I always want to be bilingually smart. It’s really difficult to learn foreign language, especially for Koreans to learn English. When I was a kid, I didn’t know the importance of learning foreign language and even I was not interested in it at all. So, it’s the main reason I have been getting a hard time since I started learning English. I would have studied English hard if I knew it in advance.

Anyway, by getting older and older, I have realized that the ability to several foreign languages is really important. It is obvious when we try to find a job. Of course, the recruiters require us to have a proficient skill. So, in order to survive among the competitors of job battle, we should be good at speaking foreign language. Speaking honestly, sometimes I want to curse the ‘English’ but I still want to be bilingually smart. 

Some article that I read today gives me some interesting information. “The high-level use of more than one language may actually improve early brain development.” Is that real? If it’s true, my brain is really bad. It’s too sad! It says that the most effective period of developing the capacity of learning language is between age 3 and 4. It is again devastating me because I am too old!

But there is some good news. The rule of thumb for improving in any language is just simple practice! “The more you use it, the better off you are.” says the expert. “The deficit can be compensated for with extra study.”  It means that we have to study really really hard for it.

In conclusion, the best way is that I need to practice over and over. Someone says that learning language is not only learning vocabulary and grammar but also inheriting a global consciousness that opens the mind to more than one culture or way of life Because I know I can’t go back to the time when I was a kid, I have to deal with the time that I have now to make efforts to be better off. I really want to be bilingually smart.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/10/college-degree-premium-why-higher-ed-is-overvalued.html

This article by professor X talks about the value of college and basically what he maintains in the article is that the increasing number of American students are going to college and students think that it is necessary to finish their degree in order to get opportunities in job markets. However, he explains with specific examples and statistics that we overly value colleges that cannot boost the economy and where students learn less.

I partly agree with the author. The situation between the US and Korea is almost same. There are several dreams for Korean parents to make happen during lifetime. No! wait a minute. It is more like obsession. One is to buy a house of their own and the other one is to get kids to go to college. Clearly Korean parents put too much value on college, despite the fact that not all the college kids can get a job nowadays. In fact, very few of them get a decent job and then another few of them get a job and then finally it may sound too negative but the majority of Korean students are still struggling in the job markets. However, even though all of these are true, given the situation and under the education system in Korea, students still need to go to college. Hopefully, the greater University they enter, the brighter future will be for them. The following three parts of this essay are why going to helpless university is still the best option for Korean powerless students.

Sadly for students, going to college is no longer optional, unless students were born with the sufficient amount of money that they can live on during their life time. Now, let’s see the economic situation first. It is all like a vicious cycle. Companies have been facing the global economic crisis and then, as a result of this, they are hiring fewer students who are much more competent and able to do more at the same time which is so-called ‘Multitasking”. Naturally, students severely put a great deal of makeup on them with many kinds of certificates and very high score in TOEIC, which I would consider the most impractical and meaningless English test in the world. However, what can we make ourselves look much more attractive to companies trying to hire students? Go to college! It is certainly overvalued in our society, and yet again sadly the best way to be successful.

‘Perception’ more specifically ‘ Biased, prejudiced perception’ is like hideous nightmare for Korean adolescents. Basically entering university has become their ultimate goal for life. High school students are very much stressed about the fact that on every national holiday when relatives are all gathered, students are always told and questioned that you have to enter at least Korea University or just go work in a factory. Some students often fail to enter a desired college and then try to enter again in the following year. Please ask them about how they felt during the time they were spending for studying and people looked at them. Surely 95 of 100 students would say that they felt like they became a loser and people looked at them differently and very sorry for their parents who might have had high expectations on them. This is what causes students to go to college.

Another very scary reason why students must graduate from college, even though they know they earn nothing but a graduation certificate from a college, is to have a high hope that they might be paid more. Taking about a graduation certificate, there really is a big salary gap between haves and have-nots. Last year, a very interesting news was aired on MBC saying that after two years people start working at a company, college graduates have an steep increase in the yearly salary, while high school counterparts have almost no wage raise. Admittedly, now is not the best time for college graduates either, because of the international economic crisis. However, once they get a job, money have-nots make would not be even close to one that haves could make.

