Rice Cake (DeoK)

Korean traditional cakes have long been shared among neighbors and friends on many occasions of happiness and sorrow. The cake shape, content, and color vary from one region to another. When neighbors gather to share traditional cakes they extend their warmth and kindred spirit to others in the community. Korea people have always made rice cakes when they had tragic or happy moments in their lives. It was usually a considered good or delicious thing, and that is why rice cakes have been so closely related to all walks of life. So it is hard to understand Korean people's lives without understanding the symbolic meaning of rice cakes.

Source : http://www.lifeinkorea.com/culture/ricecake/ricecake.cfm

Korea Field Research Study (KFRS) 2009

Day to day trip story

Day 1^st: Trip to Hyundai Motors Company

Leaving from KDI Gate at 07.30 am, for the unforgettable moment needs more effort than other event. Since at that time was early in the morning, notably for fall season where the sun will rise at 08.15 am. The temperature was little bit chili around 13 degrees Celsius. I have a hope ness to get something worthy in my life at least for living in Korea.

Around 24 KOICA students attended in that event, we were in one bus. Since we have been involved with academic activity for a while we feel so happy making gather time. All face look so relax event most of us still withstand for worry for the dead line of thesis writing. But it’s okey we would forget it for the moment. For the first hours we talked each other, whilst bus brought us far from our campus. But suddenly we felt in sleeping, continuing our ‘broken sleep’ due to woke up too early not as used to.

“Okey we will arrive at the rest area, wake up please” said our guide awaken us up. We took almost fifteen minutes in the rest area for ‘natural calling’. From the rest area to the Hyundai company took about two hours. Our first destination is Hyundai Motors Company at Ulsan. Since Ulsan is the city that I have never visited before, it would interest for me. Oh, that lunch time for the workers (around 12.40) and that made us went to the presentation room for company presentation. Taking picture at all interesting place is mandatory, we did not want loose the moment. Hyundai Motor Company is the world’s fifth largest automaker in annual production and unit sold, and also includes the big Asian Four with Toyota Honda and Nissan). For the first fifteen minutes we enjoyed company presentation that described how company started with the first car production called Cortina in 1968 one year after the company establishment. In 1975 the first Korean car were released, named Pony. In my own opinion Pony is so cute and that’s the classic design and casual as well. The company export began around 1976 to Ecuador and Benelux countries. After 1980s Hyundai began to expand its export to US, and in 1996 in India Hyundai established the company branch named Hyundai Motors India Limited in Chennai. Nowadays Hyundai become world class brand and it begins producing hybrid electric vehicles named Avante. This product releases in 2009.

Taking picture is allowed only in the show room arena. Most of KDI students flashed their camera using the prototype cars background and Hyundai logo, included me. But time is so short, only around three minutes for taking picture season, and we moved to go around the car industries. It has five independent plants; over 34.000 employees in total produce an average 5.600 vehicles per day, wow! Fantastic! Ulsan is one of Plant main production facility that has area of 4,990,000 m2. It equipped with cutting edge facilities to protect the environment and rises up to its reputation as a forest plant with its 500.000 trees. That’s good idea for its employee health and for people surrounding it.

After busing around the plant industries we were back to the first floor of Hyundai showroom building for lunch. Wow the queue was long line and I got the tail of that line. And we had lunch in hurry; they only gave us twelve minutes, regardless we got first turn or last. In my case due to my position the lunch time is so tight, unlucky me.

Bus brought us after fulfill of suffering to the second object of trip; Hyundai Heavy Industry (HHI).

2^nd Field Trip Object Hyundai Heavy Industry (HHI)

Imagine before get in the location of HHI is huge building and industrial complex, complete with extra big machines and employed thousand of workers, polluted area, noise and so many restricted areas. All imagines were swept after bus entered on the location. The place so quiet and no pollution I found. Of course, there are thousands of workers but most of them were inside at that time doing their job each. HHI established on March 23, 1972, located atJeonha-Dong, Dong-Gu, Ulsan, total pant area is 1,522 acres, total number of worker is 25,000

As usual before sight seeing on the field, there was short briefing to introduce about history and all general information needed by all visitors. As mentioned by speaker HHI has 7 (seven) main industries named

