My Travel - Europe

Nowadays I am facing a lot of assignments and upcoming final exam in this semester. Therefore I need something to make me interesting and refreshing. I am having similar days nowadays, so I want to have a new challenge soon. It reminds me my las 6 months in Europe.

When I was in Europe for last 6 months, I traveled a lot of countries in Eruope such as Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Swiss, Belgium and so on. Every weekends, I traveled many european countries with my friends or alone by train. It makes me refresh my mind and body after working hard in the company. At company, I've got some stress because of the difficulty in my works. So I needed to find a way to get  rid of my stress during the weekends. Finally I found the way to do it WITH TRAVEL!

During my travel I met new culture which is different with my country, Korea. Because I was in Germany, I was accustomed to the culture of Germany.  or I found that many european countries looks similar but it has differences. Through theses travels I could learn the new culture and meet the new people but preparing my travel I could learn a lot of thinngs. For example,  I could learn each country's culture before then.

With travel, I also couldn share unforgettabel memories with my friends. I lived with 2 other girls and we traveled together a lot. or sometimes we traveled with other friends in Germany who were working at different companies. For example, there was one of the biggest festival around the world, in Munich, Germany. It was the 'Oktoberfest.' It is a famous bier festival. I went to there with other almost 10 friends in Germany. And we also met our friend who came from Hungary to visit this festival. There, we could meet other new people from many different countries. Although we met at first time, we could be a friend quickly and naturally with bier...:)

Many people say that Spring and Summer seasons are the best for traveling in Europe. However, for me the winter in Europe was also very attractive. Although the day is short in winter, we could see the white snow and a lot of festivals in Europe like Christmas market, new years eve and so on..

Nowadays I wanna go back to Europe again. I want to take a rest on the grass in the part freely with bright sunshine. I hope that I could visit euopre  again in summer :)

20110519 Through racism, love and jealousy in ‘Othello’

Critical Review of Othello

Through racism, love and jealousy in ‘Othello’

Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy that is written by William Shakespeare in 1604. Shakespeare tended to use existing stories from history and books for the basis of his play. Othello was based on a story in Cinthio’s ‘Hecatommithi’ in 1565, ‘Un Capitano Moro’.

Othello, the Moorish general in Venice married Desdemona, a daughter of a Venetian senator, Brabantio in spite of her father’s opposition. However, Iago, Othello’s ensign bears a grudge against Othello because Othello appoints Cassio to his lieutenant. Therefore, Iago let Casso lose his position as a lieutenant and let him approach Desdemona for his reinstatement as a lieutenant. He also devises wicked designs to let Othello misunderstand the infidelity of Desdemona. Finally Othello strangles his wife because of his suspicion and jealousy. Fortunately Iago’s evil scheme is discovered but it becomes too late to put his lover back so Othello commits suicide.

In this tragedy there are various themes; racism, love and jealousy.

First, there is racism in this work. Othello is the Moor not the white. Desdemona’s father opposites the marriage between his daughter and Othello because of his race. If he is not the Moor, it cannot be a tragedy. The tragedy happens because of Iago’s intrigue and hostility against Othello. At that time, the Moor is treated as an inferior race but Iago is neglected by the Moorish general, Othello so Iago becomes much madder at Othello. Furthermore, it is possible that Othello also has inferiority as the Moor. He cannot sure that his wife, Desdemona really loves him or not so he becomes to lose his reason because of his distrust and jealousy. The race of Othello results his inferiority and lack of pride leading his murder.

Second, this tragedy is based on Othello’s love and jealousy. The central figure of the tragedy Othello, the scheme of Iago is using Othello’s love with Desdemona. For Iago their love is only leverage for achieving his ambition When Othello’s love turns out jealousy, he becomes to destroy his love and himself by himself. Othello’s jealousy grows that Desdemona betrays him with Cassio resulting him killing his wife Desdemona. Actually, the relationship between Desdemona and Cassio is treated as an adulterous love by Othello’s misinterpretation. When Othello realize his fault, he wants to get his love back through killing himself. If Othello loves Desdemona believe the innocence of her love, this can be a happy ending punishing Iago’s scheme without destroying a lover.