It is a well-know fact that the world has been going through economic crisis and this resulted in far fewer opportunities for students to get a job. In addition, students are suffering from all the pressure from parents, and relatives continuously torturing by asking a bunch of emotionally attacking questions about their future. Then, after years of working at a company and high school graduates find out about the salary they make and others with a graduation certificate make and finally have-nots are likely to feel left behind. Over the long period of time, colleges have been clearly considered overly valued and I agree to a great extent. However, considering three main points mentioned above, we find it very inevitable for students to powerlessly follow the mainstream.

         Nowadays, FTA(Free Trade Agreement) is hot topic when it come to related with political scandal. Each party, Hannara and Minju party, is conflicting seriously because it will be very influence to next election. Hannara party want to pass the law quickly and opposite block it by all the reaction they can do. Personally, I didn’t deny FTA’s necessity. But as a politician, who represents our civilian profit and has a social responsibility, they are not doing well their job. FTA need to be readjusted because this is not equal agreement and our civilian doesn’t wants it and it’s not profitable.

         In the animal kingdom, there is rank between them. For example, tiger is very high rank in the food chain and they eat deer or other animal. But in human society, this is a little bit different. We can be exceptional by talented talking at the negotiation. Language is so wonderful creation we human made that it sometimes change from groom situation to shining future. There is an words in our country, “By one words, you can pay back all your owing”. That means how much the word is important and can do. It shows us how we can go through our future block. When we apply this to our society, we can negotiate with powerful America equally. But this FTA treatment is very unfair in the several provisions. For example, ISD(Investor-State Disment) provision is very unequal in that we cannot have right to suit about infringement of our company’s profit by their government. Nation means that they have their own right to negotiate and make a decision by themselves. We cannot call ourselves as a nation because we don’t have right.

            In above paragraph, we talked about unfairness in the negotiation. But our civilians actually don’t want to make a deal with America. In the international society, we need to broaden our range in the variety field. But government misses the target. Negotiation need to be targeting China, not America. American is very big and powerful country. They are also the leading nation in the international society. But we are so relied to America so if America crushed down, we might also crushed more severely than America because we are smaller country. So we need to divide our reliance to several countries and it was not an America.

         Finally it’s not beneficial to our economy. There is timing when we do act policy or even behavior. We plan to act so many things before we have a talks. For example, at four-river policy we spend 14 trillion won. This money is tremendous blood by taxing on our civilian. Our country has to concentrate to finish the four-river policy and other thing we already set in the business. In domestic economy chaos, we don’t have any vigor to avert our eyes on FTA without sorting our inner problem. We cannot act like octopus.

        It’s impossible to make perfect government because each individual has different aspect. But, we are witnessing so many crushing-down nations in the international world. And they, Korean Republican, are acting like ‘Timing is now’ and propagate us to act for their profit, not ordinary people. Everybody knows they are corrupted but we are not foolish at all. They have to know that if they still act like swine in the mud, next country which goes bankrupt will be us.

If you are a woman, of course, you will want to lose weight. This means most women want to lose their weight. Also, some men want to lose weight like most of women. As every woman wants to do that, there are many ways to lose weight. These are different according to time of results, processes, physical influences and so on. For example, many ways for losing weight are classified into exercising, following a particular diet, having a surgery and reducing calories.

     The most popular and useful way is exercising. Most women think this is the most effective. In this way, there are so many specific exercises, too, for example, boxing, weight training, jazz dancing and so on.  In Korea, nowadays, the most popular exercise is Yoga. As that, most Korean women choose this. However, they should admit that they have to endure results for a long time. Also, it is not easy to show results quickly.

     Another way is following a particular diet. This means people plan to eat only one kind of food in every meal, for example, only grapes or only potatoes. I think this is a very unhealthy way because it can make people damage our healthy balance. Therefore, if we follow the particular diet for a long time, we will not be able to lose weight and also we might get sick. According to these reasons, I do not like to recommend this way.