Ship building, on this plant area could produce kinds of ship such as LNG/LPG carriers, containerships, tankers Products carriers, Chemical Tankers, Bulk Carriers, Pure Car Carriers, Roll on/Roll off ships, Drill ships and special & Naval ships. The main division of such industries are contract/design, pre-treatment of steel plate, automatic cutting, fabrication block, erection/finishing touch, sea-trial / operation test, Naming ceremony and delivery division

1. Engine and Machinery
This plant industry conducts Low and Medium speed diesel engine, HiMSEN Engine, Propeller and Shaft. So far Ship building has delivered 1,400 vessels to 245 ship owners in 46 countries, recorded in 2008 total sales is 9,084.,9 billion won. The HHI is using world new standard engine for marine and stationary have specifications as follows:
- Hyundai’s Own Developed HiMSEN
- World’s largest propeller (107 Ton)
- 200 MW GMR Vasavi Diesel Power Plant, India
- Packaged Power station
- Industrial robot
- Submerged Cargo pumping system
- Main Propulsion steam turbine

2. Offshore and Engineering

HHI has handled over 160 turnkey EPIC projects to date for more than 30 oil and gas majors, including Total, Exxon Mobile, BP, Shell, and Chevron. In 2008, HHI moved to significantly expand our fabrication capabilities with the construction of H Dock. The main product of offshore & engineering plant is Floating Units: FPSOs, FPUs, TLPs, Semi-Submersible Units, Fixed Platforms: Topsides, Jackets & Piles, Jack-ups, Modules & Quarters, Pipelines & Sub sea Facilities: Sub sea Pipelines, Offshore Installations: Platforms, Pipelines. In 2008 achieved total sales around 3,095.1 billion KRW.

3. Electro Electric System;

HHI is currently in the middle of a major expansion project that will boost the photovoltaic cell manufacturing capacity up to 330 MW annually by 2010, the main product of electro electric system is Transformers, Gas Insulated Switchgear, Switchgear, Low- and Medium-Voltage Circuit Breakers, Rotating Machinery, Power Electronics and Control Systems, Solar Power Systems, and Wind Power Systems. In 2008 Electric system achieved sales level at 2,243.9 billion KRW

4. Construction Equipment

In 2008, HHI global sales and service network of roughly 500 dealers in 110 countries delivered over 32,700 pieces of equipment. The main products are excavators, wheel loaders, forklifts and skid loaders, total sales in 2008 is 1,768.9 billion KRW.

5. Industrial Plant and Engineering

The major solution of this plan is Power Plants: Combined-Cycle, Cogeneration, and Thermal Power Plants and Process Plants: Oil and Gas, Refinery, Tank Farm, GTL, and LNG Facilities, total sales in 2008 is 1,374.4 billion KRW.

Lesson Learned

HHI and Honda Motors Company (HMC), both are world class Industrial company, having hundreds thousands workers and generating hundreds billion dollar. Lessons that can be learned from two big companies for me, as follows:

• Environmental commitment, the HHI and HMC have responsible for protecting environment and enriching society, since it founded. They make incredible effort to minimize environmental pollution by controlling air pollution and waste, water treatment system and also alternative energy. It concerns not only for employees but also for community surrounding area. This commitment can be easily found in the environmental strategy.
• Educational commitment, either Research center or other school underneath HHI shows highly commitment in educational issues. We can count the number of school funded by HHI such as 2 kindergartens, Hyundai Middle School, Hyundai High School, Hyundai Cheongun Middle school, Hyundai Cheongun High School, Ulsan college and Ulsan University.
• Social culture commitment, modern dormitory consists of 1,800 room, HHI cultural centers, 95% employee housing retention rate, donor campaign, all are evidence of Social commitment and culture.
• Motivation and endless spirit are key success of Hyundai company, “weather one succeed or fail depend on ones’s thought and attitude, certainly, theoretical or scientific limitations can be overcome with a pioneering spirit and passionate determination, and the source of power is the mind. An Unshakable belief can inspire extraordinary efforts and positive thinking is the key to creating miracle” (Cung Ju-Yung)

