Reason being, the challenge has many flaws in the long run.
To begin with, the Ice Bucket Challenge has been continuously spiraling out of control to the point where the original objective of the plan has now become obscure. Thousands of people who state that they have made a contribution performed the challenge without donating any money at all. Many videos flooding Facebook wall posts or Twitter re-tweets have been focused on entertaining rather than serving a practical purpose.
A myriad of these Ice Bucket Challenge participants can be critically labeled as “Slackivists.” The term is used to define people who are in support of an issue or social cause to feel content by convincing themselves they have participated, when in reality they have barely made any constructive contributions.
The dare that was meant to raise awareness for Lou Gehrig’s disease has also been decimating water supplies. For instance, in Colonsay Island, Scotland, the nation’s supply of clean water has decreased substantially due to more than 100 of its residents plunging ice over their heads. Additionally, in California, a place that is experiencing an ongoing drought, the challenge has also caused detrimental effects to the environment due to water shortage. The Ice Bucket Challenge is an insult to parts of the world that have a severe scarcity in water supply.
In other words, it can be perceived that the campaign has been teaching people around the world to waste clean water in order to avoid donating to charity. People should contemplate more seriously about the motive and effect of their actions before dumping the bucket over their heads.
-09/26/2014
Unless a person has been living under a rock for the past few months, he or she would be familiar with the recent pop culture phenomenon, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. One drains a bucket full of ice water onto his head then nominates other participants to do the same within 24 hours of notice. By partaking in this activity, people would be able to raise awareness of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The challenge has gone viral on social networking sites ever since it began to gain popularity in June, 2014. It first received its media attention in the United States as celebrities began to contribute. World billionaires, like Microsoft founder Bill Gates, dumped a bucket of water of their heads. Celebrities made headline news: Matt Damon practically dunked his head in nice, cold, toilet water.
This idea, that by voluntarily plunging a gallon of water onto oneself one is able to raise awareness as well as encourage others to donate money to ALS research, has been scrutinized by many humanitarians and skeptics around the globe. To a certain extent, this challenge has been proven a success.
The ALS Association had announced by the end of August that they had already raised $100 million dollars from donations. Results show that it is a 3,500% increase from the $2.8 million dollars it earned last year. However, the data disclosed also portrays a pattern of decreasing daily donations. The Ice Bucket challenge reached its peak at over $100 on August 21st, but has been dropping ever since. Reason being, the challenge has many flaws in the long run.
To begin with, the Ice Bucket Challenge has been continuously spiraling out of control to the point where the original objective of the plan has now become obscure. Thousands of people who state that they have made a contribution performed the challenge without donating any money at all. Many videos flooding Facebook wall posts or Twitter re-tweets have been focused on entertaining rather than serving a practical purpose.
A myriad of these Ice Bucket Challenge participants can be critically labeled as “Slackivists.” The term is used to define people who are in support of an issue or social cause to feel content by convincing themselves they have participated, when in reality they have barely made any constructive contributions.
The dare that was meant to raise awareness for Lou Gehrig’s disease has also been decimating water supplies. For instance, in Colonsay Island, Scotland, the nation’s supply of clean water has decreased substantially due to more than 100 of its residents plunging ice over their heads. Additionally, in California, a place that is experiencing an ongoing drought, the challenge has also caused detrimental effects to the environment due to water shortage. The Ice Bucket Challenge is an insult to parts of the world that have a severe scarcity in water supply.
In other words, it can be perceived that the campaign has been teaching people around the world to waste clean water in order to avoid donating to charity. People should contemplate more seriously about the motive and effect of their actions before dumping the bucket over their heads.
-09/26/2014
Holes of the Deep (Dae Jung Kim)
During the past few years, sinkholes have been popping out here and there in South Korea. To list a few occasions, on the 5th of August, 2014, a 2.5 m wide, 5m deep sinkhole, 1km away from the construction site of the new Lotte World site revealed itself. Previously, on July 29th of 2014, another sinkhole, 14 times bigger compared to the one described above, was formulated as well.
Until now, 53 sinkholes have unveiled themselves from the dark, mystifying depths below and 43 of them are due to a leakage of water. According to the eyes of many, they have close ties to the conduct of new construction. Continuing this operation isn’t a good idea. Even though we may not be able to shut down the whole process, the problems with sinkholes are going to continue. If we do not cut them off, they will cut us off.
Currently, these sinkholes have emerged in places where many people trespass. Fortunately, there haven’t been any injuries. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that people’s lives are continuously threatened by the frequency of these incidents. Sink holes will eventually take a life.
Take for instance, the 30th of February, 2013, when a man in the United States, Florida, died due to a sinkhole opening up at his home. Although the cause may be different, we do not want these types of calamities occurring in our nation. People must be warned that sinkholes are not a light concept but are serious problems that must be taken seriously.
-09/26/2014
Until now, 53 sinkholes have unveiled themselves from the dark, mystifying depths below and 43 of them are due to a leakage of water. According to the eyes of many, they have close ties to the conduct of new construction. Continuing this operation isn’t a good idea. Even though we may not be able to shut down the whole process, the problems with sinkholes are going to continue. If we do not cut them off, they will cut us off.
