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Welcome and thank you for your interest in our TaLK program! For Korea, this is an exciting and the most demanding time for strengthening of public English education for the youth, especially in rural areas. In a new era when global-mindedness and cultural diversity bear paramount importance, the TaLK program is without a doubt an initiative for advancement of English education and knowledge in Korea. Sponsored by the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and affiliated with the National Institute for International Education Development, the TaLK program offers a wonderful and rewarding opportunity for students from English-speaking countries. Participating students will be given the prospect to explore the rich, vibrant culture and dynamism of Korea, while at the same time offering their knowledge of English to Korean provincial areas where exposure to the English language is not taken for granted. In particular, for candidates of Korean ethnicity, this will be a meaningful occasion to better understand their cultural roots and discover a new sense of self-identity. The Ministry invites talented and service-minded individuals to partake in this innovative program in Korea. We look forward to your interaction, knowing that the program will offer a challenging yet valuable experience for you. Sincerely. Doh-Yeon Kim, Ph.D. Minister Ministry of Education, Science and Technology Republic of Korea |
Seoul Food Festival
Seoul Food Festival 2008 on it's way.
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Seoul Metropolitan City has an agenda for hosting 'Seoul Food Festival' which will bring foreign travelers and local residents together to share a very essential part of Korean culture and food. The festival will be held from August 22nd to 31st at the following five major tourist sites of Korea: Cheonggye Plaza, Namsangol Hanok Village, N Seoul Tower, Seoul Museum of History, and Gyeonghuigung (Palace). At these sights, we are planning to present diversified traditional dishes representing different cultures from all around the world, and many other ethnic events will be held. |
Olympic Medals
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10 meter air pistol Jin Jongoh, Silver medal. left in the photo, Pang Wei, center, of China and Kim Jong-su of North Korea celebrate during the victory ceremony of the men's 10-meter air pistol at the Beijing Shooting Range Hall in Beijing, Saturday. |
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Judo Choi Minho Gold medal. It was only seven minutes and 20 seconds in total he needed in claiming a gold medal in the men's 60-kilogram class at the Beijing Olympics. In the final match at the Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium Saturday, Choi, who will turn 28 on Aug. 18, faced world No. 1 Ludwig Paischer of Austria and threw him to the ground in two minutes and 14 seconds to give South Korea the first gold of the Summer Games. |
 | Swimming 400 meter Free style, Park Taehwan Gold medal. He grabbed the first Olympic swimming gold for his country by winning the men's 400-meter freestyle competition of the Beijing Games. |
 | Women's weightlifting 53Kg division, Yoon Jin-hee, Silver medal. The 22-year-old from Wonju lifted a total of 213 kilograms ― 94kg in the snatch and 119kg in the clean and jerk ― putting her behind only gold medallist Jaroenrattanatarakoon Prapawadee of Thailand, who lifted a total of 221kg ― 95kg in the snatch and 126kg in the clean and jerk. |
 | Women archers Gold medal. Joo Hyunjun, left, Yun Okhee, center, and Park Sunghyun pose during the victory ceremony after winning a gold in the women's team competition at the Beijing Olympics in Beijing, Sunday. |
 | Judo, Wang Gichoon, Silver medal. The 19-year-old man suffered a shocking defeat, when he was thrown to the mat early in his match against Azerbaijan's Elnur Mammadli Monday night at the Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium.After the loss, Wang, who was considered a favorite to capture the gold after winning the World Championships in 2007, was left lying on the mat in disbelief. |
 | Men's Archer group, Gold medal. Im Donghyung, left, Park Kyungmo, center, and Lee Changhwan flash their gold medals after beating Italy in the final of the men's team archery competition at the Beijing Olympics Monday. |
