The_Pioneer_164

CONTENTS
02 EDITORIAL
Time to Finish a Wandering Life of 150 Years
04 CAMPUS WORLD
Career Gidance Week, a Chance to Build a Career
06 FOCUS Is Living in Seoul Prerogative?
08 CULTURE
Good End Makes Good Start ; having special year-end
10 FEATURE Sex and Sexy
16 GO TO THE WORLD Work Hard and Enjoy Your Life
18 COVER STORY 2013 GNU Consumer Trends
26 CAMPAIGN
University Students Must Have Parenting Education
28 ZOOM IN By the Animals, For the Animals
30 OPINION Why I Don’t Read E-books
32 OPINION The Logic of Non-Preference
34 GOODBYE 2013
35 READERS’S PAGE
No.164 December 2013
Publisher Kwon Sun-ki
Chief Manager Cho Kyu-woan
Faculty Advisor Koo Seung-pon
English Advisor Richard Matthews, Kim Jun-min
Kim Aran
Editor-in-Chief Moon Jae-hyun
Editor Jang Hye-ju, Son Seong-eun
Reporter Kim Do-hye, Jang Moon-kyeong
Min Yujin, Kang Min-hyeok
The Pioneer was first published July 10, 1979. The magazine is published during the spring and fall semesters and is
distributed free of charge.
5F, Student Union Building, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju-daero, Jinju, Gyeongsangnam-do, Korea.
Telephone (055)772-0795 Website http://press.gnu.ac.kr
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The Pioneer December 2013
EDITORIAL
A collection box in the middle of the road.
Donations of briquettes for senior citizens who
live alone. Various voluntary services for low-
income people around us. Fund-raising for multi-
cultural families. We have heard all of the above
appeals every winter. As the cold wind begins to
blow, a donation virus spreads in Korean society,
and it helps allow the disadvantaged to pass the
winter warmly. However, one distressed group is
barely coping with severe winters and doing so
without even minimal support -- even if they are
Korean and are now not so far from where we are
living. We call them Koryo-saram.
I would guess that many people don’t know
who they are. Actually, I myself hadn’t heard
about them until recently. Koryo-saram are our
compatriots who dwell in the old Soviet orbit.
Their history dates back to 1863. At that time,
many Koreans went to Russia to earn their
livings or to work a part of an independence
movement. Their life there was initially
disastrous, but gradually they began to settle
down by forming Koryo villages. It was a great
achievement, coming, as it did, after people’s
having endured for so many years of hardships
that ranged from racial discrimination to crushing
physical labor. However, disaster struck just
when they were about to gain a stable life. In
1937, Stalin ordered the internal deportation of
Koreans in the Soviet Union. As a result, in one
day, almost 200,000 ethnic Koreans were forcibly
moved to a barren region of Central Asia. More
than 20,000 Koryo-saram died, and many people
were sent to a concentration camp. But despite
these horrors, our compatriots worked hard to
cultivate the waste land, using their strong
abilities to maintain their livelihood. Once again,
however, after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
the Koryo-saram were shoved to the edge of
society because of tough nationalistic policies in
newly independent republics.
Now, their biggest problem is that they don’t
have a nationality. The Koryo-saram are neither
Koreans, Russians, Ukrainians, and Kazakhs.
They cannot be allowed even basic support by
reason of their statelessness. And they can’t, of
course, return to their homeland. Even though a
special law for Koryo-saram was enacted in
Korea, it is the only concrete thing we have done
for them. And there hasn’t been much progress
since the enactment of the law. Well, it’s quite
ironic that we have been busy unsparingly
supporting people in need all over the world
while, at the same time, our compatriots have
been struggling alone.
I think that the essential problem is
indifference and absence of awareness about
them. The Koryo-saram have wandered for 150
years. If we just look on at their situation without
doing anything, they will become more and more
removed from us. I really want our generation to
realize the importance of the Koryo-saram
problem. Not only the government but all of us as
individuals have to embrace them with warmth
and interest and end their wandering life -x-
because they are Korean, they are of our
nationality, and they are our history.
Moon Jae-hyun Editor-in-Chief

CAMPUS WORLD By Jang Moon-kyeong Reporter
From Monday September 9th to Friday September 13th, Career Guidance Week
was held at Gyeongsang National University. 19 enterprises, including Doosan,
Samsung, Amore Pacific, and NH Bank, participated and offered information about
employment to students and graduates. GNU’s Human Resource Development Center
offered various programs to provide career opportunities for GNU students and help
them build career awareness. It had job-matching consulting programs, recruitment
fairs offered by enterprises mentioned above, personality and intelligence tests, and a
newly established Allch job-talk concert. Allch stands for Let’s get a job this year in
Korean.
Even though there were new and interesting programs, the attendance for most
programs, except for the recruitment fairs held by conglomerates - was very low. Yet
GNU has had the lowest graduate employment rate (46.6 percent in June) among
national universities. The quality of the programs wasn’t the problem. “It seems that
GNU students don’t have career awareness, especially those in the lower grades,” said
Lee Na-rae, a junior in the food and resource economics department, who attended SK
Plant’s job fair. She said, “I was really annoyed when it was curtailed due to
insufficient enrollment. Recruiters looked flustered for a moment. GNU students
should know that they are chucking away great opportunities. I knew nothing about
SK Planet before. But after attending the fair, I got an opportunity to consider a new
option and to get detailed information about the company.”
Yoon Myeong-doo from GNU’s Human Resource Development Center had this to
say: “Most human resources managers came from Seoul. This means they gave up a
lot of precious time to come here to Jinju. It was really embarrassing to show them
rooms with only few students in them. It seems that our students take no interest in
preparing for jobs. Consider that here only 60 GNU students attended a recruiting
event held by Kyongnam Bank, while in Busan, 300 students attended the bank’s
recruiting event at Dong-a University. If students keep showing attitudes like this, we
won’t be able to offer better job fairs in the future. There is another problem as well.
When I asked students why they didn’t come to the job fair, they said that they felt
uncomfortable missing classes, even though they could have requested leaves of
Career Guidance Week,
a Chance to Build a Career

