[Reading Journal #1 -The Body: After reading 30 pages]

-Stand by Me♥-    
    
       When I heard this title for the first time, it came to me as a little bit strange and horrifying thing, since the word "Body" is not a common word as a title of a story. However, on the other hand, this point also made a positive effect that it made me very curious about this story. Then I started to read it with my big expectation.

        Since I didn't read the whole book yet, I don't know what will gonna happen after 30 pages, but til now, this is the story of the four boys who went to adventure to find the dead body. Frankly speaking, it was not that extremely exciting and fun, but it was still enjoyable. 

       Now, I will briefly intoroduce the main story of this book. There are four main characters, named Chris, Gordie, Teddy and Vern, all boys. Each of them have specialties in thier private backgrounds. First of all, Chris has an alcoholic father who is very violent so that Chris used to be hit by his father often, but as he is very patient, he understands his father and never being angry about him. Secondly, Gordie's older brother was died. However, since his parent still obsesses a lot to his older brother, he used to be an invisible man although he is the youngest. Of course, he gets a lot of stress from his parent, but he tries to understand his parents as they lost thier precious first son. Thirdly, Teddy has strange habit. He enjoys dodging by running transportations. So when he find the transtportation which is moving quickly, he directly go to that and get closed with it to enjoy dodging with it. However, he never hurted because of this habit. Lastly, Vern is just a normal boy, and he seems little bit chubby.

      One day, Vern heard something very important from the gangsters of that town. Actually, there had happened an event before, that a boy named Ray Brower died but nobody could find his dead body and even don't know the reason why he died. However, they, the gangsters, said his body is in the forest and the reason why he died was because he was hit by the train. Vern told this issue to their friends, so they decided to start a journey to find the body by theirselves. Here, I felt that all four boys had been too tired of their lives so far,that they want to be deviated from thier normal life. Also, in the part that four boys altogether agreed to find the dead body to be spot lighted by other people, I thought they want to be concerned and  be taken care of other people more, especially from thier parent. I felt pitty about this. 
       The first 30 pages was explaining the basic informations about the characters and it started to make the story. That's why it has been little bit "flat" but now, i'm expecting much more shocking, striking,and horrifying events for the left part of the book. 
      
☆ I heard that, there is a movie based on this book too. So I searched about it little, however the title of the film was "Stand by me", not "the body". So I really want to watch the movie too, to find out how the "stand by me" became the title of this film.

[Reflective Essay- about the movie,"Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring"]

< A Fly = A Bird ??? >

           Almost everybody might have experienced killing flies, ants or mosquitoes. Of course I do. The first thing that I'm planning to do when summer comes, is to buy a fly swatter as a preperation. Also, I never care about the ants while walking on the road. This is because I thought them which is fly and ant, as a trivial thing since it is small. However, one day, I got to realize something that is very important.

           It was during the summer vacation of my middle school third year. I was watching the TV program which is my favorite, and "a fly" started to annoy me. It continuously flied around me with its bad sound. I was very upset that I cannot pay attention to the TV program that I really wanted to watch. So I rightly decided to catch it and started to find the fly swatter. Finally, the fly sitted on the sofa, so I raised my hand holding the swatter with my full power. I stared at it for a long time to concentrate on it. Now! I quickly hit it. After I checked it died completely, I felt big satisfaction about what I had done. However, suddenly, “an idea” flashed my brain. "How can I kill it without feeling any guilty? and even i'm feeling satisfaction." In that short time, I became very serious and this is what i got for the result.

           Everything, yes, everything has its precious live whether it is big or not. Everything should be treated equally as a living thing. However, how can I kill the fly without any hesitation, and I even don’t feel guilty about it. It was obvious mistake. what is the difference between a fly and a bird as a living thing? There is no difference. To say again, we need to treat everything equally as a living thing whether it is big or not but I think we have been ignored this important fact. By the way a movie “Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring” by director Kim ki duck, gave us a lesson about this as well. 