3^rd and 4^th Objects of trip Gyeongju Cultural Heritage

Bulguksa Temple is Buddish temple in the North Gyongsang provinces. It built with a combination of stylish architecture, Buddhist spirit and natural surroundings, symbolizes Buddha's land on earth in the 10th year of King Gyeongdeok,751 A .D. by Kim Dae-seong, in memory of his parents. It was replaced as original condition in 1973. the UNESCO stipulated as Cultural Heritage on December 6, 1995. The interesting object at Bulguksa Temple is Cheong-un and Baek-un (Blue and White Cloud) Bridges. Thos are actually staircases to Jahamun Bridge, and lead to the main hall contains the Seokgamoni Buddha. The bridges, to the Buddhists have meaning not only a structure that crosses some hinder, but also a bridge to lead from the secular world to the land of Buddha. The hall personifies the "Land of Buddha," the Western Paradise, where good spirits go. Inside, the gilt bronze seated Amitabha is enshrined.

5^th Object : Sejong City

The last object is Sejong City, this is an ambitious project of Korean Government to built green city in the middle of Seoul. It will both residential and office government as multifunctional administration. Using Sustainable concept of green city, Sejong has special features and characteristics for aiming global climate issues such as :

• Creating Eco-friendly- Urban spaces;
• CO2 Management during constructions;
• Constructing More low energy consumption buildings
• Development of High tech green transport systems
• New and renewable energy up to 15 % of total energy;
• Energy saving through energy efficient machines
• Creating Eco Friendly green belts and wetlands
• Joining International effort to reduce CO2 Emission

The Multifunctional Administration City (MAC) will be constructed into the best city dreamed of by every body. Such Project located at Yeongi-Gun and Gongju-Si, Chungcheongnam-Do, total main area is 72.91 km2, surrounding area is 223 km2. Population density is 68 pople/ha, situated 120 km from Seoul and 10 km from Daejeon and Cheongju; Wonsusan Mountain at the center of the city and the Mihocheon stream and Geumgang River meet.

Lesson Learned:

This project in my opinion will enhance the quality of citizens and establish best eco-friendly and will be placed in international competitiveness;

Economically it will cut down energy consumption, create new jobs and has significant contribution to the development of green industries;

Reducing CO2 is concern all countries regarding global climate changes

It will generate revenues by creating tourism and job creation as well.

Epilog

Finally, we got KDI main gate at 16.30 PM as prediction, and another assignment is waiting (but now it finished) we have to make report of two days long trip. Thank you KOICA and KDI, and all staff members, you gives us chance to learn more for every bit of such event.

References:

Green City Sejong Brochure;

Hyundai Motor Company Brochure;

Hyundai Heavy Industry Brochure;

As complement of this report I put some information from the following websites:

http://english.hhi.co.kr

http://worldwide.hyundai.com/

http://www.gyeongju.go.kr/eng/main/index.asp

Updated: Sept. 8, 2009, The New York Times

By Su-Hyun Lee and Sang-Hun Choe

Korea's old name, Chosun, means "the land of morning calm." But the nation has had a turbulent modern history. After 35 years of Japanese colonial rule, it was liberated by the Allied forces at the end of World War II - only to be divided into the Communist North and the pro-Western South. The two sides, the North aided by the Chinese and the South by the Americans, fought the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. The war ended in a cease-fire, not with a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula technically still in a state of war.

Korea Today

Today, the inter-Korean border remains the world's most heavily fortified frontier, guarded on both sides by nearly two million battle-ready troops. To the north, North Koreans live under a totalitarian dictatorship that keeps its people in isolation and hunger. To the south, people live in the freedom of one of the world's largest economies - although the country's once fast-growing export economy has been hammered by the global downturn. Former white-collar workers, for instance, have been forced to go into more physically demanding work or traditional kinds of manual labor that are relatively well paid in South Korea - from farming and fishing to the professional back-scrubbers who clean patrons at the nation's numerous public bathhouses.

South Korea has suffered its worst unemployment since the 1997 Asian currency crisis. According to the National Statistical Office, the unemployment rate had risen to 3.8 percent as of July 2009 - low by American standards, but high for this Asian economic powerhouse. (Since then, economic difficulties have eased somewhat.)

Nonetheless, in South Korea, most households are fitted with high-speed Internet. Players at the "e-sport" professional leagues - dragon slayers in cyber space - have a bigger fan club than traditional pop stars. Cell phone text- and image-messaging has replaced voice calls and e-mails as the primacy tool of communication among the nation's youngsters.