CAMPUS WORLD
absence. Professors should create an atmosphere in which students can go to the job fair without feeling guilty.”
The Human Resource Development Center provides many programs for GNU students, and school officials have a weekly
meeting devoted to improving the graduate employment rate. If you want to know more about career programs, you should
frequently check for notices on the center’s website and visit the Human Resource Development Center. There will be a job
search boot camp in December, so it would also be nice if you signed up for that.
Preparing for a job is really difficult, especially when you do it alone. If you need fellow students to help you get through job
preparation, why don’t you join a job club?
The 2012 Best Job Club, Neulpeum,
Which Has Had a 92 Percent Success
Rate in Getting Jobs
The Pioneer interviewed Park Hyun-jun, president of
Neulpeum. As to why GNU had the lowest graduate
employment rate, he said, “It seems students don’t know
themselves exactly. A lot of students around me tend to
prepare for jobs by simply doing what others around them do.
In particular, many students majoring in commerce or liberal
arts tend to prepare for financial business or public service
jobs. I wouldn’t mind if that’s what they really want, but if
they are just following others, they are just limiting their job
opportunities. If they keep finding other companies and get a
wide range of information, like information about private
foundations’ business management fields, they will be able to
find jobs at which they can do their best. I hope they don’t
seek jobs only in major companies.”
The Benefits We Can Get
in Neulpuem First, we have
affiliated club called Tantandaero,
which comprises seniors who have
succeeded in landing jobs through
Neulpuem. About 70 seniors are
participating in the club, and each of
them has a different job, so we can
easily get the recent job interview
questions of each of their companies and the ultimate goals of the
enterprise, which we can t find on its website. Then we can help
job candidates be ready for weird, gimmickry, and offbeat
questions. Knowing someone who works for the company is
almost always helpful. Getting a job is the competition of gathering
much information using it effectively.
Second, students can rehearse job interviews. This allows
them to notice what they have missed before going to an interview.
In job interviews, the most important thing is telling your story
coherently and inclusively and giving impressive and organized
answers.
Interview Skills from Neulpuem The most important
thing is looking back on your life. When new members join our
club, we make them write their life roadmap from birth to now.
Don t think trivial stuff is unnecessary. It can be applied to writing
personal statements.
The 2012 Excellent Job Club, Innovation,
Which Had a 90 Percent Success Rate
in Getting Jobs
To hear about their innovative secrets, The Pioneer met
with Kim Yeong-ri and Jeong Ye-jun, the president and vice-
president respectively of Innovation. As to why GNU had the
lowest graduate employment rate, they said, “Up until their
junior year, GNU students have an extremely intensive
schedule. Once they become seniors and start preparing, they
find out that there are so many things to do in less than a year.
Students think that with high TOEIC scores and good GPAs,
all things should go well. However, companies tend not to
emphasize an applicant’s academic specifics these days. So
having certificates and job related internship experiences is
more helpful than a 4.0 GPA.”
The Benefits We Can Get
in Innovation We always practice
job intervie…mbers can read the
financial statements of and analyze
data of the companies. Some
interviewers make interviewees tell
them about the company, so if you
don t prepare, you lose favor. Plus,
with regular interviewing practice,
you can learn the right posture, which is the foundation of the
interview.
Interview Skills from Innovation 1. Don t give boring
answers that anybody could give. I will do my best if I m accepted
are just vague words. Instead, I have been doing well in my past
experiences is a much better way to gain interviewers trust. Also,
you should be able to present your life with a form of storytelling.
All the processes of your life should be organized and important
events must be highlighted when delivered.
2. Show your passion. You should be able to say that you
applied to this company knowing everything about it. Convincing
them of how you could contribute to the company and why your
personality is suitable for the company matters.
Don’t be complacent! Join a club or do something for
your future. Everything you do counts. We hope all GNU
students will spend time preparing for their future and show
more interest in career programs.

FOCUS By Son Seong-eun Editor
Most local university students want a job in the capital after
graduation. Living in the capital has benefits that living in
provincial cities or rural areas can’t offer: industrial
development, cultural life, and better public welfare and
educational conditions for their future children. This desire to
go to the capital region is not restricted to university students. It
is also prevalent among high school students who struggle to
enter universities in the capital. No matter how ridiculous it
sounds, failure to enter universities in the so-called “in Seoul”
region is usually considered a failure in life. In contrast, living
in the capital region denotes success in life. In recent years, the
social collision between capital and local interests has grown
out of proportion, as is evident in the Miryang power tower
incidents and the copying of the Jinju Lantern Festival by
Seoul.
The Pioneer put some obvious but meaningful questions
about these issues to Park Byeong-ryul, a business journalist at
The Kyunghyang Shinmun. He is famous for his book, A
Journalist Who Worked and Lived in the Provinces Goes to
Seoul, which describes the realities of living in Seoul and
conveys a message about admitting the differences between
lives in Seoul and in the provinces in terms of how people
think, speak and behave. We also talked to Kim Hwon-ju, an
environment journalist at Gyeongnam DoMin Ilbo, who has
ideas of his own on these matters. That is, since Seoul has been
the capital for almost seven hundred years, this has led to
political and sociocultural centralization in Korea and to the
word that means a rural area containing within it some
meaning of obedience.
The Miryang demonstrations broke out when the
government tried to construct sixty-nine high-voltage
transmission towers in Miryang. The conflict of interest
between the Miryang citizens and the government delayed
construction for eight years. The numerous negotiations
between Miryang citizens and the Korea Electric Power
Corporation (KEPCO) broke down. KEPCO insisted that
construction of the towers and the power line, linking the large
nuclear complex in Gori to a northwest substation, was the
only way to solve the nation’s electric power shortage.
Miryang citizens, however, wouldn t allow the construction
because the transmission towers would supply electricity not to
Miryang but to the capital region. It would not only destroy
their ancestors’ graves but also raise the local cancer-incidence
rate and injure agricultural production in the Miryang region.
The hazard of the high-voltage power lines is well-established
by research from the World Health Organization’s
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
According to an IARC report, it is certain that electromagnetic
waves produced by transmission towers will cause the
development of cancer. Physical confrontations between
Miryang citizens and police officers have resulted in casualities
on both sides. Last year one 74-year-old man burned himself to
death in protest against the confiscation of his farmland for the
towers’ construction. After eight years of protest, numerous
injuries on both sides and one martyr, construction began on
October 2nd.
Park Byeong-ryul and Kim Hwon-ju understand the
necessity of the construction, but the end doesn’t justify the
means. Journalist Kim said “Almost all countries have
struggled with similar issues, when the government builds
nuclear power plants in rural areas to supply power to the
bigger, capital cities. The capital region has the highest rate of
energy consumption, but ironically, the region has no power
plant infrastructure. Unfortunately, the region which has the
lowest energy consumption rate has to take on the burden of
producing or transmitting the capital’s energy and its
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
Is Living
in Seoul
Prerogative?
The Jinju Namgang Lantern Festival

FOCUS
consequences. Journalist Park commented that another solution
for lack of energy is ridding the energy industry of corruption,
the nuclear power Mafia generation - the closed independence
of the nuclear power industry, which seems to have emerged
from centralized authoritarian rule.
The Jinju Namgang Lantern Festival versus the Seoul
Lantern Festival was a big issue this year. According to a report
in the September 4th issue of The Kyunghyang Shinmun, Jinju
municipal authorities allotted 700,000,000 won for advertising
the Jinju Namgang Lantern Festival and discouraging Seoul
from holding its own lantern festival. In our interview with
Park Byeong-Ryul, he said that the issue of the two lantern
festivals eventually turned into a mud fight and the meaning of
competition was lost.
“Here’s another case that Jinju municipal authorities should
ponder,” said Park. “The Busan International Film Festival
(BIFF) started in 1996 and two other film festivals - the
Pucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan) and the
Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF) followed shortly
thereafter. The three film festivals competed with each other in
good faith, and each attained greater success year after year.
Now a copycat PiFan has an even larger number of spectators
than its original had at its beginning.” Whether or not the Seoul
Lantern Festival copied the Jinju Namgang Lantern Festival,
there is no need to put 700,000,000 won into criticizing and
attacking the Seoul metropolitan authorities. It would be better
if the budgeted amount were spent on specializing and
improving the Jinju Namgang Lantern Festival.
On this issue, journalist Kim proposed an ulterior motive
for having the Jinju Namgang Lantern Fesival lock horns with
the Seoul Lantern Festival: the political engine for the
provincial elections next year. The lantern festival in Seoul is
no match for Jinju lantern festival in terms of scale, the number
of lanterns, and the richness of history. Rather, the Seoul
lantern festival has merely become a catch phrase for the Jinju
Namgang Lantern Festival, as in the absolutely fantastic
lantern festival that Seoul copied.
On November 1st, Jinju municipal and Seoul metropolitan
authorities gave mutual consent to their respective festivals.
They reached an agreement that they will cooperate on and
exchange information and efforts for the advancement of the
two festivals. Seoul will also change the name and content of
its lantern festival. Lee Chang-hee, mayor of Jinju, emphasized
in an interview with Oh My News that Jinju and Seoul will find
a way for mutual improvement and respect of each other's
festivals through cooperation based on mutual trust. Some
people rejoiced at this agreement, but others showed
disapproval. The latter felt that Jinju had lost one of its inherent
treasures.
Even though you may desperately want to escape from
your town and succeed in the big city, you don’t have to be
ashamed of being raised in a small town. Everything has its
pros and cons. You must not find only good things in Seoul
and, at the same time, bad things in the provinces. The only
thing you have to do is to respect the variety of the provinces
and love your small towns.
Park Byeong-ryul asked The Pioneer to write about the
courage and variety that the noncapital-region university
students have. “You aren’t inferior because you are non-Seoul
residents or university students. In my opinion, you have a
broader range of thinking than Seoul university students. Have
some self-respect and pride, and an attitude to succeed in the
region where you are.” He also offered some tips for
overcoming the lack of understanding between capital and
noncapital residents. “The best way for Seoulites to realize
their ignorance and mingle with others is a ‘Seoul exodus.’
Outside of Seoul, they will associate with provincial people
and can catch onto their lives to achieve harmony.”
Journalist Kim Hwon-ju added, “There has always been a
common notion, that going up to the capital is requisite for
success. It is natural in a society like Korea, which has
centralized authoritarian rule. But it is also true that excessive
centralization has solidified the privilege of living in capital
region, making it a shortcut to success, so to speak.”
The best way for Seoulites to realize their ignorance and mingle with others
is a ‘Seoul exodus.’ Outside of Seoul, they will associate with provincial
people and can catch onto their lives to achieve harmony“
The capital region has the highest rate of energy consumption, but ironically,
the region has no power plant infrastructure.
“