     If some people want to lose weight and show the results very quickly, they will think about liposuction. Liposuction makes them very slim directly by medical surgeries. This is a very comfortable way in some people that do not want to exercise and show results very quickly like people who choose to follow a particular diet. This is also a very unhealthy way because after suddenly losing weight in a day, people can have difficulties to adjust to new body and new physical conditions. Also, their health conditions can get worse than before. Therefore, this way is not a good way except when you desire to lose weight urgently.

    The last way is reducing calories. This is very effective like exercising. We can stay health. Because even though calories are reduced by some food’s calories like cakes’ and chocolates’, we get necessary calories. Therefore, like exercising, many people choose and follow this way. As exercising, reducing calories is effective and popular. Many people fuse and follow these two ways at the same time. These are good for your health and are very effective to lose weight.

     Overall, ways to lose weight can be classified into healthy and unhealthy ways. All women want to be beautiful. This is desires of all women. According to Euro surveillance, a newspaper of British newspaper, they said obesity people can get flu more easily than normal people. However, more dangerous things are starving ways. Therefore, for our health, appropriate ways to lose weight are needed, but immoderate ways are too bad for our health.  As time goes by, new ways for losing weight will be made. However, we have to think, “What is the most basic thing? If you lose weight by unhealthy ways, you will be satisfied with your new slim body line, but you will also regret to choose ways because you will worry about your bad health. Also, if we focus on results too much, we will get back weight easily. Therefore, before we choose ways to lose weight, we have to think our health and choose ways carefully for our bodies because no matter how important slim body line is, more important thing is our health.

In the world, the language that the most people speak is Chinese because of just a number of Chinese is the most. What is the language that the most various people speak? It is English. For example, not only America, England and Australia but also many countries whose first language is not English use English. That is why English is very important in the world. As that, there are various ways to study English. The ways can be classified into studying in the county which speaks English, going to an academy, and studying English independently.

     The first way is studying English in countries in which the first language is English. This way is very popular and common for undergraduates in Korea. In Korea, most undergraduates prefer this way including youths. When people go to the country in which first language is English, it is very effective to study English because there are people who speak only English surrounding oneself. Therefore, it is good to concentrate on English, especially speaking and listening. Also, it looks not studying, but acquisition. However, it is not only popular, but also a problem. This is very popular for young people, but if they want to go to another country to study English, they have to live without their parents. Because of that, many Korean young people do not study English and socialize with the other Korean young people. Because there are no parents around themselves in another country, juvenile delinquents are increased. Koreans regard bad influence of young people who go to another country to study English as a very serious problem. Bad influences are that because most youths who study abroad feel lonely, many Korean youths hang out in only Korean groups and do not study. Therefore, if people want to study English in another country, they will have to think seriously, “Why do I want to go to another country?” Also, they have to consider studying English in another country is a very special chance and should not regard it as a chance to escape because in Korea, many people think studying in other countries is a chance to escape.

     Another way is to go to an English language institute. In Korea, as many people choose the way that they go to another country to study English, this is also very popular. Almost everyone goes to a language institution from young children to adults who have a job. These language institutes can be also classified into institutes for tests, such as TOEFL and TOEIC, for speaking and so on. Many people study English even though they already have their job because English is always important in every part. For example, in a work place when someone’s salary is set, being able to talk to foreigners freely or not is very important. Therefore, many people go to English language institutions in dawn, around 6a.m to 8a.m. This way is also very effective for people who do not have much time to study.

     Finally, the last way is to study English alone using books. I also used this way in my college. It is very good for people who want to study and go over English step by step from the beginning. Especially, when we study English words, we have to concentrate on and memorize words. I think teachers and institutions are not helpful for us in fields of words and listening. Because of that, I want to recommend people to study alone. Of course, teaching and explaining meaning of words and listening are helpful, but I mean that classes are not effective comparing other sides of English, for example, grammar, reading, writing and so on. For example, if you go to another country, you will have to study words and listening alone by memorizing and practices. Also, before going to another country to study English, if you do not prepare to study, you would be sick and tired of studying in another country and failed. I think whenever studying, this way is the most important.

