My experience in China

Recently(starting from may 8th to may 12th) I went to China.  I went there because  my parents attended a math conference held at Chinese university of petroleum(what a name huh?). However I was excited to go to the country that every media was praising the potential about. I wanted to see the recent capitalism-turned socialism country.  However in my first visit to China(Beijing) somethings that shocked me was gap and organization and the people.

 First the gap. The gap means the gap between the rich and poor and main cities and other areas. I felt that since China has been focusing their goal at economical development, they could not well-devide the profits made. So there are huge gaps between rich and poor.  There are also large gap between the main parts of the country and the rest of the country. I might be making a haste generalization error since I have only been to Beijing and I’m writting this, but when I went to the downtown parts of Beijing (namely the place where there’s Tiannemen Square) it was so cleans and well organized that I was shocked thinking that China already out-developed Korea. However when I came to the hotel, which wasn’t far off, I was shocked as well. It was nothing like that I have seen at the downtown. There weren’t much of control and it was dirty too. It was a shock, in both good and bad ways. I think that this is inevitable because China has developed too fast and it is certain thing that there had to be gaps. Korea has gone through it and I believe China will pull this off just like us.

 Second the organization. I already mentioned the shock that I received from the Beijing downtown from the passage above so I won’t go deep about this. The thing that I want to mention about organization is the fact that I saw so many police. China has not adapted the capitalism fully yet so there were a lot of police on the streets of Beijing controlling the city.

Third the people. When I went to Japan I felt that Japanese are already civilians of advanced country. Most of the people that I met there had certain amount education and they do answer with kindness when they are asked by strangers but there are boundaries between you and them, you can almost feel it . But when I went to Beijing, I felt as if they were treating me as one of them( they might not have known the fact that I am a foreigner but still). They didn’t seem like best educated but you can feel their warm heart when you talk to them.

It has not been long since China adapted capitalism and earned reputation of being one of the strongest countries, and they have done it so fast that they are suffering from by-product of development. Although I have been shocked from few bad sides of China I cannot rebut the fact that China is one of the most potent countries. I hope China develops positively and help Asia and also Korea develop as well.

restarting the blog activity

I have been busy with my school work and other stuff so I was lazy with my blog…. if anybody  have been visiting my blog(which I doubt so) I want to inform that I will be doing my blogs more frequently than I have been las few months..

Put your head down you friggin’ fools!!!!

I have a really big problem with my new high school. My new high school is called “Busan International High school” and it’s like the private schools of America, only that it’s funded by the government. The thing that I have such a problem with is the strictness of relationship between seniors and freshmen(and women). What I mean by strictness is that those seniors expect us to treat them as if they are god, and us(juniors) certainly do have problem with it. If this was something that teachers knew nothing about and would punished them if they do find out, I would be ignoring them even if they had a weapon on their position(except lethal weapons though, if they got something lethal, I’d kneel if I had to lol). However, as you can infer this thing is already well known to teachers as well. The thing that most surprised me was something I call “the OT”.

OT, stands for orientation. What happened at the OT was that the school summoned every freshmen to our school for 1day sleep before the school season started(we live in dormitory during the semesters).  When all the parents left, we were told to come to student hall for a OT. Few teachers came up on the stage and explained about dormitory rules, school rules and stuff and after some guy was finished he said

“teachers! let’s go grab something to drink for few minutes!”

I instinctingly felt something was not right. After all the teachers were out to catch “drink” those seniors who were standing at sides(there were like 20) all just started screaming things like

“Put your head down you friggin’ fools!”

“close your eyes!”

“straghten your goddamn spines!”

I just knew that they were hear to scare the hell out of us so we could be obedient through out the school years.

However that’s how my first experience of my new school BIHS(Busan International High School) started.

I now know that those seniors that were trying to scare us weren’t that bad and they are actually more caring about us. I just hope that I could go through this tough junior year though….lol

Learn Korean in English

The most controversial pledge that Lee has campaigned is from education. It’s that he is going to make schools do classes in English. From what I hear they are even going to make Korean class into Enlgish…..What the hell!!!! I personally advocate Lee and most of his stuff but sometimes he seems to be too damn liberal! And his political party is conservative!!! I don’t know but it’s seems to me that if Lee pulls off everything he campaignes, it’ll be either very good or very bad….

The Icon that was burnt down

The icon of Korea is burnt down in the middle of Seoul. The icon that I’m talking about is the Soong Rae Gate also known as South Gate. The South Gate is the most famous cultural asset of Korea, it was always on commercials and postcards and photos, but now all that is left of it is ashes.

The thing that became controversial is how government treated it.

The only thing that was protecting the gate was two fire extinguishers. It is unbelievable that they opened the gate for people to visit without any preparation at all. And those stupid politicians are arguing that it wasn’t their fault! The last thing I want to do is see politicians face on the television….

Busan become Boston of Korea!

In my opinion Busan and Boston have lots of simularity. One thing is that they are both a harbor city, but that’s not the point.

The thing that I want my city(Busan) to learn from Boston is the sport. Boston is becoming the sports city of America. New York used to be the centre, with New York Yankees which was the most famous baseball team around the whole globe and they had New York Knicks, which became a standard basketball team in movies with all the guy characters saying “I’m going to the Knicks game”(is it only me that heard this line too many times?).  But the media says that Boston is becoming the new sports centre of America. With Boston Redsox which become the champion of MBL and Boston Celtics which is flying high in the NBL. They didn’t win the NFL though, the New York became the champion this season lol.

