The Korea Times - Columnists, Opinion, page 24

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Opinion

Columnists

Mon, September 23, 2019 | 18:01

Teachers Running Rampant

``Unfit, Foulmouthed, Drunken English Teachers Running Rampant." This is how Korea Beat, a self-styled English-language Korean news blog, translated the headline for a Yonhap News story on June 11 about problems with native English-speaking teachers in Korea. A more literal translation of the headline would have been, ``Native Speakers of Questionable Quality Abound." However, once you read the story, Korea Beat's translation is actually more accurate in terms of both the content and tone of the article.

Jong-eun2009-06-22 17:50

I Just Dont Get It

I thought that I knew Koreans. After all, I am ethnically Korean and was born and raised in Seoul until I was nine years old. I even speak and write the language with native fluency. And, needless to say, I look like a Korean, albeit an older model that's losing trade-in value pretty precipitously.

2009-06-08 17:24

Suicide Is Painless

The mind often makes bizarre associations. When suddenly presented with shocking news, it instinctively links it with some other piece of information dormant in your subconscious that seems totally unrelated on the surface.

2009-05-25 17:41

Karma and Your Brain

The central narrative of the current economic crisis is that highly capable individuals driven by rational self-interest have made such bad decisions that they almost brought down the world's financial infrastructure and visited ruin upon themselves.

2009-05-11 17:23

Hairy Angel of Scotland

Around two weeks ago, a 47-year old Scottish woman named Susan Boyle, unique in her frumpy ordinariness, stepped onto the stage of ``Britain's Got Talent" and blew the world away with her singing. The fact that netizens worldwide have now ordained her as the ``hairy angel" should tell you what kind of an underwhelming TV image she cut at the time of her audition.

2009-04-27 17:20

Korea Turns Multiracial

``I am Jiverly Wong shooting the people," begins the handwritten letter sent to a news station before 13 people were killed at a Binghamton, N.Y., immigrant aid center on April 3, 2009.

2009-04-13 17:35

PULP Translations

When I was working as the chief of staff for the founder of an international consulting firm, I had an opportunity to bid out a contract for the construction of a mid-size real estate development in Arizona. On the appointed date and time, several general contracting and architectural firms came and presented their plans, all touting their experience and trustworthiness in sincere but predictable ways.

2009-03-30 17:27

Tao of Leadership

Google ``Tao of Leadership" and you will get a listing of several Western management books and articles that mostly reinterpret Lao Tzu's ``Tao Te Ching" in an archaic, New Age-like language that flutters and dances like a butterfly that ponders the external longing of the cosmos but sighs without taking a breath in the zephyr of spring. Say what? Exactly.

2009-03-16 18:15

Bait & Switch Leadership

A totalitarian state is commonly defined as one in which the state has absolute power over all societal resources and controls all aspects of public and private life. One would suppose that the followers would spontaneously, and as a group, throw off the yoke of the totalitarian leader.

2009-03-02 18:12

Illusion About Protection

``Korean girls are the easiest girls in the world," one of my American teachers told me as he left for Seoul after a stint with the foreign language institute that I worked for as recruiting manager about 12 years ago. He had been with us for about two years as one of the best-regarded teachers by students and staff. Therefore, what he told me was not just crude but absolutely shocking. I felt betrayed and violated.

2009-02-16 17:23

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