 | Park Taehwan finished second after Michael Phelps, the U.S. world champion, in the men's 200-meter freestyle swimming at the Beijing Olympics Tuesday. Park clocked 1:44.85, bagging his second medal after winning a gold in the men's 400-meter freestyle Sunday. Phelps won his third gold medal and record-tying ninth of his career, breaking his own world record with a time of 1 minute, 42.96 seconds. His previous world record was 1:43.86 set at last year's world championships in Australia.Peter Vanderkaay of the United States earned the bronze in 1:45.14. |
 | Jin Jongoh won the gold medal in the 50-meter pistol competition of the Beijing Olympics Tuesday.The 29-year-old, who won the silver in the 10-meter air pistol Saturday, shot a 660.4 to edge North Korean contender Kim Jong-su by 0.2 at the Beijing Shooting Range Hall. Kim had finished behind Jin in the 10-meter air pistol finals. Chinese Tan Zongliang won the bronze. |
 | South Korean weightlifter Sa Jaehyouk lifts total 366 kilograms at the men's 77-kilogram division final, and got a gold medal for the first time since Barcelona Olympics in 1992. |
 | Kim Jaebum got a Silver medal in the men's 81-kilogram judo competition at the Beijing Olympics, Tuesday. He was extremely exhausted at the game with Germany's Ole Bischof. |
 | Woman Fencing, Nam Hyunhee got a Siver medal. She got 286 points. |
 | Woman Archer Park Sunghyun got a silver medal. China's Zhang Juan Juan beat Park, ending South Korea's 24-year dominance in Olympic archery for women. |
 | Woman Judo 78Kg division, won the bronze medal beating Edinanci Silva of Brazil. Jeong's victory with an ippon 2 minutes, 39 seconds into the match gave her the first Olympic medal of her career. It also brought South Korea its first women's judo medal in eight years. Jeong losing in the semifinals to Yalennis Castillo of Cuba. China's Yang Xiuli won the gold by beating Castillo in the final. |
 | Shuttlecock woman double, Lee Kyungwon, Lee Hyojung got a silver medal. |
 | Archer Man Single. Park Kyungmo lost the Gold medal and got a Silver medal by the score 112-113. |
 | Woman weightlifter Jang Miran won a gold medal in over 75-kilogram division. She made a new world record of 326Kg |
 | Lee Hyojung,left, and Lee Yongdae, right, play together against Indonesia's Liliyana Natsir and Nova Widianto and got the gold medal at the game of Shuttlecock mixed doubles of Beijing Olympics Sunday. |
 | South Korea defeated Austria 3-1 to win the bronze medal in the men's team table tennis competition at the Beijing Olympics |
 | South Korean gymnast Yoo Won-chul won the silver in the men's parallel bars competition at the Beijing Olympics. Yoo scored a total of 16.25 points, finishing behind China's Li Xiaopeng, who earned 0.2 point more to take the gold. Anton Fokin of Uzbekistan took the bronze by scoring 16.20. |
 | Lim Su-jeong defeated Azize Tanrikulu of Turkey 1-0 to win the gold in the women's under 57kg competition. |
 | Son Tae-jin beat Mark Lopez of the United States 3-2 to claim the gold in the men's under 68kg competition |
 | Cha Dongmin got a gold medal in Olympic taekwondo Saturday in the men's over-80-kilogram competition. Taekwondo offers eight golds, but to prohibit any one country get all the medals, each country only can send up to 4 athletes, and Korea got four gold medals max. in taekwondo. |
| Korea got a Gold Medal in the baseball game. |  South Korean baseball team won a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics, beating Cuba 3-2 Saturday.
Facing the reigning Olympic champion, Lee Seung-yeop's go-ahead two-run homer and starter Ryu Hyun-jin's strong performance to give South Korea its first gold medal in the final Olympic stage.
Baseball and softball will be eliminated from the London Olympic in 2012.
The Kim Kyung-moon's side, comprised of the players from the Korea Baseball Orgainzation (KBO), became the first undefeated Olympic champion since Cuba did so in 1996.
They became the first South Korean squad to clinch an Olympic title in a team competition of ball game since 1996, when the women's handball team won.
Lee, who hit a tiebreaking homer against Japan in the semifinal Friday, drove Norberto Gonzalez's fourth pitch he saw into the left seats for a 2-0 lead in the first, but the Cubans cut the lead to one on Michel Enriquez's solo shot.