CULTURE
December is the month of year end parties. At this time of the year, pubs are full of people drinking heavily and looking back
on the past year. But is drinking the only way to spend end of the year? Nowadays, the year-end party culture is changing. More
and more people are seeking meaningful things to do and participating in volunteer programs has become popular for that reason.
Secretly visiting Santa has continued since 2010 by the Gong-gam, the Jinju youth community. Shin Jin-su, a junior in Dept. of
aerospace and engineering system, who participated in this volunteer program last year, says that this program was more special
than any other volunteering programs. In this program, participants get to decide every necessary thing for the program such as
which presents to buy, which food to cook and buy those they decided. He said, “An old lady, whom we visited last year, was so
surprised when we visited her unexpectedly. However, no sooner than later, she gave us a warm welcome. When we danced for
her, she rewarded us with a big applause. That was a fruitful moment.” He emphasized that, “I recommend you the Secretly
Visiting Santa program as it will give you an electrifying experience. I’m sure you will get the same or more touching sensation as
I did.” Christmas is the time when people thank each other and share the warmth of their family regardless of religion. But there
are some children out there who can’t enjoy Christmas with their families because they might be orphans or raised by single
parent. Thankfully, projects like Secretly Visiting Santa is there to share the Christmas spirit with lonely neighbors by sharing
presents. This nationwide project has had over 10,000 young participants from various religious backgrounds. Jinju joined the
project in 2010 and has already had 120 volunteers helping out 63 children in 47 families. In 2011, 229 santas visited 78 homes
and gave 18 elderly and 71 children precious memories. Last year, 170 santas visited 9 old people and 66 children. It is also
expected that plenty of santas will share their time this year. It’s time to return the present from Santa by being a Santa now.
Save the Children is a non-profit organization working to improve the lives of
children around the world. They provide numerous ways to help suffering children.
One of them is the hat-knitting for African newborn babies. The representative of Save
the Children says that many African babies die of losing heat. As simply wearing a
bonnet, the death rate of the newborns can be lowered by 70%. So far, over 237,000
Koreans have participated and over 560,000 baby bonnets have been sent to Africa.
You can buy the hat-knitting kit on the Save the Children website or an online shopping
mall, GS SHOP, for 12,000 won. And you can also know where your hat is sent on the
site.
Secretly Visiting Santa
Save the Children
By Jang Hye-ju editor

CULTURE
Delivering briquettes, so called as yeontan is another popular volunteer program.
Although yeontan is not commonly used these days, it is still widely used among
lower-income groups to heat their houses. Many people and social organizations
deliver yeontan to people in need. Geongangbogam is one of them. It is a voluntary
club in Jinju health college Department of the nursing science, which has been
volunteer work regularly such as medical services, throwing party in Seongsimwon,
sanatorium for lepers and so on. They started the delivery volunteer in 2010. Lee
Hae-in, the Chief student of the Dept. of the nursing science said, “Although most
homes use individual gas heating systems nowadays, some poor people still use
yeontan as using yeontan is cheaper. Helping those people to get through cold winter
by donating and delivering yeontan is very rewarding.” She also said, “I can’t deny
that delivering heavy yeontan is physically challenging but whenever I look at the
people with happy smile on their faces, it gives me strength to go on.”
Delivering briquettes
The last volunteer program we would like to introduce is making Kimchi. KT&G
Corporation has volunteered as making gimchi for the need since 2002. This gimchi is
sent for the need in Jinju. And two years ago, universary students can participate in
this volunary program and more and more students has participated. There are two
men getting ready for winter in a special way. They are volunteering to make Kimchi
to the people in need for the first time.
All three stories we have introduced has something in common. Volunteering might not be easy
but will be well worth the effort. After finishing volunteer work, they got energy rather than being
exhausted. A legendary baseball player once said, “Good end makes good start”. December is the
last month of the year, but it can be the month of preparation. Therefore, you should think carefully
what to do for the year end. Find out ahead of time what you will be interested in and prepare
thoroughly. It will also be nice to have friends to participate with you.
Making Kimchi
I heard this voluntary program
from my friend. Frankly
speaking I was not going to
come here because it’s hard to
get up early for me. But I am
glad that I participated. It’s
really great that gimchi I made
will be sent for people in need.
Gimchi is the food which
Koreans eat everyday so it’s
more meaningful. I used to
participate in temporary
voluntary programs when I’m
free. There are many
temporary volunteer programs
especially in December.
I participated to volunteer and meet lots of people. I
thought making gimchi would be hard but it’s wasn’t too
bad as many volunteers were working together. The scene
of the elderly people eating what we made cheered me up.
As I was making gim-chi, it really felt like winter. I think
winter is more proper season to do volunteering work than
any other seasons because it’s really meaningful to end a
year by sharing and being together with people.
Yang Jin-bae
Graduate student,
Dept of. Biology
Kim Gang-rae
Senior, Dept of. Food and
Resource Economics

I’ve Ever Had a Sex
I’m Comfortable with Using a Condome
Sex and Sexy
By Kim Do-Hye, Jang Moon-Kyeong Reporters
I Have Felt Worried about the Possibility
of Pregnancy after Having a Sex

For many if not most university students, the four year stint as an undergraduate is as much a time of
discovering and developing oneself sexually as it is one of developing oneself academically, professionally and
socially. That being the case, we really need to consider whether, in our college years, we are educating ourselves
on matters of sex as much as we are teaching ourselves the mysteries of calculus or the beauties of Korean
literature. Do we know and are we learning everything we should about, for example, birth control?
Being fully knowledgeable about birth control is fundamental to our controlling and responsibly asserting
ourselves sexually. So, we at The Pioneer thought we would open a discussion about this important subject. We’d
like to begin by taking a look at a survey we conducted among 132 GNU students on a variety of sex topics. We’d
then like to look at some broader attitudes and information available about birth control to help students start
assessing and processing their own knowledge of and feelings about the subject.
When Is the Appropriate Time to Have a Sex
When You First Start a Relationship?
Male Female

FEATURE
Some Sexual Tips
You Should Know
Have you ever heard it said that women are slaves of their hormones? It’s a heavy-handed way of putting
things, but it is true in that women are greatly influenced by their menstrual cycle hormones. The menstrual
cycle, usually 28 days in length, differs from woman to woman. Cycles are generically similar, but their
exact mechanisms and their symptoms are confusingly different enough that they can cause difficulties
between sexual partners. So with the help of Kim Hae-Suk, director of Areum Women’s Hospital in Busan,
The Pioneer will try to clarify the physiology of the menstrual cycle for everyone here at GNU. And while
we’re settling any misunderstandings there might be about that aspect of women’s sexuality, we will also
try to dispel some sexual myths that unfortunately are still finding believers (you know who you are) out
there.

