MUSIC♪♬

Okay. I was planning to write on a DJ who I love for this week’s post. But I think I really should write about this right at this moment, because it is making me REALLY upset and frustrated. I hope nobody will get offended by reading my writing, because that is not the purpose. Myung-Bak Lee was elected in August 2007 as the president of Korea. People thought he would improve South Korea’s economics and everything, but for me, I do not think so. When he was the mayor of Seoul, he made a stream that was used to be dirty made it clean and beautiful. He won a prize that was related to environment in 2008 from the magazine Times. However, things changed after he became the president.

First of all, he planned about all the schools in South Korea to have all the classes in English starting in 2012. It could be a good thing. Students will have opportunities to learn English and be more international. But the thing is that if they are only to speak in English in school, they will forget Korean eventually, then that means the traditional language will be forgotten. Also, the parents are going to have to get much more money for their children whose English is not very good to have tutor. And the students, whose family is not very abundant, will feel left out.  The second thing that he said he was going to do was making a huge canal. In my opinion, I don’t see it is going to be any good for the country. First, it is going to take a lot of money out of the tax that people had earned with their effort. I bet the government could use it for something better, such as improving public places like libraries and schools. Also, by building the canal, it will be a tragedy for all the livings that live near that area.  Here is the most shocking issue that is going on in Korea right now. He decided to import beef from the states. I didn’t really mind at first, because I was never interested in the economics. But this time, all of my friends and people on Internet were talking about the beef. And I was curious what was going on. I read an article that said the cow madness disease is 95% likely to be infected for Asians like Korean and Japanese people, and 35% for people from the West such as Americans, Europeans, etc. It is not that you are not going to get it because you are a vegetarian. You can get it only from drinking water. The process is like this: the chef washes the knife that he had cut the meat; water is going to go through the pipe; even there is a purify system, it will not work very well; the water will be used in our homes to wash our dishes and take a shower. Will it be gone if you boil the water? Well, only when you boil it above 800 degrees Celsius. Also, beef’s powders and gelatins are used for all our daily products: snack, meal, diapers, pads, etc. Especially, in Korean culture, people like to put bone parts of the cow, and make soups.

The thing that makes me REALLY mad is how the president of a country just ignores the thoughts of the public. When he was elected, I remember him saying ‘I will respect the nation’s thoughts’ or something like that. But it is obviously not what he promised. But what’s going on right now? People are getting madder day by day, because the government is not explaining what they are doing OR they are not listening to people’s opinions. I, at least, wanted the president to come out and give us explanations about what will be good for the nation by having American beef. It just seems like he doesn’t care about people’s health or anything. What is more important, a country’s ecomony or the public’s health. After 10 years, a half of the population could be dead. Of course, people who have LOTS of money would be able to eat expensive food from other country. However, people who DO NOT have much money will have to get the disease. I bet almost every single Koreans are against what he is doing. People have been doing a signature-seeking campaign for President Lee’s impeachment, and more than 500,000 people have signed for it (8:20 p.m. 5/1 Costa Rican Time).  I know I am only a student, and I don’t know that much about the government or anything. But since I am a person and I am one of the people who have pride of being a Korean, I hope the government will think about it much more carefully, and listen to people’s voices.