Korean real-name verification law

Yesterday, when I tried to upload a video on youtube.com, I got this message when I clicked the "upload" button:

We have voluntarily disabled this functionality on kr.youtube.com because of the Korean real-name verification law.

It was interesting for me, it was not the first time I see this.

When I tried to book a seat at a movie theater, I was asked to give, not only by credit card number, but also my "Alien registration number"... (yes... in Korea I am an Alien!!!) ^_^

It is equivalent to a "social security number"

The point is, Korea government feels that people shouldn't be allowed to post anything and everything they want... I can understand this...

I read many stories about teens getting cyber-bullied, and who committed suicide because of this. This movement might prevent this.

You can keep having an alias, so people reading your comments/blogs/videos cannot know your real name, but IF the government needs to track you down, they can know your real name easily.

Some people are afraid that, since all it takes for someone to assume your personality is to find your social security number and then use it to impersonate you... it might do more harm than good.

However, this whole law was passed due the suicide of a very famous Korean actress. Her name is Jin-sil Choi (google it)

She committed suicide over some internet rumors.

This law is 1.5 years old now, I am not sure of it's successfulness yet, I am interested in getting people's reaction on this.

As far as the youtube.com is concerned, I found a "walk-around" for this issue... simply changing your location to "world-wide" solves this issue.

Apparently, google.com (owner of youtube.com) is not very happy about this law! Being anonymous is still one of the biggest attractiveness of the internet. Some people will not let it go without a fight!

Who said that blogging is the end of books? A Book Launching event might tell you otherwise!

 

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending, for the first time, a Book Launching Party.

The event was sponsored by a networking group. You simply show up, pay around 15$. This included a copy of the book, plus a light dinner buffet. One of the multi-talented volunteers acted professionally as cook and a photographer.

Two days ago, I was chatting with my father over Skype… and we

Yaomy (Seonannam) Delivering her presentation

found ourselves asking a question: “What is the major difference between Arab people and Koreans?” . I had this hovering in my mind during the meeting.

The event was attend by around 30 people.

The author was quite young. I believe that she is in her 20s. {insert her photo}

She spoke for around 30 mins. about her book.

The interesting part for me is a phenomena what seems to be going around these days. She had started a blog about her own love relationship experiences. She attracted her own blog followers.

Her blog have reached the list of “100 most visited blogs in Korea”

Soon afterwards, her blog started to receive requests from readers to get advice on their experiences.

The book: “The Psychology of Love”

She kept answering them, through the course of one year, she accumulated enough material to create her own book and called it “The Psychology of Love”

The interesting things I learnt here are:

1) You don’t have to be a reference in a subject to qualify to write about, all you need is passion,

2) if you have a bright idea, you don’t have to keep it to yourself. In fact, sharing it with others and publishing parts of your ideas online don’t necessary means that someone will come and grab your idea. I believe that people who steal other’s intellectual ideas are typically quote lazy and need a finished product to copy-paste. They don’t usually take half-backed products and turned them into a fully fledged product… since more than 80% of the work in this. Most people can come up with ideas, but very, very few have the discipline and stamina to go all the way. So, don’t worry TOO much about this. This young lady is a live example.

3) Fast acting also seems to be an important issue. The full cycle of her deciding that she wants to collect all these ideas into a book was around 1 year only. Keeping at it keeps you focused and enthusiastic.

4) Having people like the gentleman who was sponsoring the event can accurate the process and, more importantly, keep your fire going.

So, in conclusion, sharing your idea with positive people and hanging out with like-minded people and keeping at it are keys to success.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Jungmo Park

 

Event was sponsored by  Jungmo Park, a passionate entrepreneur, creator and founder of Cornix TriPes Group.

He is a peoples’ person, a natural leader, an Includer and a good friend.

 

 

Yaomy

The book was written by

Yaomy (Seonannam)

 

her blog:

http://www.cyworld.com/yoamy

You can buy her book by this link (in Korean)

 

 

 

It was a great event. Special thanks for Hye Kyung Hwang for inviting me and thanks for Edward Lee for his great cooking

Edward Lee.. a computer programmer, a multi-talented young man who volunteered as a photographer and a signature cook!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More photos from the networking event and the book event :

Full Album here

Doseon Sa Tour Part 4 – A Statue of a lost motherhood

Now, pack to Doseon Sa tour. After we moved past the scary four greeters in the “Entrance to Temple”, we are faced with a different kind of drama.