FEATURE
All three stories we have introduced has something in common. Volunteering might not be easy but will be well worth the
effort. After finishing volunteer work, they got energy rather than being exhausted. A legendary baseball player once said, “Good
end makes good start”. December is the last month of the year, but it can be the month of preparation. Therefore, you should think
carefully what to do for the year end. Find out ahead of time what you will be interested in and prepare thoroughly. It will also be
nice to have friends to participate with you.

FEATURE
What Makes You Sexy?
What you wear can make you sexy. The Pioneer selected some fashion items that denote sexiness and
arranged them by color. Colors provoke emotions and feelings. Of course, what color is sexy depends on
personal taste. Still, there are colors that are generally viewed as sexy. What color you wear can not only
mirror your sexuality but also draw others to you. The Pioneer met with some GNU students and asked
their opinions about our selected fashion items and colors.

FEATURE

GO TO THE WORLD
Work Hard and Enjoy Your Life
Everyone has dreams in life. My
dream was to travel around the world,
especially Europe. In 2012, I turned 23
and my senior year had started. I had to
look for a full-time job like most of my
friends, but I didn’t want to. I wanted
to achieve my dream first before
graduating university. But at that time,
as I was living on an allowance, so I
didn’t have enough money to travel
Europe. It seemed hopeless.
Fortunately, I found a way my dreams
can come true. I could even get
chances to be independent, study
English, and experience other culture.
That was, taking a working holiday
program in Australia. It was the first
time for me to go abroad, so I expect
all that I had planned would go well.
A journey of thousand miles
begins with a single step
Unfortunately, the reality was
completely the opposite from what I
had imagined. Until now, I clearly
remember the first day in Australia.
Leaving Brisbane airport, I went to a
backpacker, which refers to and
inexpensive sleeping accommodation
such as a hostel, and stayed in a dorm
for 10 people. The first thing I noticed
about the room was the awful smell. It
was terrible. I was so hungry, so I went
to Subway to have some sandwich.
But there was another problem. I could
read the menu but didn’t know how to
order and I knew how much it was but
didn’t know how to pay, because coins
and bills looked so different from what
I had been using. That night, I
regretted coming to a foreign country,
blamed myself for wanting to do
something challenging. I missed my
family and friends so much. Until I left
the backpacker, I cried every night
listening to babbling voices and noisy
music coming from outside.
All good things comes to
those who wait
I started to look for a job in the city
of Brisbane after moving out of dirty
backpacker. I printed 100 copies of my
resume. Then I visited shops looking
for a job: café, supermarkets,
restaurants and others. Also, I often
sent or posted my resume on web sites.
As I already had spent lots of money
that I brought from Korea, I had to find
a job as soon as possible. However,
whenever I visited a shop and asking if
there’s any place for me to work, they
said, “Sorry, we don’t have any
vacancy at this moment.” Or “We are
looking for an experienced people.” I
was devastated. It was so hard to find a
job as I didn’t have any job experience
in Australia. I printed out another 100
copies of my resume, and visited lots
of shops, but no one called. My
confidence slowly diminished. I
thought of giving up getting a job. I
just wanted to go back to Korea. I
didn’t want to go outside, so stayed
home all day fiddling around. I felt
alone in the strange city.
One day, almost after 5 weeks after
leaving Korea, I got a call from an
owner of sushi restaurant. After a job
interview, I showed him that I have
nimble fingers. Fortunately, the
Taiwanese owner repeated, “Good!
Good! Good!” So I could start working
there. It was my first job. I had to go to
work at 6:00am, memorized almost 50
kinds of sushi and made 400 dishes of
sushi every day. This was not easy. But
whenever I felt tired, I thanked God,
because I didn’t have to wait for my
silent cell phone to ring at least. I
realized earning money on my own
was not at all easy, so I saved money
every week. I felt like a grown up.
My owner Mark was a good man
and co-workers were so kind and
humorous as well. I was really happy
to have met them. Friends didn’t leave
me alone, gave me helpful advices, and
spent much time with me. Day by day,
I could get used to the strange city.
A change is as good as a rest
After staying 3 months in Brisbane,
I booked an airplane ticket to Perth.
Moon Hye-jin Senior, the Dept of International Trade

GO TO THE WORLD
Perth is a main city of Western
Australia. It is on the opposite side of
Brisbane. Actually I could keep
working in Brisbane. In fact, it was
much better for me to live in one place.
However, I wanted make some
changes. I wanted to work at other
places, live in other region and meet
new people. That’s why I decided to go
to a new place, Perth. But I was a little
bit afraid to be honest, because I heard
many people went to another region
for a challenge, failed to adjust, and
come back to where they were at first.
When I was in Brisbane airport
waiting for departure, I really wished
not to regret for going for another
challenge. I told myself over again and
again, “I can do it. I can take my best
shot there!” Fortunately, as I had
wished, I could get a much better job
than in Brisbane, as I had previous
work experience. I worked in
afternoon shift packing at the biggest
beef pie factory in Australia for 6
months. At the same time, I worked as
a cashier at sushi restaurant in the
morning. Also I occasionally took a
job cleaning toilets of foot ball
stadium. I cried often when I went
back home, “What am I doing here?
Why do I have to do this? I really want
to go back to Korea!” However, soon
after, came a thought, “Nobody forced
me to do it. I can give up, or keep
going.” Even though it was hard and so
tiring, I endured the hard times. When
I saw my bank account deposits
accumulating, I felt so happy and
assured that my dream is coming true.
Slow down and enjoy life
If you see what I have written, you
might think me as a workaholic.
Sometimes it can be true but not
always. When I had to work, I worked
very hard. On the other hand, I often
went to parks near home to get some
fresh air, drove to riverside, and went
to the beach on weekends or on public
holidays. Especially, I loved beaches in
Australia. There were many beaches in
Western Australia. All beaches were so
beautiful, attractive, and pollution-free.
The golden sands would cover my feet
softly. That was so amazing! As
Australia is summer and very hot in
December, I could have hot summer
Christmas for the first time in my life. I
never have imagined that I could have
“HOT” Christmas at the beach.
If you have plans to go to
Australia, I would like to tell you to
enjoy your life. When I came back to
Korea, I could notice that most people
in Korea were so busy doing nothing
but working. If you go to Australia,
you will see people living peacefully
and realize how much they totally
enjoy their life. This doesn’t mean that
they always spend their time at the
beach swimming, but they know how
to make every day happy. I liked an old
lady who lived close to where I lived. I
could see her whenever I went to work
in the morning. I would think “I want
to grow old like her when I’m old” She
wore short skirts, red lipstick, watered
flowers in her beautiful front yard
dancing and humming.
After a hurricane comes a
rainbow
Finally, after some time, I could
save enough money to go to Europe.
As I wanted to visit Thailand as well, I
also decided to go to Southern Asia. I
travelled 3 countries in Southern Asia,
and 7 countries in Europe: Laos,
Thailand, Vietnam, England, Spain,
France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria and
Hungary. On my journey, I met many
pleasant people, and I could enjoy my
trip because of them.
Visiting museums, tasting delicious
foods, amazing night views°¶
everything I had was meaningful. I
realized each country has their own
interesting culture and traditions; it
made me understand their history,
society, a national character and so on.
Especially seeing a musical in England
and paragliding in Switzerland was so
impressive. I feel very lucky to have
the opportunity to experience these
things. Through this travel, my
perception about the world has
definitely broadened.
I realized working holiday program
made it possible for me to pursue my
dreams. Of course, there are some
people whose friends introduce them a
great job and whose parents give them
enough money to travel, I was neither.
Every day, I came face to face with
many difficult situations in Australia.
After overcoming these difficulties,
however, they gave me confidence.
Now I am sure I’ capable of anything. I
don’t regret my experiences in
Australia. Suffering made me much
stronger and gave me confidence to
face things without fear.

