The Korea Times

Tilted election ground

What would it be like if, in a football match, one team played with 12 players while the other is forced to do so with only 10? The result is predictable in most cases. If political parties fail to agree on an election rule, however, local polls in June will likely end up as such a lopsided game.In the 2012 presidential election, all major contenders, including the then candidate Park Geun-hye, pledged their parties would not nominate candidates for basic local assemblies and administrations to prevent corruption and reduce regionalism in local elections. With local polls just two months away, the opposition party is sticking to the campaign promise, but Park’s ruling party has thrown it away like a scrap of paper.Foreigners might think voters will punish the conservative governing party for the breach of promise. Not so in Korea where ideological and regional affiliation weigh far more heavily than political fidelity.Yet President Park should not regard it as just another broken promise, as she all but abandoned the reform of family-controlled conglomerates and implementing un

Apr 13, 2014By Ahn Seong-jin

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Reading newspaper headline 1

안성진의 안글리쉬: "영자신문 헤드라인 읽기 1" 동영상 강의

Apr 12, 2014By Ahn Seong-jin

Learning English

Law and justice

Judicial inequity erodes public faith in court’s credibilityTiger Woods, whom Koreans call the ``emperor of golf,” earns about 325 million won ($300,000) a day. In Korea, however, a jailbird makes 500 million won each day; local media call him, aptly, ``emperor prison laborer.”The social controversy caused by a court ruling on a Gwangju-based businessman shows how provincial prosecutors and judges compete with each other to stretch the rules and save their native sons.In 2007, prosecutors in the southwestern metropolis indicted Huh Jae-ho, the then chairman of the now-defunct Daejoo Group, for evading 50.8 billion won in taxes and embezzling 10 billion won. They demanded five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 101.6 billion won, but asked for, incomprehensively, a suspended sentence on the fine.The lower court cut the prosecutorial demand practically in half, sentencing Huh to three years, suspended for five years, and fined him 50.8 billion won. The appeals court halved, yet again, the financial penalty to 25.4 billion won, and allowed him to pay it with just

Apr 6, 2014By Ahn Seong-jin

Learning English

Premature optimism

Japan ought to show sincerity not in words but in deedsForeigners who interact with Japanese people often find the latter’s seeming duplicity _ shown in ``honne” (inner feeling) and ``tatemae” (expressed opinion) _ quite embarrassing. This is even more conspicuous if the Japanese government, not individuals, shows such inconsistency.And this is how most Koreans perceived diplomatic remarks made by Japanese leaders over the weekend.On Friday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his government would not revise a landmark 1993 apology to women forced to work in Japanese military brothels during World War II. This was the first time since he took office more than a year ago that Premier Abe made it clear his right-wing Cabinet would uphold the apology.Later in the day, however, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, reaffirmed Tokyo’s position that it would review the testimony of 16 Korean women used in the governmental apology called the ``Kono Statement.” For what should Japan review the testimony if it will not revise the statement? As Koreans see it, Abe&rs

Mar 30, 2014By Ahn Seong-jin

Learning English

Watchdog or lapdog?

When Tongyang Group committed a series of managerial mistakes and wrongdoings in 2012, few of its outside directors tried to oust its chairman, Hyun Jae-hyun. Most of them helped to keep the problems secret or lobbied to defend Korea’s 38th-largest conglomerate and its owner. Had they fulfilled their duty to follow proper checks and balances, some 50,000 individuals might not have seen their investments go up in smoke. Tongyang is not an exception but the norm. Which shows how mistaken external directors here are to perceive their role as passive helpers or providers of rubber stamps for management, instead of watching and rectifying bad moves made by the latter.  As the main role of outside directors is to lobby for family-run conglomerates, tycoons choose theirs from among former bureaucrats and politicians, who serve as “protection” from the whirlwind of government reforms.  There is little surprise then that four in every 10 outside directors to be appointed by the nation’s 10 largest chaebol this month are former policymakers, ele

Mar 23, 2014By Ahn Seong-jin

Learning English

Tougher rules urged for plastic surgery clinics

Calls for tougher regulations and safety measures in the cosmetic surgery industry are growing after a series of deaths occurred during operations. On March 6, a 34-year-old woman lapsed into a coma while undergoing liposuction and rhinoplasty at a clinic in Gangnam, according to police. She was rushed to a nearby hospital, but died in the ambulance. Four days earlier, a 33-year-old man lost his life after undergoing jaw resection surgery in Busan. In December last year, a high school graduate was declared brain dead after having rhinoplasty and “double eye-lid” surgery at another clinic in Gangnam. She has been hospitalized as legal action continues to establish whether her condition was the result of medical malpractice. According to the Korea Consumer Agency, the number of complaints reported on the negative side-effects from cosmetic surgery increased to 110 last year from 71 in 2009. Experts point out that clinics should be equipped with appropriate medical equipment to deal with emergencies that can occur during a surgery. However, most

