Blog Post #7 - Unit 9 (Languages)

Should Korea have more than one official language?

As time goes by, the importance of English is becoming bigger and bigger in Korea. Maybe almost Korean parents want their children to be fluent in foreign languages. So, some children start to learn English when they are very young. Even they go to a special kindergarten using only English in all process. So, several people say that English can be used as an official language in Korea. However, Korea does not need to have more than one official language because it can bring lots of problems in various parts.

The first reason why more official languages are not needed is that it may cause some social confusion. It includes diverse categories such as region, culture, or education. For example, Belgium use 3 official languages, which are French, German, and Dutch. Although Belgians are in same area, they are undergoing regional conflict and regionalism caused by respective language. Usually, people living in northern area use Dutch and others living in southern area use French. Although the government has tried the public to share their culture each other, they are still separated.

Another reason is that it can destroy the value and existence of Hangeul (Korean alphabet). Disappearing of aboriginal culture in Australia can be recognized as a similar case. Before the invasion of Britain, the aboriginal people made their life with their own way. They had their own language, culture and social system. However, the invaders tried to remove native culture from Aborigine after the aggression. The Aborigine could not use their language. Instead, they were forced to use English. As a result, the aboriginal culture in Australia faded away and now the Australia is trying to preserve the culture.

Furthermore, it leads to incur a lot of cost and take time. If Korea decides to have more than one official language, it will bring a situation that covers expense in many parts. In education and culture, money will be required to teach the new language to people and facilities in new official language will be needed. Moreover, it will take a long time to adapt to new word. Especially, the middle-aged and the elders will require more time than young people. While some people say that it is worth spending money and time socially and economically, it will cause great inconvenience for many people.

        In the cultural, social and economic respect, there is no reason that Korea should have more than one official language. Rather than having more official language, it will be better to find a way to preserve and develop Hangeul well.

Formal Essay #1 - Rewrites

Su Yun Kim

Prof. Kyle Brebner

IERW (04)

11 November 2015

Painter who Loved the Nature

             Alfred Sisley, the British man who painted the painting on page 3, was born and lived in France. He is a representative impressionist painter and was a friend of Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. He especially drew lots of landscapes as an impressionist painter. As a result, he left a lot of masterpieces that depict a glint of water and forest in nature mostly of Ile-de-France, the surrounding region around Paris. Although he wasn’t those kind of painters who makes showy color or draws anything special, I think his works are worthwhile because he expressed details and calm things of nature through his own way. Some impressionists praise his consistency in impressionism of how he focused on air, sky and landscape. And they say that he was hidden under his great friend, Monet, at the same time. So I will explain why his paintings have not seen the light compared with his friend in my view.

             As you can see in the title of View of Canal Saint-Martin, Paris, this painting is showing the view of Canal Saint-Martin in Paris during the winter time. Since he yearned for life of countryside, he usually used a rural scenery as the material of his paintings. But, exceptionally this one shows the city scenery. The Seine River flows quietly in the middle of the painting and there are also some bare trees and buildings. People are simply drawn as a black figures along the road and on the bridge. Even though this painting is about winter scenery, his idea of using the blue color makes the water stream and the clouds look softer and warmer. And more, he added the movement to the painting by using natural light and a short brush stroke. It helped making city scenery more tranquil like the atmosphere of the country.

             In my opinion, I think those materials in this painting reflect the reality of himself. For example, his characteristic or his financial conditions. Since the decline in wealth in 1870, he lost support from his father. That was when he completed this painting. So he had to live in poverty. Personally, I think that he and his painting were substantially affected by this financial condition. The background of this painting, which is the winter, reflects his financial condition. More specifically, clear sky, pure cloud and the river which mirrors them could be interpreted as the life he had looked for and desired while he was living in the destitution in reality. The second analysis is about his character. He was recognized as the quietest and gentlest man among the impressionists. I believe his equable temperament influenced on his painting techniques that he used. As the result, he drew only natural scenery and mostly of rural places.

             The reasons why I like his paintings are his unique peaceful mood, the color of pastel tones and sustained painting style. Also, these characteristics are the reasons for him being a representative impressionist artist. Surely, the best reason is the place he painted on this painting, the Canal Saint-Martin. Personally, I have a special memories of the place. When I lived in Paris as an exchange student, I used to have a stroll and enjoy the cool air with friends. It remains one of the best memories there for me. However, I wonder what if he has tried something different with his paintings. It is because I feel sorry that he has been undervalued and always been compared with Monet and Renoir, who were his friends and also contemporary artists. If he had tried something different like using not only the nature but various things as the material of his paintings, I think those would have been also another great works with different impressions. So, although the world consider him as one of the best impressionist painters, I recommend you to imagine how his works would be if he painted city scenery or weird thing that we can’t easily understand.