In conclusion, Shakespeare uses several human basic emotions; racism, love and jealousy to make this play as tragedy.

20110512 Good Interview and Bad Interview

Good Interview and Bad Interview

Through the movie, ‘All the President’s Men’

The movie, ‘All the President’s Men’ is a story of the two reporter in the Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who discovered a Nixon’s Watergate scandal. This movie describes a course how they investigated the truth and report it. This movie shows us what the role of Journalism in society is. In addition we can see that what the good interview skill is or the bad interview skill is through the two reporter’s interview ways.

For good interview, Journalist should mention his or her identity and the purpose of the interview before beginning of the interview. In this movie, Bob Woodward always mentioned his name and his position as the Washington Post journalist. Moreover, good journalist is full of curiosity so he or she keeps ask question to find out the source and proof of the new. When the thief case in the democratic office happened, Bob Woodward went to the court to investigate this event. At that time he interviewed a lawyer with a curiosity of this case. Although a man did not want to answer, he kept asking questions and then he became to doubt on this case that in this case the former CIA member was also involved. As shown in this scene, Bob Woodward has an ability to gather the sources from interviewing people with detail.

There are also some bad interviews in this movie. When journalist interview, they should make an interview in the quiet place discovering the coverage. However, when Carl Bernstein interviewed a woman, he interviewed her in the open place that is noisy with the sound of driving cars without telling the coverage. Carl Bernstein is very impromptu, passionate and emotional person. Therefore when he interviewed people, it is hard to gather the sources logically. When he interviewed a woman who was a former secretary and knew a lot of hidden truth of the Democratic Party during the election period, he had an interview for 6 hours in her houses. Although she was afraid of answering his questions, he did a speculative interview. It is not a good interview skill. Interview time was too long and he forced to keep this interview going. Also when journalist make interview, they should confirm the interviewee correctly. Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein had a woman Evert. During the interview, they found some weird answers and asked her name again and they found out that they did interview to wrong person. They were supposed to interview Judith Evert, but actually they interviewed Carol Evert. For a good interview, journalist should confirm the source is right or not.

Although two journalists in the Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had a totally different style and character as a journalist, they mixed different abilities and made a harmony as a good journalist called Woodstein. They became the pioneer of the investigating report in the journalism.

20110504 The Power of Beauty

      

             I think that the power of beauty is immense to all people, both men and women because it is natural that most people are interested in a good looking person. In my opinion, there are two reasons for immense power of beauty: first impression and confidence.

             Beauty is highly influenced on people’s first impression. For example, when I was an intern at Human Resource (HR) Team, my boss said me that when a company hire new employer, having good first impression is also very important for company’s image and knowing personality. At this point, good first impression doesn’t mean that people should be beautiful like actors and actress. Real beauty is not made by plastic surgery or make-up but revealed by people’s mind. When we meet people at first, there are some people whom we feel more comfortable and prefer to. We judge people by external beauty at first but external beauty is highly related with internal beauty. Therefore beauty is very essential for people’s good first impression.

             Normally, when someone is beautiful, he or she has a high confidence on herself or himself. It is natural that all people want to be shown with good-looking. In my case, when I don’t have a time to wash my hair, I usually wear my cap to hide my face and hair. However, when I had a make-up and beautiful clothing, I feel more confident on myself because I want to be shown more beautiful to others if possible. Beauty gives a pride to people on themselves. It makes them be more active and energetic in everything. In addition, this is helpful for making a good relationship with others. With self-confidence by beauty, people can love and care themselves with pride.

             In conclusion, beauty is important not only for women but also for men. According to the Collins English dictionary, a word, beauty means that “the beauties of something are its attractive qualities or features.” Being attractive to others is very natural as a human, so most people want to be more beautiful for their first impression. Moreover, beauty makes a person be more confident on everything. We cannot live without considering our beauty, but we should keep in mind that external beauty reflects internal beauty.

