Chain Writing

Once upon a time in KMLA, there was a boy who thought he was really good at singing, but actually wasn't. Every night, he tortured the ears of his roommates with his terrible singing, but the roommates were so gentle and kind that they weren't able to tell the truth. And one day, he happened to... (written by Seung Min Kim)

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try audition for the Minjok Festival. The boy sang proudly in front of the festival planners. The planners hated his singing, but they were just too kind to reject him. So they decided to put him as a substitution, so that if the other singers happen to be sick he would take their place. The boy was disappointed and swore to do anything to sing at the Minjok Festival. ANYTHING. (Written by Sungwoo Bae)

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He ran to the giant hall and started to run towards the top of the Duck-Go Mountain. He fell to his knees and tears were flowing down his cheek. Performing in front of all the students and teachers in KMLA was one of the biggest dreams he had. This was in part because he wanted to be recognized by his fellow comrades but more importantly, he was eager to show his musical "prowess" to his lover, Mary. Suddenly he felt someone's hand being put on his shoulder. "Don't be too depressed. Life is like a box of chocolates. When you open the box, juicy opportunities will be provided for you." (Written by Seung Jun Juny Kim)

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He whirled around but saw nothing. The voice said,

"I am the phantom of NAB. I will make you the best singer in KMLA. You will find me under the Dasan Building. Go to Dasan building and put your head on the coffee machine." 

The boy went to Dsan building and stood in front of the coffee machine. He put his hand on, and the machine took him inside, falling into the depths of Earth. (Written by Kang Gun)

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Urgh. This is a mess. I will make sure that I modify the content and the structure so it would be appropriate for a meta fiction.

A scribbling about Seoul mayor Oh's resignation

     It all started with the Seoul Mayor and city council member election about a year ago. At the regional election, though the mayor seat was taken by the right-wing (conservative) Grand National Party's candidate Sehoon Oh, the majority of city council member was given to the left-wing (liberal) Democratic Party. 

     And one of the most important topics that were dealt in the 2010 Seoul Mayor Election was the "free lunch service to public school students" policy. Proposed by the Democratic Party's candidate Myungsook Han as one of the mayor election pledges, the offer received severe criticism of the Grand National Party for its huge costs.
     The public and the media seemed to forget the free lunch issue after the victory of Oh as the Seoul mayor. However, the controversy promulgated its revival about half a year after the election, when the Seoul city council, ruled by the liberal Democratic Party, passed a law promising free lunch for all public students until 2014.
     And such independent act of the city council was, indeed, more than enough to infuriate the conservative mayor Oh. As soon as he heard the news of the law passing the city assembly, he held a press conference and publicly called for a referendum on Seoul citizens upon the issue of free lunch service.
     Mayor Oh's party, Grand National Party (this will be abbreviated as "GNP" from now on), also showed a fervent attitude. The head of GNP, Junpyo Hong, appeared on a press conference with red face and severely censured the Democratic Party for using the majority in the city council to randomly establish a law that "needed some talk over."
Democratic Party(will be shortened to DP from now on), the source of all this louse noise, did not stand still of course. Hakgyu Son, the head of DP, came up with a clever plan: to ask people to NOT vote in the referendum. The election law of South Korea asked for more than 33.3% of Seoul citizens participating in the citizen voting, and it was Son's tactic to make the number to fall below 30%.

The members of the left-wing Democratic Party asking citizens to deny voting for the citizen referendum.

     For the next few weeks, the media was bombarded with the news of the right-wing politicians clashing with left-wing politicians everywhere: from public places like press conferences to informal places such as the streets.
     And two days before the day of the long-expected referendum, mayor Oh, who had (rather obviously) been the most ardent one in asking people to advocate the free lunch service, suddenly made a bold declaration: he would resign immediately if the participation rate falls below 33% or the majority of the referendum asks for a free lunch service.
      The whole Seoul and of course the GNP was suddenly gulped in chaos. Right after Oh's announcement of his gambling, Hong (the head of Grand National Party) opened up a press conference and proclaimed that such actions of the mayor was not something sincerely talked over before.
     Nevertheless, the next day, Oh appeared on his last press conference before the referendum and cried crazily while his speech asking for the Seoul citizens to vote. He even bowed (which is considered as an action containing the highest kind of respect to the receivers in South Korea) three times.
     And finally, the day of the days came. The referendum was held everywhere inside Seoul. Placards asking for citizens to not participate in the public vote still on the streets, the strangest type of election (in which people were asked to NOT participate in the vote, not GO AGAINST it) that I have ever seen in my life had at last commenced.
     For the whole day, "participation rate" was the top search keyword in Naver (a search engine that is like the Google of South Korea), and the GNP and DP silently waited for the results to come out. Both of the parties, respectively representing the conservative and liberal side of South Korea, invested enormous amount of time and support to this referendum. The party that would lose in this election would wreak havoc evidently.
And finally the number came out after the termination of the election at 7 p.m.


