An Impressive Honor

Recently, six foreign students from Woosong University were invited to participate in the opening ceremony celebrating the operation of the Jeolla Railroad. Fortunately, I was included in this particular group. It was “fortunate” because we would be honored to see the President of South Korea through this opportunity. For someone like me who has never been so lucky to see such great figures, it would be an exciting experience.

First, we departed from Daejeon to Yeosu by train. It took us about 2.5 hours to arrive at the destination. After an hour’s wait, we finally saw the president step into the venue at a slow pace. Despite a blurred silhouette, I was so excited that all I could do was just hold my breath and stare at the group in unanimous formal attire. After a 30-minute speech, the most exciting moment came.

President Lee stepped down from the stage and started shaking hands with the people who stood in the front line. It was so crowded and I didn’t have any idea, until I realized that I was in the front line and was grasping the President’s hands firmly. Although it was a short time of 10 seconds, I thought I would never forget this meaningful moment of my first time meeting a great figure.

While it happened over a week ago, I will still be filled with excitement when thinking of the moment!

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Tao Yuting is currently a Woosong Student majoring in Railway Communication Engineering

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Help Animals in Need Today!

Have you heard about "Farm Animal"? Recently, I watched a TV show about mistreated animals. Many people were crying during this show. This particular show was about a dog living on a farm. The dog seemed to be dying, blood came flowing out of his wound, his jaw was broken, and his eyes were out of their sockets. It was a crying shame. Whats worse, the criminal is still at large.

The TV show shocked many people about the treatment of stray dogs and dog farms. Recently, many celebrities did volunteer work to help stray dogs. So there are more volunteers now. My family has two puppies also and we are deeply interested in stray dogs. Last week, we went to the Angel House in Asan. They have hundreds of cats and dogs. They live in a pretty bad environment. It makes me feel so sad. My family gave several blankets, food and boiled eggs to them.

The cats and dogs do not want to be abandoned. They just want to be loved and cared for.

If you are interested in this issue, Please visit www.fromcare.org and help these animals in terrible conditions.

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Jeong-Hye Jang is currently a Woosong Student majoring in Food Service Management

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My Take on Sol-Bakery

At first, when I went to Solpine Bakery, I felt that it was just a small cafe in Woosong University. But, I was fascinated by the interior decor. I thought it was fantastic. The design was very good and very clean. Woosong students help make all the bread and beverages. It was not so bad.

But, there are two problems for me about the bakery. First, the product costs are increasingly expensive. I think that students don't have a lot of money. If I'm going to pay for expensive food, I would rather go to another cafe or bakery. Their prices are similar to Solpine Bakery, but I still want to support my school

Secondly, the bread is very cold sometimes. I think the bread is more delicious when it is hot. And even sometimes the bakery's bread is very dry and hard.

The bakery was created by student's sweat and effort which is a very positive thing for our university. But I think the image of the bakery can be damaged because of just a few simple mistakes. If Solpine Bakery tries to fix these small things, I'm sure it will continue to be loved by everyone.

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Lim Hye-In is currently a Woosong Student majoring in Food Service Management

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Food Service Management Academic Festival

The Department of Food Service Management held an academic festival recently on the 8th floor of the Woosong Tower to evaluate students' study performance.

On the wall, notices were posted about free coffee and the walls were decorated with balloons. The center of the lobby had an atmosphere of a café. The student union offered complimentary snacks & coffee. In the corner, the designated club of the Department, “Baccus”, provided some sample beverages (wine & cocktails). At the same time, the building was crowded with nervous high school students, because they were conducting University interviews that same day.

Next year, I hope that the FSM Academic festival will be bigger and better and there will be a variety performance with new and exceptional freshman students.

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Kim So Young is currently a Woosong Student

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Members Wanted for Woosong's Model UN

Members Wanted: Join us as a member of the new Woosong Model UN Club!

The purpose of the Woosong Model UN Club:

The Korea Model United Nations (KMUN) will be held next summer at Woosong University we want to prepare more fresh troops for it.

Why you should join:

1. To practice English fluency
2. To get to learn about the working system of the Model United Nations as well as United Nations

3. To get to know the status, politics, economy and culture of your nation of interest.
4. To have fun and make friends

How to join:

Just come to our periodical meeting on 6pm Wednesday or Thursday or send and email to: wsumun@gmail.com to get further information.

Come on, join us and have fun! You are indispensable!

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Lucy Wang is currently a Woosong Student majoring in Railway Management

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China: A Paradise Of Food

On an early morning last July, 10 students of Woosong University gathered at Gimpo Airport. They’re the winners of Woosong’s Chinese Speech Competition which was held last May, myself included. Especially I have a lots of interests about Chinese cuisine so that was a great chance for me. ‘Chinese cuisine’, ‘French cuisine’ and ‘Turkish cuisine’ is commonly listed as the worlds 3 best cuisines. Especially China is one of the food paradises. For example, someone said “Chinese people eat all food except chairs, desks and airplanes which have 4 legs or are flying things.”

We took 2 hours to Beijing International Airport and the bus drove for ages then arrived at Beijing Foreign Studies University which we lived at for 10 days. That place is familiar to me because I studied there one semester last year.


Our Beijing schedule was so tight. The Great Wall which is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Forbidden City which took 3 days to explore, the Summer Palace which is Empresses summer house, Jing Mountain Park which you can see the whole Forbidden City, 798 Art district which you can see Chinese modern arts, Xiang mountain where you only can see a maple in Beijing, Peking University which has a beautiful campus rarely seen before. We saw every famous place in Beijing. Every time I go I feel that Beijing is huge.

Beijing food is also commonly listed as one of the China’s best 4 foods. Beijing duck which is sliced by professional chefs and Beijing’s traditional black bean noodles are one of the delicacies. Everywhere in Beijing city, you can find lamb skewers but it’s very cheap and if you eat with a beer that might be heaven.

After 10 days of the Beijing trip we took a train for 6 hours and arrived at Shanxi. Also Shanxi was enough to overwhelm us. We were so tired because of a long time rude but Shanxi food was also enough to recharge us up. Especially wheat is widely cultivated in Shanxi, so renowned for it’s noodle. Some historian said pasta of Italy was spread from Shanxi by the Silk Road.

Huge and grand Chinese historical remains always speculate me and China always teaches me things. I hugely appreciate Woosong university for giving all of us a chance to have a good meaningful experiences.

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Seo-Yoo Seok is currently a Woosong Student majoring in Culinary Arts;

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Managing Product Life Cycles in Korea for Sustainability

A key component of sustainability is waste management, which, if properly carried out, can lead to a cleaner and less wasteful society. A major part of waste in our modern world comes from the huge number of consumer goods in the market, which become useless material after disposal. The concept of “product stewardship” deals with managing the environmental impact of a product by having everyone involved in the lifespan of the product, and plays an active role in ensuring that the product is used and disposed in a way that promotes sustainability. Initially, managing a product’s environmental impact had been centered on EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) which places the responsibility for the reuse, recycling or disposal of a product on the producer. 

Product stewardship takes the concept of EPR one step further by dividing the responsibility for the environmental impact of a product amongst manufacturers, retailers, importers, governments and consumers. The paradigm shift towards product stewardship is crucial in the sense that it reduces waste as well as overuse of resources. If consumers use and throw away products carelessly, producers end up with more to recycle than they would otherwise, which is wasteful. By involving consumers and retailers in the process, we can ensure that products are used in the most optimal way and waste is taken down to its bare minimum.

Currently, South Korea uses an EPR oriented scheme whereby obligations and mechanisms are centred on producer responsibility towards meet recycling targets. The scheme, termed the Product Recycling System, was adopted in 2003 and requires manufacturers to pay the costs for recycling their products and provides mandatory recycling targets. The products and materials covered under the scheme include electronic equipment, tyres, lubricants, batteries, fluorescent lamps, and packaging materials as well as agricultural products, marine farm products, cleansers, medicines and cosmetics. The scheme seems to have provided a good start, but the focus will need to shift eventually. Given the Korean consumers’ high drive for the consumer products marketplace and reckless usage of products, adopting product stewardship would greatly reduce waste and enhance efficient usage of resources. 

A good starting step would be to mirror other countries that are currently running product stewardship schemes, as benchmarks. Japan is probably the most advanced country in East Asia in this area and can provide a good model. Some of the strategies that can be replicated from Japan include establishing legislation related to specific products, making consumers financially responsible for disposal of their goods by using a multi-part docket system for disposal of products, and broadening product coverage to include other categories of goods. Taiwan also seems to be progressing rapidly towards product stewardship and their strategies and policies can provide useful insights. 

Regardless of which countries are used as benchmarks and which strategies are adopted, the transition to product stewardship will be worthwhile and will serve as milestone in establishing a sustainable society.

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Nousheen Samuel is currently a Woosong Student studying at the SolBridge International School of Business 

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My Friends, Ready to Learn Some Czech?

Ahoj” (Hi), yes, that’s the first Czech word you learn today. Are you wondering why Czech? Because our city, Daejeon, is welcomed 11 friends coming from the nation of the Czech Republic. They are following a Korean government  program for the youth and Daejeon was one of their destinations.

However, we still have a greater news. Some of our students actually got the chance to meet, discuss and debate with the delegates. Held by Debridge, SolBridge International School of Business Debate Squad, a workshop was conducted on Wed, Sept 7th in the SolBridge building. In the workshop, through demonstration debate rounds and discussion, we shared our opinions about the very current issue going on in Korea right now: the reunification of the two Koreas. 

Even though people took different sides, some may support, some may oppose but in the end, everyone got a better understanding of the situation, some thoughts to bring home and the most important is lots of new friends. That’s how debate bridges the gaps and brings people closer to each other. 

Thanks to all the Debridge members and coaches who helped to make this workshop successful, thanks to the Czech republic delegate for coming and participating. 

It’s time to say “Nashledanov” (Goodbye) to our new friends, we all hope they would enjoy their the rest of their trip in Korea and we would have a chance to meet again.

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My Nguyen is currently a Woosong Student studying at the SolBridge International School of Business 

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A Mothers Inspiration

“These thoughts gave me strength whenever I face a challenge and whenever I feel weak.”

I have interviewed my mother, the most important person in my life who has always been by my side and the one I admire the most. She is 47 years old and her original name was Jung-Hee Yoo but she changed her name when she started studying abroad to Sena Yoo. She is currently a Mathematics coordinator teacher for a 1^st year classroom at Hyundai Foreign primary school and also a Cambridge YLE Oral examiner. She started teaching in 1985 at the age of 23 meaning that she spent nearly half of her life in teaching.

She said "well... I was a teacher for whole my life except those 3 years that I spent raising you two...(me and my little brother)". I asked, "What made you to become a teacher?" so she started explaining from her childhood. 

"My dad passed away when I was 10. That was very shocking to me at the time. My relatives used to tell me that if I do something wrong, then people would think that's because I don't have a dad and I would go wrong way. So I tried hard do be a good girl. I didn't like hearing from people that I was a bad girl due to my father's absence."

She told me that she started going church when she was 6 years old and that church was very close to her, so she spent most of her time growing up in church. She was a girl who prayed, sang hymns and tried everything what the bible, pastor and Sunday teacher said what she should do and don't. She was very quiet but very mature and serious.

She said "Well... simply I was very religious so I wanted to become a pastor. But, I failed to go to a theological university. Many people in the church said that I was very good with children and I should become a teacher. But since my father passed away, I grew in a very poor condition. None of my family or relatives thought I should go to university. 

Also I never thought that I was able to continue getting higher education. So I started as a Sunday school teacher when I became a high school student and that has pulled the trigger of me going to Pai-Chai University studying to become a teacher". 

After getting into the university and studying to become a teacher, that was not the final goal of her life. No way, that is not my mother. She dreamed of studying abroad becoming an international teacher but there was no chance since she got married. However for some reason she did not stop dreaming. She strongly believed that babies should be raised by their mother at least for the first couple of years as she learned from her childhood, she wanted to keep those important years. When I was 8 she started to enroll with her dream, she first went to Malaysia for a year and studied 3 years in total getting M/Ed. degree in England. After finishing her study she got a job at a primary school and started a new life in England. She always says to me "always pray to God, He is the life guider". 

There are few things that she emphasizes, first is live by God, second is be a human, third is to challenge yourself (don't just look tomorrow, see the future) and try not to hate anyone in your life.

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Jae-Chun Seo is currently a Woosong Student in the Globe Department 

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K-Pop Sucesses and Cultural Understanding: Moving Beyond the Old World for the Better

It surely is a belching of catchy melodies and moves on stages that enthrall countless Asian populations over the years. It has reached beyond the peninsula and has succeeded in augmenting the recognition of a country and is being carefully examined by potential new fans over in Europe. Popularity stemming from the efforts of the K-pop indusrty is surely a thing that cannot be overlooked and surely can be evaluated as a success in realizing how the industry, which  has grown so much. At least, it is impactful enough for my foreign friends to gather together in the morning to watch the popular show Dream Concert. 

Several efforts to prolong the renowned accomplishments of K-Pop are in progress. Just a few months ago, at the SolBridge International School of Business, students encountered a poster presenting a specialized Hallyu’course, offering lessons on the K-pop industry from a business perspective. Hallyu is a Korean terminology designating the ample effects of Korean cultural impact on foreign countries. In the same context, some entertainment corporations are establishing organization that are systematically growing K-pop musicians. Governmental efforts to aid such a flow are in progress as well. 

Negative attitudes by many journalists jotting very impulsive expressions in describing such success is surely a thing to be looked at while watching continued progress in K-pop. Rather than understanding in pertinent business point of view, how some of them using such terms like ‘dominance’ ‘rule’ ‘captivating’ explaining K-pop presented in Europe shows how much they lack suitable attitude in cultural diversity wise. Among several constituents that have driven the industry into the status is the successful timing and marketing strategies used at proper place. Collaboration of Western artists bearing insight on Westerners taste surely helped forming fandom. Systematic training of artists over long period of time also boosted long term success of industry. Production laid great product attracting consumers. It is not ‘reign’ or ‘dominance’ over the culture of foreign countries that represents success which can be very insulting to the public of other cultures. 

Such problematic interpretation stems at conventional perception of people understanding such nominating chance as a way to presenting patriotism. While recognition of the country can naturally be exuding to other culture afterwards of cultural experience, it is not a stage to discuss such effect. Again, it’s the considerate process that led the industry to meet the preference of the consumers rather than old school translation of such motivation as patriotism which is presented from the mind of such writers professing such terms. 

Depreciation of achievement in the industry can never be the case when empirical data clearly shows how it has been gaining great results. How the industry can further progress still needs careful scrutinizing on the potential. In understanding cultural diversity and respect towards foreign cultural atmosphere, not only people should deter using improper words but understand the situation in business view point rather than conventional interpretation which is aberration of nowadays state.

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Joo-Won Lee is currently a Woosong Student studying at the SolBridge International School of Business 

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We Are Dancing

The passion the Woosong University’s annual Fall festival has gradually gone away. But it is still a hot issue these days while we’re enjoying the short holiday as well as enduring the emptiness. 

While everybody in Woosong is talking about 2AM and Sistar, a small group of people are celebrating their victory. In their own eyes their performance at a recent night of the festival was legendary. They are dancers, coming from different countries. They belong to a small dancing club which is named PAcrew and they all believe that dancing colors one’s life.

They danced for 13 minutes, including Jazz, Popping, Hip and Breaking at the incredibly passionate night. They really prepared that for almost one month. They are all students, which means it is extremely difficult for them to gather together and practice. It only took 10mins to decide what would they dance, and what made that so easy is only one simple principle: Everyone should dance!