In the seventh, the both sides added one run, respectively, to make it 3-2.
Cuba, which won three in its four Olympic final appearances, hung tough in the ninth, loading the bases.
The manager Kim replaced Ryu with Chong Tae-hyon, who earned a save against Japan in qualification.
The sidearmer reliever induced Yuliesky Gourriel to ground into a double-play to end the game.
Ryu, who shutout Canada on Aug. 15, pitched 8 1/3 innings and allowed two-run on five hits to pick up his second victory of the tournament.
The United States beat Japan to take the bronze medal earlier in the day.
Cha Dong-min completed South Korea's taekwondo sweep as he won a gold medal in the men's over-80 kilograms.
In the final bout, Cha defeated Greece's Alexandros Nikolaidis 5-4 to give South Korea its fourth gold medal.
Nikolaidis lost to Moon Dae-sung by KO in the same class of the Athens Olympics in 2004.
The nation's former best achievement was three golds and one silver at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Lim Su-jeong won in the women's under-57 kilograms, while Son Tae-jin topped the men's under-68 kilogram division Thursday.
Hwang Kyung-seon claimed gold in the women's under-67.
With the Cha's championship, South Korea has dominated the division for the third straight time at the Olympics.
Kim Kyung-hoon and Moon won in 2000 and 2004, respectively.
Cha, who led 4-3 until the second round, allowed the Greek to tie the match in the third, but the South Korean scored a winning point with just 18 seconds left to capture the gold.
The women's handball team downed Hungary 33-28 to win a bronze medal. by ksw@koreatimes.co.kr |
North Korea shooting
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North Korea Blames South in Shooting
By CHOE SANG-HUN
Published: July 13, 2008
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea blamed South Korea on Saturday for the death of a South Korean tourist, who was shot by a North Korean soldier before dawn on Friday morning after wandering into a restricted military area.
North Korea also refused to let South Korean officials enter its territory to investigate the shooting.
The incident, in which a 53-year-old woman was killed after apparently wandering into a restricted military zone near the North’s Kumgang resort, added chill to already-frosty relations between the two Koreas.
It also forced President Lee Myung Bak of South Korea to face a consequence of his hard-line policy on the Communist North.
Since he took office in February, the North has cut off all government contact and banned South Korean officials from Kumgang, shutting down what had always been a minimal channel of communication with the North.
“What cannot and should not happen has happened,” Mr. Lee told a security ministers’ meeting, according to his office. “I can’t understand that they shot a civilian tourist” at an hour when it was possible to discern she was a civilian, Mr. Lee said.Mr. Lee urged North Korea to “actively cooperate” in an investigation.
But when South Korea tried to send a telephone message through the border village of Panmunjom north of Seoul to protest and demand that South Korean investigators visit the scene, the North didn’t even pick up the phone, said Kim Ho Nyoun, a government spokesman.
Instead, a relatively obscure government bureau in charge of running the Kumgang resort issued a statement making a brief expression of regret over the death and condemning the South’s decision to suspend the visits to Kumgang as an “intolerable insult.”
“The responsibility for the incident entirely rests with the South side,” the bureau said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. “It should make a clear apology.”
It said the South Korean woman walked around a fence on a beach and “intruded deep” into a military zone. Soldiers had to shoot her because she ignored repeated orders to stop and warning shots and began running away, it said.
The incident highlighted the challenge Mr. Lee faces in dealing with North Korea. Nearly half a day after the shooting, and an hour after he learned of it, he proposed resuming stalled reconciliation talks with North Korea in a speech to parliament on Friday.
What could have been considered a bold initiative — an unexpected policy about-face intended to reverse the chill in inter-Korean relations — was quickly overwhelmed by the furor over the shooting.
The liberal opposition, whose rule before Mr. Lee’s election had ushered in an era of reconciliation on the divided peninsula, criticized Mr. Lee for taking hours to learn of the death, not from the North Korean authorities but from a private tourist company. Conservative dailies also criticized him for pressing ahead with his overture of reconciliation despite the shooting.
On Saturday, the head of Hyundai Asan, a Seoul-based company that runs the Kumgang tours, left for the North on a fact-finding mission.
