A few days ago, I read a article about organ trafficking, and felt that this is a serious problem. The article pointed out the problems of it and made me think about not only organ trafficking, but also about organ donation. I want to talk whether selling organs should be illegal or not, and whether people who donate their organs after death should have the top priority when they need organ transplant. I also want to compare laws in other countries related to organ donation. In my opinion I believe that selling organs can increase many crimes and cause people to sell it in unfair prices. Also, I think that people who donate organs should be moved on the top list of organ transplant.

First, I would like to argue about selling organs. Some people say that we can sell our hair and our blood, but they wonder why selling organs is illegal? We can reproduce our hair and our blood, but we can not reproduce our organs because we only have one of each in our body. For this reason, many crimes will increase to buy and sell these precious organs. Especially I’ve heard that in the process of buying and selling organs illegally, the brokers use deceptions and violence to buy kidneys from impoverished people. This is a serious problem and need to be strictly scrutinized by the law.

Secondly, I think that the people who donate their organs should be given the privilege of receiving organ transplant. Even though they voluntarily donate their organs I think that they should be appreciated for what they have done. We should pay them buy putting them on the top list when he or she needs organ transplant right away. They can also encourage people to donate their organs afterwards by giving the donors the privilege.

Finally, I want to argue about laws related to organ donation. They are different in America and European countries. In the American law they have to sign a form to have their organs donated, while in the European countries they automatically considered a donor unless they expressly declare that they do not want to be one. I think the American laws is better where people have the right to choose whether they will donate their organs or not after their death, because everyone should have the right to decide.

The article I read made me think deeply about organ donation and organ trafficking. In Korea, organ donation is legal while organ trafficking is not. I know that selling organs have many problems, and that is why the law of selling it should be illegal. Also, people should have the right to choose whether to donate their organs or not. When they do, they should be appreciated for what they have done in a way of giving them the priority of organ transplanted when needed. In this way crimes will decrease and people will be encouraged to donate their organs than before.

 It’s like a fever pitch. It blows all our nations like a tornado. We hardly get out of this from when we were young to adult. That’s English. English is more and more powerful to influence its power in international society. If we travel, if we can use English, there’s no problem except that country is far from the civilization. But I don’t agree about choosing English for our second language because of history and harmful effect to our own language and losing soul.

           You might know about history of Roman Empire. That country’s influence is so huge and wide that even in Asia knew about them. They had very high technology and extreme power in military force. In this era, Roman language, Latin was the standard of education. That means everybody want to learn Latin. But they were fallen down and separated with several countries. Now who learn Latin? There are very few persons who want to learn this language. Comparing this fact with English, we never know when they fall and crush down. Especially, China is growing very fast and making the America’s position down than before. This time is not good to choose the English as a second language.

           To choose the English as a second language makes our country’s language ‘Han-Gul’ in danger. If this law is acting, almost every persons choose English first because ‘Han-gul’ is not popular language in international society. Surely it hurt our language very severely.

           Final reason we should not choose English as a second language is that ‘Han-gul’ has our nation’s soul in it. Language has been developed in step by step from the ancient. Before we born, we used and sophisticated it. For example, King Se Jong, which is the king at Jo Sun era, made it first for ordinary people to help to understand and talk easily. Surely, it’s very scientific also there is generous mind in there and has the soul of that time’s idea because it was made base on our people’s verbal language. How can we abandon our ancestor’s wisdom because of our temporary profit. This is totally nonsense.

           Other nations, especially European country, even don’t choose English as a second language. They keep their language up in spite of pressure of benefit from English. In some respect, language can be the invisible war between nations. To survive in this war, we need to sophisticate our language rather to concentrating English as a second language

        We have a place that we spend so much time. This place is the place we experience at least one time in our life. That is subway. We can’t deny that so called underground or subway gives us convenient life. But manner in there is not going with our development. We should keep our manner in the subway because of morality and international image and dignity.