Currently, these sinkholes have emerged in places where many people trespass. Fortunately, there haven’t been any injuries. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that people’s lives are continuously threatened by the frequency of these incidents. Sink holes will eventually take a life.
Take for instance, the 30th of February, 2013, when a man in the United States, Florida, died due to a sinkhole opening up at his home. Although the cause may be different, we do not want these types of calamities occurring in our nation. People must be warned that sinkholes are not a light concept but are serious problems that must be taken seriously.
-09/26/2014
Society’s Remarkable Advancement (Suzie Park)
As time goes by and as society further advances, our lives are improving with new contraptions and technological innovations. However, in a sense, as we move forward in technology, we humans are moving backwards, degrading ourselves into empty shells that are only luxurious on the outside when in the inside we are lacking the necessary qualities that make us human.
In the modern, global world with improved healthcare and improved technology, humans have multiplied in population. In South Korea alone, we hold a nation of 50 million people. We are surrounded by so many people but most of them remain as strangers to us anyway. I believe if there is an afterlife, we will continue to only converse with people we already knew in our previous lives on Earth. And even if the theory of past lives is true, our souls will be reincarnated into the same senseless, ignorant people we were while living. So nothing will change. Humans don’t develop any further, if anything we degrade back, and much of this is due to the growing dependence on technology. We trust technology to take care of most of our tasks and when technology is not available, we are left powerless.
Technology has also accomplished making humans take everything for granted. Perhaps as technology prolonged our lifespan and expanded the population by millions we have lost sight of certain matters such as the importance of a life. We now live in a world where the death of one person is portrayed as insignificant by society. The deaths of one or two people barely merit the attention of society; the event needs to result in a complete massacre of people or at least include an ‘interesting’ method or reason for death in order for it to be seen as worthy by the world.
In this so-called globalized world, relationships and interactions continuously grow more impersonal. We read news articles or watch videos about the latest updates around the world but unless the event is happening right before our eyes, it is extremely difficult for it to directly affect us and our emotions. In social networking websites, like Facebook or Twitter, we carelessly type a sentence or two expressing our regrets and sorrows for disasters. But our actions of compassion go only as far as clicking the “like” button on our screens. Even disasters that happen in our own community receive the same reaction. For instance, South Korea has recently suffered through a major disaster called the Sewol Incident where a huge ship was overturned and more than 200 people have been presumed dead. Although there have been funeral services and charity campaigns held for the deceased and their families, the news will soon lay forgotten as numerous other accidents in the past have been forgotten by society like the collapse of the San-poong Department Store.
As we ignore events that happen right in our own country we still carry around this misconception that we should care about world events. We try to act as if we live in a truly globalized world but we remain insensitive of what truly goes around the world. All types of poverty and devastation occurring around the world are commonly ignored since they are happening one the other side of the globe. But we still live under the pretense that our society actually cares about what happens around the world. As we see something on television or read an article about in on the internet, it lingers in our mind for only about five minutes before our minds wander off into a whole new topic.
This is not only because humans have grown increasingly more self-involved and grown more ignorant and insensitive over world matters. No, it is also because technology has cut off personal relationships and rapidly reduced a person’s capacity to interact sincerely with other beings. Technology has improved so much to the level that interactions between humans and relationships have been cut. Social networking sources that have been created to sprout more relationships have caused an exact opposite reaction from its original motive. Years ago people would meet outside of their homes, hold conversations face-to-face. Even after the phones were invented people would choose to listen to each other’s voices in a conversation. Yet now, there are hundreds of people in South Korea alone that feel awkward about holding a conversation over a phone, having been so accustomed to texts and online messages. We now live in such an impersonal world where the faces of our family, friends, and acquaintances have been replaced by emoticons and our mouths have been substituted by our keyboard screen.
Society continues to ‘advance’ forward. But how far will society really move on if the people living inside it no longer develop in ways that matter. How ignorant will our society grow in the future?
-06/06/2014 (Volume III Issue V)
In the modern, global world with improved healthcare and improved technology, humans have multiplied in population. In South Korea alone, we hold a nation of 50 million people. We are surrounded by so many people but most of them remain as strangers to us anyway. I believe if there is an afterlife, we will continue to only converse with people we already knew in our previous lives on Earth. And even if the theory of past lives is true, our souls will be reincarnated into the same senseless, ignorant people we were while living. So nothing will change. Humans don’t develop any further, if anything we degrade back, and much of this is due to the growing dependence on technology. We trust technology to take care of most of our tasks and when technology is not available, we are left powerless.
Technology has also accomplished making humans take everything for granted. Perhaps as technology prolonged our lifespan and expanded the population by millions we have lost sight of certain matters such as the importance of a life. We now live in a world where the death of one person is portrayed as insignificant by society. The deaths of one or two people barely merit the attention of society; the event needs to result in a complete massacre of people or at least include an ‘interesting’ method or reason for death in order for it to be seen as worthy by the world.