           There is a young monk and a teacher monk. One day, a young monk tortures little things such as small fish, frog, and snake by binding them with the thread and the teacher was looking at him from beggining to end. Finally, the teacher monk decided to make young boy to realize that he did wrong so teacher did same to the young monk, binded him with the heavy rock. Therefore, the young boy could realize that he did wrong with the little things, and he began to find the things that he tortured. However, most of them were died already. When he saw that scene, he cried and apologized to them with all his heart. 

           After watch this film, not only the little monk but also I reminded that I have lived wrong so that i need to be careful from now on about respecting little things such as flies and mosquitoes. Furthermore, I hope, other people would realize this things by watching this movie like me. Then, i'm sure that our society will become much warmer than now just like a little monk's heart. 

<Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring- Directed by Kim Ki-duck.>

[Chain writing-metafiction: A dream, but not "only" a dream]

             While many people said that fried potato is cheap in McDonald’s I could’t agree, when I was in the college. Do you know that miserable feeling that I cannot buy a pack of fried potato? Whenever I fumbled in my pocket, I could touch only a coin, “a coin” not many. Therefore, I couldn’t open and enter the McDonald, since I was not rich enough to buy even a Happy meal. (JMA)
             Life, if I could call 21 years of struggling, a “life”, it had been miserable for me all the time. I would jealously stare at shiny cars passing by. 
           What changed my life had been an MP3 player that I picked up from a subway station. Somebody must had dropped it as he rushed to get on the subway. I picked the little metal thing up. It was cold and shiny. And I plugged in the earphones in my ears.(RJY)
           The sound shaked every nerve of my body. I could literally ‘feel’ the music with all my heart. This sound, was a thing I have NEVER heard before in my life. As I was listening to this rock music, I strongly felt an impulse that I needed a guitar in my hands right here, right now. So I decided that I have to beg for money to buy a guitar. I knew I had to do this.(PMS)
           The guitar I wanted to buy, wasted more than a few pennies. I needed MONEY more than anything. That is why I started working in the subway. My job was to write and design advertisements of the subway. Usually the motifs of the ads were from the music in the MP3 I found, as it became the energy of my life. The turning point of my life was when I finally got the money I wanted and bought the guitars. The guitar was blue and black with a rather shiny body. Fantastic it looked, I tell you, simply fantastic. The first time I flicked the strings of it, thrill was overloaded in my heart. The satisfaction was greater than anything.(PMJ)

            
            One day, I was drawing an ads with earphones on my ear as a usual. There was an extremely fast, strong and hard rock music. And I got the inspiration from it. I don’t know why this scene had been appeared on my mind, but anyway, it was a face of a crown. So I started to draw a crown on the wall in the subway station. The concept was the crown holding a burger on his hand was dancing.  After finishing it, I had a great satisfaction. So I was watching at my work with big smiles on my mouth. By the way, a man, who is wearing a nice suit stopped in front of my drawing and watching at it for a long time. And then, he asked me
            “Did you draw that by your own?” I answered
            “yes, why?” He said,
            “WOW! That’s such a big piece!”
Can you imagine what happened to me after? To say with an word, it can be “wow.” That man was a CEO of the Mcdonald, and he inspired from my drawing that the character of Mcdonald would be nice if it is a crown as I drawn. So we had a permanent contract. Also as a cost of using my idea, he gave me the job in the Mcdonald, but not a worker, a vice chief. Isn’t it surprising? Also, fortunately, my idea made a big hit. So my honor became bigger and bigger among the Mcdonald.
             One day, I was looking around the Mcdonald stores to evaluate them. However, the employees started to throw the burgers on my face. I was so embarrassed and shocking. But i couldn't say anything since the flying burger covered my mouth. The fumbling sound was the only thing that i can hear.“What happened!!!??”
            
             When I opened my eyes, my body, head, and legs were shaking. I was in the subway and a women, who was seating in front of me, was eating a "Happy meal"  from Mcdonald and it smelled very nice. I fumbled in my pocket and there was a coin. “A coin.”

             Yes. It was a piece of dream. And my life never changed. I’m a student, ah! , a poor student.
I got off the subway with big disappointment. I climbed the stairs. By the way, there was a thing on the road, which was shining so brightly. I rushed to that. It was an MP3!