         It’s very human nature that if we beat someone, that person beat you back. Surely, we are not childish to act like that because we have another way to prohibit bad behavior by law and sometimes our hospitality like ocean but there is tacit rule if you are educated person. It is important not to cross that line. In the subway, that line is quite talk if you have a call. For example, you’re reading in the subway but besides you, someone keeps irritating you by loud phone call. You might piss up because you might think that’s not his place. Like this, public place is very entangled with subtle string; that’s not my place but also you too so it’s hard to guess what they think at my besides. Therefore, you should have more careful in behaving at the subway.

         As I say about second, it fall down our international image. If you’re foreign, you easily find the example. My school professor Gord Sellar talks to us that he feels anger in the subway several times. Hitting other person’s shoulder is very common mistake we’re doing. When it happens, it’s not tough thing to apologize to victim. This kind of small thing can ruin our country’s reputation. If they live in our country long, they might understand how much our citizen has kindness to other, even they are foreign. But they don’t know this fact because he/she might have first visit and culture difference. This is so basic thing and don’t need any effort to do it. If we do our kindness in this small place, it will affect very wide than we expect. Why should we not to do that?

         Last thing is our dignity. To disturb other person’s activity by my selfish behavior in the subway is debasing our dignity by myself. There is research from psychological analyst that we have five step of maturity. In there, at the top, it shows us that our ultimate happiness come from self-satisfaction. You don’t need to find that far. Actually that’s on your nose. You can get your ultimate happiness in this small thing, manner.

         In the society, everything needs to be touched by our hand; we produce everything even that is place, not a material. That means we have ability to change by our own hand. What do you think about joining in this small but wonderful cornerstone to make our society’s atmosphere better?

I found an interesting article from the Korean Herald several days ago, saying that people playing an important role in their fields turn out to be highly well educated in English. And the recent study shows that almost 90 percent of elementary school students say that they want to go abroad for English if they have a chance. Parents in Korea are also so eager in English education that they take all financial burden to send their children away. However, is it really necessary? The following three are the reasons why it is problematic for Korean youth.

It is unwavering belief that children should start learning English as early as possible so that they become more proficient in English and important players in society later on. It is true that children studying abroad can learn English much faster than those studying here in Korea. In addition, parents also expect their precious baby boys and girls to learn much more about English cultures. surely it is going to be valuable experience for children. This is why it is hard to see parents with luxurious life style.

However, going abroad is not always good nor a panacea for children. There is a serious problem. English should be a tool, and should not be everything for children. English is a tool to communicate with other people from different countries and it can let us do business or anything. But now when looking at people, they are studying like it’s everything in their life. I’m exaggerating of course, but it is not so far from the truth. Koreans have different goals about English. For example, for most people, they study English to enter university and to get a job. After that, they almost all seem lost with English. Why do people study English? Again, English should be a helper for you to do something more meaningful, learning English should not be an ultimate goal of your life.

Childhood is a important period in their lives to form their personality. They need more touch and love from parents and also close relationship with their friends. The problem happens when parents think their children are strong enough to fit well in a totally different country. Statistics indicates that over 85 percent of oversee students are going through hard time with life in another country. Some have homesick and some experience discrimination in their early times. Surprising? Trust me. It happens even now.

Even if your children are successful fitting in, it’s not the only problem. They endure every hardship and then finally go to a higher education. As statistics says, many students fail and give up their courses, and come back to Korea with little improvement of English. Students often suffer from depression and quite a few students become addicted to drug. Then, in worse case, they get involved themselves in crimes. It’s quite sad to look at this problem this way, but we need to consider this problem more seriously, because we might put our future hope in dangers.

As we have looked through, there is a high possibility that things don’t go the way it is supposed to go. Moreover, your children can experience unpleasant situations all alone without fun loving parents and friends. Do we really need to send them away? supposedly it it time parents in Korea reconsidered sending children away and looked for better ways that parents have children learn English.

     Most people think snow is very romantic because movie directors make snow a very lovely condition when a man and woman fall in love. One of the most famous examples for Koreans is “Love Letter” from Japan. In the movie, a woman screams out “Oganggi Deska?(How are you doing?)” to her ex-boyfriend. In that scene, snow makes the situation more plaintive and sorrowful. Because of that kind of movie, many people think snow is very romantic and dramatic. However, what Koreans thought about snow changed after a terrible blizzard in the winter 2 years ago. Actually, many people could be curious whether snowfall can be disaster or not. However, I am going to tell you why Korean people think tremendous snowfall is very dangerous and can be a disaster; need of equipment, inexperienced handling and negative effects of farming.

