Why Am I Here in the Philippines?

Globalization leaded the world to be more united and share more things than ever before. However, this was or is possible since there is an instrument that makes the world to connect to each other. I believe this instrument is ‘English’.

It never happens in my country but happens in the Philippines and I was so shocked when I see the situation. I have a basic Filipino class in the school but there are several students with Filipino citizenship but do not know how to speak Filipino. I would understand if they are grown up in the foreign country though they are Filipino citizen. However, some of them had visited to foreign countries just for purpose of vacation and trip. But the reason why they do not know how to speck Filipino is they are not used to speak Filipino since their parents never speak Filipino but only English at home and their school also only allowed them to speak English.

In case of Korea, people are eager to learn English and they think speaking and understanding English is essential in the society. To enter the company, Korean people should have good or high grade for official English test such as TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) or TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication). Not only for company but also universities and colleges allow student enter their school without any entrance exam or such if a student has really high score in these tests. Since this is true in the society of Korea, many parents try to send their children from little kind to English kindergarten which teaches English to the 2 or 3 years old kids since they are saying learning language is more effective when kids are young. So kids are learning English even before they learned Korean, the national language.

How about me? I was here in the Philippines since I was just 13 to learn English since my parents believed that the Philippines is better in terms of circumstances since the Philippines are using English during the daily routine where Korea usually not using English. From that young age of my life, I have to leave my sweat home and my parents and family just to get skill of speaking English than any other average Korean people.

I, of course, also understand how essential knows how to speak English in this age of globalization. Especially, in the field of work, there is no company or institution who works alone without having any other relationship or communication with foreign companies or institution since the market is not limited to the local these days. However, it is said things that people are more used to English than their own national language. There is one study saying this kind of situation will make these kinds of languages can become extinct within 100 years in the future. How sad it is?! Therefore, we should be more take care of our own languages and think how the world can be harmoniously worked while globalization is still expected as usual. 

K-pop

‘Gangnam Style’ of PSY, Sandara Park and 2NE1, Super Junior…

You may be heard of these things once these days. Especially ‘Gangnam Style’ is a K-pop single by the South Korean musician PSY and became the first YouTube video to reach a billion views and influenced popular culture worldwide since then. Though there are still many biases towards this song, but those biases prove that much people are known to this song. I believe the popularization of Korean singers and pops are able since there is the advanced technology and culture due to the globalization of the world.

However, I doubted to the saying that these K-pops and singers let Korea to be known around the world. I agree to the fact that there are many people around the world still do not know where is Korea exist and what is Korea since I or any Korean people go to other countries, especially the European countries, people usually first asking us if I or we are Chinese or Japanese – Though that question impressed me as those European people only knows only two countries among many countries in Asia (No Bias!!). Also, it is true that K-pop, singer, and also the many Korean celebrities and their movie or drama make Korea to aware to those people. Truly, I am proud of them and to be a Korean.

Then why am I doubted about the popularity of these celebrities in make Korean known to the world? This is because I think these things that these celebrities promote and show to the world is something that is not truly Korean things. Those are rather much influenced by Western things. The genuine Korean songs are much different from the songs like Gangnam style or songs of 2NE1. The genuine culture is different from the things which these celebrities are acting before the world.

However, I appreciate the fact that genuine culture and things of Korea are not that attractive to the Western or foreigners since true Korean culture is rather soft and peaceful than to be fancy and showy to the western people who are used to with loudness and such. For the good example showing that usual foreign people are not fan of the genuine culture is the performance of Yuna Kim who is famous figure-skater of Korea and the world. The world praises the every performance of Yuna kim since it is really graceful and gorgeous than any other skater’s performance. She considered as ‘Queen on the Ice’. Despite of famousness and how gorgeous she is and all her performances, she was not praised as before when she performed Arirang last April, 2011. She was 1^st performance on the ice-link for every game but she was not able to get golden medal for this performance though her skills are perfect enough. Why she has to not get golden medal for this performance where she performed with genuine Korean songs rather than songs which is known to the foreigners?

<Yuna Kim, 'Arirang'>

Though it seems like the world recognizes the country Korea, but there are more ways to go for us to Korea to be recognized with the genuine Korean culture. For this to be happen, I believe, Korean people should first recognize our own things and culture and proud of these things. Obviously, I am already proud of not only to be a Korean but all the traditions and genuine culture of Korea. I believe Korea could stand firmly and proudly with our own things before the world in this age of globalization not only the things that are influenced a lot from western things.

Globalization and Multicultural Family

 I don’t know the situation in other countries, but in Korea where I am from, there are families called ‘multicultural family’. Then what do you mean by multicultural family? A multicultural family means a family consisting of a marriage immigrant or a person with naturalization permission and a person with the nationality of the Republic of Korea (ROK). The Republic of Korea is a state with one ethnicity which is Korean. Therefore, all Koreans are lookalike to each other, has same skin color, using same languages, shares same culture and others. State with only one ethnicity is good thing since it can bring out unity and sense of kinship. However, this brought the society the idea of ‘other’.

This age is the age of globalization and not only the culture and the technologies but there are sharing of many other things. Especially in Korea, no one can imagine to marry to a foreigner. Not only cannot imagine, but if this happens then we thought them as sinful and considered them as no longer as our people and family. Though Korea has developed a lot in many ways, this kind of idea or conception is something that could not easily change. In fact, there are so many foreign people, especially women are coming into the territory of Korea to marry to Korean males and they make a family and bears children in the society of Korea. Also, there are so many foreign male who married to Korean women because they love each other (Do not misunderstand me. This does not mean that foreign female and Korean male does not love each other unlike foreign male and Korean female couples). Therefore, this negative conception towards marrying to foreigner leads to the problems.