The woman, Park Wang Ja, was the first South Korean tourist killed by a North Korean at Kumgang since the resort, located a shade north of the heavily fortified eastern border, was opened in 1998.
Nearly 2 million South Koreans have since visited there, helping thaw relations between the two countries but also providing the cash-strapped North Korean government with hundreds of millions of tourist dollars. Mr. Lee had been skeptical of providing any economic stimulus before the North abandons its nuclear weapons programs.
Dokdo
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Japanese Academic Slams Tokyo Over Dokdo
Kazuhiko Kimijima, a professor of history at Tokyo Gakugei University.
Kazuhiko Kimijima, a professor of history at Tokyo Gakugei University, believes the Japanese government should
revise teaching guidelines that now state Japan's claim to Korea's Dokdo islets, and he said so in a column for
Photos seeing Dokdo from Woolleungdo
From left, by Choi-seomyun, Kim Cheol Hwan, Kim Cheol Hwan.
Old Korean books published in 15 century, insisted we could see Dokdo from Woolleungdo, at clear day.
Mr. Wakami Genjo simulated a calculation to prove seeing Dokdo from Woolleungdo is impossible, and that theory
has been widely believed by Japanese.
Dr. Lee hangi insisted we could see Dokdo at 160meter altitude of Woolleungdo.
Actually, to see Dokdo from Woolleung has been very difficult, because only a few days are clear to see it.
But finally, Mr. Choi and Mr. Kim both are succeeded to make photos of Dokdo from Woolleungdo.
- To settle Dokdo
- Dokdo
- Dokdo Island and Region A Visual Study And Territorial Perceptions
- English booklet on Dokdo to be distributed worldwide
- The territorial dispute over Dokdo
- Dokdo or Takeshima ?
- Japanese Teaching Guidelines State Claim to Dokdo
American Beef
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Where's the Beef?
by Bruce Cumings Released: 20 Jun 2008
Readers of the June 11 New York Times had a right to be startled by a front-page photo showing tens of thousands of demonstrators flooding the streets of Seoul -- first because the paper had barely covered six weeks of previous protests, and second because the multitudes of people seemed out of proportion to the supposed issue at hand: fears of mad cow disease should imports of American beef resume after a five-year embargo. But the real beef was with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who barely got inaugurated before running off to brown-nose George W. Bush. Lee's bright idea was to push a new hard line with North Korea, even after Bush had given up that hard line, and to cozy up to Bush without a lot of apparent thought to his capricious policies toward Korea or the likelihood that the next American President will not be a Republican. Everywhere else in the world people are counting the days until Bush returns to Texas -- but not in Seoul's Blue House. This fundamental miscalculation turned a landslide victory last December into such burgeoning discontent that many analysts wonder if Lee can hold on to power.
At the heart of the problem is the perception that Lee is toadying up to an Administration that runs roughshod over Korean national sovereignty and could care less about the unprecedented warming of relations between North and South over the past decade. President Kim Dae Jung's "sunshine policy" did more to enhance peace and reconciliation between the two Koreas than all his predecessors combined and won him the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize. His protégé and successor, Roh Moo-hyun, continued this policy through five years of intense American pressure and criticism. Both presidents were ultimately vindicated when the Bush Administration swiveled 180 degrees in early 2007 and talked directly with the North. But along came President Lee, blaming his predecessors for coddling the North over "ten lost years." Beltway pundits fell all over themselves applauding Lee's sagacity--finally the adults were running Korea again--and Bush rewarded Lee with a weekend visit to Camp David in April. The new Korean president brought with him what appeared to be a modest offering: lifting the ban on American beef imports.
Kim Dae Jung was the first foreign leader to visit the Bush Oval Office, in March 2001, close on the heels of Secretary of State Colin Powell, saying he wanted to continue the Kim/Clinton policy of engaging North Korea. Instead President Bush lectured the South Korean president on how Kim Jong Il, a leader Bush would later call a "pygmy," could not be trusted. In September 2002 Bush sent an envoy to Pyongyang to accuse the North of having a second nuclear weapons program using highly enriched uranium. The predictable result was the North's rapid repudiation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the end of the eight-year freeze on its plutonium facility and the recovery of some 8,000 plutonium fuel rods -- enough for five or six atomic bombs. (As it happened, US intelligence on the North's highly enriched uranium was no better than it was on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.)