Statue of Lost Motherhood

Our knowledgeable professor, Dr. David informs us that this statue is not originated Korea, in fact, it is from Japan. It is relatively new, not more than 40 years old.
I know it is new since I was expecting to find a lot of ancient, old items during our visit. After 4~5 of asking the same question and getting a “no”, Dr. David told me “unless I tell you so, consider it new!” Then he explains that because of the many wars Koreas had, it is not easy to find art which is well preserved all those years, since the invaders have this nasty habit of bringing to the ground everything which happened to be in their way!
Since I just saw the Moguls greeting me in the entrance, I wasn’t very surprised… after all, we Arabs also suffered the wrath of Moguls long time ago, although they only visited us once, they erased a lot of our culture (see “fall of Bagdad” in 1258A.D), but the Moguls invaded Korea 6 times! and the total of times Korean was invaded in its recorded history is more than a thousand times! No wonder, then!
Anyway, this statue was erected as a way to pray for the souls of the unborn children who were aborted by mothers who chose not to become ones.
You can see the child reaching out to his mother in the bottom of the statue, and the unborn children in the bottom of the statue.

From 2010_05_15_Doseon-sa_Tour

From 2010_05_15_Doseon-sa_Tour

From 2010_05_15_Doseon-sa_Tour

From 2010_05_15_Doseon-sa_Tour

Women still visit this place to put flowers and ask forgiveness from their would-have-been sons & daughters. The saddest part for is the number of flower bouquets which was put today.

From 2010_05_15_Doseon-sa_Tour

It is the price we have to pay for going forward?... I wonder...

Doseon Sa Tour Part 3 - On the way to Doseon Sa – A visit to a Buddhist temple of a different denomination

After the birth of Buddhism in India (around 2500 years ago), it spread in Asia and reached Korea after 800 years after it’s birth(1). It was later “purified” and modified refined to suit the Korean ways and the influence by the Korean Buddhist monks.

Therefore, in modern Korean, you would not find a lot of influence from India at , when it comes to design of a Buddhist temple or the different statues or architecture.

However, the widespread of a different denominations, allows you to sometimes find the Indian influence kept preserved.

By a sheer coincidence, we stumbled upon this lost temple in the edge of a mountain in Korea on our way to Doseon Sa. (actually the bus driver punched the wrong GPS location on his on-board computer and took us to the wrong Doseon Sa temple!)

I am not sure if it a case of a copyrights infringements but, anyways, I got some nice (and rare photos, according to Dr. David, our tour guide)

You will see in the photos what looks as Ganesha or Kali in Hinduism.

We are told that the many arms symbolizes helping the many people this god has to help and the many faces symbolizes that this god is looking after people’s lives to help them.

I leave you with the photos. Since they are uploaded in high resolution I highly recommend that you examine the photos in and see the items the god is handling in his hand. Very detailed art! 

After you click on the photos below, it will take you to Picasa, then click this button in the top right of the statue photo to see the photo in full size. Then you can either use the mouse to drag it around or save-as on your PC.

Enjoy!

 The statue

 A closeup of the statue

 The traditional Buddhist drum overlooking the above statue

 a nice art work, click to examine in closeup

 both side by side

 

(1) Wikipedia

Doseon Sa Tour Part 2 - Entrance to the Temple

So, today we continue with the Doseon Sa tour.

Today I will explain the entrance to Doseon Sa Temple

One interesting thing is that the temple entrance is also an entrance to the Bukhansan National Park.

Bukhansan National Park holds the Guinness World Record for the most visit park in the world!

This place is visited by 6 million people per year!

Most of these are Koreans who want to hike at the Bukhansan Mountain or the Dobongsan Mountain.

In Korea, Hiking is the number 1 sport or, hobby, here… they love it!

In Dubai, on the other hand, my number 1 hobby was to eat fast food and watch 4 Simpsons episodes re-runs every weekend… :-D

However, for some reason I gain a little bit over 10 kgs in the last year alone (D’oh!)

I look forward to shed some weight here… maybe I’ll give this hiking thing a try sometime…

So, anyways, this is a map to the park in general (we are at the lower right):

Overhere, you can see the gate, guarded by four gods, representing the four directions.

The north and the south gods: To the right is the north god (the symbol of death) and to the left is the south god, holding the peril of wisdom:

They were portrayed after the scariest thing an 8th century  man could imagine……… A MOGUL COMMANDER!!

Yes… the Mogul were true to their reputation  at that time too.

And below are the gods of east and west…  Now, imagine you’re a simple farmer living in the 8th century and you see the scene those part-of-four coming to the temple...????

This was supposed to make you “good” once you reach the inside…

 

Of course, try THAT with a kid today who has seen Saw I, II and III before he is even 10… ! 

I doubt even such a 3D effect might work on him!

