I read the book over the last night, THE LORD OF FLIES which was written by William Golding. When was it? I watched the movie on TV in class when I was 10 years old. Well, remembering that, I was so young and I was so shocked that time, even though I can’t remember the movie in detail until I got the book by chance. The story line is very simple. The boys got into an accident in flight and made an emergency landing on some island. There is a hero, Ralph. He became the “leader” of the boys gaining their trust. All the boys followed the rules and orders from the leader, having hope that they would be rescued by adults. However, as time went by, they were losing hope for a rescue. In the mean time, the boy named “JACK” opposed to the leader, Ralph, with constant objections. A tension between JACK and Ralph had come to them. The boys were put on the line that they had to choose the leader. The rumor that a monster lived in the island flew around the boys. Fear got intense. Jack made his group and broke away from the boys by using the situation. Simon who was considered as the “CRAZY BOY” found out the truth the monster was in fact the body of a soldier. (Fear made their eyes blind.) So, he tried to let them know the truth, but he was finally murdered by JACK’s family. JACK’s madness and violence got deep again and again, the Ralph’s family ran away from them. But, the advisor of boys who was fat and shy but also wise and honest, Piggy (His name is “Piggy” in the story.) was murdered by JACK. In the end, Ralph became alone and he tried to do a final escape from them. After all, at the moment everything seemed to be ended up, he was rescued by PEOPLE and the boys were rescued as well. The story is finished like this. Even though the story seems to be very simple, there are a lot of symbolic meanings in the book and I think it shows us our cruel reality. These things are the greatest points of this novel.

One thing I feel missing is that the characters of the novel are all “BOYS”. I think, to describe human’s society, the author might want to limit the sex of the characters as male. But, “What if there were GIRLS in the story?” I am thinking and thinking….
Well, he might want to exclude the sex of female with special intention. But I think he made a mistake to twist the human’s whole aspects. But, with the specialty that it is an adventure novel and to be able to symbolize the time of the war, he might need to emphasize the sex of male. So, I won’t feel the want anymore. I searched ‘The Lord of Flies’ through the internet and I found out it means like an EVIL. So, the lord of flies means the human’s true evil character. Well… Actually I felt a creepy feeling about the title at first. Did he have the ethical view that humans are born evil? I don’t know.

Anyway, with the harsh criticism and the ridicule for human society in his novel,
I want to clap my hands to his wonderful idea and writing skills.
At the end of the story, the reason why Ralph cried so sad might be that he felt he lost their purity and innocence. It’s now the time we need to cry for Ralph.

Living as a mobile Big Brother subject

 

Now the world is going to be the mobile cloud war. It looks like very simple but its meaning is very complex. The competition for being a lord of the mobile cloud empire has never been more intense. The IT world is war without gunfire. It’s not a territorial dispute between countries but a bloody fight between companies to control the human mind in exchange for the convenience of the technology. George Orwell’s Big Brother is not a crap anymore. The reproduced world in the process of this war is going to transcend the world of Big Brother. However, the reality of the Big Brother, it offers efficiency, convenience of working and all sorts of entertainment to people through the mobile cloud. In short, it means that people won’t criticize the mobile Big Brother. Rather, many people will praise and appreciate based on that loyalty! How can they just turn their backs on that ‘great empire’?

 

(1) Is it ‘Big Brother’? or Is it a Companion of life?

 

Since proved that Apple and Google were known to gather personal location information, smartphone users have been confused psychologically. Location-tracking controversy which was initiated from the fear of invasion of privacy and the possibility of leaking of private information have been recently a hot topic with a charge of mobile advertising agency of Korea and search of the National Police Agency for Google Korea and Daum Communications. The number of smartphone users in Korea reached the ten million and the newest devices built in two-way communication show up at all hours while public’s concern about invasion of privacy is also growing. Because people did not anticipate the smartphone era, the boundary that what is legal or illegal is blurred, so the perspectives of the police and the Korea Communications Commission(KCC) facing the issue are in disagreement. What is going on around us? Let me arrange the contentious issues.

 

(2) Smartphone Location Information ; Lost between legal and illegal

 

“Mac address is personal information,” said the Police.

“It’s just location information,” said Korea Communication Commission.