 In Korea, there was so much horrible snow 2 years ago. Also, we had gotten tremendous snowfall at least five times during the winter. Traditionally, Koreans had never had that much snow, so we did not have an ability to cope with it and enough snowplows to get rid of snow from places where people lived at that time. Overall, I can say that the the winter was like a war. When Koreans had heavy snow, I also got that much snow in Minnesota in the same winter. Snow in Minnesota can be more than in Korea, but I was not able to believe because after a few hours, highways and streets were all cleaned up as if it had not snowed at all. Even though my friends and family told me that it is too inconvenient, I did not feel inconvenience.

On the other hand, most Koreans could not go to work or schools because the Korean government did not have an ability to clean up in a short time. Many people took buses or subways instead of their cars. Especially, the number of people who want to take the subways exceeded the number of that could be admitted. Therefore, that produced other accidents like a pyramid. Some actors and actresses had no choice and also took buses or subways covering their faces with hats and masks in order to remain unrecognized. Several schools were closed for several days temporarily. During that time, even though a cause is just snow, we got many different kinds of results.

In part of farming, farmers had more trouble than they could have imagined. Especially, in the last year, the temperature was lower than before and the amount of sunshine was insufficient, so yield was reduced by about 20 percent. Until now, I have written about damages of people’s lives not from nature. However, this paragraph is about destroying the nature by nature.

Personally, when it snowed snow in Korea, I usually enjoyed it, but my friends called me and said that they are sick and tired of snow and are being tardy for a few days. The snow is not amount of being able to enjoy, but menacing us and making us rough it. Snow was not a welcome guest for us anymore. From the tremendous snowfall, I got mottos for myself. One of them is “Do not delay and be tardy.” That is when I can prepare something unexpected, prepare and grow an ability to handle something. For example, in Japan, traditionally there has been be a lot of earthquakes, but they are prepared for unexpected earthquakes. Therefore, though they would get earthquakes suddenly, these will be not catastrophic disaster. The other motto is limitation. Nothing should be over limit and everything has to be good enough. There is a famous proverb in Korea. That is “Too many good things are not an advantage, but just a disadvantage. There will be nothing good if it is excessive. Of course, it is like the snowfall, but good things are in the same way for example, going on diet, love for children and so on. Everything belongs to the ideas. I think the snowfall gave lessons to Koreans who never prepared to something in the future.

Nowadays auditioning programs like ‘American idol’ in America or ‘Super Star K’ and ‘The Great Audition’ in Korea are popular. People audition and try to show their talents on these shows regardless of age, sex, and race. Especially on the audition show ‘Super Star K’ a foreigner named Chris appeared on the show. He couldn’t speak Korean but he was an outstanding singer. Some people think that foreigners who can not speak Korean should not audition on Korea auditioning programs. However I disagree with those opinion.

First of all, the purpose of these programs are not to show off their language skills. These programs are made to give the opportunity to show one’s talent to the public. This means that the auditioning programs are focused on finding people’s possibility to become a great singer and make them one. Everyone has the chance to take part in this audition if they only have the talent to sing.

Some people say that language can be a barrier. However I strongly believe that foreigners can definitely improve their Korean as time goes by. Even though they can not speak a word they can fully deliver the feelings and emotions to people. For an example, there is a famous singer in Korean, and her name is Park Junghyun. She lived in the states for a very long time and could not speak a single word in Korean. However she is one of the most popular singers in Korea and is loved by many people. I think this shows that foreigners can absolutely improve their Korean and can communicate through singing even though they can not speak Korean.

Finally we can see that Korean actually don’t care whether foreigners can speak their language or not. This is proved by the fact that Chris, who auditioned on ‘Super Star K’, made it to the top7 even though he could not speak Korean. This shows that people in Korea do not care about their Korean skill. They just want a singer who can move their hearts by singing, and Chris dragged Korea people’s attention in this point of view.