Kids today…

Royal Asiatic Society in Korea - Doseon Sa Tour Part 1

So, I am here in Seoul, Korea... finally...  In 3 short weeks, I have managed to revert to my earlier habits in Dubai... work, home, work, home, work, home, work, work, work.... home... weekend, sleep on weekend, sleep more on weekend... work, home... etc

So, what should I do?  I have promised myself, even before I come to Korea, to mingle with other people, Korean and Non-Korea, outside the workplace....

It was about time I keep a promise to myself... just for a change!

But how can I do that?  So, I searched the net a little bit and using Google and other Korea guides... and somehow I stumbled upon this website: http://www.raskb.com/

It turns out that is an expedite group which makes trips on Saturdays and lectures on the weekday about Korean culture. So, being interested in getting to know more about this country said "Why not?"  We gathered at 10:00am on Saturday, in front of a subway station.

We took the bus.  Doseon Sa (pronounced "Do-Seon-Sa") is a very well known figure in Korean history. He was the reformer of Buddhism in Korea.. probably the greatest Buddhist monk who ever lived!    

Why? Do you really wanna know why? then prepare yourself for a history lesson!  I know, I know, most of us used to hate history maybe even more than geography classes...!

But I am going to talk about his life only...  courtesy of Prof. David A. Mason, the university professor who guided us during the tour... one thing about this guy, he really loves history and the Korean culture  Usually, when you see someone passionate about something, chances are a lot of this passion would rub on you...
which what happened to me in this case!   I will be brief, for a detailed biography about Doseon's life, visit Prof. David's webpage:

Doseon-guksa: A brief Biography

Chinese Characters at the age of 2? WAW!

So, at 835 AD, soon after her was born, Doseon was a prodigy child said  to have learned reading Chinese characters when he was two, and decided to shave his head and  become a monk when he was 15. He entered a branch of Buddhism which was dedicated to learning scriptures.

The average monk typically 20~30 years to become enlightened in this discipline of Buddhism….. in order to become fully enlightened.

… It took Doseon only 3 years to memorize all the scriptures and become fully enlightened!

After this,  he decided to pursue another branch or Buddhism, which was more focused on meditation, after a few more years he was enlightened in that discipline as well!

(think of it as obtaining two PhDs, back to back, in less than 6 years!)

So, our story hero, Doseon, was a fully enlightened monk at the age of 20
Was that enough for him? No! He decided to travel to China, the birth land of Buddhism, to purse more branches of Buddhism and learn more.

He learned about the energy of the Earth’s the different powers of energy

Doseon-guksa: Tao-Abundance National-Master (826-898)

which is concentrated in specific locations and then transmitted through the mountains to different lands. (“Final Fantasy-The movie'”.. anyone?)

It was a serious study which combined geography and astronomy and religion.

Upon returning to Korea, using his vast knowledge, he started having disciples who carried his teachings.

Studying Chinese history and mathematics, he knew that the current (then) Korean dynasty are coming to an end. Having predicted who will be next King or so, he devised a map (using his knowledge of the power of earth) to decide where the next Korea capital should be. With blueprints on were each Buddhist temple should be and in which exact location (in order to channel the power of earth to protect the capital)

He did all of this and put it in a sealed envelope and delivered it himself to the father of the next king’s father. To and unmarried man who was building a house. He told him that his house will witness the birth of a great person. And he gave the papers to him and ask him that they should not be opened until his child is mature enough.

Doseon died shortly after that.

Well, the story goes that. thirty years later,  his child grow up to become the king of Korea and opened and followed Doseon’s plans for a new capital.

This temple was built to honor Doseon himself.

(To be continued...)

How to Negotiate your excess baggage, the hard way!

The answer in a nutshell? PLAY CHICKEN WITH THEM!

What is "Play chicken"? it don't mean that you run away! No... it means that you see who backs away... Keep pushing it to the very end and see who backs up first

Ok, so my company allows us to take 15 kgs excess luggage (i.e. we get re-reimbursed)

At weight-in, my baggage was +2 kgs from the allowed baggage allowance (30 kgs) + 15 kg excess baggage... which they waived without much trouble...

.. I wanted to push things even further... I wanted to see what happens if I demanded an extra 5 kgs off? I wanted to see how far can I go??!

They said "noo..! we have clear instructions from the management that we cannot waive even a single kg!! sorry!"

Of course, the Syrians are good at bargaining, but we are Masters and Kings in another thing

STUBBORNNESS!!

I kept saying "no... my company will only pay me for 10 kgs... the 5 kgs will be paid from my pocket"...

They were extremely stiff themselves, they said that they will not allow me to check-in if I don't pay the additional 15 kgs

I offered to take the 5 kgs from the bag, but they said that my hand-luggage was already over-weight and that this will not work...