In this so-called globalized world, relationships and interactions continuously grow more impersonal. We read news articles or watch videos about the latest updates around the world but unless the event is happening right before our eyes, it is extremely difficult for it to directly affect us and our emotions. In social networking websites, like Facebook or Twitter, we carelessly type a sentence or two expressing our regrets and sorrows for disasters. But our actions of compassion go only as far as clicking the “like” button on our screens. Even disasters that happen in our own community receive the same reaction. For instance, South Korea has recently suffered through a major disaster called the Sewol Incident where a huge ship was overturned and more than 200 people have been presumed dead. Although there have been funeral services and charity campaigns held for the deceased and their families, the news will soon lay forgotten as numerous other accidents in the past have been forgotten by society like the collapse of the San-poong Department Store.
As we ignore events that happen right in our own country we still carry around this misconception that we should care about world events. We try to act as if we live in a truly globalized world but we remain insensitive of what truly goes around the world. All types of poverty and devastation occurring around the world are commonly ignored since they are happening one the other side of the globe. But we still live under the pretense that our society actually cares about what happens around the world. As we see something on television or read an article about in on the internet, it lingers in our mind for only about five minutes before our minds wander off into a whole new topic.
This is not only because humans have grown increasingly more self-involved and grown more ignorant and insensitive over world matters. No, it is also because technology has cut off personal relationships and rapidly reduced a person’s capacity to interact sincerely with other beings. Technology has improved so much to the level that interactions between humans and relationships have been cut. Social networking sources that have been created to sprout more relationships have caused an exact opposite reaction from its original motive. Years ago people would meet outside of their homes, hold conversations face-to-face. Even after the phones were invented people would choose to listen to each other’s voices in a conversation. Yet now, there are hundreds of people in South Korea alone that feel awkward about holding a conversation over a phone, having been so accustomed to texts and online messages. We now live in such an impersonal world where the faces of our family, friends, and acquaintances have been replaced by emoticons and our mouths have been substituted by our keyboard screen.
Society continues to ‘advance’ forward. But how far will society really move on if the people living inside it no longer develop in ways that matter. How ignorant will our society grow in the future?
-06/06/2014 (Volume III Issue V)
Deprived of Sleep, Deprived of Life (Suzie Park)
Sleep, is one of the most important factors our body needs in order to sustain itself. It is a pleasure that we can pamper ourselves with enjoying every day. In fact, the National Sleep Foundation – an organization devoted to simply “improve health and well-being through sleep education and advocacy” informs us that as teenagers to adults, we need an average of around 7 to 9 hours a day. Some of us may sleep more than the acquired amount but wanting more sleep should never be looked upon as a sin.
However, as students living in 21st century South Korea, a lot of us are deprived of this simple privilege. One may find this silly since sleep can be achieved by one’s own choice (insomnia and other illnesses laid aside). Yet, in a nation that places a great emphasis on education, it becomes nearly impossible for average adolescents to snooze peacefully by ten o’clock at night if they don’t wish to laze behind in the competition against millions of other students who are studying to enter into the top prestigious schools that the entire population of South Korea is looking at. Studies show that juniors and seniors of Korea have an average night’s sleep of 4 to 5 hours, which is much less than Japan, another nation that places great emphasis on education.
South Korea may have been praise for its studious and disciplined method of education. Yet, behind its glorious mask it hides the hideous truth that it is the nation with the third highest suicide rate among the OECD counties. Not all of it can be directly linked to the oppressed lives of South Korean students, but the deprivation of sleep can definitely be linked with the reasons for youth suicides. Short sleep deprivation comes all sorts of medical problems such as drowsiness, heart problems, and depression. It is a serious health hazard to pile up on one’s sleep debt.
Despite all this, in order to survive through Korea’s fierce competition, students study day and night to acquire the high scores in standardized tests. At school, they cry themselves awake in order to drive in pointless information into their heads, useless facts they need memorized before a final exam that will apparently decide on whether or not one’s destined for failure or for success. Currently I am working to write about the importance of sleep at 1 am in the morning (how ironic), attempting to squeeze out the last ounce of creativity that I have left, which has survived the incessant educational system of South Korea. The system that drives to squeeze out what is left of children’s uniqueness in order to transform them into mindless drones; they are prepared to matriculate into prestigious universities without carrying any real dreams of their own or die trying.
What does this show us about our society? Is it a pattern that we should be proud of? Is it a cycle which we want to pass down onto the next generation?
Sleep will act as our first sacrifice. And the final sacrifice will be our lives.
-04/08/2014 (Volume III Issue IV)
However, as students living in 21st century South Korea, a lot of us are deprived of this simple privilege. One may find this silly since sleep can be achieved by one’s own choice (insomnia and other illnesses laid aside). Yet, in a nation that places a great emphasis on education, it becomes nearly impossible for average adolescents to snooze peacefully by ten o’clock at night if they don’t wish to laze behind in the competition against millions of other students who are studying to enter into the top prestigious schools that the entire population of South Korea is looking at. Studies show that juniors and seniors of Korea have an average night’s sleep of 4 to 5 hours, which is much less than Japan, another nation that places great emphasis on education.