In other view, we cannot just criticize the Korean people who used to make those multicultural families as others. It is because it is one behavior to protect our own things such as the one ethnicity of the country since the creation of the county itself. It is one way to protect our country’s own culture and identity from the outside culture and such so that ours to be not contaminated or polluted.

However, multicultural family is one thing that we cannot no longer stop to not happen anymore due to the fast changes of the world as global world. If this is true and the reality, then we should accept the fact that there are so many things and people who are not same and shares everything just like us. Though those people are having different color of skin, hair, and eyes, we should still remember that the same blood is running through their vein as usual Korean people are having under their skin. 

Globalization and Development: No more people in the rural area.

It seems like people more like to be in the metro city or the developed city than rural area. Personally, I also do not want to live in the area where there is lack of comfortable transportation, things for entertainment like shopping malls and such, but just surrounded by rice fields and farms. Imagine the life in rural area; it is the life which is boring and slow. If you think living in the rural area regarding the education, it is also problematic since there is lack of education or though there are educations provided but not with the new trend and information as much as the city students can learn.

The globalization brought us the development as the modern society, the society that which we easily associate with the idea of fast, comfortable, state in art, and fancy. I guess many of us already into these things of modern society. It is true that development brought us easy and fast life. However, we should face the fact that there is certain problems arose due to a lot of people aiming to move their place to the city from the rural area for better circumstances and chances for them and their children.

Also, in political sense, the government focus is pinned to the more development to the developed cities rather than the rural areas. Rural areas are easily neglected. This behavior of the government accelerates more to the people to move to the city from the rural area since there more privileges can be enjoyed to the city people than to be a rural person.

However, many countries including the Philippines faced problem with this movement of city to rural places. Though citizens were looking for more job opportunities with larger salary and better living and education circumstances, but not every can get all these chances to enjoy. It is not the better situation that they can face from movement of rural areas to the city but it is the lack of money to provide foods, houses, transportation, and education.

Not only these but also the congestion of citizens in the city brought the society more pollution over all areas over the world.

Knowing these facts happening due to the congestion of people in the city, what else we can do from things that other people are already do? The answer is I do not know.

Farmers, Protest Against Globalization

Taipei Times, Feb. 4, 2013

Due to the opening the market or the Free Market, especially on agricultural products, farmers are threaten in their livelihood. Not only the pressure of the U.S. but there are a lot of products are ready to export the agricultural products from China. In return, Taiwan wants to export the industrial products to China.

This is not only situation of Taiwan but it is also the problem of Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, and the country that I am from, South Korea.

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“We gather here today to express our anger, we want to tell the government that we’re fed up with their compromises on our food sovereignty, it’s a serious problem that our food self-sufficiency has dropped to 33 percent now,” Taiwan Rural Front (TRF) spokeswoman Tsai Pei-hui (蔡培慧) told the crowd at the rally. “You’ve put our dining tables and refrigerators in other people’s homes, we want to keep them in our own places.”

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Market or the government easily neglect on the agricultural products since they are cheap and make less money than to produce industrial products. So they think more money is left if they import agricultural products from other countries and to export the industrial products that produce on the land that should be the farm or rice field. This leads to the situation of really low rate of food self-sufficiency. This seems okay since we can import rice, potatoes, corns, and such. However, low rate of food sufficiency is not the matter of we can easily ignore. 

There was a revolution in Iraq last year. The fundamental reason for this revolution was lack of food. Iraq was the country that imports about 50 percent of wheat that they consume from Russia. However, Russia was not able to export the sufficient wheat to other countries due to the weather change that does not suitable to have abundant crop. Since the Iraq was with less than 30 percent of food self-sufficiency, especially with the wheat which is main food consumed in the Iraq, faced a lot of people cannot have their meal though they have money to buy. Supply of the wheat is lacking while there were many people demanding for wheat raised the cost of wheat twice and three times expensive than its original price. In the end, this leads to the revolution in Iraq that having poor running government.

As I am also the citizen of a country where there is low rate of food-sufficiency, I do concern the situation of no food to consume. Globalization and Free Market on agriculture, there should be more consideration on this matter and study the case of other countries which already having longer experiences in this field. Earning money is to spend them for basic things and to enjoy our life with extra money that left. Making more industrial products than agricultural products may be makes more money but more money to make is unnecessary if there is lack of things to consume and price goes higher.

Documentary Movie "Inside Job" (2010)

Inside Job (2010), directed by charles Ferguson

Basically, this documentary movie shows us the reason or background of economic crisis that we faced last 2008. This tried to depict how the economic system work at the back of ordinary people who just work hard to earn money for their lives and children. However, the economic crisis is due to the greedy riches who are not satisfying with what they've already got it not the issue that I want to focus for now. I want to focus on the matter that every other recognized as independent countries are effected and influenced by this crisis though the causes of the crisis are mostly concentrated in U.S.. This is the dark face of globalization of the world.

It is fact that there are more connection among every countries of the world that ever before. This makes us more comfortable and informative since I can eat banana in Korea by importing banana from tropical countries like the Philippines since banana cannot be raised in weather of Korea. However, this connection of the world brings the situation like the economic crisis by having just one country having its collapse of economy. 

Though the world having negative influences by globalization but we cannot close down the connection that which is already been opened. All we can do is just to wish for nothing bad happen to us.