Mar 19, 2014By Ahn Seong-jin

Learning English

Liberty, equality, efficiency

Most people, if pressed on the subject, would probably agree that extreme income inequality is a bad thing, although a fair number of conservatives believe that the whole subject of income distribution should be banned from public discourse. (Rick Santorum, the former senator and presidential candidate, wants to ban the term “middle class,” which he says is “class-envy, leftist language.” Who knew?) But what can be done about it? The standard answer in American politics is, “Not much.” Almost 40 years ago Arthur Okun, chief economic adviser to President Lyndon Johnson, published a classic book titled “Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff,” arguing that redistributing income from the rich to the poor takes a toll on economic growth. Okun’s book set the terms for almost all the debate that followed: liberals might argue that the efficiency costs of redistribution were small, while conservatives argued that they were large, but everybody knew that doing anything to reduce inequality would have at least some negative impact

Mar 17, 2014By Ahn Seong-jin

Learning English

Restructuring of colleges

Last year, 560,000 students were enrolled at 339 universities, colleges and junior colleges in Korea. In 10 years, however, the total number of high school graduates will fall to 400,000 at most, forcing these schools to sharply reduce their enrollment, or in the case of less reputable ones, shut down altogether. The education ministry’s college restructuring plan unveiled Tuesday reflects this reality, intending to slash student quotas by 160,000 until 2023. But the hurriedly made plan has too many problems to be a blueprint that can effectively reform the nation’s higher education. First of all, the reduction target itself is too mechanical, when considering that not all high school graduates go to college. Given that about 80 percent of graduates entered colleges in 2013, the actual number of college students a decade later should be far smaller, meaning the target should be bigger.   Add to this a possible drop in the college-entrance rate, as seen by President Park Geun-hye’s extolling of the corresponding rate of about 30 percent in Sw

Feb 16, 2014By Ahn Seong-jin

Learning English

Single woman losing touch with friends who have kids

DEAR ABBY: I’m a 28-year-old woman with a fantastic job, a wonderful boyfriend and many friends whom I love dearly. I’m the only one without a child.Maybe I don’t understand because I’m not a parent myself, but all my friends can talk about is children. Whereas before, we were interested in each other’s lives, I feel like my concerns and accomplishments are being brushed off. An example: I was excited to meet up with a pal to talk about my promotion, but the hour-long dinner was spent mostly teaching her child how to walk between the tables of the restaurant.I enjoy hearing about my friends and their families, but I feel they are no longer interested in me. Am I expecting too much because we’re at different points in our lives, or am I a bad friend? I’m growing resentful, and I don’t like it. Any words of wisdom?STILL RELEVANT IN MASS.DEAR STILL RELEVANT: You and your friends are at different stages of life. When you were in your teens, you and your friends would talk about dating. Then, as you grew older, the conversations revolved aro

Feb 9, 2014By Ahn Seong-jin

Learning English

Jobs for youth

Can’t Korea come up with more ‘creative’ solutions?Youth unemployment is not a problem that has just recently started. Nor is it unique to Korea: the ubiquitous presence of jobless youngsters across the world has given them the abominable label ``the jobless generation.”Nevertheless, Wednesday’s job report was a rude awakener that reaffirmed the seriousness of the problem. The employment rate of people aged between 15 and 29 stood at 39.2 percent last year, the lowest level since the government first began collecting relevant data in 1982 and even lower than the level of the 1997-98 financial crisis.Unfortunately, the situation is not expected to improve much this year, either. Recruitment officers of the nation’s 30 largest business groups say they will freeze or even reduce new hiring in 2014, citing sharply rising labor costs resulting from ``employment risks” such as a recent Supreme Court ruling on expanding the scope of ordinary wages, the extended retirement age and shorter working hours.It was natural therefore that related officials

Feb 2, 2014By Ahn Seong-jin

Ahn Seong-jin

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Tilted election ground

Reading newspaper headline 1

Law and justice

Premature optimism

Watchdog or lapdog?

Tougher rules urged for plastic surgery clinics

Liberty, equality, efficiency

Restructuring of colleges

Single woman losing touch with friends who have kids

Jobs for youth

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