COVER STORY
“I recently went to a cafe with my co-worker.
We had to come out soon after we entered as there
were no seats left to sit on. Looking over the menu,
all the coffees were over 4,000 won. When I was a
student, my friends and I used to have chats sipping
coffee from a vending machine. How do you get the
money to have such expensive coffee?” So a
professor inquires in her class. An old man passing
the shopping district in front of GNU says, “I don’t
understand how pricey restaurants are always filled
with students.”
Some elders often criticize today’s university
students for excessive consumption. But is it true
that they are extravagant shoppers? According to
the LG Economic Research Institute, people in their
twenties have a twofold propensity toward
consumption. They not only have a propensity for
conspicuous consumption, but they also have a
propensity for rational consumption. For example,
people in their twenties enjoy shopping, have an
interest in luxury items, and have quick responses to
new products. However, they also practice rational
shopping, such as making good use of coupons,
mileage points, and group purchases. Information
technology, including smart phones, social network
services and blogs, makes it easier for them to do
rational consumption.
They also have marked preferences and spend a
lot of money even though they don’t earn regular
incomes. Moreover, according to Korean business
strategy research, items for twenty-year-olds
became the most important products for companies
to focus on because of one spending characteristic
of twenty-year-olds: once satisfied with certain
brands, they are loyal to those brands and buy them
continuously. You can observe the consumer power
of twenty-year-olds right here in Jinju. Downtown
Jinju used to be Dae-an-dong, but it is Gae-yang
now.
How then do we 20-somethings spend money?
Let’s look at the consuming habits of GNU students.
We at The Pioneer asked students 3 questions in
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By Kim Do-Hye Reporter Jang Hye-ju Editor

COVER STORY
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How Much Do You Spend a Month?
According to the survey, over half of GNU
students responded that they spend an average
of 200,000 to 350,000 won a month. This is a
little bit less than the nationwide average of
386,000 won (a result reported by a portal site
called Albacheongook, which surveyed 1406
university students in August 2013).
“I spend 350,000 to 400,000 won a month.
Since we have laboratory classes at noon, I can’t
use the dormitory restaurant. I thought that
wouldn’t be that much of a problem, but my food
expenses were more burdensome than I had
thought they’d be.” Soh Seong-hyun Senior, the
Dept. of Aerospace and System Engineering
“I spend 300,000 won a month. I try to save money these days. But food expenses are hard to cut down
because food is indispensable. When I go out with my friends to have lunch, although I may not want to eat
an expensive dish, I have to eat one if my friends want to. I don’t want to eat alone.” Baek Woo-joo
Sophomore, the Dept. of Nursing Science
“I commute to school every day. So I spend a lot on food and transportation. Transportation expenses
cost me approximately 12,000 won every day. I usually eat out with my friends or at the school cafeteria. The
cost of living varies a lot depending on what I eat for lunch. It seems that I usually spend 400,000 won a
month.” LeeMin-jeong Freshman, the Dept. of Food Engineering
As you can gather from the above comments, GNU students spend a lot on food and transportation.
Food expenses constitute a high proportion of living expenses. In our survey, 48% of respondents
responded that they spend the most on food.
How Do You Earn Your Living
Expenses?
Only 13% of students responded that they
earn their spending allowances by themselves.
This is only half of the nationwide rate of
27.4%. In addition, half of the GNU students
surveyed said they depend fully on their
parents for their living expenses, while an
average of only 34.9% do nationwide. This
shows that GNU students rely more on their
parents than average.
“I haven’t gotten money from my parents
since I was 20, since I felt sorry whenever I asked
them for money. So I earn spending money on
my own. I am younger and stronger than my
parents. It’s unfair and shameful to demand
money from parents when I’m a healthy grown-up.” GooMoon-mo Sophomore, the Dept. of Accounting
What Do You Spend on Most?
The Source of Living Expenses

COVER STORY
“I frequently work short-term part-time jobs. Long-term
part-time jobs are a little bit burdensome and interfere with my
studying my major. So, I work on weekends or during vacations
or on days when I don’t have classes. There are so many sites on
the internet that offer part-time jobs. I’ve even worked at
construction sites. It was very challenging work, but it was also
profitable. Short-term part-time jobs are a blessing, too, in that
with them I can earn money when I need it. For example, if I
want to buy some clothes when I don’t have money in my
account, I can immediately get a short-term part-time job and
earn the money.” Park Jae-woo Sophomore, the Dept. of
Economics
“I get allowances from my parents. I don’t do part-time jobs.
There is no time to work. I have to get high TOEIC scores and a
Japanese language exam license to get good grades. Also, since the
legally guaranteed wage is too little, I only get a handful of cash
from a part-time job. Considering the time involved, it’s not
worth working. I think it’s better to study hard, get good grades,
and find a real job - fast. That way I will cost my parents less,
and I’ll be able to be a good daughter.” Kang Min-kyung
Sophomore, the Dept. of Japanese Language Education
Do You Have Your Own Know-how
for Saving Money?
Using membership cards or mileage points is the most
common way GNU students save money. Another is by
searching online for the lowest prices and comparing them.
Also, students use social commerce shops, such as Groupon
or Tmon, to get discounts.
“I often use the flea market site Miniseom. There I can get
what I want at a low price. I think flea markets are very sensible.
It’s a win-win system; the seller can get profit out of things he
doesn’t need any more, and the buyer can get necessary things at
a lost cost. There is also a book flea market, which sells second
hand books. They have lots of books that their owners don’t read
anymore and unused workbooks.” Yeo Ji-young Sophomore, the
Dept. of Accounting
“Around the middle of every month, I’m broke, even though I
haven’t bought that much. Always! So I started writing down my
daily expenses. It’s a bit sloppy since I’ve just started. However, by
keeping household accounts, I can see unnecessary expenses and
can promise not to repeat them in the future. It’s
really useful to objectively see your own consuming habits.”
GwakHyeon-ji Sophomore, the Dept. of Business
“I always accumulate points when I go shopping or eat
out, making the most of membership cards. Accumulated
points seemed meaningless at first, but when their
accumulation continued on and on, I could get a cup of coffee,
a dish of spaghetti, or cosmetics for free! Moreover, I usually
didn’t even think of going to expensive restaurants, but now
with my membership cards, I can get discounts that make it
possible for me to visit them occasionally. Membership cards
are very useful in every way.” Park Si-young Freshman, the
Dept. of Korean Language Education
“I receive an allowance through a bank account, and I use
the money through my cash or debit card. I opened my own
periodic-installment savings account. 50,000 won is
automatically transferred to it from my allowance account every
month. With this, although I may spend excessively, I am able to
save at least 50,000 won every month. This makes me not use
more than a limited amount of money, and what’s better, I can
get a large round sum when the account expires! If you find it
hard to control yourself, this can be a good way to save money.”
KimYu-jin Sophomore, the Dept. of Agriculture
According to the survey, over half of GNU students responeded that they
spend an average of 200,000 to 350,000 won a month and rely more on
their parents than average. In addition, students save money by using
membership cards or mileage points and so on.
“
“
What’s Your Know-how for
Saving Money?

