My Writing Style
On
the August of 2009, my blog, consisted of approximately 500 entries mainly
dealing with video clips and music files that I collected for 4 years, was
formatted due to copyright issues.
What
was left after being forced to press the “Blog Initialization” button by the “Korean
Copyright Protection Organization” was sheer nothingness; there wasn’t a single
entry or even the slightest hint of how the blog used to look like originally.
The
deteriorated blog, renamed as “samuel1011’s blog,” was left untouched for the next
two months or so. Then, around October, a thought about reviving the blog came
to my mind.
From
that moment, I started to think about the ways I could use to re-thrive my blog
without violating the copyright law. So what actually makes a violation of copyright, then? A use of
somebody else’s work without his or her consent. Then how could I make sure
that every single thing mentioned in my blog is done so with the original author’s
permission?
By
making myself as the original author
of all my blog entries. That was it.
This
is exactly how my writing career started: by posting my writings as the blog
entries.
At
first, the blog posts were mainly essays based on my experiences, just like
this one that I’m writing right now, accompanied with self-examination. Most of
these essays didn’t have a set organization; I just wrote down the things that
simply came to my mind. There wasn’t a strong logic or rationale pointing towards
certain subject or topic, mostly appealing towards Pathos rather than Logos
or Ethos.
A
typical example could be the “Bliss of Short Height,” which talked about my
relatively short height being an advantage, contrary to most people’s beliefs
and perceptions. (It’s a pity that I can’t provide you with the writing itself
because it was originally written in my mother tongue, Korean…)
Then,
I started to post writings with insights in certain issues, especially about
the extremely weak public education infrastructure of South Korea. Also the
weak social welfare policies of South Korea was one of the subjects of my
critique. My writing’s style shifted from Pathos
to Logos.
Not
so long after this change happened (about one or two months after), I entered
KMLA.
To
be honest, I have to say, I was extremely disappointed at the low and basic
level of English writing education that I received in Ms. Choi’s class at the
first semester.
However,
in June, I was required to write a term paper in Mr. Johnson’s class. After brainstorming
for a long time, I decided to write about a topic that I have written many
logical, serious essay about (though a large part of them were in Korean): the
low level of social welfare policies in South Korea and the ways that could
improve the level of policies for the social minors.
And
I believe that this term paper, On the Methodology of Solving the Inequality
between the Rich and the Poor in Korea, is the best and the highest level of “logical
writing” I have done so far.
So,
my writing style can be dichotomized based on the tone: Emotional and logical. And
my strength on the former type of writing is on my experiences. Nevertheless, a
lot of my emotional writings based on my experiences fail to form a bond with
the reader cause it’s about my life, not the reader’s. Also, (I found out this
recently) I am unable to write a literary work, even in Korean.
My
strength on the latter type of writing (logical) is on the social welfare
policies in South Korea. However, I am pretty much ignorant about other
countries’ issues, and also lack knowledge on certain parts of study that could
be helpful in logical writing, such as high-level philosophy.
On
the Methodology of Solving the Inequality between the Rich and the Poor in
Korea
Contrary
to General MacArthur’s anticipation of 100 years, mere 30 years was the time
needed for Korea to resurrect itself from the turmoil of Korean Civil War and
Japanese imperialism. Park Jung Hui, reigning from 1963 to 1979 as 5th,
6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th president in
South Korea, established the social infrastructure for development under the
name of “Saemaeul Movement.”
Accordingly,
the GDP of South Korea started to surge during the 1970s, and by 2007, the GDP
per capita has increased by approximately 300 times compared to that of 1953,
from $67 to $20045. In short, the first 60 years of Korea ever since it was
established has been a series of hectic projects for development. (Statistics
Korea)
However,
all this seemingly “Fast” development, unfortunately, brought about numerous
problems inside the society such as: The conglomerates—like Samsung—destroying
small entrepreneurs and thus eradicating possibilities of ground-breaking
growth in Korean economy, or regionalism between Jeolla-Nam Province and Gyungsang-Nam
Province.
And
possibly the biggest problem caused from this “hasty” modernization and
industrialization of Korea is, perhaps, the widened—and is pretty much widening
even now—gap both in income and political power between the rich and the poor.