The government of President Lee Myung Bak, a conservative elected in 2007, has upended many of the policies of his immediate predecessor, Roh Moo Hyun, a liberal who had focused on developing ties with North Korea and sent it significant amounts of aid. Mr. Lee has taken a much tougher stance toward the North, pushing hard for it to give up its nuclear program. Many South Koreans had expressed frustration with the North even before its latest nuclear test, on May 25, 2009, and missile tests that followed in early July.

After the death in August 2009 of former president Kim Dae-jung, whose "Sunshine Policy" had led to the two Koreas breaching their border to connect roads and railways, ties seemed to improve slightly. The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, sent a message of improving ties with South Korea, through a high-level delegation to Mr. Kim's funeral. The delegation met with Mr. Lee in Seoul in the first major political meeting between the two Koreas in nearly two years. North Korea also restored regular traffic for South Korean companies that have operations in a joint industrial park in the North Korean border city of Kaesong. In late August, agreement was reached to resume reunions, begun under Mr. Kim, of families divided north and south.

The Post-Korean War Era

Unlike many other dictators in the third world, the military leaders of South Korea, ruling over a country devastated by the war, had a vision for economic development. They marshaled the country into rapid industrialization. But people wanted more. When people rose up in the southern city of Kwangju in 1980 to demand democracy, the junta dispatched paratroops and tanks to kill hundreds. Student and labor movements rocked campuses and factories throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. In 1993, military generals relinquished power to Kim Young Sam, the nation's first civilian leader in three decades. One thing that didn't change was a prevalent anti-communist sentiment.

South Koreans were shocked and humiliated when their country had to beg a $45 billion international bailout amid the region-wide financial meltdown in the late 1990s. They elected Kim Dae-jung, a long-time opposition leader, as president in 1998. He flung the door open for foreign investors, who bought distressed South Korean firms at fire-sale prices, restructured them and exited, often with staggering profits. Many of the people who had rolled out the red carpet for foreign capital felt bitter.

Mr. Kim's election brought long-persecuted liberal forces into power. They focused on engaging North Korea - an approach that resulted in the first-ever summit meeting between the two Koreas in 2000. In its wake, two million South Koreans visited a North Korean mountain resort. And in a scene televised worldwide, aging Koreans separated by the war a half century ago tearfully hugged one another in temporary family reunions.

The Presidency of Roh Moo Hyun

Mr. Kim tried to reshape South Korea's alliance with the United States. Friction with Washington over how to deal with North Korea - with sticks or with carrots - increased under Mr. Roh, who came to power in 2003, vowing not to "kowtow to the Americans" - an election-year slogan hugely popular among the postwar generations of nationalistic and often anti-American South Koreans. But in the second half of his term, Mr. Roh also took major steps toward expanding the Korea-U.S. alliance by completing a free trade agreement with the United States; he also dispatched non-combat troops to Iraq as a partner in the American-led coalition forces.

After a decade of liberal rule, however, South Koreans grew concerned about what many perceived as a growing rift between Seoul and Washington. They also felt "sandwiched" between high-tech Japan and low-cost China. They worried about rising housing prices and unemployment among the young. They thought Mr. Roh was bungling the economy.

Lee Myung Bak in Power

The sentiments translated into a landslide victory for Mr. Lee in the presidential election in 2007. His election put conservatives back in power. He promised to strengthen ties with Washington and run the country like an efficient business. A former construction C.E.O., Mr. Lee is South Korea's first president with a business background.

Mr. Roh jumped off a cliff on May 23, 2009, as prosecutors were aggressively pursuing allegations of corruption against him and his family. He had long insisted that in a country where all the recent presidents were touched by scandal, his government was clean. His death set off a weeklong period of grief and mourning unrivaled in recent South Korean history.

In September 2009, President Lee replaced his prime minister in a cabinet reshuffle that also removed the country's defense minister, who had clashed with Mr. Lee over military spending. Mr. Lee appointed Chung Un-chan, 61, an American-educated economist and a former president of Seoul National University, to replace Prime Minister Han Seung-soo. Mr. Chung, who earned his doctorate from Princeton University, is frequently described in the South Korean news media as a possible presidential candidate.