COVER STORY
Among our interviewees, there were some people who had their own consuming and saving know-
how. Since they were so interesting, The Pioneer made special corner for them.
Stock investment may seem an irrelevant or
distant concern for university students, but it isn’t. If
you search for “university student stock investment”
on the internet, you can easily find so much
information, including guides for beginner stock
investment. Moreover, smart phone applications
make dealing with stocks even more accessible.
Numerous stock firms have Mobile Trading System
(MTS), a system through which you can trade stocks
using smart phone applications. It provides greater
convenience and makes access for students easy. If
you use it well, you may earn a lot of money. But
investment in stocks also has its dark aspect. There
are many students who become addicted to playing
the stock market. Some of them even lose their
tuition money. Experts criticize simulated stock
investment contests, held regularly by stock firms
for students, as having lost their original purpose;
that is, to promote healthy investment habits in
students and encourage them to take an interest in
stock investment. Some experts even suggest that
they have become a kind of gambling and are just a
marketing strategy for the stock firms. However,
here is a GNU student who has made good use of
stock investment.
These days, as many people want and participate in them, many off-campus activities have sprung up. According to the
university students’ community site Spec-up, which 1.1 million people have joined, one of the important points people look for in
an off-campus activity is whether it will support them by giving money for their participation. One GNU student who participates
in financially supportive off-campus activities is Han Ji-hyeon. How does this girl spend her money?
How Do You Earn Your Living Expenses?
Stock Investment
KimDae-su
Junior, the Dept.
Chemistry

COVER STORY
Off-campus
Do You Have Your Own Know-how for Saving Money?
Showrooming
HanJi-hyeon
Junior,French
Languageand
Literature
BaekWoo-joo
Sophomore,
theDept.
NursingScience

COVER STORY
And here’s a similar story. A bag catches a girl’s fancy in department store. She falls in love and
checks the bag carefully. She decides to buy it. But she doesn’t buy it there at the store. She leaves, and
after arriving home, she searches for the bag on the internet, finds the cheapest price for the bag she set
her eye on, and buys it online.
We call people like her showrooming people, meaning people who buy products at the cheapest
price at online stores after looking around in brick-and-mortar stores. According to a survey of 310
consumers conducted by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 43.2% of the respondents
answered that they had a shopping experience that involved using
online and off-line stores simultaneously. And twenty-somethings
were the majority of the respondents (56.1%). Then how much
cheaper is it really to buy online than off-line? The Pioneer
investigated the prices of some products, including clothes, shoes,
and bags, on the internet and in department stores. What we found
was that buying online was cheaper than off-line by up to 43% for
our investigated products. For example, a J Company jacket that
was 219,000 won off-line was 157,300 won online.
Showrooming has already become a new trend in the culture of
consumption. Internet shopping malls, such as Hyundai H-mall,
Auction, and G-market, even have special malls for showrooming
people. Also, smart phone applications for showrooming people,
Shopping Bag for example, have appeared. If you are a
showrooming person, these applications will help you more
comfortably make purchases with your smart phone.
Social commerce sites are shopping web pages that provide
great deals to buyers when certain numbers of people buy. They
offer cheap prices and the convenience that people can buy what
they want at home and get it delivered promptly. As a result, the
social commerce industry has grown into a 3 trillion won market
in just three years. According to a survey by Ticket Monster, one
Korean social commerce site, half of Koreans have used a social
commerce site and a quarter visit social commerce web pages
every day.
There are quite a few people around us who are addicted to
social commerce. Even though what they buy is not needed, they
buy because of the low prices. A few months ago, some social
commerce companies were caught cheating. They manipulated sales volumes and exaggerated rates of
discount by setting high base prices. There are also some goods that are sold more expensively on
social commerce sites than on other general sites. One product’s price on a social commerce site was
67,800 won, while it is sold at 23,080 won on other general sites. Social commerce sites should be used
when you want to buy something you genuinely need. Without strict purchase plans, you may find
social commerce a poison you that leads to addiction.
Since the 1990s Korea has incorporated into the global economy, joining the World Trade Organization, opening markets, and
increasing the distribution of various foreign products within its borders. Patterns of consumption of all manner of products, from
food to clothing to sports equipment to appliances, have changed and diversified. Consequently, trend-setting twenty-somethings
have become the target of criticism as they spend a lot to stay in style. However, as you can see, many of us in our twenties have
our own know-how for rational consumption by using and finding new ways to cut back. Do you still believe that twenty-
somethings are extravagant?
Consumption patterns differ from individual to individual. What consumption propensities do you have? Remember that it is
always better to find your own way of consumption than to blindly imitate others.
Social Commerce
JooJeong-in
Sophomore,
theDept.
Business

CAMPAIGN
Have you ever heard about pre-parent
education? It gives teenagers, university
students, unmarried couples and married
couples without children opportunities to
seriously consider what being a parent
involves. It helps these people develop
good relationships with their children and
have confidence in rearing their children.
Some experts in parent education believe
that pre-parent education must be a part of
a basic liberal arts education. This is
because one of the characteristics of
contemporary society is that the traditional
system of the extended family is breaking
up into one defined by the nuclear family.
According to a report by Lee Byung-nae, a
professor of the Department of Early
Childhood Education at Joongboo
University, pre-parent education, in a
preventive way, can provide an opportunity
to build upright character in
undergraduates, the pre-parents. Professor
Lee also argues that by adopting other
sociocultural approaches in providing pre-
parent education to undergraduates, we can
provide pre-parent education equally to all
citizens.
There are three main reasons why pre-
parent education is needed. First, it will be
helpful to pre-parents in establishing sound
self-identities, preparing a stable marriage
life and adapting to changing gender roles.
Second, it will be helpful to the growth and
development of children. Lastly, it will
bring social benefits by reducing expenses
for infant education. All of this will be
possible because young people will
understand and prepare for child rearing.
Do you think that you will naturally
become a qualified parent and successfully
socialize your child? Most people simply
think that being a parent equals being a
qualified parent. But there is a world of
difference between conceiving and
delivering a baby boy or girl and being a
real parent. Being a qualified parent means
having the necessary skills to bring up a
child as a “socialized person.” That skill
cannot be gained without effort; it can be
achieved only with lifelong education.
Murderers like You Young-chul and
Kang Ho-soon were brought up in
underprivileged environments. According
to a report in the Chosun Ilbo on June 13,
2006, most serial killers have parents with
alcoholism problems. Whenever the
parents get drunk, they abuse their children
verbally and physically. Looking this, we
can see that the evil deeds of the children
show a high level of negative self-regard
unfortunately inherited from their parents.
You, the readers of The Pioneer, may have
thought about your parents’ discipline
methods. Most of your parents spanked
you as they learned to do from their parents
under the banner of traditional Korean
methods of discipline. Your parents may
sometimes have shown marital discord in
front of you and your siblings. The
negative experiences related to disciplinary
action may have injured your feelings and
self-esteem. Most seriously, they may have
lower your level of dignity and sociality. If
so, don’t you want to be qualified to be a
good parent in near future, not to be
someone who merely inflicts on her
children what was once inficted on her?
The Pioneer believes that it is
necessary to expand pre-parent education
from students in the Department of Early
Childhood Education to all students. Choi
Jeong-hye, a professor in the Department
of Early Childhood Education at
Gyeongsang National University and
director of the Gyeongnam Education
Research Center, has emphasized the
responsibilities of parents as educators.
That is, parents are responsible for
University Students
By Son Seong-eun Editor

CAMPAIGN
socializing their children as sound citizens. In an interview with The Pioneer, Professor
Choi said, “We can’t overemphasize the importance of pre-parent education for
undergraduate students. Pre-parent education preferably has effects on the entire lives of all
citizens - even parents in their forties or fifties who care their teenagers.”
Professor Choi also introduced The Pioneer to Head Start, a welfare program in the
United States for the development of children in low-income bracket families. Most low-
income children suffer from socioeconomic, physical and mental deprivation. Their parents
have to work until late at night, so the children are left alone and are vulnerable to juvenile
delinquency. This program helps those children to grow up properly and helps their parents
to educate and discipline their children in a proper way. Sure Start is a British version of
Head Start. Other advanced countries have developed similar programs that help children
and their parents. The Jinju Child Care Information Center, set up with the aim of creating
sound conditions for caring for a child, has since last year run a program that qualifies
parents as good mothers and fathers. However, the problem is that there is no program for
undergraduate students. All the classes are for newlyweds or parents who are bringing up
infants.
In an interview with The Pioneer, Park Sun-mi, a student in the Department of Early
Childhood Education at GNU, explained the instructional method in a class for settling
conflicts with parents and dealing with traumas. “We usually do role playing. In the play, a
target student becomes his or her parent, and another student plays that target student. The
very student who plays the parent comes to understand the stances of her parents and
overcomes the traumas created by her parents.” The majority of traumas that occur at early
ages are caused by what parents say to their sons or daughters, what they act out in front of
them, or even what they think.
We recommend that our university authorities provide pre-parent education for all
students. Nowadays, most students are busy with preparing for employment, which makes
them concentrate on themselves and not on others. This is directly connected to an
overflowing of egoism or narcissism. If students have the chance to have pre-parent
education, it will help them to develop altruistic minds. According to a report by Kim Jung-
mi, the Department of Early Childhood Education, Sahmyoook College, pre-parent
education will lead undergraduates to recognize themselves and have positive self-
identities. It will help them to take positive views of life and have careful consideration for
others. And as proposed in a report by Ember L. Lee of the Child and Adolescent Services
Research Center at Rady Childrens’ Hospital in San Diego in the United States, this may
reduce costs to society of about $94 billion annually by diminishing the prevalence of child
maltreatment and child behavioral problems.
Our society requires so many qualifications for almost every job or work. However, for
being a parent, there is not a minimal standard, even though a parent determines a new born
baby’s personality and future and thereby creates a stable community, which helps people
live together. Pre-parent education for undergraduates has to be compulsory to make
society stable and families happy and to protect the right of infants or children to be happy
and develop healthily.
Must Have Parenting Education