South Korea may have been praise for its studious and disciplined method of education. Yet, behind its glorious mask it hides the hideous truth that it is the nation with the third highest suicide rate among the OECD counties. Not all of it can be directly linked to the oppressed lives of South Korean students, but the deprivation of sleep can definitely be linked with the reasons for youth suicides. Short sleep deprivation comes all sorts of medical problems such as drowsiness, heart problems, and depression. It is a serious health hazard to pile up on one’s sleep debt.
Despite all this, in order to survive through Korea’s fierce competition, students study day and night to acquire the high scores in standardized tests. At school, they cry themselves awake in order to drive in pointless information into their heads, useless facts they need memorized before a final exam that will apparently decide on whether or not one’s destined for failure or for success. Currently I am working to write about the importance of sleep at 1 am in the morning (how ironic), attempting to squeeze out the last ounce of creativity that I have left, which has survived the incessant educational system of South Korea. The system that drives to squeeze out what is left of children’s uniqueness in order to transform them into mindless drones; they are prepared to matriculate into prestigious universities without carrying any real dreams of their own or die trying.
What does this show us about our society? Is it a pattern that we should be proud of? Is it a cycle which we want to pass down onto the next generation?
Sleep will act as our first sacrifice. And the final sacrifice will be our lives.
-04/08/2014 (Volume III Issue IV)
No Sense, No Life (Sooji Seo)
When it comes to spring, we see flowers blooming. All of a sudden after a long period of winter, everything seems so lively, hopeful, and green. However, spring is very short and summer comes too quickly, rushing to take away the peaceful moment. The hot, sweaty weather makes people lazy, sensitive, irritable and stressed out. Everyone in his or her own life have stressful moments and we figure stress can ruin people’s health both mentally and physically. It is necessary to figure out our own ways to relive stress and take care of ourselves. According to a researcher at Duke University, one’s personality will determine how well a person is able to take care of themselves. For instance, people who are sensible and conscientious are much less likely to develop health problems than those who are not. Being sensible is important not only in social relationships but for our own health as well.
There is a story of one sensible man. The story is about when Gandhi was studying law at the University of London. In the University, there was a Professor Peters who absolutely despised Gandhi. This was because they often had arguments and Gandhi never lowered his head towards Mr. Peters.
One day, Mr. Peters was eating his lunch and Gandhi set next to him with his tray. The professor in a condescending and arrogant tone said, “Mr. Gandhi, you do not understand! A pig and a bird do not sit together to eat!”
Gandhi replied, “You do not worry professor, I’ll fly away,” and he found another table.
The professor raged and decided to take revenge by creating a challenging test. However, Gandhi received a perfect score. When Gandhi came to receive his test paper, Mr. Peters asked him, “Mr. Gandhi, if you are walking down the street and find two bags, would you take the bag with money or the other bag with wisdom?
Without hesitating, Gandhi responded, "The one with the money, of course." Mr. Peters smiled and said, "I, in your place, would have taken the wisdom, don't you think?" "Each one takes what one doesn't have," responded Gandhi indifferently. Mr. Peters, already hysteric, wrote on the exam sheet the word "idiot" and gave it to Gandhi. Gandhi took the exam sheet and sat down. A few minutes later, Gandhi went to the professor.
Guess what he said?
He said, "Mr. Peters, you signed the sheet, but you did not give me the grade!"
Gandhi had a very sensible and practical way of protecting himself from the constant discouragements of Mr. Peters. A little humor and a few witty comments can go a long way since they allow us to escape the stressful moments of our lives. Although we have obstacles and challenges we must face in our lives, we can lesson the hardship when we discover things we can find enjoyment in. Be positive, be sensible, and be healthy!
-04/08/2014 (Volume III Issue IV)
There is a story of one sensible man. The story is about when Gandhi was studying law at the University of London. In the University, there was a Professor Peters who absolutely despised Gandhi. This was because they often had arguments and Gandhi never lowered his head towards Mr. Peters.
One day, Mr. Peters was eating his lunch and Gandhi set next to him with his tray. The professor in a condescending and arrogant tone said, “Mr. Gandhi, you do not understand! A pig and a bird do not sit together to eat!”
Gandhi replied, “You do not worry professor, I’ll fly away,” and he found another table.
The professor raged and decided to take revenge by creating a challenging test. However, Gandhi received a perfect score. When Gandhi came to receive his test paper, Mr. Peters asked him, “Mr. Gandhi, if you are walking down the street and find two bags, would you take the bag with money or the other bag with wisdom?
Without hesitating, Gandhi responded, "The one with the money, of course." Mr. Peters smiled and said, "I, in your place, would have taken the wisdom, don't you think?" "Each one takes what one doesn't have," responded Gandhi indifferently. Mr. Peters, already hysteric, wrote on the exam sheet the word "idiot" and gave it to Gandhi. Gandhi took the exam sheet and sat down. A few minutes later, Gandhi went to the professor.
Guess what he said?
He said, "Mr. Peters, you signed the sheet, but you did not give me the grade!"
Gandhi had a very sensible and practical way of protecting himself from the constant discouragements of Mr. Peters. A little humor and a few witty comments can go a long way since they allow us to escape the stressful moments of our lives. Although we have obstacles and challenges we must face in our lives, we can lesson the hardship when we discover things we can find enjoyment in. Be positive, be sensible, and be healthy!