Mr. Lee had been under pressure from his ruling Grand National Party to revamp his cabinet since the party, amid economic difficulties, suffered a crushing defeat in parliamentary by-elections in April.

A Changing Society

Korean society is changing rapidly. Learning English is a national obsession. South Koreans supply the third largest group of foreign students in the United States after the Indians and the Chinese. They were immensely proud when their former foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, became the secretary general of the United Nations in 2006.

Dynamic, emotionally rich and descriptive of modernized yet deeply Asian ways, South Korean pop culture - or "K-pop" - has proved widely popular in the rest of Asia. From Japan to Myanmar, people tune into South Korea drama shows and movies. Thanks partly to the "Korean wave," foreign brides from poorer Asian countries like Vietnam flock to marry Korean men in the countryside, where there is a shortage of young women of marriageable age. Asian migrant workers toil in farms and factories in South Korea, doing the menial work many South Koreans shun. Only a few years ago, school textbooks used to declare proudly that Korea is a "homogeneous nation." No more. The country is rapidly turning into a multiethnic society.

Source: The New York Times, November 13, 2009

South Koreans Struggle With Race

By CHOE SANG-HUN

Published: November 1, 2009, The New York Times

SEOUL — On the evening of July 10, Bonogit Hussain, a 29-year-old Indian man, and Hahn Ji-seon, a female Korean friend, were riding a bus near Seoul when a man in the back began hurling racial and sexist slurs at them.

The situation would be a familiar one to many Korean women who have dated or even — as in Ms. Hahn’s case — simply traveled in the company of a foreign man.

What was different this time, however, was that, once it was reported in the South Korean media, prosecutors sprang into action, charging the man they have identified only as a 31-year-old Mr. Park with contempt, the first time such charges had been applied to an alleged racist offense. Spurred by the case, which is pending in court, rival political parties in Parliament have begun drafting legislation that for the first time would provide a detailed definition of discrimination by race and ethnicity and impose criminal penalties.

For Mr. Hussain, subtle discrimination has been part of daily life for the two and half years he has lived here as a student and then research professor at Sungkonghoe University in Seoul. He says that, even in crowded subways, people tend not sit next to him. In June, he said, he fell asleep on a bus and when it reached the terminal, the driver woke him up by poking him in the thigh with his foot, an extremely offensive gesture inSouth Korea.

“Things got worse for me this time, because I was with a Korean woman,” Mr. Hussain said in an interview. “Whenever I’ve walked with Ms. Hahn or other Korean women, most of the time I felt hostilities, especially from middle-aged men.”

South Korea, a country where until recently people were taught to take pride in their nation’s “ethnic homogeneity” and where the words “skin color” and “peach” are synonymous, is struggling to embrace a new reality. In just the past seven years, the number of foreign residents has doubled, to 1.2 million, even as the country’s population of 48.7 million is expected to drop sharply in coming decades because of its low birth rate.

Many of the foreigners come here to toil at sea or on farms or in factories, providing cheap labor in jobs shunned by South Koreans. Southeast Asian women marry rural farmers who cannot find South Korean brides. People from English-speaking countries find jobs teaching English in a society obsessed with learning the language from native speakers.

For most South Koreans, globalization has largely meant increasing exports or going abroad to study. But now that it is also bringing an influx of foreigners into a society where 42 percent of respondents in a 2008 survey said they had never once spoken with a foreigner, South Koreans are learning to adjust — often uncomfortably.

In a report issued Oct. 21, Amnesty International criticized discrimination in South Korea against migrant workers, who mostly are from poor Asian countries, citing sexual abuse, racial slurs, inadequate safety training and the mandatory disclosure of H.I.V. status, a requirement not imposed on South Koreans in the same jobs. Citing local news media and rights advocates, it said that following last year’s financial downturn, “incidents of xenophobia are on the rise.”

Ms. Hahn said, “Even a friend of mine confided to me that when he sees a Korean woman walking with a foreign man, he feels as if his own mother betrayed him.”

In South Korea, a country repeatedly invaded and subjugated by its bigger neighbors, people’s racial outlooks have been colored by “pure-blood” nationalism as well as traditional patriarchal mores, said Seol Dong-hoon, a sociologist at Chonbuk National University.