In these same years Pew, Gallup and domestic Korean opinion polls uniformly showed a sharp spike in unfavorable views of the United States, clearly a result of the Bush Administration's policy shift. According to William Watts of Potomac Associates, a Washington consulting firm, Koreans with somewhat or very favorable views of the United States dropped from 75 percent at one point in the 1990s to 53 percent during the Bush Administration, while somewhat or very unfavorable views spiked to 43 percent. This downturn delayed a free-trade agreement between the two nations, a deal now held hostage by the demonstrations and by Democrats in Congress who, in an election year, have demanded that Korea open its market to American beef and automobiles before ratifying the agreement. (Although imports of American cars have increased in recent years, it is still a novelty to spot a Ford or Chevrolet on the streets of Seoul.) Barack Obama, trying to shore up support among blue-collar workers, supports these demands as well. But in Seoul well-organized farmers' groups and labor unions don't want to be buffaloed by Lee's new, supplicant regime and are determined to resist American pressure. Last year, President Roh Moo-hyun's support for the free trade deal amid a stagnating economy caused his popularity to plummet, thus bringing Lee to power in an election based almost entirely on economic issues. But now "free trade" has heavily politicized Korean-American relations.
Meanwhile George W. Bush decided that Kim Jong Il was a pygmy he could deal with after all, resulting in the February 13, 2007, agreement on denuclearization -- the origins of which remain very murky. Recall that Pyongyang celebrated American Independence Day in 2006 by blowing off one long-range Taepodong 2 missile and several medium-range rockets, and followed that in October with its first nuclear test. So why did Bush, who says he does not "reward bad behavior" and had rejected direct talks with North Korea, suddenly embrace negotiations? However it happened, the plutonium reactor is again frozen, and we again wait to see if the North will give up its nuclear program and if Washington will do its part by normalizing relations with Pyongyang.
Washington's intentions toward Pyongyang have been at the heart of South Korean perceptions of American sincerity and good will: That's where the beef is. The past seven years have seen an astonishing spectacle in which an impulsive American President zigzagged from gratuitous insults thrown at the North Korean head of state to charges of new nuclear programs based on flimsy evidence, only to jump on Kim Dae Jung's merry-go-round of give-and-take diplomacy. Lee Myung-bak's election appeared to signal a return to the good old days when neither Korean nor American leaders paid much attention to Korean public opinion. But a small matter of beef imports has put masses of Koreans into the streets and threatens to trample the very foundations of Korean-American relations.
Bruce Cumings, chair of the history department at the University of Chicago, is the author, most recently, of North Korea: Another Country.
Copyright © 2008 The Nation
Others
Ref. site : Design Olympiad 2008
2008 is becoming a year of mega events. UIA Congress in this month, World Architecture Festival in November. And here comes another one…. Seoul Design Olympiad 2008. ArchSociety got to know about this event lately. However, it seems Seoul Design Olympiad 2008 is going to be another mega event of architecture of this year in almost the whole month of October.
As they say,
“Seoul Design Olympiad 2008 is a world design festival organized to enhance and promote Seoul as the center of world design, in line with its designation as the World Design Capital 2010. With Seoul as the first officially designated city as a World Design Capital, Seoul Design Olympiad is an international design festival in line with its status that's organized with the aim of cultural enrichment and promoting the quality of people's lives through design.”
This event is hosting a lot of activities. Few design competitions which starts with the abstract submission for the conference. Lots of exhibitions, lecture sessions and various competitions are packed in the schedule starting from 10th October to 30th October 2008.