-04/08/2014 (Volume III Issue IV)
Love Makes You Fat (Mary Jane Chang)
“Where there is love, there is life,” said Gandhi, emphasizing the significance of love in our lives. In fact, Gandhi is not the only one who stresses the charms of love. The media constantly indulges the public with ridiculous comments like, “Love makes people become more attractive,” or “The same hormones are produced when you eat chocolate as when you are in love,” deluding people into believing that love is the most enlightening experience you could ever receive. Little are they aware of the fact that not only does love fatten the size of their hearts, but it also fattens the size of their waists.
Have you ever wondered why America has one of the highest obesity rates? The rather discreet connection between overeating and relationships explains it all. The most common idea of an ideal date involves eating together since there is nothing more versatile than food, which comes in an infinite range of kinds and prices, with a bonus of additional activities. As one of the few mandatory acts that are pleasures bestowed in our lives, eating is a significant part of relationships when it is done together, as sharing food can be on equal terms as sharing joy. But the next time you share food with your lover, think again. When eating on a date, people tend to overeat because they extend their normal mealtime by spending quality time with their lovers. Along with the slow consumption, digestion would follows, so the cycle of eating is everlasting. While this eternal bliss continues crying out for more, the human body says otherwise. As our bodies scream in pain from the excruciating weight of the added fat, subsequent dishes arrive at the table, this time double the sizes. A couple sized French fries during a lovely conversation leads to mindless eating, and in a matter of few minutes, all there is left are some salty crumbles. Maybe sharing is not caring after all.
People not only share their plates but also often share a list of favorite foods, which frequently includes pizza, chicken, chocolate, ice cream, French fries, and so on. It is just highly unfortunate that the most appetizing foods contain the highest amounts of calories, which makes staying fit extremely challenging for couples. When people are in relationships, it is not an exaggeration to say that they spend half their dates eating, so mealtime becomes the highlight of their days. Once mealtime becomes a more significant part of the day, no matter how light and casual the relationship is, the food will always be heavy and burdensome since more effort and calories are dumped into a lover’s meals. According to a study published by the journal Obesity in 2009, couples in relationships gain an average of seven kilos over the course of five years, and by living together, they gain an extra two. As lovers devour bags of oil-glazed popcorns while watching movies on their couch, or enjoy a playful conversation at a fancy steak house, fat never stops bulking up on their bodies.
Love and food are two things that are inseparable, just like those couples on the streets. But as some of the greatest people in the world like Gandhi and Julius Caesar were better off single, are love and food still so fabulous when put together? From love springs the desire to serve the greasiest, most sugary foods, and mealtime becomes not a special moment for yourself but a mandatory time to spend with your partner. How ironic is it that sharing anything is detrimental to your health? Maybe love and food were meant to be enjoyed separately, not between two people. Try donating the money you saved from expensive restaurant dinners. Certainly more people would be grinning than two miserable, obese, and heartbroken people. They say you need sacrifices for the greatest achievements in life, but if love leaves you a step closer to both a heart failure and heartbreak, you might want to think twice before starting a relationship next time.
-02/14/2014 (Volume III Issue III)
Have you ever wondered why America has one of the highest obesity rates? The rather discreet connection between overeating and relationships explains it all. The most common idea of an ideal date involves eating together since there is nothing more versatile than food, which comes in an infinite range of kinds and prices, with a bonus of additional activities. As one of the few mandatory acts that are pleasures bestowed in our lives, eating is a significant part of relationships when it is done together, as sharing food can be on equal terms as sharing joy. But the next time you share food with your lover, think again. When eating on a date, people tend to overeat because they extend their normal mealtime by spending quality time with their lovers. Along with the slow consumption, digestion would follows, so the cycle of eating is everlasting. While this eternal bliss continues crying out for more, the human body says otherwise. As our bodies scream in pain from the excruciating weight of the added fat, subsequent dishes arrive at the table, this time double the sizes. A couple sized French fries during a lovely conversation leads to mindless eating, and in a matter of few minutes, all there is left are some salty crumbles. Maybe sharing is not caring after all.
People not only share their plates but also often share a list of favorite foods, which frequently includes pizza, chicken, chocolate, ice cream, French fries, and so on. It is just highly unfortunate that the most appetizing foods contain the highest amounts of calories, which makes staying fit extremely challenging for couples. When people are in relationships, it is not an exaggeration to say that they spend half their dates eating, so mealtime becomes the highlight of their days. Once mealtime becomes a more significant part of the day, no matter how light and casual the relationship is, the food will always be heavy and burdensome since more effort and calories are dumped into a lover’s meals. According to a study published by the journal Obesity in 2009, couples in relationships gain an average of seven kilos over the course of five years, and by living together, they gain an extra two. As lovers devour bags of oil-glazed popcorns while watching movies on their couch, or enjoy a playful conversation at a fancy steak house, fat never stops bulking up on their bodies.
