Should Korea Have More Than One Official Language?

As the world is becoming globalization, it is important to use and know other country’s language. Many Korean people want to acquire second language to communicate a lot of other country’s people and have competitiveness to the globalization world so it is trend that they bring their children to the second language academy when they are young. However, even though we live in the globalization world, Korea should not have more than one official language because the illiterate rates are low, it causes to waste of money and it lead to threaten the language of its country.

One reason that Korea should not have more than one official language is that Korea has few illiterate people. According to the research, more than 95 percentages in the Korean people can read the Korean language. If the illiterate rates had been higher, the Korean government should have think about additional official language because it is

Another reason that Korea should not have more than one official language is wasting of money. While having another official language may be helpful for non-Korean people living in Korea to ease pressure to acquire hard information, they immediately should have in mind that it is not easy for them to live other country to gain useful information like finding official documents that everybody in Korea would be required. In addition, it will be a lot of spending money to add another official language on official documents. The necessary documents to another people immediately wrote in other language so it can waste of money if the Korean government orders to write additional language on all of documents.

Finally, the reason that Korea should not have more than one official language is that it causes the Korean official language, Han Geul, to threaten. Adapting other official language may force the nature of own country to be lost because native language has respective history, emotion and culture and represents respective country. For example, Korea has a lot of words derived from the ancestor's wisdom. Millstone using for mixing food has a handle to haul around and the name of handle is Eocheoguni. If millstone do not have the Eocheoguni, we cannot do everything and we feel ridiculous with the handle disppearing.So when the Korean people face the ridiculous and stupid case, they used to say that it has no Eocheoguni. Likethis, language have their culture. So having another official language finally might conquer the native language.

The fact that the illiterate rates are low and that it causes to threaten the nature of its country and it leads to waste of money will prevent Korea from having another official language. As K-pop culture is growing more and more and many non-Korean people would like to learn the Korean language, it would be efficient for Korea to provide additional official language on signs.

Essay#1

Hye Jeong Han

Prof. Kyle Brebner

IERW(04)                                                                                                      

11 November 2015

What If Syrian Refugees Move To Korea

Some Syrians protested against the government because they wanted their country to become democratic and demanded power change. But the dictatorship in that country has lasted for second generation. After all, antigovernment protestors rose against the dictatorship. At that time, the Russian government, which had helped to provide the Syria soldiers to arm with modern weapons, finally was required to intervene between the Syria government and antigovernment protestors and bombed the central part of the city in Syria. The civil wars destroyed the nation. Many Syrians are leaving their home and becoming refugees because they want to live somewhat safety places. The refugee movement becomes the conversation topic all around the world and there is a large range of opinion on this issue in Korea. In my opinion, Korean government should not welcome the Syrian refugees to settle in Korea due to the public emotion, prejudice and situation in Korea.

First of all, the Korean government cannot help considering the public emotion that the Korean people mostly have passive attitudes toward new ethnic group. Many Koreans prefer conservatism about politics and religion and believed that Korea was a homogeneous nation because Korea was geographically on a peninsula surrounded by three powerful nations: China, Japan and Russia, consequently, the Korean people had to get together in order to guard their country without accepting new ethnic groups. For this reason, the Korean government has to consider the public emotion that the Korean people don’t want to accept various groups.

             Additionally, the religions of Syria are Muslim(70%) but many Koreans have a prejudice about Muslim countries and culture. They have fear and horror by the influence of the 911 Attacks that the Muslim people happened. In addition to the public emotion that the Korean people mostly have passive attitudes toward new ethnic group, the Korean prejudice would make bad awareness of the Syrian refugees. But the Korean people need to be more broadminded about their acceptance because the world is turning into a multicultural society.

             Lastly, the Korean government should take diplomatic challenges into consideration. South and North Korea are in a state of truce. Accepting Syrian refugees can produce paradoxical results because it means that the country under war accepts other country’s refugees, consequently, the North Korean government may think accepting other country’s refugees is the South’s provocative actions against the North.

             To sum up, the Korean government should not welcome Syrian refugees. There are many considerations that the Korean government must think. Firstly, the Korean people have the passive attitudes toward new ethnic people. In addition, the Korean people judge by their prevailing prejudice toward Muslim. Lastly, the Korean government should consider the relationship between North Korean and South Korea because two countries are in a state of truce. I think, rather than accepting the Syrian refugees, the Korean government would give the international support like distributing relief supplies or sending abroad international volunteers to help them. I also consider this issue will continue to be discussed and debated to solve it.

References :
1. The relationship between Syria and Russia
http://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=2087131&cid=48613&categoryId=48613

2. Syria's religion distribution
http://www.mofa.go.kr/countries/middleeast/countries/20110810/1_23078.jsp?menu=m_40_60_20

The Apple Watch

Apple Inc, which has given people all around the world tremendous convenience because of being able to replace the abilities of computers with the iPhone, has released a new product, Apple Watch. It grafted watches on the IT system which can operate the Internet service. Due to the portability and the optimization systems of doing exercise, Apple Watch has been gaining popularity.

One reason that the Apple Watch has become popular is that it has the portability. It is far smaller electronic equipment than all of the smartphones. You only need to put on the Apple Watch, like typical watches. Because you just stick your wrist, you can always equip yourself with it. But it has enormous functions as compared with typical watches. For example, because it is compatible with the iPhone series, you can text a message and make a call using on-board microphone as radio transceiver, when you send a message, it can analyze and announce your message whether you have to answer it quickly or not.

Another reason that the Apple Watch has had popularity is the optimization systems of doing exercise. It has a sensor that measures your heart rates so you can measure your heart rates every time and everywhere. In addition, it can measure your foot steps and calculate how you spend your calories and how long it takes time to exercise. And if you set up a health goal in the Apple Watch, it will examine your achievement contents.

The Apple Watch has been popular thanks to the portability and the optimization systems of doing exercising. You can always equip yourself with it every time because it is lighter and smaller than smartphones and improves your health care through it. It will start to gain sensational trends, as smartphones are showing saturation.