The more important English is, the more people will study it and the more ways to study will be existed. Nowadays, in Korea, too young children also start to study English at 3 or 4. Also, people spend too much money letting their children study English. These are the biggest talk of the trade for several years. As that, when candidates were competing in presidential elections, many candidates asserted solutions to reduce private education expenses. However, as English is important and everybody knows that, the solutions were unrealistic. Because how can people achieve and understand English is very different, everyone’s studying ways are different. I think the ways which many people follow are not always good. We have to find out proper ways for us.

Can you imagine the 1990s? Back then, the Korea had a more conservative concept than now. When ‘Seu Tae Ji and boys’ who were one of the best popular boy-group-singer in Korea debuted in 1992, most Koreans thought they were crazy and rude because of their unique fashion and different music style. Nowadays, however, although people who have diverse styles are shown on television, the public don’t treat they have some problems anymore. Since information technology and ways of interacting with other people have developed, many subcultures started to appear. The subculture is an opposite culture of the total, main culture and the most representative example is the youth culture. With appearance of various cultures continuously, people have to absorb those things because of expressing, estimation, and being accurate.

      First of all, human being should respect individual rights of all the people. Every person has the same right to be respected. In addition, respect for man’s life and dignity is an essential law in democracy. Man’s right to respect means not only natural rights but also all people’s different styles and preferences. The politics textbook in high school published at Dae-Han Textbooksays the right to pursue one’s happiness, one of natural rights of respect for man’s life and dignity, can protect individuality.

      The other reason is that evaluation about own culture from others. The modern life is a multi-cultural society and diverse thoughts are coming out with globalization. In low fertility and graying society, the inflow of foreigners will increase and it means that our country will become a more multi-cultural society. If we don’t understand those cultures, our country is evaluated as a selfish nation and it can be a great harm to interact with other countries. Sungkyul University Multiculture and Peace Institute’s manager Sim Hea-young professor says the attitude of looking down on other cultures leads to ethnocentrism and it can cause retrogression from the world’s main flow. Third, accepting various cultures can lead to creating new, improving culture. All cultures have a cycle: creation, growth, extinction. To grow our culture, we have to adopt other culture’s merit and exploit our own culture. Kim Bum-Soo who is Pyeongtaek University’s Culture Interchanging professor, says meeting new cultures can even make something out of nothing such as coexistence and symbiosis of Asia.

      Lastly, we are more likely to be accurate when we are open. Since stereotypes are a form of prejudice, it also means that the paradigm itself carries biased information. Obviously, such data lacks precision and credibility. For instance, according to Choson Daily, the “D” corporation was one of the topnotch firms with no doubt among South Koreans in 1997. Many people believed and assured the stability of the company within at least 25 years, and they started to buy a tremendous amount of stock. The strong belief that the company would never go bankrupt under any crisis and the positive prospects of the economy, however, left people with empty hands due to the IMF crisis. The major mistake was that the people were not open-minded towards any possible risks or other critical information; all they considered was the blind faith based on others’ biased opinion. We can see here that such form of information can result in serious consequences. This means that the more we are aware and open to, the more we are likely to obtain objectivity. Therefore, the benefits we gain from opening are that as we try not to stick on one point of view, we gradually acquire reliability and validity which also means that we get chances to judge correctly about new people we meet. 
 

     Taking other cultures makes us be a person who has basic human right. Also, people who accept others’ thought and features without repulsion can get good image and estimation from both inside and outside. Furthermore, it is easier to be accurate to evaluate own culture and problems which people tend to ignore and justify. Thus, when we encounter people who have different point and style, we try to understand them and embrace a new culture.

      The Korea Immigration Office reports that the number of foreigners who reside in Korea is about 11.5 million in 2010 and it will be grown every year. According to Cho sun daily newspaper’s January first, 2010 article, 20 percent of Korean general population will comprise of inter-racial marriage families. This alludes that Korea is multi-cultural society. It sounds like the Korea follows a good path of globalization with global village. But, there are three disadvantage sides of being multicultural society such as fail of establishing identity, lower nation image, and medical insurance.