Creativity, is it something that i can eat?

 

           If you pass through the institute street in Korea, you might notice that you are seeing the word “creativity” in every thirty seconds. Yes, Korea is in the fever of creativity. Every mother wants to develop their child’s creativity and they are always looking for good academies which can raise their child to be a great creative child.

           By the way, what does mean creativity, and why people are enthusiastic with it? First of all, creativity means the ability to think fresh, new and unoriginal ideas. And people believe society will need this kind of people, who is creative, in the future. Because, the present trend is concentrating on something that is new, and not typical, to be exactly different from just others. So that’s why many mothers in Korea are in the fever of academies, which raise creativity. As like this, since the power of creativity is increasing still now, and even the government is caring about this more and more seriously, Korea high school recently changed their ultimate goal for students. They said, they will raise creative students. And many people might not have any doubt about this. They would believe Korean education fits to creativity.

           However, surprisingly, one man disagreed about this argument. Ken Robinson said schools kill creativity. He said that creativity comes from the various curiosities. But to be curious means easy to make mistakes or failures in something new. However, present schools educate students not to make any mistake in everything. Just be perfect. And this is what he is saying, contradiction. Schools are killing creativity. Schools want to develop student’s creativity but they educate student not to make mistakes. And secondly, he argued that nowadays, schools concentrate on how to make students to enter good universities, only. They say middle school or high school is just a sort of steps or process for entering good universities. But Robinson said this is totally incorrect way of education.

           I agree for some part of his opinion, but some are not. First of all, I don’t agree about his opinion that he said school is killing creativity of students. I think schools are also working hard to find the ways to make students to be creative by diverse extra activities. And he said that the main reason is because school gives children the fixed idea that mistake is bad, so they just don’t challenge about something knew to not make any mistake. But, I think in this point, effects from parent or family would be bigger than schools. I think what makes students to think mistake is not good is because of their family or parent rather than school.

           So I think we should not just blame school’s work. Also recently, schools are making variety extra activities that can grow children’s creativity. Those programs were made by professional experts, so it is very reliable and effective. We can trust school’s education.

           Secondly, what I agreed about his argument was that, nowadays, schools usually set their ultimate goal for entering many students to good universities. And middle and high schools became a just process of preparing university entering. I also felt that, when I was in the middle school. My middle school 3rd grade advisor, who I respected much, used to say that, somehow my final goal is to enter good university, so let’s just be more patient. But I think we should change this kind of trend in Korea now. Middle or high schools should not be a place where preparing for university but they should be a place where students are able to find their talents and aptitudes. So school should prepare variety programs in education and should let them to feel free about it.

           In conclusion, I think school should make a chance to introduce their way of education to their school parent so that they can know that schools are working hard to raise their child’s creativity. And middle and high schools should prepare variety activities for students so that they can find their own talents and aptitudes as soon as possible. Like I said, if schools try to find their bad points and to solve it or on the other hand, to prevent their good points, we will be able to expect a good education system in Korea.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

This is the URL address about the TED video.

Term paper- How to treat with the increasing of multicultural families.

Jo Mina

Mr. Johnson

10a5

May 17, 2011

<Topic: How to Treat with the Increasing of Multicultural Families.>

1. Introduction

According to the National statistical office's survey about the movements of population of multicultural families, the number of multicultural families are increasing(Ban Taehoon) By the way, what is multicultural family? it means a family made of different people. The difference can be nationality, race, culture.

Then, what is the reason for increasing of multicultural families? It's because of an increasing of international marriage and there are many reasons why international marriages are increasing(Lee Jaebun 3). First of all, the main reason is that the men in the country or sea side cannot find their Korean partner to marry, so they got help from the international marriage company and they find out their partner from other country especially in the poor country since it's cheaper.

Second, more and more foreign workers came to Korea to have a job. Usually, they are from the poor country and they do the difficult physical labor that Korean doesn't want to do. And then they marry with the Korean women.