Anyhow I want Busan to be more like Boston. I don’t want Busan to be a sports center for all the sports like valleyball and stuff but I want it to be the center for soccer and baseball and basketball because they have enough potential. Soccer is not so popular in Busan but they bought the legendary star player, Ahn Jung Hwan, this season so they might turn the tables around. Baseball always had the most fans in Korea, but the team did not do well, it’s been over 8 years since the baseball team of Busan got into post-season. Basketball team is just the middle, they once did well but this season they have moderate amount of audience and not-so-well results. I want Busan to be the center of these 3 most beloved sports, because I always just love going to stadiums to watch games for real, but the teams are just not doing well enough for me to use my money on tickets….

Fraud Fraud Fraud….

I do a lot of internet activities so when I have something to buy, I use the internet to do so. I sometimes felt conscious about those internet fraud , but when I saw those news about fraud I thought that those people who are fooled are the ones that are stupid. I thought I was smarter than them. You see how I used “thought” not “think”? I become one of those people who I called stupid….The thing is, I wanted to buy a used phone. So I wrote in one cafe, where people join to sell and buy used stuff, that I’m willing to buy a phone. Somebody mailed me. He was selling it to me way below the usual price! I was doubtful about this guy because he wouldn’t tell me his phone number nor address, but he said that he was going back to the army to serve his time(you see guys in Korea has to go to army for 2 years because our country is still on war). I wanted the phone so bad and the price was something that come only once in a life time(unless the conditions are real bad but he said he used phone for like 2 weeks). So I asked my mother to deposit, my mom was more doubtful than I was but she did it for my sake. Well after the banking was over, he was nowhere to be found and I had no how to contact…..I learnt two things. One that strangers weren’t as trustworthy as I thought. Two that I’m not as smart as I thought I would be…. Well I feel lucky that I went through something like this in my early years, before I make some stupid deal with stranger in my later years with only more cash involved…Thanks jesus if you are really up there….

Will America’s sub prime mortgage effect Korea gradually?

I guess one of the hottest issue is the America’s sub-prime mortgage problem. With America’s economy collapsing, the entire world has started to go downhill. Korea is obviously one of those entire-world-countries. From about a week ago Korea’s economy started to collapse fast. KOSPI(Korean Composite Stock Price Index) went from 1800 to 1700 to 1600 in matter of days, and than the news told us that we broke the record of lowest KOSPI, when the rate went down to 1500’s. I’m not that old enough to understand how the economy works, but I could see that it’s not going very well from the dark expressions of my parents. How is America handling this problem, and can anyone explain to me how and when this crisis will be handled?

may someone could mail me at dltmdgkr2378@naver.com

Lee and his public pledges-747

Lee’s most recent promise to the public is the 747 policy. 747 means 7% economy growth, and after 10 years annual income growth will rise to  $40,000  and economy to be ranked above 7th in the world economy rankings. Some say there are a lot of problem with it. According to few research organizations the potential economic growth of Korea was 4~5% and they say that if the practical growth over runs the potential growth,  it will lead to inflation. They say say that Lee’s promise about 7% economic growth is a play to fool the citizens. There are a lot of doubts about the $40,000 annual income as well. The thing is that Koreans’ annual income grew from $10,000(2000) to $20,000(2007) and the growth has only enlarge the gap between the rich and the poor. The opposite say that Lee’s economic growth will only benefit the poor and disadvantage the poor. Lee’s promise that Korea will ranking is also becoming a problem as well. Researchers say that even if we are be able to pull off the 7% economy growth in ten years we won’t be able to get into the top 7 because in ten years we than will reach the economy of Italy right now (in 2007), so unless we pull off to grow more than 7% a year, it is impossible. It is for sure that their is no unanymity in Lee’s actions. He had it coming when he campained on such a extreme(in some aspects) pledges. I personally advocate Lee because he is able to pull off things he promised. I’m sure Korea will rank the 7th in 10 years….I hope….lol

Lee and his Public Pledge-1 The canal

Lee Myung Bak is the next president of Korea. Although he is in the conservative party of Korea(Grand National Party) he is very liberal, in my view. One thing that he is promoting is “The Canal” business. The ides is making a canal that runs through Korea. You see there is two rivers, Han river located in Seoul and Nakdong river located in Busan. His idea is connecting South part of Han river with Nak Dong river. Since the idea seems so extreme, patronage and oppositions devides apparently. Oppositions say that the plan will go wrong. They think that the plan will take too much time and money and while building the canal, it will ruin the quality of rivers. The patronage argue that it is going to be greatly beneficial. They say that it won’ t harm nature becuase there will be constant care, and say that the construction will be done within 4 years. I think, whatever other people say, Lee will pull this off. You see Lee is great at doing things that other people oppose to and make a great benefit out of them. His career says it. When he was the mayor of Seoul, he was going to make a big change in transportation. It was “The Transfer” change. The thing was that if you have the transportation card, after you ride the bus, within 30 minutes you could ride any bus for free. At first, everyone thought that this was going to bring major financial loss. But it made more people use the public transportation, and now all the other cities are following what Lee did with Seoul. Lee is a very consistant and promising person. He might not be the most morale president, but most competent. I think he will greatly develop Korea, I just hope that he doesn’t get involved in some money scandal in his later years….damn