Should Korea have more than one official language?

 Have you satisfied that Korea has just one official language to speak? It is good at the aspect of national unity. There are some local conflicts, even when there exists just dialects. If we had another official languages, there would be more crash between peoples. But there are some merits that more than one official language offers like Canada, which has two official languages, French and English. One or more official languages make a circumstance naturally to learn new language, reduce private education fees and helps to become a global leader.

 First, more than one official language make a circumstance naturally to learn new language from the early age. According to a study on the education of children, acquiring languages is as effective as people are young. Babyhood is a crucial period of linguistics learning. Chomsky, one of the linguists, said that children have an innate ability to learn languages. So if we have more than one official language, we could master another languages easier than when we are adults.

 Second, if we get more than one languages, we can reduce private education fees. These days, a lot of parents spend their money for their children’s private education. Above all, Korean parents think that early-childhood English teaching is most important of that. So some of them send their children to English language kindergarten. But, the cost of putting their children there is enormous. It is difficult for them to afford the tuition fees but there’s no choice for their children.

 Finally, more than one official language helps for citizens to become a global leader. Language ability has become important in the world we live in. Various fields of job require language abilities basically even excluding their mother tongue because most of industry need to communicate with another country’s industries in this global world. Today, most of jobs are linked in every corner of the world. So if Korean government adopt another official language, we could be competitive than other countries, which don’t choose any more official languages.

 I think two or trilingual people are likely to have a job easily, which they want to be. Because they can consider their jobs in a wide range of areas. Korean have taught their children Chinese at early age at least they are able to write their name in Chinese. And nowadays, Chinese have become more important as China grows up. How is it going to happen if we decide Chinese our another official language? I think we don’t need to learn Chinese with full stress. Also we can be competitive in the world industries.

Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway

Hayeon Park

Prof. Kyle Brebner

IERW(03)

25 September 2015

Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway

             The first time I saw ‘Rain, Steam and Speed– The Great Western Railway’ was during one rainy afternoon in Han-ga-ram Art Museum. The sky in Seoul on that day was still dark even until noon. The surrounding environment made me feel as if I was in a tense fairy tale, with exceptions to the thunder and lighting. It felt like the dark afternoon gave me an assignment to resolve something while I rode my way by the train. Many people on social networking sites said that Seoul resembled the city of Gotham and it was scary. But I was pretty sure that the weather helped me concentrate on the painting even more. ‘Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway’ had some differences between superficial appearance and the hidden meanings. Superficial appearance of the painting looked calm and silent but there were hidden meanings giving warning.

            ‘Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway’ by William Turner looked calm and silent superficially. It  was drawn as if the painting mimicked the sky on that day. There were train that seemed to stop, gloomy fog and cloudy river in the painting. That is why the drawing was familiar to me. Especially, the train with large wheels was heading towards visitors that were looking at it from a straight point of view. So I was wondering whether it was stopped or onrushing towards us.

 Contrary to outward appearance of the painting, ‘Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway’ had some hidden meanings giving warning. First, you can see some white bundles within the painting. If there had not been a digital copy of the painting I would have never known what the true identity of the ‘white bundles’ were. Ironically, there was one white rabbit as the digital art indicated. At the period of time William Turner drew this picture, an Industrial Revolution had happened and machines set the trend absolutely. It all changed like Turner’s name indicated. People who used to plow went out to learn the ways to push buttons at a factory. So there was one interpretation that the rabbit symbolized nature that was being pushed backwards by the industrialization. It is most likely that William Turner intended to show the greatness of industrialization. Second, in the picture, the form of the train surrounded by the fog wasn’t clear. This indicated that he wanted to represent the tremendous speed of the train which could not have been compared to a horse and carriage. But William Turner didn’t paint only to show that kind of the greatness. William Turner showed us that civilization was driving out of breath. He might have wanted to let us know that machines will overtake human beings someday. Lastly, a third thing, there were two horses plowing the field on the right side of the bridge while a boat fisherman and girls dancing were drawn on the left hand side. They were drawn very dimly. This implied that they too would disappear soon among the crowd celebrating the Industrial Revolution.