Centuries ago, when Korean women who had been taken to China as war prizes and forced into sexual slavery managed to return home, their communities ostracized them as tainted. In the last century, Korean “comfort women,” who worked as sex slaves for the Japanese Imperial Army, faced a similar stigma. Later, women who sold sex to American G.I.’s in the years following the 1950-53 Korean War were despised even more. Their children were shunned as “twigi,” a term once reserved for animal hybrids, said Bae Gee-cheol, 53, whose mother was expelled from her family after she gave birth to him following her rape by an American soldier.

Even today, the North Korean authorities often force abortion on women who return home pregnant after going to China to find food, according to defectors and human rights groups.

“When I travel with my husband, we avoid buses and subways,” said Jung Hye-sil, 42, who married a Pakistani man in 1994. “They glance at me as if I have done something incredible. There is a tendency here to control women and who they can date or marry, in the name of the nation.”

For many Koreans, the first encounter with non-Asians came during the Korean War, when American troops fought on the South Korean side. That experience has complicated South Koreans’ racial perceptions, Mr. Seol said. Today, the mix of envy and loathing of the West, especially of white Americans, is apparent in daily life.

The government and media obsess over each new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, to see how the country ranks against other developed economies. A hugely popular television program is “Chit Chat of Beautiful Ladies” — a show where young, attractive, mostly Caucasian women who are fluent in Korean discuss South Korea. Yet, when South Koreans refer to Americans in private conversations, they nearly always attach the same suffix as when they talk about the Japanese and Chinese, their historical masters: “nom,” which means “bastards.” Tammy Chu, 34, a Korean-born film director who was adopted by Americans and grew up in New York State, said she had been “scolded and yelled at” in Seoul subways for speaking in English and thus “not being Korean enough.” Then, she said, her applications for a job as an English teacher were rejected on the grounds that she was “not white enough.”

Ms. Hahn said that after the incident in the bus last July, her family was “turned upside down.” Her father and other relatives grilled her as to whether she was dating Mr. Hussain. But when a cousin recently married a German, “all my relatives envied her, as if her marriage was a boon to our family,” she said.

The Foreign Ministry supports an anti-discrimination law, said Kim Se-won, a ministry official. In 2007, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recommended that South Korea adopt such a law, deploring the widespread use of terms like “pure blood” and “mixed blood.” It urged public education to overcome the notion that South Korea was “ethnically homogenous,” which, it said, “no longer corresponds to the actual situation.”

But a recent forum to discuss proposed legislation against racial discrimination turned into a shouting match when several critics who had networked through the Internet showed up. They charged that such a law would only encourage even more migrant workers to come to South Korea, pushing native workers out of jobs and creating crime-infested slums. They also said it was too difficult to define what was racially or culturally offensive.

“Our ethnic homogeneity is a blessing,” said one of the critics, Lee Sung-bok, a bricklayer who said his job was threatened by migrant workers. “If they keep flooding in, who can guarantee our country won’t be torn apart by ethnic war as in Sri Lanka?”

Dry and Rainy Seasons in Indonesia, Spring in Korea

For the first time I was here...everything is shivers, no leaf on the trees, it were look like barren, no breath at all. But try to crack the tree, it's still live. I felt frozen at that time. The world surround me were so quite. Temperature in average was minus, sometime sunny, partly cloudy and rainy. I said to one of International student from Mongolia that Indonesia has only two seasons, hot and hotter. Spontaneously, he was laughing for a while. It was odd perhaps, but when I try to compare to the recent condition at Seoul, totally different. Indonesian temperature is never fluctuate during two seasons, dry and rain around 31 degrees. But now...-5 degrees was usual during winter until spring.

Please, have a look during spring, trees are no leafs suddenly have flowers. I though it was kind of compensation for 'ugly' appearance during winter, it gives good looking for people. Every where was flower, and the air was getting warm even still 'suggest' me wearing the thick clothes when going out.

I don't want lost the magnificent moment, taking picture to capture the colourful days that I have. Uploaded it at my facebook and waiting for the comments. So beautiful Korea,....

During spring time many outdoor events were arranging, recreations, attractions and so forth. As well as my college, was performing event to visit special places for example President House (Bulu house), museum of war, wedding ceremony and other interesting places. The pictures are my captures at those moments: