1. National
1) Asiana plane crash lands in San Francisco
Asiana Airlines flight OZ214 from Seoul to SF crashed and burst into flames while landing in SF International Airport on Saturday morning, killing two Chinese students and injuring some 182 passengers. The tail portion of the plane apparently hit runway during landing, and the plane broke off. The B-777 jet got on fire soon after the passengers were scrambling down the chutes to their safety. There were 307 passengers including 141 Chinese, 77 Koreans, and 61 Americans. No signs of terrorism, and pilot errors and plane malfunction are suspected. Founded in 1988, Asiana is the 2nd largest airline in Korea after Korean Air, and the SF crash was Asiana’s third plane crash since its first one in 1993 and the 2nd one in 2011.
Here is a strange thing. The 7 year old B-777 crashed with 77 Korean passengers on board. The flight was OZ214 which makes 7 when 2,1,4 are added. Asiana’s logo looks like 7. Seven was definitely not a lucky number for Asiana that had its plane crashed in SF on Jul 7 Korea time.
2) President Park visits Beijing
Korean president Park Geun-hye had a summit meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Jun 27. In the joint communiqué after the meeting, Xi expressed his support for Park’s effort to have a dialogue with North Korea, and was standing smiling when Park said, “We agreed that a nuclear-armed North Korea will never be tolerated under any circumstance.” The two leaders also agreed to speed up free trade agreement process between the two nations. Park gave a speech at Tsinghua University, Xi’s alma mater. Speaking in perfect Mandarin Chinese, Park quoted a classic Chinese lesson to stress the importance of education.
I was amazed at Park’s Chinese speech. I learned Chinese for six months in 2003 in Ansan, taking advantage of a small Chinese language institution next to my office. While reading and writing were a piece of cake as I had learned Chinese characters in middle school, speaking and listening comprehension were totally different because of the four intonations unique in Chinese. I finally gave up after being tired of hearing “Bu Tingdong” ( I don’t understand) from my Chinese teacher each time I said something to her in Chinese.
2. Economy
1) Ivy league names banned for crammers
The U.S. court has ruled that private crammers can not use the names of prestigious universities like Harvard or Yale, in a lawsuit by Yale against a crammer chain called ‘Yale Academy.’ Terry Yang, the owner of Yale Academy, claimed it was a combination of his family name, Yang, and his wife’s surname, Lee, and said he chose Yale’s blue and white color because those are his favorite colors. The court didn’t buy his story. The court ruling will impact private education industry in Korea as there are 16 crammers and 52 private study rooms registered in Seoul that have the names of Harvard , Princeton and other Ivy League names. Much more if to include those not registered.
Though not an Ivy League school, University of Michigan is as much known to Koreans, partly thanks to an English text book. Most of people in my age took Michigan Action English from U of M as their college English text book in the early 80’s. Its strong selling point was that the speakers in the Michigan Action English tapes were using the most standard American English. Never did I know at that time that, in 20 years, I would be working for a standard auto supplier based in Michigan under a boss from U of M.
2) Expats in Korea getting close to 1.5 million
According to the government statistics, the number of expats has reached 1.44 million, 2.8% of South Korea’s 51 million registered populations. The 1.44 million includes naturalized Korean citizens, long-term expats and children of foreigners in Korea. Chinese nationals, including ethnic Koreans, accounted for over half the number with 775,474(53.7%) of the total, followed by Vietnamese with 176,988(12.2%) and Americans with 69,704(4.8%). Foreigners in Korea for work took 36% of the total with 520,906, while 10.2% (147,591) are in Korea because of their marriage with Koreans. Ansan was the city with most expats with 64,709 foreigners, comprising 9 percent of the city’s total population, followed by Seoul’s Yeongduengpo District with 53,666.
The number of expats began to sky rocket from early 2000’s when there was lack of workers in 3D (Dangerous, Dirty, Difficult) industries in Korea, and young brides in rural area became rare because of Korean ladies preferring to live in big cities. Expats are finding Korea O.K to live in. Jasmine Lee, a woman from Philippine who married a Korean man, even became one of the 300 law makers last year while a Korean has yet to become a law maker in the U.S. or in any other key nations.
3. Auto Industry
1) A Korean auto supplier in Georgia in labor dispute
Some 30 people from GSJA, AFL-CIO and NAACP held a rally in front of Sewon America in LaGrange, GA, on Jun 29 to protest the death of Teresa Pickard who died on the way to hospital after suffering from short breath at work on May 29. The protesters claimed she died after working in extreme heat on the company’s “project weld line,” but Sewon released a statement that says “Pickard’s death was not work related. Sewon has been committed to the safety of employees. Sewon is an air conditioned facility, provides fans at employee stations and has water placed for the employees’ use.” OSHA has an ongoing investigation, but no conclusion yet. It was the first time a labor rally occurred at Hyundai-Kia suppliers in the U.S.
Korean suppliers operating in North America are to be careful about different culture. One of my friends at Hyundai went to Alabama in 2003 to build Hyundai Alabama plant. In shaking hands with friends, he had a habit of scratching his friend’s palm with his index finger. He did it because he believed it was a friendly gesture, but one of Hyundai Alabama female employees reported it as a sexual harassment. He had to return to Korea just a few months after he moved to Alabama. It was lucky for him to use index finger. Could have been a lot worse had he used middle finger.
Regards,
H.S.
No comments:
Post a Comment