Unfortunately, during the reign of development, the Korean government didn’t
have the time to care of social minors who fell behind and cried for help.
Thus, the rich started to gain predominance over the poor in the society
through diverse ways such as higher level of education through private
education or lobbying in politics.
Numerous
researches prove this fact: For example, 59.4% of individual stocks are owned
by top 1% of people in Korea, and 53.4% of real estate property in Korea are
taken by top 10% richest. Also, it has been found that the money owned by top
20% richest, being $68,850 is 171 times larger than the total money owned by
low 20%. In short: The distribution of wealth throughout the country is
severely imbalanced. (Yonhap News)
And the social welfare systems are not even
helping this severe gap between the rich and the poor reduce. The annuity
insurance and health insurance has been proven to be actually worsening the
Gini’s coefficient, and unemployment insurance degraded the Gini’s coefficient
by mere 0.01%. (Kim Hae Won, Kim Eul Sik, and Jun Seung Hoon 70).
So,
if the wealth gap issue is such a serious thing in Korean society and the social
welfare systems that are supposed to weave the gap ends up even worsening the
situation, what are some fair policies that can be used to solve this chronic
problem of every capitalistic society?
The
first try can be made in the education sector of Korea. Currently, the biggest
aspect of Korean education that promotes the expansion of gap between the rich
and the poor is the private education.
That
is, compared to the kids in rich households receiving opportunities to have
better education, the kids in poor or socially minor households are bound to
have fewer opportunities in receiving complementary education—in other words, private
education. This can be proved in the statistics saying that while $160 is the
only money spent for average one kid in rural areas, the twice of the number,
$321 is the money that is spent for average one kid in Seoul. (Statistics
Korea)
As
receiving better education equals graduating better schools (for most of the
cases) and better bachelor degree means higher pay, the possibility of rich
men’s children getting high pays increase, and the same happens with the
possibility of poor men’s children getting low pays.
Thus,
as the supplementary education through private education and the corresponding
increase of possibility in success results in widening the gap between the rich
and the poor, private education should be the first thing to be decreased in
its size and its influential scope. Then how, exactly should private education
be
The
government’s current measures taken to prevent overheating in private education
is to simply “restrict” the market, such as making it illegitimate to teach
lessons after ten o’clock. However, before anything, we have to think about the
reason why students love private education so much. And the reason is simple:
public education cannot satisfy their demand.
So
to speak, if the government really wants to discourage citizens going to so-called
“hagwons” in order to complement themselves disappointed from the low quality
of public education, the process to enhance the quality of public education
should be preceded before any other processes related to directly restricting
the private education market. When the government decides to neglect this
extremely important but evident fact, it would have to pay the price for preventing
the growth of many student’s main source of study—“hagwons”—and thus
temporarily—or at times permanently—prohibiting the nurture of student’s
education
Some
good examples of measures that can improve the quality of public education, or
school teaching would be: 1) Evaluation on the teachers and personnel
administration based on it (both from parents, students, and peer teachers) 2)
Giving high-quality training on the methodology of effective teaching and
school discipline, also doing a personnel administration on 3) Governmental
evaluation on the classes of teachers.
And
the moment the public education finally reaches the level of private education
and the citizens see nothing to “supplement” from the “hagwons,” that would be
the moment when private education would degenerate itself in this land.
The
second try we can make is on the politics, and there are mainly two things we
can do: eradicating bribery, and stimulating the participation of social
minors.
Bribery
is the chronic problem in politics that every democratic and capitalistic
nation in the world suffers. However, for countries like Korea that has majority
of the National Assembly filled with so-called “right wing” parties advocating
the predominance of the rich in a society (National Assembly), it is
highly possible for the right wing politicians, being bribed by the rich social
“elites,” to use the power of majority in order to pass a law highly favorable
to the rich people in the society.
Thus,
eradicating bribery would probably be one of the most imminent things to do in
the politics of Korea, or else the stances and thoughts of social minors would
not be emphasized or even be proposed in the National Assembly: Just because
they didn’t have the enough money to bribe them.
Some
good and effective policies that can be implemented for rooting out lobbying
and bribery would probably be: 1) Providing the politician with 1.2 times of
money that he has been tempted to be bribed when he notifies to the police of
being bribed 2) Force the individual—or organization—to pay at most $10 million
when caught for bribery and so on.