After I knew the details about the picture, the Korean film ‘Snowpiercer’ by director Bong Jun-ho suddenly came to my head. The train in the movie, Snowpiercer, ran indifferently no matter how vicious and awful of an occurrence happened. But from the outside the train resembled a placid incubator. I thought carefully if there was a difference between the trains from the 19^th century and the ‘Snowpiercer’. My answer was that the sweet jelly of red beans, ordinary foods, degrade to protein blocks which were made of cockroaches while delicious foods became more luxurious. In other words, both of them showed that the gap between the rich and the poor is getting bigger. Plus, all they presented was only order that existed except human beings. Now, one line that did not appealed to me while watching the movie went through my mind. “We need balance about everything”. William Tuner might also want the balance between humans and machinery.

Secured Booth

 Can you see the public telephone booths here and there even though people don’t use it much? These days, people who possess their smart phones have increased. So the number of people who seeking public telephones have decreased than before. How about transferring the old-fashioned public telephone booths into ‘secured booth’? Secured booth functions protected area by preventing access from something threatening and checking their body condition in urgent situation.

 Secured booth can be the protection area when you want to flee from something threatening. For example, you can enter there if you think a stranger follows you. Then it operates locking system and call the police. This will be useful especially if there’s no one to help you. Of course, Secured booth has surveillance cameras both inside and outside. It helps the police recognizes who threaten citizen.  

 Another reason why secured booth is necessary is that it can check your health right on the street. When you are sick on a sudden on the street, you can check your body briefly in the secured booth. If you need, you can contact a doctor or pharmacist on the spot through video call. Then medical team prescribes patient’s condition fast for them when they go to a hospital as well.  

 With secured booth, we can also reduce the waste of useless space. It would not only protect citizens but also increase space efficiency. Therefore, we have to create more public telephone booths formed ‘secured booth’ on the street from now on. Secured booths might contribute people to protect themselves in the hazard-possible world.

What is the Eco-Drive Zone?

 Government needs to create the Eco-Drive Zone for sustainable future. Eco-Drive Zone indicates the area of cutting fuels off. Drivers can lessen fuels at that area by refraining sudden unintended acceleration and taking their foot off gas pedal on the way down. It leads to cut the energy down and therefore we can reduce environment contamination. Saving natural resource and reducing global warming are just two reasons for creating the Eco-Drive Zone.

 One reason is that EDZ Impedes the depletion of a natural resource by using fuel-cut. Fuel cut means to prevent fuel supply for avoiding increasing velocity while vehicles speed up to some standard. We can raise fuel efficiency from fuel cut. If we move our foot off on accelerator, function of fuel cut operates at the speed from 1500 to 2000. In this, it allows to run itself by momentum, so it can achieve the fuel efficiency. A downhill road is the best for taking advantage of the fuel cut and it is designated as the Eco-Drive Zone. Drivers could drive their car only by inertia at that area without the accelerator. According to government notice, drivers can reduce about 5% of fuels from starting point to the end of area. So EDZ could let cars run with specific speed not exhausting their fuels. Ultimately they can drive more with the same amount of fuels.

 Another reason to make the EMZ is that it reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. Most of the carbon dioxide, which is the main factor of global warming, are emitted from fumes of the cars. So we can contribute to preserve environment by reducing carbon dioxide from cars. For example, there are 74 sections, which is a range of 25.7km, that have 65000 tonnes of carbon dioxide reduction effect as well as 26000kl of energy saving effect in Seohaean Expressway.

 Designating the Eco-Drive Zone is a good way to ensure sustainable future because it enables drivers to use less natural resource, and it also reduces carbon dioxide emissions. Besides being good for the environment, Eco-Drive Zone has additional benefits. Eco-Drive Zone induces drivers to form good driving habits. So it leads reduction of traffic accidents in the black spot, especially in the downhill road. By creating the Eco-Drive Zone, we can ensure the reduction of environment risk and the reduction of exposure for us from the risk at the same time.