Third, because of the globalism caused by a development of techniques, such as a traffic, transportation, information communication, the earth became a huge village and people who wants to marry with foreigners are increasing, So they came to Korea and they marry with Korean women.

Fourth, there are several other reasons such as a religion.

The point is that, the number of multicultural family is steadily increasing, and we need to look it very carefully.

Table 1.

The number of multicultural family is steadily increasing-from the National statistical office.

(unit:matters, %)
year	sum	international marriage		foreigner wife		foreigner husband
		marriages	rate	marriages	rate	marriage	rate
2002	306,573	15,913	5.2	11,017	3.6	4,896	1.6
2003	304,932	25,658	8.4	19,214	6.3	6,444	2.1
2004	310,944	35,447	11.4	25,594	8.2	9,853	3.2
2005	316,375	43,121	13.6	31,180	9.9	11,941	3.8
2006	332,752	39,690	11.9	30,208	9.1	9,482	2.8
2007	345,592	38,491	11.1	29,140	8.4	9,351	2,7
document: National Statistical Office, moving population(marriage) 2007

 

 

2. Body

From now on, I will talk about how we can deal with the increasing of multicultural families. First of all, I will tell you some positive affectations of increasing of multicultural families.

First of all, It solves our several society problems, such as a single men's marriage problem. For example, nowadays, there are a lot of men in the country, sea side who cannot find their Korean woman partner individually until they are very old. However, they could marry with foreigner women nowadays, so the rate of marriage of the men in country, sea side increased.

Second, multicultural family brought out vitality in the country side. In fact, a number of children are decreasing in the country side. However, since there are more and more multicultural family kids, the country side doesn't needed to close the school, and village became more vigorous.

Third, it helps Korea to cooperate with the tendency of globalization so that we can experience variety cultures.

On the other hand, there are still some bad affectations caused by multicultural family.

First of all, the most biggest problem that Korea will have is losing our specialty as a single-race nation, since the number of immigrants is increasing.

Second, the children from multicultural family are having a social problem and it has possibilities to become our social problem. Also, the number of multicultural family children being an outcast is increasing, and it became more and more serious problem. It's very dangerous for both them and us.(Lee Jaebun 4)

Table 2.

The reason why multicultural family kids are becoming an outcast.

Reasons	rate(%)
since mother is fordigner	34.1
cannot communicate well	20.7
no special reasons	15.9
differences in behavior	13.4
differences in appearence	4.9
ect;	22.0
Jo Youngdal, Seoul university, 2006, survey of multicultural family kids learning.

Also, most of the multicultural families in country side are having an economical disability and it affects badly on their children's emotions.

Most of the multicultural families in Korea are low-income bracket so that they have low quality of education and social treatment. Here is the specific evidence. To standardize the rate of minimum cost of living, in 2005, 52.9% of immigrants women who had international marriage were having a below average of the standard point of minimum cost of living. 44% was having a 50% below average than the minimum cost of living even.(Seol Donghun, 2005;162)

Then, how can we solve this problems? The most important and easy way to solve it is to change our bad conventional thoughts about multicultural families.

So first of all, we should make a custom of understanding and respecting other cultures or languages. Actually, in the past, Korea tends to just inject our Korean tradition or culture to the foreigners. But what we need is harmony instead of injection since our society become more and more globalized. So we need the change our mind.

Secondly, the government should make an aggressive education for Korean to understand well about multicultural families. We tended to have an aptitude of thinking that only foreigners should adapt and understand our culture, in the past, but it is our public problem. So we need to solve it together.

Thirdly, I recommend having a bilingual language education inside the house to prevent multicultural kids, not to have a speech disorder. In the past, in the multicultural family house, we have a kind of conventional thought to let immigrants not to speak in their language at all. But the worse problem is that, since he or she cannot speak Korean well, their kids tended to have a speech disorder. From now on, we should change this bad custom. Korean family member should speak Korean well in front of the kids so that kids can learn Korean well, and immigrants should speak their language well so that kids can learn that language also. Then the kids can have a double language.