2011427 Love Art, in Europe

When I was in Germany in the last half of the year 2010, I traveled most Euope countries, Germany, France, Italy, UK, Spain, and etc. When do I think about the image of Europe, firstly I come up with the image of a European town; small houses, river, and an old castle on the hill. However, I found that there is an another common image among European countries. It is an Art. The beautiful scenery in Europe can be an art itself, but there is a real art such as music. Although they are not famous, it is easy to find the artist such as musicians and painters in the street. And most Euoropean can understand and enjoy their arts.

When I was in Frankfurt, Germany at first, it looks similar with Seoul like tall building and modern environment because this city is a commercial district. However, when I went to downtown for a sighteeing, I could hear various type of muisic that were performed by musicians in ther street. More surprisingly, many people were around them and enjoying his or her performance. When the performance was over, people clapped for his or her performance and gave him or her a small money to show their thank for a good performance. Although it was not a big performance in Opera house, people can admire musicians' efforts for their small concert in the street.  

For classical music, most Koreans think that it is hard to understand and it is an expensive music. However, in Europe, classical music is very common to everyone. There is a story that I experience in Wien, Austria. I was travelling  in Wien. When you visit Wien, the Opera House is very famous for a performance of Wine Philharmoic Orchaestra. The price of ticket is not expensive as in Korea, and there is a student discount price. But I coulnd't get a ticket so I was sorry that I couldn't see the performance. So I went to Opear House just to see the 'Opera House' itself. However, when I get there, I couldn here the music sound of the Opera. Alhtough it was a little bit cold outside, there were seats for audiences with big screen that were showing its ballet performance lively FREE. There was no empty seat too, and many people were standing there to enjoy the performance. When the 1st session was over, there was filled with the clapping sounds by bystanders. It makes it sense that classical music is very common to Europeans.

Like this, whenever I walked on the street in Europe, it made me feel that I was walking in the scene of movie with background music. And these musics are not an electronic muisic from audio, but a live music by musicians. Every town has a harmony with its beautiful scene and art and it makes its scenery more precious. The 1 euro for performers in the street has more values than its price.  

20110414 English as a second language

In this semester, I am taking a class for English Education & Teaching Methode.  It is true that it is difficult to communicate with a second language. Yesterday, I had a small presentation and discussion test in another English speaking class at Sungshin Women's Univ. Especially making a speech in front of a lot of people fluently is more difficult than just talking with friends.

To have a great speech, a speaker needs a connection with audience. I think that it is the most important factors. To make a common connection with audiences, a speaker needs to build credibility between them.

As an ESL person, sharing each others culture can be a strong point for them. Language is a part of culture. To speak English fluently as a second language, people need to be familiar with the culture in America. To be familiar with different culture, people should have an open mind to accept other cultures. If people just keep their culture and do not understand others culture, they cannot fully understand other language.

Therefore we need to be active to learn others culture with hanging out with foreign friends who is a native spearker of English a lot and try to learn their communication culture.

Second tip is using media. When you watch the TV, there are a lot of sources that you can feel American culture through a Sitcom, Soap Opera, TV show. Especially watching news or reading newspaper is a good way to learn current issues around the world and then make common issues to share with foreigners. 

To be connected with audiences  just understanding others culture is not enough. As a foreigner, we have a strong point that we have another culture to share. Nowadays is an era of globalization. The world becomes one village. When I share my culture with other people it can evoke an interest on other cultures and it becomes a base for wider communication. Each person can others opinion each other through sharing their culture.

For Example, When I was in US as an exchange student at University of Mary Washington,  we held a Korean Day there in last semester. In that event, we had a presentation on Korean culture; Korean housing and clothing. We also introduced them Korean traditional game with serving Korean foods. Many American students joined our events and they enjoyed and shared Korean and American culture each other. With sharing culture, the presentation became more effective than just presenting with words and slides.