      The first weakness is that identity crisis of second generations. Chung-Ang University’s psychology professor, Park Jun-sung, states that 50 percent of interracial marriage’s juniors think they are foreigner in his work, Elementary School Adjustment in Korea of Children from Multi-culture. Also, 40 percent of second generation of interracial marriage replies that they are both Korean and foreigner even though their surrounding groups think they are foreigner. The others’ perspective affect greatly to their lives until around the adult, as well. For example, if children’s mother or father doesn’t speak Korean well so they cannot teach Korean to their children, their children’s ability of Korean delays and the time when the kids enter the elementary school is also pushed back. The worse thing is that the rate of dropout students in middle, high school is more sextuple than students who have Korean parents. According to research in government offices conducted by the National Assembly, 69.6 percent high school aged adolescents don’t attend school because of their differences from other students and identity crisis.  

      The other problem is that Korean national image can fall down because of violent and gross people who look down people from other culture. The paper, International Marriage Migrant Women’s Real Damage and Solution, produces lots of examples. In 2007 bride from Vietnam named Huanmami was broken her 18 ribs and dead because of her husband’s assault. Also in March 2008 Chinese bride death leaped to avoid her husband’s beating. Not only these two occurrences but also so many harm illustrations exist. In addition Korean Law of International Marriage has weak points. One point is that there is no duty to inform to international marriage people about their spouses’ history of violent crime, drug addiction, alcoholic, and financial problem. Also, if migrant people want to get visa, there are so many complicated processes. Like this, laws for migrant women’s position, right as a human and stable sojourn don’t exist. For reasons of these violent exemplify, community of nations think that Korea doesn’t have any consideration so they don’t want to interact with Korea.

      Third weakness is that problem of medical insurance. Kim Hae-sung who is the representative of Policy Research of Multicultural Family Forum says that about 65 percent foreigner don’t have health insurance. Also, multicultural family’s low join rate of health insurance is big problem because the rate of unfaithful pay rises. So, although many foreigners live in Korea with their Korean family, they can’t receive proper pay. In addition they are in the blind spot of medical treatment so they can’t get treatment when they have to go to hospital.

      Be global, be familiar, and show how good multicultural society Korea has! The problem is not way of showing Korean international culture and society. The matter is that just absorbing which the world says goodness without serious thought about being a multicultural society.  First of all, this is the most important thing is that Korean society should find out some negative conditions such as the identity, image, and medical problem. After concern about all possible things and prepare comprehensive countermeasure, Korea can show how great multicultural society Korea have.

Everyone have feelings and turn these into expressions or actions. Sometimes we can not, because there are several reasons to hold these feelings back. There is a word ‘compulsion’ and we usually use this word when we have strong desires that are difficult to hold back or control. For an example, sometimes when we do our homework we want to go to bed so bad, but we can’t because we have to do the homework which is due until the next day. In this case we can call our strong desire longing to go to bed compulsion, and I want to talk whether we should follow our compulsion or not. In my opinion I think we have to follow our duties.

Everyone has something to do whatever their jobs are. They have the responsibility to carry out their duties. Some people are rewarded by accomplishing it, while others have to deal with the consequences of their actions. This depends whether they have done it or not, and individuals have to pay the prices when they only have followed their desires. That is why I believe that one must carry out their duties rather then their compulsions to undertake their responsibilities whatever position they are in.

Also, if everyone only follow their strong desires the world would definitely become destabilized. Imagine living in a world where everyone tries to avoid difficult work. Relationships would either break or would not last long. People would put of their work, and it will become a total chaos. To make the world run properly people should sometimes keep their compulsions that give bad effect to theirselves and other people.

Most or all, when we go after our compulsions the person that feels most uncomfortable is the person himself or herself. Everyone knows what their responsibilities are how they should behave in situations. They also know the consequences they have to pay later on. That is why people should absolutely carry out what they must do for their own comfort.

Everyone stands in the middle of their desires and their duties, and we are the person who knows exactly what we should do. We should not always follow our compulsion to carry out our responsibilities, keep the world stabilized, and make ourselves live in comfort.

