By Michael Stevens
Korea has a large problem when it comes to attracting foreigners to this country. Koreans learning English or a new "Grand Canal'' is not the answer. The real problem is the extreme price of things that tourist have to spend their money on, such as hotels, golf courses, transportation, shopping and really what exactly does Korea have to offer tourist that other countries don't.
Sure Korea has a beautiful countryside and many great temples. However, China, Hong Kong, and Japan also have these things. Even though Japan is more expensive than Korea, still Japan hasn't had the same problem with attracting the tourist dollars that Korea has. So the question should be exactly what is Japan doing that Korea isn't.
My opinion is based on the fact that I've lived in Korea for over seven years and have seen the ups and downs of this country. Its abuse of foreigners by anti-American protesters and songs such as ``F**K USA'' gives Korea a bad impression to many foreigners that may be considering to travel to Asia.
Added to the fact that Korea is known worldwide as a country that is filthy and the people as being rude; after living here for so long I know that Korea is not as bad as one would believe if they only got their information from television or the newspaper but the fact is that most foreigners don't know the real Korea. What they know is what they see on these mediums and if Korea is to attract tourism it has to clean up its image, which it can do in several ways.
One would be to curb its radical protesting against foreigners and its abusive behavior during these protests. Sure it is okay to protest against America when it is wrong such as the war in Iraq and even when the two middle school girls were kill in the accident in 2002. However, it is wrong to abuse innocent foreigners that have nothing to do with the incident you are protesting about ― it only verifies the negative impression the world has of Korea.
The second improvement for Korea is to clean up its image of being a dirty country. It can do this by cleaning up the streets of garbage, start removing all the unsightly signs off buildings and then comes the hard part and that is getting the Korean people to start caring about their country and to stop littering. The real Korea is not the country it is. When the people change their attitude toward the world and start respecting their own country, Korea may see others changing their attitude toward them.
Korea cannot expect people to come here when there is so much negative press about this country. When people think of Japan or China they think of the people and they think about its image that these people give to the country.
Korea can improve its image to the world and I say this because it well known that the Korean people have done great things in such a short time. Who would ever guess such a small, impoverished country could be come an economic powerhouse in less then 50 years. We can also say this about Korean IT and the Korean movie industry. Korea has surprised the world before and it can do it again.
The writer is a Christian teacher living in Guri, Gyeonggi Province. His email address is ESLcity@gmail.com