Love and food are two things that are inseparable, just like those couples on the streets. But as some of the greatest people in the world like Gandhi and Julius Caesar were better off single, are love and food still so fabulous when put together? From love springs the desire to serve the greasiest, most sugary foods, and mealtime becomes not a special moment for yourself but a mandatory time to spend with your partner. How ironic is it that sharing anything is detrimental to your health? Maybe love and food were meant to be enjoyed separately, not between two people. Try donating the money you saved from expensive restaurant dinners. Certainly more people would be grinning than two miserable, obese, and heartbroken people. They say you need sacrifices for the greatest achievements in life, but if love leaves you a step closer to both a heart failure and heartbreak, you might want to think twice before starting a relationship next time.
-02/14/2014 (Volume III Issue III)
Are Hagwons "Ever" the Right Choice? (Brian Park)
I am often astounded when I hear that some of my friends travel for hours on the weekends to travel to their hagwons in order to take additional test-prep or subject classes just to prepare or get a head start in education. They often spend their entire weekends studying at these classes, often requiring a huge time commitment if they travel to the high-end hagwons located in Gangnam or Apgujeong all the way from Incheon. The huge price tag attached to hagwon classes also comes as a financial toll to many Korean families. According to Time Magazine, 74 percent of Koreans attended after-school classes in 2010, at an average cost of $2,600 a year per student.
So why are South Koreans so obsessed with taking these after-school classes? It mostly has to do with the education-obsessed culture and the school system of Korea, where competition to get into prestigious universities rages fiercely. South Korean students spend almost all of their waking hours studying, especially since the competition from their peers pressures them to be work hard
Having lived the majority of my life in America, I have never attended Korean hagwons before. However, when I moved to Korea last year, I kept wondering if I should attend hagwons on the weekends like the majority of my classmates. However, no matter how great the pressure to attend these after-school classes that promise to raise your standardized test scores, I feel that students should only attend hagwons when it is necessary for them.
Students who have trouble studying independently or are struggling in a specific subject on their own should be the ones attending hagwons to get one-on-one help. There is no need otherwise for bright, motivated students already capable of doing well in school to waste excessive amounts of money and time attending these classes.
With the rise of recent developments in online education, students can learn about any topic they wish in any subject or get practice and tips to raise their test scores all for free. Students with just the initiative to learn can study independently in the comfort of their home or at school.
YouTube has been a major gateway for online video lectures and lessons available to the public all for free, creating channels like Khan Academy, which has instructional videos on a variety of subjects. Sites like Coursera, edX, and Udacity are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that offer actual college courses from prestigious universities around the world that anyone can take for free by just signing up.
As more and more MOOCs are created in the future and increase in popularity, I foresee many hagwons switching to online classes to avoid falling behind in competition. Because of these MOOCs, the idea of going to college itself and paying for tuition might be less of a burden. Why go to expensive hagwons or even college when you can study at home for free?
-02/14/2014 (Volume III Issue III)
So why are South Koreans so obsessed with taking these after-school classes? It mostly has to do with the education-obsessed culture and the school system of Korea, where competition to get into prestigious universities rages fiercely. South Korean students spend almost all of their waking hours studying, especially since the competition from their peers pressures them to be work hard
Having lived the majority of my life in America, I have never attended Korean hagwons before. However, when I moved to Korea last year, I kept wondering if I should attend hagwons on the weekends like the majority of my classmates. However, no matter how great the pressure to attend these after-school classes that promise to raise your standardized test scores, I feel that students should only attend hagwons when it is necessary for them.
Students who have trouble studying independently or are struggling in a specific subject on their own should be the ones attending hagwons to get one-on-one help. There is no need otherwise for bright, motivated students already capable of doing well in school to waste excessive amounts of money and time attending these classes.
With the rise of recent developments in online education, students can learn about any topic they wish in any subject or get practice and tips to raise their test scores all for free. Students with just the initiative to learn can study independently in the comfort of their home or at school.
YouTube has been a major gateway for online video lectures and lessons available to the public all for free, creating channels like Khan Academy, which has instructional videos on a variety of subjects. Sites like Coursera, edX, and Udacity are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that offer actual college courses from prestigious universities around the world that anyone can take for free by just signing up.
As more and more MOOCs are created in the future and increase in popularity, I foresee many hagwons switching to online classes to avoid falling behind in competition. Because of these MOOCs, the idea of going to college itself and paying for tuition might be less of a burden. Why go to expensive hagwons or even college when you can study at home for free?
-02/14/2014 (Volume III Issue III)
The Effects of Plagiarism (Brian Park)
Last November, thousands of college-ready high school seniors from all across South Korea studied for countless hours, all in preparation for the Korean college entrance exam, or Suneung. Because the Suneung exam is typically offered only once towards seniors, the test is regarded as a very high stake, high-pressure exam that will affect the outcome of one’s admission into top elite colleges.
For international students or for students wishing to study abroad, the SAT and the ACT college admission tests also play a huge factor. To prepare for these important exams, South Korea has many private academies, or hagwons, which students can attend after school in order to learn how to achieve the highest score possible.
However, all of this focus most Koreans have on the importance of test taking has led to some major problems in the past. First in [month] 2007, then later with the May 2013 and the most recent October 2013 SAT exams, alleged cheating on these tests in Korea led the College Board to nullify the scores nationwide. Therefore, there are now more strict security systems in place for standardized testing.
Both cheating and plagiarism occur in academic institutions all over the world, but this has become a disastrous crisis in South Korea due to its education-obsessed culture. Even though students globally are likely to be tempted to cheat during high school, the incredible amount of pressure South Korea places on its students to do extremely well academically has gradually worsened this situation.
For example, having lived in the United States, I know that most students in America do not attend any test-taking academies because there is simply not enough time to balance it between all of their homework and extracurricular activities. For South Korean students, however, everybody is expected to study at hagwons after school.
All hagwons, however, may not be completely honest about their methods of teaching. For the October SAT exam, it was alleged that hagwons had received information about the test beforehand, alerting the students about the exam prior the official test date. Not only are students tempted to cheat, but hagwons are also. Through cheating they would be able to make profit by increasing the value of their company with high scores from their students.
While cheating and plagiarism might lead to successful grades or test scores temporarily, they will be very destructive to students in the long run. Since students do not gain knowledge if they cheat, most students who do well in high school by cheating will not be able to do as well in college or even in their future careers. However, I believe that this problem of widespread cheating will not be fixed until South Korea lessens its emphasis on the importance of obtaining high grades as a necessary life goal.
-11/20/2013 (Volume III Issue II)
For international students or for students wishing to study abroad, the SAT and the ACT college admission tests also play a huge factor. To prepare for these important exams, South Korea has many private academies, or hagwons, which students can attend after school in order to learn how to achieve the highest score possible.
However, all of this focus most Koreans have on the importance of test taking has led to some major problems in the past. First in [month] 2007, then later with the May 2013 and the most recent October 2013 SAT exams, alleged cheating on these tests in Korea led the College Board to nullify the scores nationwide. Therefore, there are now more strict security systems in place for standardized testing.
Both cheating and plagiarism occur in academic institutions all over the world, but this has become a disastrous crisis in South Korea due to its education-obsessed culture. Even though students globally are likely to be tempted to cheat during high school, the incredible amount of pressure South Korea places on its students to do extremely well academically has gradually worsened this situation.
For example, having lived in the United States, I know that most students in America do not attend any test-taking academies because there is simply not enough time to balance it between all of their homework and extracurricular activities. For South Korean students, however, everybody is expected to study at hagwons after school.
All hagwons, however, may not be completely honest about their methods of teaching. For the October SAT exam, it was alleged that hagwons had received information about the test beforehand, alerting the students about the exam prior the official test date. Not only are students tempted to cheat, but hagwons are also. Through cheating they would be able to make profit by increasing the value of their company with high scores from their students.
While cheating and plagiarism might lead to successful grades or test scores temporarily, they will be very destructive to students in the long run. Since students do not gain knowledge if they cheat, most students who do well in high school by cheating will not be able to do as well in college or even in their future careers. However, I believe that this problem of widespread cheating will not be fixed until South Korea lessens its emphasis on the importance of obtaining high grades as a necessary life goal.
-11/20/2013 (Volume III Issue II)
11/11 Pepero Day, Why is it Celebrated? (Suzie Park)
South Korea is a land known for its advanced technology, thriving public transportation, and a population of over 50 million people. The people of this nation have also been credited for their production of kimchi and their endless line of young star idols. Still, South Korea should be recognized for what else? It should be noted for its ceaseless line of quirky holidays that seems to hold absolutely no legitimate value for the citizens of the country.
The main holiday up for debate is Pepero Day, the most popular celebrated “love holiday” after Valentine’s Day in South Korea. This seemingly harmless holiday, creates an opportunity for the line of budding romantics by shoveling mounds of hope and anticipation in the form of chocolate covered sticks. I, however, argue otherwise because what is underneath this pretentious holiday is nothing pretty or glamorous. In my opinion, it is merely a commercial holiday that manipulates love-struck teenagers into buying products; a procedure to generate profit for the companies secretly playing the strings of the marionette in the Korean snack industry. Here are the reasons why.
Pepero day is when four 1’s are aligned together in the date. The numbers alignment resembles the figure of the Pepero sticks, thus marking November (11) eleventh (11) as its official holiday date. There are rumors that the origin of Pepero Day began when students began to present the snacks to each other before a huge test day, believing that it would bring them good results. Another rumor says that a group of middle school girls began the holiday by playfully gifting each other the snacks while praying that they would become skinner to resemble the slender stick figure of the snack. However, most of these rumors of origin can be traced back to the Lotte Company, the maker of the Pepero snacks. These so-called stories can be scrutinized with suspicion. It is very likely that these rumors were made up by the company itself to increase more sales in their production.
Moreover, the holiday has expanded so much in South Korea; it is no longer considered one of the small holidays anymore. It stands right behind Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Halloween – one of the top three holidays that brings in the most profit during its season. A study by Wall Street Journal shows that Lotte sells two-thirds of their candy sticks inventory in November alone, being able to gather a profit of 44 billion won each year. This “love” holiday has also gotten out of its way to outweigh other important events that take place on November 11th. In South Korea, this day is also known as Laborer’s Day, celebrating the hard working farmers of Korea. Yet most students in Korea are unaware of this holiday because they are too busy purchasing chocolate sticks for their friends. November the 11th is also a historical day when a train station in Korea exploded due to a cargo carrying a load of dynamite. This event led to the death of thousands of people. Not only was this day when thousands of souls passed away, it was also a historical day when World War I finally came to an end. As one can see, this day holds much more sentimental meaning. It is a day of remorse and redemption – not candy sticks.
This holiday has taken such a deep root in South Korea for some mysterious reason. Students regard it as a tradition to buy each other a couple of candy sticks on this special occasion. In fact, one high school student at our school stated that, “if you didn’t give your friends a Pepero stick, it would be considered rude and impolite.” Not only are teenagers unable to stop purchasing these candy sticks so that this holiday is kept alive annually but the company has taken the advertisement of their candy sticks to a whole new level. The company has begun for a few years now to put postal stamps on the back of each box so that consumers can mail the snack boxes to each other as gifts. If this is not a flagrant example of marketing, then I don’t know what is.
There is “Valentine’s Day” when women can confirm their love towards men. There is “White Day” when men can return the favor to women. There is “Black Day” when those who aren’t part of a couple can mourn together in their misery (God knows why this is a holiday). But no, the list has to go on. South Korea takes responsibility to make the 14th of every month to be somewhat special: May 14th is Rose day, June 14th is Kiss Day, and July 14th is Silver Day. There are so many useless holidays celebrated in Korea when really there is only need for the big international holidays: New Year’s Eve, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, and Christmas. So is there any reason for another commercial holiday? Think about it the next time you find yourself being summoned to become one of the followers for these cash devouring holidays.
-11/20/2013 (Volume III Issue II)
The main holiday up for debate is Pepero Day, the most popular celebrated “love holiday” after Valentine’s Day in South Korea. This seemingly harmless holiday, creates an opportunity for the line of budding romantics by shoveling mounds of hope and anticipation in the form of chocolate covered sticks. I, however, argue otherwise because what is underneath this pretentious holiday is nothing pretty or glamorous. In my opinion, it is merely a commercial holiday that manipulates love-struck teenagers into buying products; a procedure to generate profit for the companies secretly playing the strings of the marionette in the Korean snack industry. Here are the reasons why.
Pepero day is when four 1’s are aligned together in the date. The numbers alignment resembles the figure of the Pepero sticks, thus marking November (11) eleventh (11) as its official holiday date. There are rumors that the origin of Pepero Day began when students began to present the snacks to each other before a huge test day, believing that it would bring them good results. Another rumor says that a group of middle school girls began the holiday by playfully gifting each other the snacks while praying that they would become skinner to resemble the slender stick figure of the snack. However, most of these rumors of origin can be traced back to the Lotte Company, the maker of the Pepero snacks. These so-called stories can be scrutinized with suspicion. It is very likely that these rumors were made up by the company itself to increase more sales in their production.
Moreover, the holiday has expanded so much in South Korea; it is no longer considered one of the small holidays anymore. It stands right behind Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Halloween – one of the top three holidays that brings in the most profit during its season. A study by Wall Street Journal shows that Lotte sells two-thirds of their candy sticks inventory in November alone, being able to gather a profit of 44 billion won each year. This “love” holiday has also gotten out of its way to outweigh other important events that take place on November 11th. In South Korea, this day is also known as Laborer’s Day, celebrating the hard working farmers of Korea. Yet most students in Korea are unaware of this holiday because they are too busy purchasing chocolate sticks for their friends. November the 11th is also a historical day when a train station in Korea exploded due to a cargo carrying a load of dynamite. This event led to the death of thousands of people. Not only was this day when thousands of souls passed away, it was also a historical day when World War I finally came to an end. As one can see, this day holds much more sentimental meaning. It is a day of remorse and redemption – not candy sticks.
This holiday has taken such a deep root in South Korea for some mysterious reason. Students regard it as a tradition to buy each other a couple of candy sticks on this special occasion. In fact, one high school student at our school stated that, “if you didn’t give your friends a Pepero stick, it would be considered rude and impolite.” Not only are teenagers unable to stop purchasing these candy sticks so that this holiday is kept alive annually but the company has taken the advertisement of their candy sticks to a whole new level. The company has begun for a few years now to put postal stamps on the back of each box so that consumers can mail the snack boxes to each other as gifts. If this is not a flagrant example of marketing, then I don’t know what is.
There is “Valentine’s Day” when women can confirm their love towards men. There is “White Day” when men can return the favor to women. There is “Black Day” when those who aren’t part of a couple can mourn together in their misery (God knows why this is a holiday). But no, the list has to go on. South Korea takes responsibility to make the 14th of every month to be somewhat special: May 14th is Rose day, June 14th is Kiss Day, and July 14th is Silver Day. There are so many useless holidays celebrated in Korea when really there is only need for the big international holidays: New Year’s Eve, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, and Christmas. So is there any reason for another commercial holiday? Think about it the next time you find yourself being summoned to become one of the followers for these cash devouring holidays.
-11/20/2013 (Volume III Issue II)