“Eat a lot of delicious thing and play a lot during the vacation” was written on the one newspaper in 1937, December, 25th before winter vacation. ‘Green Mountain calls us, green forest calls us. Let’s go to the mountain to pick up the mountain strawberry. Let’s go to the forest with net to catch cicada’ this is song which name is summer vacation. We can know that what the purpose of vacation through the two script. The purpose of the vacation is to take a rest. However, vacation is not a time to take a rest to some students. Students have to have time to take a rest during vacation. This is duty to the students because the study efficient cannot reach like usual in summer, winter season, students can learn a lot of thing and vacation is only period to gather family.

First of all, vacation season is always summer and winter. We have to think that why vacation is held in summer and winter. This is because in summer and winter, we have to take a break. Everybody has that experience that we cannot concentrate on our study because of the weather. During the vacation, studying efficient is decreased automatically. Here are some examplesfor supporting this. In Korea era, the students who study in private school always go to the fresh mountain to make poem and talk with friends every summer. People called it ‘Ha-Gwa.’ In chosun era, ‘Seo-dang’ which is school to teach students let students to read or create poem instead of memorize quotation in summer.

In addition, vacation is time to learn a lot of things. During the vacation, students can have chance to experience the world. If they use the time well, they can know how to enjoy their life. For example, when the students go to historic site, they can understand the history related to the site easily. If students go to the tidal flat and watch a lot of lives which live in there, they realize that why do they have to protect environment. Unfortunately, 71.3% of the elementary school students said that their summer vacation plan is studying. 92% of the elementary school students feel that “Sometimes, they like vacation.” There are a lot of things that students have to learn and there are also a lot of thing that students cannot learn from school in the world. To let them experience these things also adults’ duty.

Lastly, vacation is only time to gather family. Nowadays, people are busy everyday. Even it is not easy to eat meal together once a day. They also cannot talk to each other. 24% of the students said that “I want to travel with my family in the vacation.” However, there are only 18% of the family who has elementary school students have plans to go travel.

To take a rest in vacation is one of the education processes. This is students and their parents’ duty. They have to play and enjoy the time. According to ‘Korea Education Study Center,’ vacation is time for reading a book, exercising and travel. Even though they live in high competition society, they have to have time to rest. Students can be a better person when they can enjoy their rest time.

         From ancient to now, human being have kept struggled to acquire what they want. Sometimes it was war and sometimes by other tactics. Food was major causes of this battle but nowadays it changed a little bit different with before. When we think about the image of battle, you can conjure up sword first and you can develop this idea to nuke weapon. But actually this is not true. In fact, we are fighting with pen and paper. So if we want to survive in this tough era, we have to study and our country’s competence is quite dubious. Korean student should study more hard because of international competence and their moral maturity and for the happiness of parents.

First of all, International competence is extremely high in this era. All countries are actually in danger and very carefully adjust this problem. For example, President Obama, who is American president, addresses urgent need of improving America’s education. He refers to our country and India for fever peak of education and he told that they need to learn from ours, But actually this is not true. We cannot rest our mind in a peace because when we compare the total hours and efficiency of studying, we lack very seriously of studying hours compared with them.

Next, we have to study more because it improves our mental maturity. In the bible there is words related to this, “Man cannot live only by bread”. This originally means that we need strong belief to our god but we also can apply this general truth to studying. We cannot only live with basic human nature like eating, sleeping and toilet thing. We need higher moral value to live happily and that will be study.

Finally, I cannot go without telling our parents. Our parents are the one who give a birth to us. Surely I cannot say that they only think study of being a good child. They unconditionally love us in spite of our lacking. However if you miss it in your life they inescapably might be disappointed because they know that this is very easy way to live in this brutal society. Especially, our former religion was Confusion. I dare say that we respect the old more than other country and we consider the best when we doing well to our parents. In this society, our country has more burden about being a good son or daughter. If that way is studying, we have to do more than other country.

Someone might say that studying hard is not a only way to become success. But other way is like a rugged road. We can hardly anticipate anything. And in this high competitive world, studying hard doesn’t give any harm to our country student. “Studying hard and survive in this cruel battle”

That can shed light on us our future.