Blog Post #6 - Unit 8 (Innovations)

Discovery of Artemisinin

Have you heard about malaria? It is an infectious disease caused by mosquito. When a person is bitten, parasites in the mosquito’s saliva come into the person’s blood. Generally, it is concerned with poverty so that it especially appears in poor countries. It is one of the reasons that a million of people are dying in tropical developing nations. But, Dr. Tu Youyou, a Chinese medical scientist and pharmaceutical chemist, found out artemisinin used to treat malaria and it saved a lot of people suffering from malaria.

Her discovery is significant because it means an improvement of human health. For example, this substance has rescued numerous patients who contracted malaria in developing countries. Only in Africa, approximately 10 million people survive every year by the substance she discovered. Furthermore, it helps relieving their terrifying pain. After 10 or 15 days from biting, infected people usually can feel the symptoms of malaria such as fatigue, fever, headache, vomiting. In the severe case, it leads to yellow skin, seizures, coma and death. It means that patients can be free from the pain of malaria.

And her discovery is important car it promoted integrated traditional Chinese and modern western medicine. She found artemisinin from sweet wormwood, traditional medicinal herb in China. It is because she was very interested in chinese medicinal herbs. After her discovery, China has produced large amounts of it. Now, it results in that China has become the biggest producer and exporter of arteminisin. At first, she tried to find some information from Chinese classic literature 1600 years ago. And her idea that arteminisin can be extracted from sweet wormwood occurred to her mind from the ancient book. She failed it 190 times but succeed in 191th attempt.

Her discovery is regarded as an important detection and new direction of medicinal field. Her passion for medicine and chemistry became a great discovery. As a result, she was selected as first Chinese winner of Novel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2015 in recognition of her service to the field.

Blog Post #5 - Unit 7 (Ensuring a Sustainable Future)

Ensuring a Sustainable Future

Now, there are a variety of garments in the world. As time goes by, fashion is becoming more diverse. Generally, we can choose and wear what we want among numerous clothes. But, everything is not fine because fashion don’t bring us only merit. Fast fashion which was a main trend in the world of fashion had made a meteoric rise because of a cheap price and a design reflecting the latest fashion in Europe. However, there exist a lot of environmental problems in producing many goods inexpensively and rapidly. As a result, it is important that we need to avoid buying clothes of fast fashion company for sustainable future.

Most of the fast fashion industries deteriorate a waste of resources and environmental pollution in the world. In the process of production, they uses excessive energy and expels much quantity of carbon. Also, many leftover pieces of produced clothes are abandoned as garbage. In addition, we throw out this kind of clothes more easily. It is because we tend to recognize them as a disposable thing and don’t wear them for a longtime on account of the bad quality. Almost the whole clothes of fast fashion are not decomposed as they are made by petrochemical materials causing global warming. And 25% of usage of agricultural pesticides in the world are used for growing cotton that is one of the main material of fast fashion. Harmful substances from these processes threaten the environment.

And it is better that we don’t purchase them because they have a bad effect on our health. Chemicals that is not good for health are added for the cheap price and small quantity batch production. The manufacturers can’t use a fabric that is good for our health because it costs too much then they can’t reduce costs. Besides, some people actually get healthy problems like skin disease and headache. Mostly of them are produced in Southeast Asian nations due to the cheap workforce. Surely, the factory is not managed in a sanitary way for the workers and clothes.

We can help to make a sustainable future by not purchasing clothes from fast fashion brand because it reduces a waste of resources and better for our health. A contrary concept of fast fashion, which is called ‘Slow Fashion’, recently takes center stage. How about trying to put on slow fashion for our Earth and body from now on?

Blog Post #4 - Unit 6 (Explanatory essay about the importance of place in a movie or book)

Letters to Juliet – Verona, Italy

Do you know that Verona is the background of the famous love story, ‘Romeo and Juliet’? Maybe we all know the place became well known as a city of love because of the story. Many works based on it have been released. This movie is also the one of them. Lots of parts in the original story are shown in this movie. So, the city is very important thing in the movie because the novel, ‘Romeo and Juliet’, is used as a main material.