Abstract Submission Deadline: July 24, 2008 (online registration and submission)
Seoul Remodeling
Architects bid to restore ‘soul of Seoul’
By Anna Fifield in Seoul
Published: July 14 2008 16:52 | Last updated: July 14 2008 16:52
Vision of the future: an artist’s impression of the Yongsan development, which will be sited close to the Han river and two big train stations
Hardly one of Asia’s most aesthetically pleasing cities, Seoul is undergoing a spectacular face-lift, with a range of multi-billion-dollar construction projects.
In the latest development, five internationally renowned architects are bidding to design the Yongsan international business district in the South Korean capital, a $28bn five-year project due to start in 2011.
As South Korea rebuilt its razed capital after the Korean war and embarked on four dizzying decades of industrialisation, the emphasis was on function rather than form. The result is a mish-mash of concrete blocks. But in the past decade this has begun to change, with the construction of parks and plazas, and the emergence of more inspired buildings.
Now five architectural firms have been asked to design a “cutting-edge, future-oriented complex” on 566,000 square metres of land, currently home to railway warehouses, in the centre of Seoul. The master plan is to include commercial, residential, cultural and leisure spaces, and must feature a landmark tower. The winner will be announced in December. Close to the Han river and two important train stations, the Yongsan development borders the US military base, which will be turned into the “Central Park of Seoul” when the army relocates south of the capital in four years, and is in the middle of the three current business districts.
“Seoul is undistinguished in terms of its architecture and is not seen as an international player, and that is precisely what this project is about, what we have to answer,” says Nina Libeskind of Studio Daniel Libeskind, which is rebuilding the World Trade Center in New York. “It’s a very exciting, very optimistic moment in the city’s history.”
Local residents have mixed feelings. Park Jin-ho, an interior designer who lives in an apartment near the railway station, says the area is “already good to live in because it is quite central, and I think it will be much better, with more benefits, once it is developed”. However, others think the city government is not paying enough compensation to residents who will have to move. “I don’t oppose the city’s plan to make Yongsan an upper-class town to raise Seoul’s competitiveness, but I really don’t like the way the city is pushing for the development project without consulting residents [or] guaranteeing our property rights,” says Chung Geun-soo, another resident.
The Yongsan area is nine times the size of the World Trade Center complex and each of the architectural firms has been given $1m to come up with a plan – compared with $40,000 for those offering to redesign Ground Zero.
Andy Bow of Foster and Partners, architects of the Swiss Re “Gherkin” building in the City of London, says the project has the potential to redefine Seoul. “It’s like Canary Wharf [in London] or La Défense [in Paris] in terms of the scale and the quantum of development,” says Mr Bow. “Canary Wharf moved the centre of gravity in London.” The other architects bidding are Jerde Partnership, famous for Tokyo’s Roppongi Hills, and Skidmore Owings and Merrill, which is building the Burj Dubai, set to be the world’s tallest tower.
The project comes amid a dearth of office space and a flurry of construction. The vacancy rate among commercial buildings in Seoul is about 1 per cent, one of the lowest in Asia, and Jones Lang LaSalle, the property firm, estimates the lack of supply pushed up Korean office prices by about 25 per cent last year.
But Yongsan will be unique because of its central location and access to both parks and the river, the developers say. “I think it’s very important in a city of 10m or 20m people to have a place where people can come together into the centre,” says John Simones, design director of Jerde.
....................................................... Billion-dollar developments lend touch of class
The Yongsan development is being built by a 26-member consortium, led by the state-run Korea Railroad Corporation, Samsung Corp and the National Pension Service. Total project finance could rise to $50bn (€31bn, £25bn), the developers estimate. By common consent, Seoul is short of top class architecture. But two large-scale developments are under way in Youido, the island in the Han River and Korea’s financial centre. The 486,000 sq metre Seoul International Finance Centre, being developed by the city government and a unit of AIG, the American insurer, will contain three office towers, a five-star hotel and a shopping mall. Across the road, Skylan, a pan-Asian real estate development company, is running a similar $2bn project. New York-based Gale International is behind the $20bn construction of New Songdo City, near Incheon international airport It will feature residential and commercial buildings, a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, hospitals and schools. A 14km bridge linking the city to the Incheon international airport is almost complete.
Additional reporting by Song Jung-a
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008