"Pan Mun Jum," center for North and South Korea negotiations; located right in the middle.

 Before I watched this clip, I obviously heard lot about this situtation between North and South Korea. I heard a lot about the fact that defectors coming to South Korea to find a better life. However, I don’t think I took this issue in terms of personal way. I just thought this entire division of one country was a diplomatic issue and part of Korea’s history. Even though I knew general cover of the story, I did not know the reality.

However, after watching this documentary, I realized the reality of this issue. I felt really sorry of Haejung and all the students who were attending the boarding school in the film. They had to live in South Korea without their family members. One of the “lucky” ones had only one parent at the best.  I was shocked the most when Haejung was talking about how she was pleased to have the electricity on in the building all the time and how she could find socks to wear easily. It seemed like the world she was from was not part of the same Earth.

At the end of the clip, Haejung expresses her anxiety of two Koreas not unifying. I could even hear desperate feeling from her voice. I hope that her dream would come true and soon meet her parents with success shining behind her.

Jean Nouvel's Residential Tower, located in Chelsea Neighborhood along the Hudson river in NY. It is under construction. The light from the windows changes its character according to lights.

Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família is a massive privately funded Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, Spain. It was under constructon since 1882 and will be done by year 2026. It was deisgned by Antoni Gaudi.

Melnikov House near Arbat Street in Moscow. Built by Konstantin Melnikov.

The Seagram Building, located in NYC. It is considered one of the finest masterpiece of corporate modernism.

http://seank91.wordpress.com/

McCarthy’s writing style was influenced by several authors. “Joycean virtues of silence, exile, and cunning more faithfully than any other contemporary author”. This is the Joyce’s writing style that McCarthy had tried practicing on. It also seems that Faulkner also heavily influenced his style of writing because through out the article Faulkner’s writing style is constantly discussed.

How does McCarthy treat human characters in his story as opposed to landscape and animals like horses?

It is usual for authors of certain novel to focus heavily on their characters to develop the story. This is usually the case because the basic plot of the story goes around the main character or other important characters in the story. However, McCarthy seems to have a different point of view.  Just like in “All the Pretty Horses,” McCarthy emphasizes more portraits of landscape, animals, or other non-human factors. He was always busy describing the field that was spread out as the background of the story and horse that motivated the character to go through the life risking adventure.

What type of dialogue does the article state McCarthy uses?

I could find the type or style of the dialogue that McCarthy often uses in his story through reading this article and All the Pretty Horses myself. Most of other dialogues that I find in common books are divided by quotation marks or they are at least “indicated” throughout the book with certain notation. However, in McCarthy’s book they are just written in chunks. The readers are not even sure who is talking in the particular dialogue.

What is notable about his diction (word choice)?

In the article it is indicated that his diction is one of the odd or even old style of English. His dictions seem to come from all aspects of history of English which goes all the way back to Elizabethan age English.

            I am very confident answering this question because I am already in this situation until I am finished with SAT in two weeks. There is only one way: to remove the device out of your sight completely. I couldn’t remove the television because other people in my family had to watch it but I asked my mother for help to take my laptop away. After this happened, I think I was successful in liberating myself from the computer world.

            I encountered prohibition phenomena. On the first day I stopped using my laptop, I could not concentrate at all. I read words and sentences on papers but I did not comprehend a single letter. There is a big computer on the living room and I tended to go out my room often due to the desire to use the computer like I used to. It was literally driving me crazy. However, as time went by I got used to the condition and I was able to concentrate for longer period of time.

#2 How many hours per week do you estimate you spend on Facebook or similar personal networking sites? What are the benefits and disadvantages of using these sites?

           I used to spend gazillion times on Facebook or instant messengers. These days, I am even bored of that so I just sleep or do nothing or watch television. Using these sites have various consequences nevertheless. It is beneficial in a way that you get to know what is going around you. It is disadvantageous for you because you lose the time to do more productive things such as reading books.

#3 To what extent are you aware of viral marketing, the use of “advertorials” (presenting advertisements as editorial content), or direct marketing on Facebook and other social networking sites?

             Actually, I never heard of this concept before. Now that it is mentioned in this question, I am sort of getting an idea what it is. I think I have seen them on side bars and side menus when I was using facebook. However, I don’t remember occasion that I actually got influenced by those “advertorials” when I was using those sites.

#4 Personal response based on your individual viewing of “Growing Up Online”.

