I was boring today, surfed my twitter account. Soon, I found an interesting pictures which put in the wall of entrance of a building in South Korea. It’s really hard to translate from Korean to English since the structure and style of Korean is completely different with English. Anyway, its overall meaning is as follows. 

1: When your pet is ill, you would bring yours to veterinarian immediately

2: However, your old parents would get sick, you would not care and worry about their condition. 

3: Your parents raised their ten children as if they had a single baby. 

4: Nonetheless, ten children would think that their parents is burdensome for them.

5: Your parents would spend their money for children generously.

6: However, children would spend their money for their own parents meticulously.

7: Parents would go to luxurious restaurants with their children as much as they can.

8: Sadly, children would not do the same thing for their parents, not even a single time

Note that traditional Korean people have focused on whether children would be good to their parents. This poem criticize that most of Korean do not care such values anymore. This poem reminds me of my parents in South Korea. Somewhat sad.

Finally, CNN reports the book on Samsung, and this is the link of the article.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/05/21/samsung.insider/index.html

An impressive sentence are cited in the page of article as follows

I think there is no hope for Korea to control Samsung
—Kim Yong-cheol, former in-house Samsung counsel

This is true, and you already would know about this if you have any experience working for or with Samsung.

You might wonder what is happenning in North Korea if you are interested in politics or something. I found an interesting article today related with North Korea as follow.

North Korea Logging in Protected Forest Discovered With Google, NASA Data

Why do they chop trees in a protected area? The answer is simple: to use them as fuels for their survive. What? don’t they have any gasoline or something? Yes, they don’t have enough fuel for their own life. They saved it for their future war against South Korea. It sounds weired, however, it is true. They don’t have enough money to buy gasoline or something; only some rich or corrupted high-rank people can do it. 

I actually had a chance to travel North Korea about 4 years ago, and found that there is no tree or forest in the mountain located in North Korea. They cut every tree or something to expand their farm. In addition, most trees left in other area were pine trees, however, some bugs (I don’t know its name) actually make worse their situation since they ruin the pine forest. They even did not have any chemicals to catch these worms; just let the bug thrive all over North Korea.

You know, about fifty years ago, there was a single Korea, not divided with North and South. I am really sad when reading such articles to deliver the current situation of North Korea. I expect and hope their government will collapse within a decade, and unify with South Korea eventually.

I found an another article related with South Korea.

South Koreans Put In Most Hours 

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/s-koreans-put-in-most-hours/

Working about 2200 hours in an year means that you should work about 7 or 8 hours except Saturday and Sunday, without enjoying any holidays. Most people in Korea, however, have to work more than the time mentioned in the graph to survive in their work field. Working like that is not much different the live of slave. It could be said that there is no private life if you have a job. 

So, do you think they focus on their work all the time when they are in their office? No. they spent most of the time without thinking how to work efficiently or do some creative work. They just wait for the time to go back to their home.

I came to U.S about an year ago and found that most workers and people go back to their home after 5 or 6 pm. How wonderful it is.

I am the user of IRC network, and usually enjoy talking with foreign users in English. Chatting with others in English still requires a lot of efforts to me, but it’s good for me to enhance the ability for conversation.

Anyway, one of the IRC users I talked with today was a Swedish, who is interested in Korean cultures, I think. It seems that he had a chance to work for a branch of an Korean public organization. I do not have idea what he is doing there, probably he would be related with import, export, and investment for both Korea and Sweden.

Anyway, so far so good. The problem is that there are old-fashioned Korean boss in this branch since it is originally a public organization located in Korea. Based on his conversation, I think they force their Swedish employee to work overtime continuously since the employee finish their work on time and go home at 5 pm. 

Yeah, working overtime and all the weekend is the way of working in Korean’s company, not Swedish’s. Therefore, I think he refused it to do it, and he thinks that it is expected to be fired. Wow, I thought Koreans only force their people to work all the time, not including foreigns. 

It is interesting that most of Korean employee do not want to be workaholic. But here is the controversy: they often think their co-workers are really lazy if they would go home at 5 or 6 pm. they expect their people or co-workers to work all the time except time for sleep or eat. 

What I want to say is that do not work for Korean company if you are looking for a job. However, it would be nice to recruit them if you are a boss. They would work all the time compared with other employee. So, what is your opinion about Korean workers?

I love my country and people from Republic of Korea (aka South Korea).

But I hate government of South Korea including most of politicians. I have voted to change this situation, but it is unlike for a while. In addition, I do hate most of huge companies located in South Korea, especially, Samsung Electronics. So do you want to know why I hate them so much? Read my articles then. Thanks.

Many people could ask “why?” after reading the title of this post. The answer can be found from this blog.

http://stopsamsung.wordpress.com/

In short, they usually treat their people as a disposal, not a human being. Some people could say that most companies would do that. But my opinion on that question is that they really dispose the people literally. Before buying anything from Samsung Electronics, read the above blog. What’s your opinion about this issue?

Imagine that you cannot upload your video to youtube, vimeo, or something because they do not want to force to check yours identity based on the rule made by your government. You probably would say that it is absurd assumption itself. Unfortunately, it actually happens in South Korea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Internet_censorship

As of 2008, practically all large search engine companies in South Korea, including foreign-owned companies (e.g. Yahoo! Korea), have complied with this legislation. Only Google evades government’s legislation. In April 2009 when Communication Commission ordered to put on user verification system at YouTube, Google Korea blocked video uploading from user whose country setting is Korean.

As I said before, the government of South Korea have forced that  most of the websites should have a functionality to check someone’s identity via its number or something. Since Google does not have such policy, they simply do not confirm people based on its number. 

It is interesting that users living in Korea still can upload their video or reply to youtube when they sent their country setting as other countries such as Canada. 

?

As you know, South Korea bans imports of Apple iPad. Unbelievable.

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-434975

After reading this article, I think I understand the reason why South Korea government bans its importing. They basically protect companies located in South Korea such as Samsung Electronics or some other huge companies to buy the time of developing their own product. So far, still makes sense anyway…..really? 

But today, the minister for culture brought Apple IPad from somewhere, and use it in daily briefing. 

How can he use this illegal devices in his briefing time? does it makes sense? Hey, he begins to use”ILLEGAL” device that Korean citizen should not use in their daily life! What are you doing police, prosecutor or someone? Arrest him!

Update 1. I found that the picture I linked from anonymous newspaper was deleted. Therefore, I searched for another picture, and linked it here. What a shame. 

Update 2. The situation that people cannot use ipad in Korea is changed now. I will post how it is changed soon. Thanks