The first scene of the movie begins in workplace of Sophie. She works as a data inspector in publishing company. But she wants to be a writer. She chose to go to Verona on her honeymoon and has a plan to write a novel there. In Verona, she meets women working under the name of ‘Secretary of Juliet’. They answer letters that women throughout the world left at ‘Juliet’s House’. The letters are mostly about love. She gets along well with them and takes part in the work. Claire received an answer from her and comes to Verona with her grandson to find her first love. She decides to help her find him. So, they travel Verona together. In addition, she starts to write a story based on Claire’s love story and their trip to find her first love. These matters could not happen in other places because she decides to go there for her honeymoon and writing with her inspiration from Verona.

Verona became known for a city of love because of ‘Romeo and Juliet’. And main materials in the movie are based on this novel. The real story begins in the Juliet’s House. And she gets impressed by ‘Secretary of Juliet’. From this event, the movie is progressed. Also, there are some similarities between this movie and the original story, ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Like Juliet, Sophie has a fiance, but she falls in love with another man. The famous scene in the novel that Romeo and Juliet confirm their love in the balcony, it is shown in the movie, too. Sophie and Charlie confess their love in the balcony.

If the city were not Verona, there was nothing in the movie. To bring success in love of the movie, the story is going by the novel based on Verona. And the heroine, Sophie, has her own feeling of love about Verona. Some people can think it is a banal love story, but with full of love, it arouses a desire to leave to Verona right now. Don’t you want to leave to Verona to find your real love?

Post #3 - Unit 5 (Geotourism)

Reading Summary

 

Unit 5. The New Face of Tourism

 

The present mass tourism that is becoming bigger than before has a bad influence for some places to visit. And this reading says that the solution is a "geotourism". Jonathan Tourtellot who supports the geotourism says it needs to be a long-term strategy and is going to be larger. Not only the service offered by existing tourism system doesn't give any local culture and information to its customers but also the local community can't makes profits. On the contrary to this, geotourism offer an environment that the travelers can enjoy the residents' life and culture. Even the residents earn for their living by this tourism system.

 

- Ecotourism, sustainable tourism and geotourism are different type of tourism. Ecotourism is only for the natural areas. And sustainable tourism is to let it be like just the way it is. Geotourism is making the most of the geographical character of a area.

 

- When tourism is administered adversely, the place can be destroyed. So the planning is important.

 

- To keep the specificity of the place, it is very important to keep the instructions like where to go, not to go, what to do, not to do.

 

- When tourism is well managed, we can save the place naturally and culturally. In addition, the residents make money and improve their way of life by getourism.

 

- Tourtellot said that one way tourism helps a place to develop is making something which didn't exist there before. It makes great profits to the local community and plays a good role in cultural part.

 

- He says, to protect the unique places, he will try as he can do.

Post #2 - Unit 2(King Tut's Family Secrets)

<Reading Summary>

King Tut's Family Secrets

 

In this writing, Zahi Hawass, Egyptian minister of state for Antiques, explains how his research team found the King Tut's family secrets by science technologies. When the King Tut's tomb was discovered, he was buried with a lot of artifacts including gold coffin, gold mask and golden fan. Furthermore, the team figured out a hole in the back of his skull and two mummified fetuses in his tomb. But, they used modern science technology to solve the mysterious questions like 'Who were his parents?', 'Who were the two fetuses buried with him?' and 'Why was he died?'.

So, they found out that he didn't die because of the hole in the back of his skull by CT scans. But, it didn't solve how he had died and why he had died at a early age. After 3 years, they analyzed his DNA sample from his bone and catched some new discoveries. It is that he had a twisted foot and didn't have a bone with his one toe, so he couldn't walk well. And, the staffs who were buried in his tomb doesn't mean symbols of his power. It was just because he needed them to walk. Even the research team found he had suffered from malaria.

However, the reason why he was so weak in nature is the Tutankhamun's royal family. They inspectes DNA samples from 10 mummies and discovered that King Tut's father and mother were siblings. Consequently, this relationship made him have a dangerous health system and caused him to die young. Moreover, one female mummy which was buried with him was his wife, Nefertiti. But, she was his half sister, so maybe the two fetuses might have had defective genetic character like their father.

After he was dead, Ramses 1 became a new king in Egypt. As he made his country more bigger and bigger, he wanted to remove all trace of King Tut and his royal family. And now, the research team is trying to record their history.