25.8%.
The GNP had miserably lost.
     And that day, on his way to home, mayor Oh told the media that he will state his official stance the next day after "arranging his thoughts."
     The next morning, mayor Oh called for a press conference.
     With voice of somewhat indifference and calmness, the mayor formally announced that he would resign from the seat.
     The DP and other liberal media hailed Oh's choice, while the GNP was, of course, extremely incensed by mayor Oh's random actions. Hong openly said that the life of Oh as a politician is over, and he tried diverse measures in effort to buffer the aftermath of referendum (which actually ended up in a failure in fact.)

Former mayor Oh stating his resignation in a conference.

     So what's my whole idea about this referendum?
     My idea about is that I am extremely disappointed at how the GNP and DP both acted to this issue.
     I didn't like the kind of strategy DP used. A true "democratic" party would ask for people to participate in the vote and exert their sovereign party named "election right." But instead, what they did was telling people to not appear on the poll places. They asked for people to stay silent.
     But did I like GNP's attitude? No. Especially the attitude of Mr. Hong, the representative and the head of GNP. He was thoroughly emotional in the matter of this referendum, always appearing on public places with reddened face. He easily made errors in public talks, a typical example being him saying that the GNP has actually won this referendum as 25.8% is a pretty high number. This (obviously) became a figure of extreme mockery by the liberals in the society. Personally, seeing the whole fuss that Hong created over during the referendum season, I started to become skeptical about his suitability as a representative for the biggest conservative party in South Korea.

The Shawshank Redemption Reading (and Film) Journal

A book version of Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King

                  Before I started my reading upon the book Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King, the one--and only--information I had about the novel was that it was reformed into an extremely famous film. And to be honest, I was actually unwilling at the first to start reading the novel because (as long as I knew) Stephen King was an author known for his outstanding skills in depicting horror and thriller scenes, while thriller is one of the literary genres that I don't like the most.

                 And as I begun my journey on reading about the exciting life of Andy Dufresne, one thing constantly came to the mind: How did he [Stephen King] know all these things? How did he happen to know about the prison "cons" calling someone new a "fresh fish"? About the intense sexual abuse being practiced by the "sisters"? And what about all those minor details such as the warden's inside-out policies (which truly did exist) and the successful "prison break" cases? How could a simple novel be this much realistic and authentic? 

                  And of course, there is no need to mention King's excellent skills in establishing a truly interesting plot and his descriptive skills that made the novella a brilliant one indeed. The novella, interestingly, had a former murderer, Red, as the narrator. I believe this choice has enabled the author to fully utilize his priory knowledge (which was extremely pragmatic and detailed) about prison life, though objectivity as a third person was something that had to be sacrificed. The slight tinge of humor in the phrase "Oh s*** it's s***!" also cracked me up while reading through the process of intense search for the escaped prisoner.

                    Then there was the movie. So great and so awesome. Honestly, when I heard Mr. Garrioch saying that the movie is one of those movies that are better than the original work, I doubted it because the book was so nice and I believed nothing (especially "nothing" for a movie, regarding how the Harry Potter had deteriorated my beautiful fantasy about Hogwarts) could be more awesome than the way it was.

                    However, I realized what Mr. Garrioch has been talking about when I finally saw the movie. Not only the acting of the actors were great, but also the slight variations and modifications were significant in emphasizing the main theme of the novella (which I will be further explaining in the later parts of my writing). A good example could be Bradley being depicted as somewhat more violent figure, which showed the cruelty and the inhumane reality in prison life. 

A picture of Andy finally FREE!

                     So what did I think about the main theme of the novella (and the movie)? Well, I guess I should start by defining what the main idea was in the work.
                     After finishing the novella and seeing the credits of the movie go up, the one word that came to my mind was "institutionalized." The theme was briefly but significantly dealt in the novella by multiple of small cases such as Brooks' return to the jail. The movie went on to magnify this idea by details such as Brooks committing suicide, Red saying that "he couldn't go to a bathroom with ease if he didn't get the boss's permission", and such.
                     As I am (unlike Stephen King) nothing close to knowing how much the contemporary prison has changed from the 70s' isolating and institutionalizing system, it is hard for me to simply criticize the society's way of keeping care of its criminals. However, what thing is sure: the way the prisoners are living currently is hardly getting any attention from the "normal" and "ordinary" people.
                    And one thing more sure is that, if the government decides to leave the prisoners "just the way they are," the former criminals would not be able to successfully adapt to the society easily. And what happens if the criminals find themselves alienated and isolated from the normal people? They are motivated to take such actions which would bring them money and fame, a source of successful adaption to the society. Possibly another crime, perhaps.
                    Another problem with former-criminal exclusion is that the nation could end up losing a person of great potential and ability who could provide the society with colossal material (or somehow, psychological) help. Think about the type of person Andy Dufresne was. He was able to snowball warden Norton's money through useful investing skills, and he was known as a competitive banker in the world "outside the walls." But due to the nation's imperfect prion capacity, it ended up sending the talented banker to a some Mexican town when he could have dedicated so much to U.S.