 

The current Korean location privacy protection law imposes the citizens to get its permission first and to register to do the location-based business using the location information. Thus, in case of collecting the location information by getting the permission from the KCC or providing the location-based service after registering, itself is not illegal. However, it is a different story if the information is a personal information. The police announced that the mobile advertising agency had an unfair advantage by collecting personal information such as pointer data(latitude and longitude) and mac addresses(the identification number for Wi-Fi connection) for advertising targeting specific regions. The announcement means that the police concluded pointer data and mac address are ‘personal location information’. If this information is personal location information of users, it must be stated the government’s permission, consent and users’ approval as well as user location information the use range, purpose in terms that. Then the used information also must be discarded immediately after the use. The police believe that the mobile advertising agencies collected the personal location information without the smartphone users’ prior consent. However, the KCC and the other mobile phone companies strongly insist that it is impossible to identify the personal location information only with the pointer data and mac address. “the police interpreted the personal location information too broadly,” said an official.

 

(3) Possibility for personal identification with personal information

 

The possibility of personal identification with pointer data collected by mobile advertisement agencies and mac address provoke another controversy. The problem is that a specific person can be exposed anytime. MAC address is indicated by the unique number (12 digits assigned to the network equipment, 34-15-9E-F4-C6-E3). The front Six-digit indicates the producers and they give the latter six digits assigned to each unit. While the police insist that tracking a specific person is too easy because mac address assigned to each terminal is different, mobile phone companies refute upon the police by claiming that it is impossible to locate a specific person. “Opinions that the police misconceive of the range of personal location information are dominant among the KCC.” said an official. For a while, it seems to be the prosecution holds the key to the solution of the case because the current law on personal location has not been specifically determined, so the question is the decision of the prosecution.

 

(4) Apple’s collecting location information is another problem.

 

Apple’s collecting location information and other mobile advertisement agencies’ are two different things. It’s because the collected data and the purpose are different. Apple gathers the nearby Wi-Fi and base stations information to support iPhone users to get location information service more easily. Some people criticize the collection of information itself, but it is inevitable to use a smartphone.

According to the Police, the problem is that the collected data is still stored for long-term by the mobile agencies without encryption. Apple admitted its mistake explaining that they certainly collected the data but it was just a bug, not for more than ten months. Apple promised to rectify this problem through upgrading operating system (OS) in the near future. However, Apple strongly denied a lot of comments about location-tracking. As smartphone platform operators, Apple and Google gather location information. It’s because they take a position that they should let the location-based service providers know to provide the convenient location information service such as giving direction to the near restaurant or destination. Apple and Google, received a location information business license from South Korea Government.

 

- It still remains to be seen whether location-tracking is controversial.

 

Some might even detect the whiff of desperation because the obvious solution for this controversy is still not coming out. There is just controversy…..

However, important point that we should never forget is that even though the tremendous advances in technology have penetrated deeply into our life and in such benefits, personal freedom and dignity can be thoroughly collapsed. George Orwell’s Big Brother of ‘1984’ simply does not only exist anymore in the world of the book. Even now that Big Brother is currently underway and it can be completed in our indifference. As long as we don’t give up the entertainment, efficiency and convenience of working, being a subject of the empire is up to the willingness of the people. Big Brother seemingly does not force people to be subjects of the empire. But the human crawls into the empire.vAs I mentioned that, a war between countries was just like ‘a land picking’ in the past but a war between IT companies to build ‘mobile Big Brother world’ is now more like ‘a human mind picking’. If companies embarked on this war have intention or not, it could result in negative results. We might live as the subjects of the empire, by being lost the past memories, or mortgaged the spirit, and also we might consider it as the acquisition of the new technology. That’s the message of George Orwell through ‘1984’ and the point we have to watch out most.

 

 

 

 

To learn English, I had been in Australia for eight months three years ago, so I was able to meet a lot of students who also wanted to learn English with many interesting reasons. The students who were very good at English but decided to look for a bigger dream or the students who had come to find difficult areas to study in Korea or even the students who just wanted to enjoy the abroad life.
By reading the article about the growing numbers of U.S college students in study-abroad programs, I recalled that the students’ results varied depending on their variety of reasons. However, before going to study abroad, students have to think there is the probability of failure certainly. It means that going to study abroad in indeterminate belief can cause failure. So, checking ‘opportunity factors’ and ‘risk factors’ is required to prepare before going abroad.

Let’s look at the opportunities factors.

Opportunities for the new environment is the first point. Students entering a new environment which is outside of the traditional framework where they would get into, not to compete and win. So only English is needed in the beginning of the new life and it would be very advantageous for the students who are gifted in language or who are lacked of confidence for the excessive environmental factors to study English because they only need to concentrate on studying English.