I spoke with at least 3 ground-personnel and the supervisor... who kept insisting that she was doing me a favor by waiving 2 kgs and THATS IT!

I found an Arabic guy, who was even worse.. he said that even the CEO of the company cannot give me a discount since a memo was issued about his...

I tried every trick in the book, told them that they got the award for last year in all categories and being a customer I should be taken care of, but with no use


They kept insisting that I pay the 15 kgs as if the airline's quarterly profits depended on me!

So I kept it on, and said "ok, I will not travel" and I off-loaded my luggage and kept waiting... I wagered that they will not leave me at that counter and that they will eventually get me to pay only 10 kg

However, they kept their position, I started to get cold shoulders and I felt cold sweat from my face... I never went this far with an airline before...

.. and to make things worst, the supervisor approached me and said that unless I do my booking within 12 mins, they will have to leave me on the ground and I should catch the next flight...

So, I surrendered, I took my baggage and approached a counter she is occupying, and she told me to go to one of the other counters...

so I said "but they will charge me 15 kgs... I want 10 kg"

So, the lady finally said

"ok, take a couple of Kgs from your bag as handluggage let's get this thing done"

so... finally...

VICTORY!



[for legal reasons, this story has happened with Airline XYZ, the fact that this appears shortly after my previous blog should not draw any wrong conclusions from the reader's side]

My flight to Korea - Cathay Pacific

My first time to try this airline... it was not bad! very good, I might say

Ok, so the seat belts hardly fitted, but that can hardly be blamed on the airlines, isn't it?! (I was "this" close to ordering a seat belt extender!) Hey, I am not THAT fat! ^_^' but one thing was for sure, they expect passengers of a much lower dimensions... looking around the aircraft, I was within the highest 10% weight-wise

One more thing, the seat distances on the lower side... not too small, but no room for long legs.



Aside from that, the food was perfect... the service was one of the best I have ever seen in my life! Just click the "call" button and a cabine crew would be with you in 10 sec... plus, when they say "just one min. sir" they actually mean it... a one min is really a one min



And the entertainment system... my God! it was fantastic!

Ok, so myabe they don't have interactive games like Emirates or SriLanka Airlines, but who plays these anyway? And they don't have touch screens, but don't you find them annoying? I do! And who cares about the front and lower video shots (I like them, but only for 10 sec)

They have almost 25 channels playing non-stop! (unlike Emirates and others, where they only play them once... twice, it you are lucky)

Plus, the headphones are top notch, with a large ear-phone jacks, for high quality sounds...

Bare in mind that each channel is both English and Chinese dubbed (broadcasted on different channels) so the number of channels was +50

Overall, I give it a solid 8/10 !

Korean food in Dubai!

So, I thought to start familiarising myself with the food. So I checked www.timeoutdubai.com for a good Korean restaurant... I found this one with 5 positive reviews Dae Jung Kum

I want with my brothers, who were a little hesitant... but the result was very good

This first thing you notice the food smell once you're in. much more intense than a Japanese restaurant...

Plus, you will see that the chopsticks are made of metal, not wood... it is great for handling meat and rice, but much more harder than the wooden ones for noodles as they kept slipping over the metal! :-D



We ordered a dish which get cooked at you table! Each table has a BBQ built in... The lamb was great! Cooked with mushrooms and onion, and with a soybeans paste (which looks a little like hot chill paste)


The food is definitely more spicy and with more aroma than Japanese food... a little bit of a Chinese taste into it... but unique nevertheless.

Unlike Chinese food, Korean food didn't seem to have "sweet and sour" taste to it, they put appraisers for you (like Thai restaurants do), but they weren't very good

I loved the cold noddles, and the hot noodles were nice too


I wanted to finish it off with some desserts, but the only think they had was cold iced tea, with cinnamon... it was toooo sweet, even for me! You will find yourself breaking it with some cold water in order to be able to drink it... and the cinnamon taste was so intense you cannot detect the presence of any tea! but it was nice


All in all, it was a great experience... I got the feeling that I will enjoy now the Korean food.

Who knows? maybe even more than Japanese food!

checkout the complete photo album here

So, I am off to Korea

It wasn't an easy choice, but I have decided to take on a Project Engineer's position in Korea... hoping to enjoy the international exposure and seeing the work style of a different culture ... plus it would look good on my resume

This blog might give some passing comments on how job is like (i.e. enjoyable or not, difficulties(if any) relating to me being in Korea... although I expect little)..

However the main purpose of this blog is to focus on the life in Korea... and how different from Japan it is ...
(see my other blog: wisam-in-japan.blogspot.com)

So, let's get it rolling!