           The video was really interesting to watch. I realized how this normal routine for teenage people can develop into such a crisis among adults who are not used to this style of living. I was also shocked at poor quality of thinking that students in the stated had. Their justification for usage of computer everyday was total non-sense. I felt that those extreme comments about usages of internet world sort of set bias on other teenagers who are able to control what to do or not. I felt sort of angry in the middle but it was interesting video due to the fact that it provided me with totally new point of view towards a controversial issue.

I think these two articles are extremely related with the environment in Seoul International School.

Korean students are known to attend hagwon or private institutions after school in order to ‘learn’ courses more effectively. This system is supposed to help the students become more academically sophisticated. However, the reality is that students become machines who cannot work independently. I went to several institutions for SAT preparation but there are people who go to hagwon even for the actual school courses. I cannot understand why people would want two teachers when one is enough to deal with (HAHA). As a result, these phenomena, in which hagwon streets are emerging in the United States is not surprising. Since students have lost the ability to deal with school independently long time ago in high school, they are searching for places to get help. I think this should be solved as fast as possible because there is no way for students to adapt the colleges in the United States if they constantly rely on private institutions. I think making a study group within students would be a good solution too.

The academic integrity issue is common in SIS too. I think this cheating issue was common but it was not publicized by the media like this before. I really think this is a big problem. Cheating can sometimes bring you a good grade. With that grade, the student is able to go to a good college. But now what? How are they going to go through 4 or more years of college? With cheating? I don’t think so. It would be a bigger problem if these people are poured out to the public. However, I think that would be impossible because people can’t accomplish things by using other people’s ideas. That is just how things work.

I would like to share this wonderful site that has black list of hagwons in Korea…wow… BLACKLIST SITE

       Some elements of “wrrior tradition” are based on super natural belief, that people can become stronger than themselves. The tradition is associated with elements of nature. When warriors are training just like in Woman Warrior, they learn their moves from nature like animals’ posture.  I guess the distinct traditions are different by their cultural origin. For example, in Eeastern culture such as China and Korea, people who are fast and more of skill based are considered strong warrior. However, in Western culture big and masculine people are considered the true warrior.

Bruce Lee

How is the natural world depicted in relation to martial arts?

       Just like I said in the previous response, natural world is strongly depicted in relation to martial arts. I think this is extrememly evident in Eastern culture. The movie that dealt with Chinese martial arts was called Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The title itself directly reflects how martial arts are related with animals. I also heard about many other stuffs. When Warriors are in fight, they tend to control their state of mind by associating with nature. They try to synchronize themselves with peacefullness of nature to remain calm during combat.

The Crane Form

How are gender roles important to the scenes we watched?

       Gender roles were crucial in the scenes we watched. In the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the guards thought the thief who was running away with knife ‘obviously’ as man when she actually was a woman. This shows how culture tend to ignore the status of woman compared to that of man. There also was a scene between the male master and a witch. The male master’s fighting skill overpowers that of witch’s. As a result, when male master penetrates witch’s breast he gives smirky smile that highlights the gender factor of the movie.

What else caught your eye or is worth noting?

I was surprised when I learned the reality of the Warrior Tradition. I originally thought that the tradition would be something like fierce fighting until someone is dead. However, it was competely the opposite. The tradition was increasing one’s status over others by their martial art skills while no one actually gets killed. From this, I realized the luxury of Warrior Tradition in China.

Warrior Tradition conveys other meaning such as comepetition between people. Other perspective about the Warrior Tradition

 …The Woman Warrior is that it is a book without a genre.

The first impression I got when I was reading the book was self-criticism. I would understand about a page or two and soon I could not understand the rest of the story. I would understand another page or two and soon I could not understand the rest. This phenomenon was repeated throughout the entire chapter. I fell into turmoil, asking myself, what have I done with my English skills? I mean I am not that good at it but I was still able to read some books! Just like other novels, I read the chapter for the second time. I realized how the story was not evenly spread out. The first part seemed to be talking about the author herself but it quickly transitioned the tale told by her mother, thus story about someone else. Just like what say on this article, The Woman Warrior ‘clearly’ has no concrete genre.

This does not mean, however, that I do not like the book. I don’t really like it but I enjoyed the book because this books reflected situation that Kingston went through which was similar with my life as a Korean American. Every time Kingston’s person anecdotes were read, I could connect myself with it. Not only could I connect, I realized some explanations for the situations that I was puzzled with. For instance, there was a moment when my mother shouted at me so much for such a little thing. When I read Kingston’s story similar to this, I realized how my mother loved me as a son!