And
for some reason, contrary to other advanced and developed country, in Korea,
researches and public surveys show that the social minors are very passive in
making their voice or offering for their rights.
This
can be proved from the fact that 90% of the people living in the top 10 “gu”s
(districts) which voted the most in Korea have their own house, while only 26%
of top 10 “gu”s which voted the least in Korea have their own house. The
scholastic achievement also is different: 86% of the people in former cases
have Bachelor’s degree, while only 50% percent of the people in the latter has
graduated college. (Nak Gu Son 43-47)
In
other words, social minorities, the ones who should be the most fervent and
active in showing its political views and position, are being extremely passive
and shy in showing itself.
Thus,
as it is extremely easy for the government to simply end up in neglecting or
not even knowing the ideas of social minors due to the bribery of social elites
in a democratic society, it would be the wisest action for the Korean
government to decide to hear the outcry of social minors.
Some
examples of ways that promotes the participation in politics by the social
minors are: providing incentives for the social minors to cast a vote or have a
demonstration by providing material help to the voters or demonstrators, holding
a campaign or doing a nation-level education on the indifferent poor people
about the benefit that they can get from actively participating in the politics,
and (in cases when there aren’t any public presentation of citizen’s idea)
actually trying to learn the life and the sorrows of poor people through acting
like one, thus spontaneously feeling the discomfort and things that need
improvement.
The
last type of attempt we can make is improving the quality of social welfare system
provided to people.
Currently,
the amount of yearly budget for welfare in Korea is the lowest out of the OECD
member nations (Choi 1). Also, the efficiency of the social welfare systems are
being highly doubted upon, as researches show that in some cases, the Gini’s Coefficient
even exacerbated. (Kim Hae Won, Kim Eul Sik, and Jun Seung Hoon 70).
Thus,
though it is a very urgent matter for the government to adopt policies in which
slows down or stops the aspects that causes the gap between the rich and the
poor to widen, the kind of policy that holds the same amount of significance
would be to help the poor—both with temporary and permanent help—so they could have
an opportunity to do a fair competition with the reach people in the society.
And
some good policies promoting the quality of social welfare system can be: 1)
Increasing the amount of people who are receiving the benefits of social
welfare system 2) Allocating higher proportion of yearly budget to the social
welfare systems and so on.
When
I was young, I was always curious about why couldn’t everybody in the society
be happy; why beggars had to shiver in subways craving for 500 won coin while
millionaires used $50,000 for one bag in Louis Vuitton Shops, why 20% of the Korean
society earned 71% of the total income of Koreans (Hwang A3), and why the gap
between the rich and the poor had to exist at the first place.
Now
I realize, finally, that it is not the nature of capitalism or any special
trace of Korean society that gives 171 times more money to top 20% in the society
compared to the least 20%, forces people who cry in the street after having all
their properties under sequester, and take away children’s rights to receive
proper education just because their parents don’t have enough money to pay for
their hagwon tuition fee.
The
true culprit for all this social unhappiness, dissatisfaction, and chaos inside
the society is, indeed: the inefficiency of governmental social welfare systems
and policies to decrease the gap between the rich and the poor.
Cited
Works
1) The Official
Site of Statistics Korea 18 August 2008, Dept. of Statistics Politics, 9
May 2011
2) Yonhap
News (The article was uploaded in Naver News) 2 December 2007, Yonhap News
(According to Statistics Korea)
3) Kim Hae Won,
Kim Eul Sik, and Jun Seung Hoon. Research on the redistribution of lifetime
income through Social Welfare System KLI (Korea Labor Institute), 25 June 2010
4) The
Official Site of Statistics Korea 2007~ 2010, Statistics Korea, 11 May 2011
5) The
Official Site of National Assembly in Korea 2011, National Assembly, 13 May
2011
6) Nak Gu Son, Map
of South Korea’s Social Politics, Humanitas, 18 May 2010
7) Choi Min
Young, “Welfare is the Responsibility of a Nation” Gyung Hyang Newspaper
1
8) Hwang, Hyung
Jun, Jung, Hye Jin “Pareto’s Law Coming True?” Donga Ilbo Society A3