Second, except some countries, the competition is not fierce.
In general, the college enrollment in developed countries is significantly lower than the developing countries. It’s not only because of the lack of interest in studying but also because of the fact that choosing a job doesn’t require further study of college or a sufficient social welfare system can guarantee basic living condition so they don’t feel much need to go to the college.

Third, the friends around are changed. Of course, this may be a danger or opportunities because the friends of the surrounding areas affect the study life. Smoking, drinking or being addicted to games easily can be easily seen at the period. As you meet friends who work hard, you can make the chance to look back that you have been on the right track at least. Of course, it is possible to make wrong relationship, but it is able to improve by the will of a person.

Let’s look at the danger factors.

First, it is a vague expectation. You might think that living abroad is easy to adapt but it’s not that easy actually. While living with foreigners, you head hurts and there’s no place to eliminate stress or even you may get tired with the cultural difference with your home-stay family. From the food, thoughts, words and to wants to hang up…………. Because all you need to live in a different way, the stress can be more stressful than you can imagine. Constant check and counseling in advance are recommended.

Second, it is also English. Not as a mean of academic English, as a mean of communication, everything is limited when you are not enough to communicate in English. But I don’t say the academic English is not important. The more important thing is that you need to study grammar skills, writing skills, vocabulary and so on. These things never can be improved if you don’t study at your desk during the period of the study-abroad. All you have to do is just study. That’s the point.

The third risk is ultimately a problem of the relationship. The English-speaking cities such as LA, Vancouver, New York or Sydney overflow with many Korean students like Korea’s big cities. Though you are in English-speaking country, you can not find the difference with your country. Of course, there is no way to avoid Korean students. The problem is not getting along with Korean students but getting along with Korean students ‘only’. It’s not easy but you can make an effort.

You might disagree with those things or there may be other factors. However, if these factors are sufficiently considered, the risks can be significantly reduced. Everybody knows that? Of course, everybody knows the story but misses it most. Actually I also did it too.

Everyone wants success. And I want it either. Who can say he or she doesn’t want it? If so, what is success? Money? Honor? or power? To be honest, let alone two things, honor and power, I want to be economically succesful. I mean, I want big money. Weirdly, people seem to consider money as a negative thing although they want to get it if there is a chance. The money can not be the only reason of my life, but it can be stimulus for me to be succesful. With money, I want to do many things. That would be buying a car and house or supporting my future family. I really know it well that how miserable the life without money is because I had experience the life before. I don’t go back to the days.

Time is over! Thank you!

Last year, the National Labor Relations Board initiated a law suit against a company which fired a woman worker who mad abuse over her supervisor on the internet, Facebook. The Board announced that it is unfair discharge. According to the board’s announcement, “Expressing any complaints, dissatisfaction about company’s unfair decision or choice on Facebook or other SNSs (Social Network Service) is the freedom of expression. Giving opinions on colleague, supervisor or company is an appropriate action. It means that she has done nothing wrong.” However, the company which was given the lawsuit refuted the board’s statement as insisting that “the dismissal of her/ the reason of dismissal originated from her complicated wrong actions. She didn’t show us the appropriate actions but attacked her colleagues to speak out to the publicand even made a personal attack. Her actions must be unforgiven.”

In my opinion, making some nasty comments about somebody who is not happy with others could happen, and also is a kind of a catharsis. Especially, this phenomenon is more outstanding in our Confucian society, Korea.

Let’s make an easy situation to understand. There are two guys with different classes. A person with a low class is relatively short of opportunity for expressing his opinions with a high class, he can even be pressed down by the one with a high class. So, he would make bad or nasty comments about the guy with a high class to chase his stress away. But it is that not all the organizational members act like that. There may be a person who keeps and remains silent by just doing his job. However, it is an obvious fact that there are a lot of peoplewho would make abuse on somebody because they are not happy in their life.

Let’s get to the point. I also have been a member of society like school life, army, part-TIME job, so, sometimes I feel dissatisfaction with those life because I am not a perfect man. But with my military experience, I’ve realized a simple thing. Making nasty comments about somebody in a small way or in a direct manner is not a good solution to drive the negative mind away.

In the end, it would end up returning back to me as a curse when I become a leader in an organization. So, how should I react when I notice when somebody makes nasty comments about me?  Honestly, who will remain still when he knows about abuse on himself?