In fact, not anyone in this dancing club could dance well, more particularly, some of them are just novices. It would make them nervous to dance in public while everyone is hoping to see some kind of fabulous dancing which exactly Sistar can do. They knew how to cure it and the answer was nonstop practicing. Only in that way could they offer the spectators a decent job. But that’s not the point; the point is that a decent job for spectators is an excellent job for the dancers. They are not going to be some professional dancers who make a life by dancing; they see dancing as a way to relief stress and earn self-esteem. That’s enough for them.

The most easy and efficient way to do something well is repetition. No one can image how he or she can make it out even without a dancing room, which has a mirror. No one can image how he or she could make it out with so many difficulties just like sometimes being forbidden from using a classroom for dancing without a satisfying reason. But they made it by practicing over and over again. God knows how hard it was.

One period of work has been finished. But they are not stopping; they dance not for cheer but for their own lives.

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Ying Cheng Hao is currently a Woosong Student majoring in Railway Communication Engineering 

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Where is He? The Running Old Man?

I have not seen him for a while. Where is he?

I don't know his name; I don't know how old he is. Actually, the only thing I know about him is whenever I saw him he was always running around the yard, running around the Woosong area.

He was old, not very tall, in a black sports suit, ran slowly but nonstop.

After taking a nap, we got up with sleepiness, we went to school, and we saw him for the first time. I cannot remember what day that day was, I cannot remember how long it took me to realize such a crazy old man running around nonstop. Actually, the first utterance I mentioned out about him was "Hey, look, there is the crazy man AGAIN!"

What was his purpose? He was once an athlete and he just couldn't stop running? Given his unfathomable endurance, I can't doubt that. Or maybe he want to stay healthy and livelonger? Yes, everyone wants to and not everyone is able to be so persistent. Or as I said, he must be crazy. If I keep trying to figure this out, I'll go insane first.

But, he has gone now. I still cannot remember the last time I saw him. I didn't care before, but now I care. I want to solve this puzzle.

Why did he stop running around? Did he move away and begin to run in another place? Is he ill? It’s not strange for a running old man to get ill? He felt tired? He got more crazy? As I said before, he is a puzzle. I want to know, but it doesn't matter because some puzzles are meant to be left unsolved

He has his own special story. We’re strangers who watch him but we don't know who he is.

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Ying Cheng Hao is currently a Woosong Student majoring in Railway Communication Engineering 

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Rise of the Planet of the Apes – Fact or Fiction

It is a legendary film. Although my review is a little too late for those who want to watch it in the cinema. But if you really like science fictions, that’s the kind of feast you don’t want to miss.

It shares the similar premise with the old series of the Planet of the Apes. For those who have watched the old series before, I will say it isn’t remade directly and I reassure you that you will find everything is different now with similar themes.

Since I’m trying to persuade you to see this film so I won’t say much about the plot. But I do want to talk about what the movie suggests.

Maybe you are tired of supernatural stuff films? Without magic, without tremendous mechanical power, Rise of the Planet of the Apes will make you feel that “Oh, wow, this really might happen!” Try to image one day apes will rise and override humans to become slaves of another primate, which walk upright just like us.

They reproduce faster, they have more muscles, and they are smart. Maybe we are smart too, they are not smart enough, but the film tells you what will happen when they become smarter by a tiny mistake made by a naïve and intelligent scientist.

The point is that is that it is realistic to some extent! And that’s why science fictions are so fantastic!

And actually, not every result has a persuasive reason. The film does not depict how guilty humans are. The catastrophe was not determined, it was not destiny, we didn’t deserve it. But it happened. And again, that’s the reason why I like fictions, they expose you to some crazy ideas and they really force you to image and torture you day and night!

And probably, the sequels will come ... maybe not shortly, though. I’ll let you know.

But at least enjoy the beginning and get that mind of yours cranking.

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Ying Cheng Hao is currently a Woosong Student majoring in Railway Communication Engineering 

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