There are some voices saying that people that have an audition on auditioning TV programs have to require language skills basically. However language has no relationship with showing one’s talent in singing, and has no problem delivering their emotion to the audience. Though foreigners can not speak Korean they have the right to audition and show their potential.

In the year of 2009, I returned to Korea from New Zealand. Around August, weather in New Zealand and Korea is winter and summer. When I got off the plane, you know what I felt? Suffocation. It was extremely hot that I could barely breathe at first. However, hot weather was not the only reason I felt something was killing me. It had been really comfortable to use the Internet in New Zealand despite the cow walking like internet speed, whereas Korea has always been asking all the residence registration number, and personal information every time  on the Internet. Why can’t you just let us use the Internet without absolutely useless interrogation for personal information? I tell you what. The three little stories will make your eyes open and see outside the world.

The Korean government has been contradicting themselves. Since the start of President Lee administration, the government has put much value on Korea’s globalization. However, Korea is the only one country in the world, which regulates freedom in the Internet. As a result of this, both citizens of Korea and foreigners come with high expectations about Korea have been going through every step to live with the Internet here. Last month, CNN reported an interesting news about Korea, which is to say that Korea is making fun of themselves by taking ridiculous measures that no country has ever done.

Moreover, the government of Korea has been acting like ‘Big Brother’. It is because they want to watch citizens as if the god watches people above the sky, and when his people have done something bad, those people are going to be executed. Several years ago, Americans strongly expressed their voice together to stop the US government from trying to make security department. People in the US clearly don’t want to stand on a slippery slope with feeling that they can be pushed under the slope anytime. Personally, We, Koreans, are already on the unstoppable slope. The government has been already collecting every movement we make, and our daily lives have been tracked for security reasons. Hey Korean government! Please look up the definition of ‘Democracy’.

Some people say that if it’s the government and for security reasons, it’s fine to give them their valuable information. I see what your point is. However, do we visit the government web site only? We have to give our information to company when we want some services from them. Then, companies always promise not to use our information for personal reason. Is the promise reliable? I don’t think so with a big question mark. So many companies have leaked or sold our information and this led to crimes like voice fishing using our information and illegally making credit card. What’s your solution to that, government?

Once again, we ought to remember that our valuable information is being collected and used somewhere and at the same time, the world is laughing at us. I hope that the government realizes this and does something about this and tries not to make an unreasonable excuse like it’s for your safety and security for our country. Korea is a democratic country, so use your brain if you have any and make it right!

When people live, they need lots of documents. Also, they have to know to how to fill out them. However, as the world is going to be more global than before, there are lots of foreigners in Korea. Of course, they are not perfect at Korean, so they need help. Language on documents is very different from it on day. The language on the documents is very difficult to understand. I am going to list the three specific examples, business certificates and health insurance, drivers’ license and some other documents which are necessary for living for foreigner in Korea.  

When I was in America, one of my aunt’ friends could not be good at English. She always struggled with how to fill out some kinds of documents like what I have written. Because of that, she always got help from translators. Even though she can speak English quite well, she has never learned reading and writing skills. Whenever she has to fill out and check some documents for living, she has to pay money to professional translators.

One of my Japanese friends had the same problem in America. She came to learn English, so she was not good at English. However, at that time, she really needed a car to go to her school. In Minnesota of America, there is not driving tests written by foreign language.  Before she moved to Minnesota, she had stayed in LA. LA. has so many different kinds of foreigners, so they have many kinds of documents like driving tests. My friend was not able to get a license in MN, so she used the license that she got in LA.

     Like what I wrote examples, even though foreigners have to get something for living, some of them cannot get it because of the language. In Korea, I do not think we have different kinds of language in the documents. Many women from East Asia countries are moving to Korea to get married. However, I think we are not ready to accept them. In America, I heard that there are many translators and volunteers to translate, but we do not. If foreigners in Korea are not good at Korean, they must have difficulties.

Korea has less foreigners than America has, so it is too much to make all of documents translated. However, they need to provide translated them for foreigners. Absolutely, I think the Korean governments cannot translate them into all kinds of the languges. However, we can hire translators volunteers for them. They can make an effort to translate them into English and Vietnamese. If we want to make our country more global and better, I think we need to prepare those kinds of thinks for foreigners in Korea.

The first time he became my hero was when I was a high school student. In 2002, the Korean national soccer team unbelievably reached the semi-finals cheering Koreans in despair and especially when the unnamed soccer player touched my heart with unbelievably sincere play on ground, I was curious who was the player. Then, I was able to know that his name was Ji-Sung Park and also that before the 2002 Worldcup, he was completely away from the public attention but he definitely grabbed the public’s attention after the 2002 Worldcup. Awaken to find himself famous and actually he deserved it.

However, it was only the beginning of his great career. Soon after Park’s national team manager Guus Hiddink moved back to the Netherlands to manage PSV Eindhoven, Park followed him to the Dutch side a year later. But his many fans(including me) doubted that prospect thinking it would be hard to adapt to European league style, so they were wary of getting excited about his challenge. Unlike the fans’ prospect, he tried to show that an Asian player could get a success in a European soccer league with his strong point, loyalness, sincere play and humble attitude. Especially after PSV reached the semi-finals of the 2004–05 UEFA Champions League, his talents were recognized ‘again’ by Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson who was one of the most famous football manager in the world. Park was able to play anywhere across the midfield and was noted for his exceptional fitness level, discipline, work ethic and off-the-ball movement.

I clearly remember the moment that the rumor that Park could be the first Korean Premier League Soccer player spreaded. People got afraid of getting excitement again, even some made some sarcastic comments about him. But I strongly believed that he could make it again. In the end, the Manchester United offered him a formal contract in July 2005 and he decided to begin a fresh start in the new team. He became the first Korean premier leaguer of all time!

At that time the news praising him was covered all day, I joined the army. I really missed because I knew I would be away from the society for two years. But I could hear the news about him. The news such as making a goal or an assist was really great encouragement to me during the period of military service. Whenever I heard the good news about Park, it was like I was getting power from his energetic plays in the British league. He was such a proudness of Koreans and compared to him, my hardship was nothing. That was that.

Anyway, since then, Park has won the Premier League four times and has also won the UEFA Champions League and the FIFA Club World Cup. Aside from his club career, unfortunately he recently retired from the Korean national soccer team to focus on his club career, but I believe his achievements are not finished yet.

As I get older and older, I know he gets older and older too. It is sad to imagine that I can’t watch his play soon. However, he will be still in my heart as a hero. I believe it.

The tuition of universities in Korea is the second highest in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations, following by the United States. Recently, excessively expensive tuition of universities has caused a great conflict between universities and students in Korea. Some say the only way to solve this problem is that university tuition must be free for all students in Korea for a few following reasons.

However, I don’t think free tuition fee or half-priced tuition fee is the best solution. According to the supporters of the half-priced tuition fee, they insist on that universities of Korea do not only rely on tuition fee from students, but also they are financially free and have alternative financial resources. They say that universities can be secured their budgets by invested from governmental foundations. The supporters also refer to the list released by Scholarships for Development, universities in fourteen states in Germany do not charge tuition fee and it is acquired from collecting taxes from citizens. Universities in Finland do not also charge tuition fees since it has already been charged as a part of tax.

However, Korea is a capitalist country. The supporters’ insistence is just limited in the cases of Finland and Germany. These two countries are well known as social welfare countries. The countries spend a lot of money for social welfare. However, Korea does not have enough financial resources to support the free education. Some say that the universities should generate money to fulfill its status by running its own business. But the point is that half tuition fee policy supporters are confused about the original role of universities. Like their saying, if universities are the places to generate profit, not to teach students and if universities run their own business to support the free tuition or the half tuition fee, it is easy for them to forget their own goal, teaching the students.

In conclusion, the tuition fee should not be half-priced. Korea is not still ready for that policy and it has a danger to be abused by “wrong populism.” If so, the citizens can not be away from the disaster of tax for it. That is what I am most afraid of.