After all, the most important thing is the mental attitude. In one of the views of Asian aspects, it says that “When you have a negative mind in your world, it would come to you as all the negative things. But when you try to keep positive, all the pessimistic force would go away from your mind and it would bring all the good results to you.” I couldn’t agree with this saying more. Even though the case what I’ve mentioned is not Korean’s matter, I hope the thing would bring a good solution to both sides soon because I can’t be sure it couldn’t happen in Korea.

We are under the control of compulsion. The compulsion is divided into the positive compulsion and the negative compulsion. Especially, the negative compulsion has people behave harmfully to the others. You might have felt strong compulsion to hurt or kill somebody when you are pressed in a jampacked bus or when you receive unfair treatment. But you don’t express your feelings thoughtlessly because you know well that you will be punished by law if you behave as you feel. The reckless expression of compulsion pains you and others. If so, should we stand it forever? Absolutely not. For example, now you grab a balloon which is being put air in and you don’t let it go, it will burst off! An then, the more amount it stands, the more powerful the burst is. How can we handle it? When I was a soldier, I had a moment that everything was going crazy and it was like I was going to be exploded for the anger. Especially, controlling the compulsions was not easy in the group which required me strict law and order. but I was able to get some effective ways to handle my compulsion. I’m going to explain some effective ways.

First of all, control your mind. In the age of limitless competition, it is not easy to control mind. But it is also not impossible to control mind. I want to explain about ‘the rule of ten-seconds.’ If you encounter the annoying problem or even the situation you want to behave violently, just take a deep breath and count ten-seconds. For the ten seconds, think reasonably that expressing your anger would be helpful for you or not. Absolutely, it will be very hard at the first time, but if you keep doing this, it will be your new habit. With the rule of ten seconds, your compulsion will be eased off.

Second, it’s not shameful to express your feelings. But remember that thoughtless behavior without respectfulness can cause another serious problem. Maybe expressing feelings in official place or private has not been tolerated in our society because Korea is a confucian country. They tend to consider that expressing feelings can injure their prestige, so they usually hide their feelings. However, as mentioned, ‘the example of balloon’, suppressing the compulsion cause the much bigger problems. It’s not desirable. In order to avoid the terrible problem, your attitude needs to be honest and polite to deliver how you are feeling. Reading books, meditation and enjoying sports are also helpful for you to organize your minds. 

Third, be affected by positiveness. humans are relative creatures. That means, people are affected by the environment. Nowadays, we learn about all news happening around us for the development of the mass media. However, unfortunately, the news are almost full of negative accident or affairs. Knowing what is going on around us is very important, but the fact causing us so stressed is absolutely true. So, we need to stay away from those negative environment for a while. It is certain that the negative mind or attitude coms out from the negative environment. We need to change the environment to be positive. Here, the positiveness is totally different with optimism because positiveness means that you make effort to change things better continuously. 

In conclusion, modest expression of our feelings is very helpful for us to keep healthy mind and attitude. We are not balloons though, we don’t know exactly when the anger explodes suddenly. In order to avoid the serious conflict, we should know not knowing how to mange compulsion is very dangerous.

There is a moment that makes you are under huge stress. You may think that you can never escape, change and it’s like you are caught in a trap or even in the most stressful times ever. In my opinion, people are now living in the era of too much stress. Yes, We are. The media shows us the very real anxiety about economic troubles, environmental disasters, political discord, wars and terrorism! It makes people think negatively and it spreads really really rapidly like a contagion. The theory of spongy shows us how people are affected by the others’ feeling. The contagious effect. Also it’s conceivable that it could affect a larger population too. If the world is full of people who think and act negatively, the world would be like a hell. I don’t want to imagine that kind of world.

Fortunately, Some keys are here to regulate our emotions in the face of a tsunami of stress. The expert, Gross says ‘We must be turned off from the various communication devices that we are never far from.” Yes, he is right. Everyday, we are around all sorts of bad news! Even though knowing what is happening around the world is a very important thing, it is also true that those news make people stressed out.

The second, change the habit. It means that turning off TV, not seeking out the horror movies, staying away from the negative things. The life we have been used to watching violent scenes of tv pains and devastates our emotion. 

The third is to change the mind. By shifting attention to or thinking of positive things in a very rapid way, our mental activity can be developed. Aside from mental activity, phisical activity is also important. the physical activity can change the emotion and stress response.

Since people are just human, it is maybe impossible to live in the world without any stress. But as Isaid, some effective ways can reduce our stressful life. I hope nobody is suffering from stress. We can change our habit.

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.

 

 

 

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.