#8_ Banning the Physical Punishment_

 On the last Monday, the second presentation and discussion were about Banning on All Forms of Physical Punishment. The presenters said the physical punishment in school is a kind of traditional culture of Korea and all the schools and education department of the government are trying to eradicate it in the classroom. I think since it has been a big issue on a nationwide scale, it was a good topic to talk about together.

 They said there are some the pros and cons of the topic. On the pros side, there were opinions like those that physical punishment is violation of human right and it works just short time. On the other hand, some people say if teachers don’t punish their students, the authority of teacher drop down and students never respect their teachers. In my opinion, however, the teachers don’t get their respect from students by punishment, so I reckon it can be just reason why punishment is needed.

 Actually, I totally agree with banning the physical punishment for the following reasons. The first reason is from my personal experience, it doesn’t work to students at all. I’ve still got bad emotion from my high school teacher who had hit me without any big reason. Second, punishment is unconditionally bad and it can make another victim. If someone is used to punishment, he or she would do the same way to their children. Therefore, as everyone know and say, we have to think about alternative way not like childish method such as thinking chair.

#7_ Our Attitude regarding to Radioactivity Damage_

 On the last Monday, my partner and I gave a presentation on Radioactivity Damage from Japan. As one of the presenters, it was very hard to explain about their situation and what would happen in the future, because this disaster is still going on at the moment, so it was really hard to get exact figures from Japan. Another reason was that it was not easy to predict what is going to happen for us, since radioactivity is invisible and we couldn’t know when the symptoms by radioactivity damage will be come up. So we prepared the contents about how the radioactivity affects generally to human body and some predictions of Korean economy by news and articles.

 Then we discussed some controversial issues. Personally, the interesting question was about the attitude of Korean government. Majority of the students said Korean government should insist on our rights. To put it concretely, Korea deserve to be given enough compensation regarding to indirect damage by radioactivity, because Korean people are even being afraid of having a fish, even though it is from Russia. So some of the students said Japan should compensate some loss of economy.

 However, I think a little bit differently. We have to help them regardless of any matters we are going through with Japan, because it is the matters of our morality. I mean as a one HUMAN BEING. I think whether we help Japan or not is another matter with indirect damage. In my opinion, we must help them first, but thing would be how do we help.

#6_ Working Time Problem_

 On last Monday, the presenters gave covered with Working Time Problems in Korea. They introduced what is the problem and how have our working condition been changed and why. They explained the reason why our working environment is terrible and we have too much time to work. Our government and former president Park called ‘dictator’ pursued the development of economy as priority in from 60s to 70s. At that time, the workers had to work more than 12 hours a day and they could get only a few holidays. It turned out pretty successful in terms of economy, but their working condition became already poor.

 Since 1990s, some employee tried to change their situation. Despite their effort, Korea has still the highest working time and low pay rate among OECD countries. Now the working standard time per day is eight hours and payment is 4,320 won an hour. I think it is not enough, compared with other developed countries and when it comes to our GDP, it is bad.

 The positive thing is that our government is changing toward to good way. The reason I can say like this is that these days so many people experienced western cultures and their better well fare system. Therefore, I reckon maybe as time goes by; our working environment is going to be nice to the entire workers.

#5_ Disappearing Korean Foods in Hotel’s Restaurants_

 On the last Monday, the second presenter gave a presentation on disappearing Korean foods at five-star luxurious hotel in Korea. The presenter introduced current situation and why this is a problem. In addition, he talked about what the government has been doing to encourage hotel’s restaurants to offer Korean foods. He explained why the hotels are not offering Korean foods. The first reason why the Korean foods are not being served at the restaurants of the big hotels is that Korean foods have low profitability. It is because needed lot of side dish. Second reason is only a few people who visit five-star hotels demand Korean foods and a little preference compared with western style foods. The reason is people are not familiar with Korean style foods.

 Then we discussed how to increase the rates of restaurants where they offer Korean foods. Our team suggested the government’s role. That is just to enforce the regulation that for example, all the restaurants of hotels should offer Korean style foods, if they want to get five-star grades. Food is one kind of good attractive thing to draw people all around the world, so it is going to be one tourism product of Korea. Another thing we talked about was fusion foods. It means that some ingredients from other countries are mixed in one menu. So our team all agreed fusion food is a sort of alternative way to promote our foods to the entire world.

 In conclusion, our opinion about this topic is roughly to keep and promote Korean foods. For them, the government should make some rules for five-star hotels and we should have interest in our traditional food as well. A few years ago, Korean drama Dae-jang-keum was big hit in the whole Asia. It was the first start of globalization of Korean foods. Therefore, we all should have much pride of our food.

#4_ The Four River Restoration Project_

 Last Monday, three students gave a presentation on The Four Restoration Project. They introduced about what is the concept ‘green growth’ and what that is for and then explained some support opinions and against opinions on the topic. From the first presenter saying, green growth means to develop without destroying environment. So the government has been developing the 4 biggest rivers, Han river, Nak-dong river, Young-san river, and Keum river, and they insist it is helpful for controlling the flood, promoting tourism, and improving water quality as well. However, there are some arguments on the project.

 The people on supporting side emphasize the aims of the project. That is for economy of regions, protecting from flood damage and making lots of jobs as well. On the other hand, the people on opposite side say that the damage of flood is not that serious, no water shortage as well. Moreover, the most curious thing is about making jobs. According to researches, the number of jobs made by this project is just 2,445 .That is not a huge number in terms of the people’s expectation and also these jobs are not permanent things.

 Therefore, I totally disagree this project. In a nutshell, this is waste of time and money by our President and as many people are saying, this is for the only big companies. Even though it is, the Four River restoration project has been already preceded major part of them. So from now on, we have to monitor what happen in the future. That is our job for next.