20110406 My Favorit City in Korea

Today I want to introduce a city in Korea. When I asked people about the name of city in Korea, most people answered Seoul, the capital of Korea. Actually, it is a capital in Korea, but today I want to introduce another city in Korea, Ulsan. Although I am living in Seoul now, I lived in Ulsan for over 6 years so I had a lot of memories in this city. This city is famous as a beautiful east sea coast, the city of whale, 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup, one of the biggest industrial cities in Korea that has many global businesses such as Hyundai Motors, Hyundai Heavy Industries, SK Complex and so forth. But today I want to introduce this city as a city of culture and history with several cultural assets in this city.

First, there were various dinosaurs in Ulsan before people could live on the earth. Especially in Ulsan we can see many footprints of dinosaurs of the Lower Cretaceous period, about 100 million years ago. The footprints show the same direction, indicating that the dinosaurs were peacefully rambling over the area. These fossilized dinosaur footprints are in a good shape and thus, it is regarded as significant for the study on various fields such as the geological history of Ulsan.

Second, there are two kinds of petroglyphs that show us the prehistoric lifestyles: petroglyphs of Bangudae and petroglyphs in Cheonjoen-ri. Petroglyphs are prehistoric pictures carved on rocks showing various kinds of things that the prehistoric people did. Petroglyphs were usually carved on the huge rocks considered a holy place and people gathered there to perform their ritual ceremonies for fertility and abundance. In these petroglyphs, there are about 270 figures of sea animals including whales, various land animals such as tigers, deer and also very lively described human appearance. In particular, it shows clearly the aspects of fishermen in the whaling ships with the characteristics of many whales, such as sperm, gray and killer whales, so that we can understand that Ulsan has been the base of hunting whales since ancient times. Therefore not only can these petroglyphs show us the natural environment and the ecology of the long prehistoric age but also they show us the outstanding aesthetic sense and the lifestyle of prehistoric people who hoped for richness and large productivity through the existence of the carved figures.

Third, it is easy to find the historical remains of the Shilla dynasty in Ulsan because Ulsan is not far away from Kyungjoo, capital of the Shilla dynasty. The representative property is Cheoyongam. The rock island on the screen is Cheoyongam. It is called so because of its reputed connection with the mythical prince, Cheoyong. Cheoyongam has a historic tale. A long time ago, King Heon-gang, 49th king of the Shilla dynasty was taking a rest on the shore with his officials. Then suddenly thick clouds and mists appeared even though it was daytime, so they couldn't find the way to go. One minister said the dragon in the east sea made this strange phenomenon, so they should do good things for him. As the king gave his ministers order to build a temple there for a dragon, surprisingly the clouds and mists disappeared. The mythical King of the east sea came out from the sea with his seven sons and performed music and dance with joy. One of the princes, Cheoyong followed the King of the Shilla dynasty and went to Kyungjoo. King Heon-gang gave him a beautiful wife as a gift and also a politically important position in the Shilla dynasty. However, the goddess of smallpox loved Choeyong's wife, so he changed his appearance into a handsome guy and finally slept with her. At that time, Choeyong came his home and found this scene, but he wasn't surprised by even this situation. He danced and sang a song rather than got angry with the intruder. Just then the goddess of smallpox was deeply moved by Cheoyong's generosity and swore that he would not approach the place that has the picture of Cheoyong's face. Since then Cheoyong’s face became a symbol of protection from bad luck. Nowadays, we also hold the Cheoyong cultural festival in Octobers every year to pay a tribute to the mind of Cheoyong.

As I mentioned, there are various cultural assets of many periods in Ulsan. They are our valuable properties that will bring glory to Ulsan forever. Now, if someone asks you what sort of city Ulsan is, You can answer without hesitation like this, "Ulsan is the city of glorious civilization as well as the center of soccer and industry in Korea".