Fourth, the government should give low-income multicultural families an economical support. There are many multicultural families who cannot live in the high quality environment and this point can be a reason of multicultural kids becoming a rebel on our society.One way to support them economically is to give a various occupations to the multicultural family. Then they can earn their own money and they will also make their own lives.

Lastly, the government should give multicultural kids a supplementary lessons. Actually, many multicultural family kids are having a learning disorder caused by speech disorder.(Lee Jaebun, 4) So the government should care more about their education problem.

 

3. Conclusion

In brief, the best way to deal with the increasing of multicultural family is to have a new mental attitude about this problem. Also we should always be afraid of the possibilities of happening more serious problems in our society when we didn't control the multicultural families well.

Now, we know that multicultural family kid's future is nearly related to our Korean society, so we should take care of multicultural kids well to develop our economy. They are our future.

So, the government should give them a high quality educations and economical support.

But, I see the brightness in our Korea as this kind of systems were settled already and many parts of Korea are trying very hard to be familiar with multicultural families and they are having a nice education for them. And this is the example that shows how the government made a special program for them. In Go-yang, one broadcasting service center made a program about learning recipe of cooking for multicultural families.(Immigrants TV)

 

Works Cited

Ban Taehoon(반태훈).(2007).Moving population(marriage).Busanilbo(부산일 보).from:http://www.busanilbo.com/news2000/html/2008/1021/0K0020081 021.1027090259.html>

Lee Jaebun(이재분).(2008).The research about multicultural family kid's learning (다문화가정 자녀 교육실태 연구 -국제결혼가정을 중심으로-).Korean education development institute(한국 교육 개발원).

Jo Youndal(조영달).(2006).survey of multicultural family kid's learning.Busanilbo.fromhttp://www.busanilbo.com/news2000/html/2008/1 021/0K0020081021.1027090259.html>

Seol Donghun(설동훈).(2005).Searching for ways to develop multicultural family kid's learning ability.(다문화가족 역량계발을 위한 통합적 교육지원방안 모색) Korean educational development institute.(한국 교육 개발원).

Migrantworkerstv.(2010,December 5). The Multicultural Family Support Center in Koyang opens a Korean cooking class.Youtube.from:http://www.youtu be.com/watch?v=gDqLr3qOxw

 

 

Me, as a writer

Me, as a writer.

 

I'm "Great Mina Jo". "Great" is my self-modifier.

I chose my self-modifier as Great, because I really want to be a great person. So I always remind the word 'great' in my mind and try to do my best in everything. However, of course, i'm not great in many things yet and there are still lots of things that are very hard for me to achieve as I expected. By the way, English writing is one of those.

Since I have never been to abroad, i'm not good at English, and English writings. However, although i'm not good at it, i'm very impassioned English writer. I like writing. And I think this is my strength as a writer, that I have enthusiasm in writing and enjoy it. Also it seems I have a lot potentials to develop my writing techniques. But actually I don't have my own writing style though since i'm busy enough to check my grammars, vocabularies firstly whether it was correct or not, when i'm writing.

In practice, I write English diaries everyday, and this is one of my hobby. This is a kind of my daily precess. When i'm writing it, I just can relax, and arrange my mind. But the problem is that, when I reread my diary again, I feel very disappointed that I have poor writing techniques. I can know that it is very messy and there are lots of misused expressions such as grammars and articles. Also words that i'm using are so easy and simple. They don't express my mind delicately. But I want to be a writer who can give people an inspiration from my writings and I want them to be impressed a lot from it. And this is one of my ultimate goal as a writer.

So I really want to be a good writer someday to achieve my goal as a writer, and i'm sure that this English class will help me a lot in achieving my goal. Also i'm very excited to have my own writing blog, but i'm also worried about posting my writings. Because, I'm little bit ashamed of my present writing skills. Many people will visit my blog, and they will read my writings. This is quite uncomfortable work for me. however, I will develop my writing and English, so that I can write an excellent writings which can impress other people.

Lastly, I want this English class to be very helpful in developing not only my English writing but also speaking. And I want to write many essays in this class although i'm worried about grading but I will do my best anyway. Most of all, I hope this class to be fun.