ZOOM IN By Moon Jae-hyun Editor-in-Chief
On October 3, 2013, The 22nd A
Hosted by Department of Veterina
events such as free beauty care, sma
are more connected through smartp
companions. 10 million companion
rises, festivals such as these will con

ZOOM IN
nual Companion Animals Festival was held in GNU outdoor stadium.
Medicine of GNU, the festival was full of interesting and exciting
dog race, dog show and much more. Even though people these days
hones and social network services, people are still longing for more
nimals in Korea is proof of that. As the number of companion animals
nue to prosper and I am already looking forward to next year’s event.

OPINION
Why I Don’t Read E-books
When I wrote to a friend recently,
mentioning that I was writing about my
aversion to electronic books, she,
someone hugely attached to her Kindle,
was distressed. She needn’t have been.
To play with the words of Marc
Antony’s famous funeral oration in
Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” I come
not to bury the e-book (though I might
be tempted to bury those intellectually
impoverished individuals - Steve Jobs
for one benighted example - who have
sought to bury real books) but to praise
the paper and ink one. Much as I may
detest the cell phone, I don’t detest e-
readers.
E-readers and e-books have their
obvious usefulness. Certainly if I were
heading off to a Greek island for two
months of work to complete writing a
book, I’d buy a Kindle and load it up
with reading materials - if for no other
reason than I’m getting too old and tired
to be schlepping the two suitcases of
books that I’d otherwise need to take
with me. I’ve enjoyed the convenience,
isolated as I am at present from a good
research library, of using e-books on line
for research. But the experience of doing
research on line with Google books, for
all its convenience, is to doing the same
work in the Rose Reading Room of the
New York Public Library with real
books as gulping Welch’s grape juice is
to savoring a fine Bordeaux wine - great
if you’re dying of thirst and it’s all that’s
at hand, but a sad and bodiless
experience nonetheless. And much as
my life might be made simpler if my
small apartment were not overwhelmed
with the more than 4000 books (the cats,
though, would miss the bookcases,
which serve for them as a kind of feline
jungle gym) that fill it, I would not part
with them (I miss every day the
thousands left behind in storage in the
States), and will only be adding to them.
I am wedded to the book and always
will be.
Why? Well, the great limitation of
the e-book is that it is not a thing; it has
no corporal reality. As the wonderful
American writer John Updike (who
sadly died in 2009) put it, “Electronic
equals immaterial.” It holds the same
text -- words, information, ideas - as a
real book, but its lack of substance
alters, for the worse I feel, the
relationship between the reader and that
text. One negative of that altered
relationship, though it’s not my main
point of interest here, was noted in a
2011 study that showed readers of e-
books to be slower to access information
from e-texts and to be retaining less of
what they read. And because it has no
substance an e-book cannot be the art
object that a real book can be. Nor can it
be an artifact of collective or personal
history.
Two of my favorite short pieces of
writing on the subject of real books as
real books are “Unpacking My Library,”
by the great German literary and cultural
critic Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) and
Updike’s punningly entitled “A Case for
Books,” quoted from above. What
Benjamin does best in his essay is
celebrate the bliss that physical books
bring their owner. Books have heft and
texture; they have sound when you open
them or turn their pages; they smell --
like Benjamin, I love that distinctive
smell of a used book newly arrived in
the mail and unwrapped. He also
celebrates the personal history that one’s
old books embody and the memories
they evoke. Like friends, lovers, and
animal companions, books age. And just
Richard Matthews
He is the author of The Mill Is Burning (Grove Press), which was awarded the
Joyce Osterweil Prize in Poetry by PEN America, and the play “The Bronze
Staircase" (Presses de l'universite d'Angers). His poems and prose have
appeared in journals and newspapers in the United States, France, and Korea.

OPINION
as in them as we come to know and love
the scar on the knee, the wrinkle under
understanding eyes, and the graying fur
at the tips of the ears, and love the way
those imperfections - the signs of aging
and good life-use - narrate a shared
history, so too do we love the tears and
chips, the worn edges and yellowing
leaves of our books, and love to listen to
the memories they have to recount. In
my small (for me anyway) library-in-
exile, there is a battered teal-covered
volume of longer English poems, now
all but fallen apart, that was once my
mother’s high-school text and from
which she read Coleridge’s “The Rhyme
of the Ancient Mariner” to me when I
was three years old and seriously ill. To
pick it up is to be three again.
There’s the old paperback of
Nabokov’s “Pale Fire” water-stained
from a canoe ride on the Delaware River
with a woman I was engaged to years
ago. To pick it up is to hear her almost-
lisping, much-missed voice. There’s a
copy of Gilbert Murray’s translations of
Greek plays, inscribed on the front fly as
being presented to my maternal
grandmother on the occasion of her
winning a school prize. There’s a
Penguin paperback of classical Greek
poetry that’s scorched on the back, the
consequence of its unwittingly being
held too near a candle flame in a taverna
on the Greek island of Santorini, where I
was having dinner with a friend just
after our graduation from the School of
Arts at Columbia. Twelve years later, it
still smells of smoke, and with it in
hand, I can still taste the salt-baked fish
and the tart Santorini white wine that
made up our meal that evening. There
are dozens of books of poems, signed by
their authors, some of them now sadly
dead, whose voices come alive when I
see their signatures. I’m sorry, but I
don’t think any e-book ever could do for
me what these books do.
In his brief essay, Updike remarks on
similar book values, what he calls the
sensual pleasure of the book and the
book as souvenir - souvenir not in the
trivial t-shirt way, but in its root sense as
the French for “to remember.” He also
delights in books as furniture and
ballast, the way they create a living and
lived in space. (He doesn’t mention it,
but he must have thought while writing
of that wonderfully titled volume in the
English novelist Anthony Powell’s great
roman-fleuve “A Dance to the Music of
Time,” namely “Books Do Furnish a
Room.”) To be surrounded by one’s
books is to be home, and in a world in
which many of us, out of choice or
necessity, are blown about on the winds
of frequent changes of residence, living
situation, and even country, our books
ground us. I know how much this can be
so from my own experience of years of
living abroad. When people ask me if it
isn’t hard being so long and so far from
home, I look at my walls of packed
shelves and companionable piles of
books and say that in one way it isn’t so
hard since tortoise-wise I have sort of
carried my home with me.
Books as material objects matter.
This month, a rare copy of the Bay
Psalm Book, the first book printed, in
1640, in what is now the United States,
will be auctioned at Sotheby’s in New
York. It will likely bring a price of
nearly $15,000,000. No one will be
paying that for the plain text of the book;
the buyer will be paying for its history,
its singularity as a thing. 370 years from
now, no one will be paying such money
for an e-book published this year. That
will be a loss for our culture and our
selves.
I’d like to leave you with one last
thought on the general theme of the
three essays that I’ve written for this
space this year, a new-year’s resolution
thought, if you will. I like to think that in
my aversion to various to aspects of our
contemporary digital universe and its
devices, I’m not being a simple Luddite.
It’s an aversion, I hope, informed by
affection for and appreciation of the
importance of things endangered by the
digital. And it is informed, too, by
skepticism. In our rush to be first-
adopters of all that is digitally new, we
may be neglecting one of our important
responsibilities as students, scholars, and
intellectuals, that of being skeptical.
That skepticism is one of our scholarly
responsibilities is a theme eloquently
developed by Edward Said in his
“Representations of the Intellectual,”
and it is expressed nicely by Ralph
Waldo Emerson in his essay on that
great skeptic, the 16th-century French
essayist Michel de Montaigne:
“Skepticism is the attitude assumed by
the student in relation to the particulars
which society adores, but which he sees
to be reverend only in their tendency
and spirit” Society does not like to have
any breath of question blown on the
existing order. But the interrogation of
custom at all points is in an inevitable
stage in the growth of every superior
mind, and is the evidence of its
perception....” Perhaps next year might
be a good time to work on the growth of
our own superior minds by
interrogating, by being skeptical of all
those digital things that our society
adores.
I look at my walls of packed shelves and companionable
piles of books and say that in one way it isn’t so hard
since tortoise-wise I have sort of carried my home with
me.
“ “