Maxine Hong Kingston, the author

1. What does Kim say is the most likely explanation for the high dropout rate among Koreans?
Kim says that the most explainable reason for the high dropout rate among Koreans is the way how they were educated before college. As we already know, Korean parents are known for push-push method of educating their child. Even at the age of 6 or 7, Korean kids, including my cousin, are sent to academic institution to ‘learn’ something. Some kids tend to learn English when they are not even fully used to using Korean. This enforcement, leads to the point where kids lose their timing to get inspired by themselves to learn new things. There is no longer such thing as reading a textbook and listening to teachers in school, only going to private institutions and finishing up works just for grades exists. Now, this type of enforcement is not possible in the college because parents and the kids don’t live together. College is a place where a student should live independently. Korean kids were so used to this enforcement type of education, that they cannot withstand the load of work and style of American education and eventually drop out.
2. How does the dropout rate among Koreans compare to the dropout rate among other groups?
44% of Koreans dropped out. 34 % of Americans dropped out. 25% of Chinese and 21% of Indians dropped out. Just by looking at the percentage, it really looks like a big difference. However, I think we should consider the fact about the overall population in each college. If the total number of students for Americans are much bigger, than this information might be an inaccurate data. I found another articles about University Drop out rates. This might explain this pheomena even though the data was collected long time ago. University Dropout Rate Article

3. What are you currently doing to increase your own college readiness? Is there anything you think you should do before you graduate from high school to be better prepared for university?
I think I am preparing myself with Independant reading in World Literature. English is not my second language and when I asked SIS people who are already in college how it is like, they said there are amount of reading that you cannot even imagin in high school curriculums. As a result, through independant reading, and just simply reading outside school, I will slowly build myself up. I also think that improving my English level will help me in other subjects. This is because the main component of studying other subject is, reading as well.

4. What else do you think about this article?
I think this article is a warning and stimulating factor for me. This sort of scared me about the toughness of American universities. However, I was also stimulated to challenge myself to surive the harsh condition the United States.

I decided to answer questions 3, 4, and 9.

3. In what ways do you think Ben Wu, the entrepreneur launching the Internet Café, is representative of the ‘new’ China?

           There are many ways that Ben Wu represents the citizens who are taking active role in forming ‘new’ China. First of all, before China jumped into the globalization, it was isolated empire with communism principles. That meant that no such thing as private business existed. However, by launching new concept of entertainment called Internet Café, Wu successfully created a private business. It was indicated in the film that Wu got a education outside of China. This meant that he was influenced from the Western education and is expanding his learning in China. Lot of Chinese is doing this as China itself is joining the global economy. It was also said that main investors on Internet Café business were non-Chinese meaning foreigners. It means that Wu is actively involved with western society. These factors of Wu clearly reflect him as a representation of ‘new’ China.

4. What do you think are important historical, social or economic factors that have shaped the outlook of the Chinese generation profiled in the film?

           Before this generation ‘new’ China, Chinese lived under absolute control of authoritarian government. No such thing as private business was even thought of in China. Almost everything monitored by the Chinese government. However, as time passed, China started to take its communism cloth and off slowing joining the international community. Important historical and social factor that shaped the outlook of the Chinese generation profiled in the film was Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989. This movement was held by young Chinese who were against the authoritarianism. People wanted economic liberalization and economic reforms. Despite that fact that this protest was followed by an unfortunate massacre, it was the first attempt by the Chinese citizens to voice unified will toward the ‘new’ China. After that incident, China started to slowly open its doors. Thus, such people who were profiled in the film started appear. The similarity between Old and Young generation of Chinese is that they are all passionate about something. In other words, they are restless striving to live and achieve success. The difference would be the time period that they are conducting this effort. Older generation was restricted in terms of what they could do due to the government. Younger generation, people who were filmed, are in a condition where they can expand their goal to the level they accomplish much more things in terms of finance and fame.

9. Why do you think FRONTLINE producers named this program Young & Restless In China?

           FRONTLINE producers named this program because people who are taking active role building ‘new’ china are actually young and restless. People like Ben Wu who are actively bringing concept of private business are working every day. In fact, he complained that he missed his wife. That shows that even though people are feeling tired, they do not stop working. People like Miranda Hong and rapper Wang Xiaolei are young and trying hard to go against the tradition that China had been practicing. Hong decided to cancel that marriage that she was forced to have by her parents. Xiaolei is actively participating in the new generation of hip hop in Chinese clubs. These people are indeed young and striving toward their own goal. At the same time, they are the representations of ‘new’ China. I think the other titles that would aptly describe this film are “China:Transformation” , “Never Look Back, just Run” , and “Dynamic China”.