OPINION
The Logic of Non-Preference
It is late November. We are
experiencing seasonal change from
autumn to winter. Placed on the
borderline between late autumn and
early winter, I like to saunter about the
campus after eating lunch, enjoying
having a quiet conversation with leaves
of variegated colors and cool dirts in
mild temperature and sunshine. Without
giving a lame excuse for my not going
outside for strolling both in scorchingly
hot summer and in freezingly cold
winter, I cannot resist the temptation to
go outside for a while in the afternoon.
On campus, various kinds of tress are
boastful of their multi-colored styles
and fashions. Burgundy, reddish,
yellowish, and still greenish colors of
leaves orchestrate a symphony of a bit
crispy but euphonious sound when I put
my feet on the carpets embroidered
with naturally dyed leaves. I do not
know the essence of the leaves, but both
the vividness of their color in my eyes
and their clamoring sound under my
feet give me a vague hint of what they
are. A slant ray of sunshine in this
autumnal afternoon of a day gives me a
feeling of warmth and coziness.
Besides that, however, it urges me to
put a new slant on our age and our
society. Why am I not able to get the
feelings of synaethesia and bliss
obtained from nature when I direct my
attention to the status quo of our
society? Do I have to seek for
Wordsworthian bliss of healing only in
nature? How should we be able to cope
with the harsh realities of our age?
We are living in the age of fear and
anxiety. Some would say that it is just
your anxiety-ridden frame of mind that
leads you to surmise that the world is
full of troubles and problems. Maybe it
is so, but turn on the TV or read daily
newspaper. We are bombarded with the
news reports triggering the agitation of
our mind: environmental threats to our
health and life such as radioactivity and
tiny particles of dust, the chances of
identity theft, the employment rate of
college graduates, to name a few. Let’s
just take seriously into account the issue
of college graduates’ job hunting and
the reality of job market. Both college
students and college graduates must be
depressed and worried by the statistical
data that, on average, only less than 150
among 10,000 job applicants would be
hired to a large company. To win a rat
race in the job market, college students
are anxious to make themselves
increase their marketability as a
prospective employee. For example,
our college students are burdened with
their own self-fashioning of an ideal
type of employee. They are eager to fill
in their resume high GPA, their
successful academic achievements,
various extra-curricular activities, high
scores of their English Language
proficiency and competence, and their
experiences of volunteer works, etc. To
rebut my argument, some would claim
that, instead of living in the era of terror
and apprehension, we are living in the
age of convergence or consilience that
assimilates two seemingly
heterogenous things with one
harmonious and synthetic power of
entity. They would also demonstrate
that students must be ready to carry out
their interdisciplinary knowledges and
capacities in the practical fields of work
places. We have already been familiar
with most of the large companies’
emphatic announcement that they have
a strong preference for hiring a person
whose mind is quite challenging,
creative, and innovative. Colleges and
companies are collaborating with the
creation of brains equipped with the
spirits of consilience, creative mind,
and innovative challenge.
Such words as consilience,
creativity, and innovation are really in
vogue and even fanciful in use. If you
do not grasp the meanings of those
words, you may be considered to be
behind the times and somewhat
ignorant. Now let me just talk a little bit
about literature at this juncture.
Bartleby, one of the characters in
American novelist Herman Melville’s
stories, sums up his own personality by
quite repeatedly saying, “I would prefer
not to.” The scrivener hired for copying
documents in the Wall Street, New
York is really weird and eccentric in his
Koo Seung-Pon Professor
Department of English Language and Literature

OPINION
attitude toward his boss since he shows
his passive reluctance to do other things
except for his duty of copying. Such
words as “loneliness,” “apathy,”
“isolation,” “pallidity” characterize the
inscrutable human being. Although he
is far from a typical employee in our
society, the pitiable, pathetic, and tragic
fellow Bartleby serves as an ironic
indictment of society dominated by the
logic of capitalism. If there is any
twenty-first century Bartleby, what does
he refuse to do? What if he would cast
doubt on the slogans of words that seem
to aggravate our anxiety-ridden minds?
Neither do I gainsay the virtues of
consilience and innovation per se, nor I
do advocate a person who does
irrationally and eccentrically challenge
the social norms, cultural fashion, or
intellectual trend. What I am concerned
about is that college students may be
worried about their assumption that
they are not ready to become what
society wants them to be. The self-
consciousness of inferiority and low-
spiritedness, lack of self-confidence, or
even uncertainty of their future are their
real enemies in the age full of
misgivings. However, don’t be afraid of
your life.
We are always already humans of
polyphony attuned to all types of
mutability and diversity. We are
arboreal beings that can transform
ourselves into multi-colored existences
in the course of situational change. I
would like to accentuate the positive of
open-mindedness and flexibility in my
students’ intellectual thoughts. The
potential power of their intellects
undoubtedly precedes the dominant
discourses of society in large. When I
read my students’ essays on literature in
general, I am impressed by their
ingenuity and perceptiveness of their
ideas that adroitly intertwine literature
with a variety of fields of studies, such
as film, art, music, history, science.
They have done an excellent job of
applying the forestructure of their
knowledge and experiences to
analyzing literary works of art by
detecting the convergent point between
two different areas of studies. They
would prefer not to fix their eyes on just
one specific cloistered enclave of
academia. Bartleby’s rhetoric of speech
of extremely nonchalant negativity - “I
would prefer not to” - is modulated by
my students’ amazingly positive
affirmation of interdisciplinary
approach to literature. They are always
already prone to design a web of
intertextuality and consilience in their
lives, intellectual and practical. When I
interview with students in my office,
they express their concerns and
interests with regard to their studies and
their future career. It is true that they
like to get a stable job in salary as well
as in employment period, but they
would prefer to get a job to which they
should be able to commit themselves.
The voluntary commitment actually
arises from their interests and passions.
The question - “To what kind of work
would I be able to devote myself?” - is
a primary index of college students’
decision of their future career.
The name of campus English
magazine that I am now writing my
essay for is The Pioneer. It also serves
as a nickname for and a spirit of its
publisher Gyeongsang National
University. I believe that the rhetoric of
“I would prefer not to” is quite
compatible with the spirit of the
Pioneer. We Pioneers would prefer not
to give up. We would prefer not simply
to follow what society requires us to do,
but already always to introduce an
innovation in academia, in workplace,
or wherever. We have faced the reality,
and we will continue to face it. This
autumn my ear resonates with the
sounds of fallen leaves and the
pioneers’ resolute determination of
preferring not to fear in the age of
anxiety.
We are always already humans of polyphony attuned to
all types of mutability and diversity. We are arboreal
beings that can transform ourselves into multi-colored
existences in the course of situational change.
“ “

GOODBYE 2013

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