200Q

According the book '1Q84', letter Q means question mark. In the story, Aomame confuses when she is living since the run up to the sudden accident. Finally, she decides that she is living at 1Q84, not 1984.

I feel sympathy with this Q. Actually, I'm also wondering if I live at 200Q, not 2009. After 10 years, 20 years, and a far years later I will look back on the present. I'm not sure what I will do. I thought the ideal and the real are divided by joining army. After ETS, everything around me will be changed. So, I need to prepare the future. It's time to look down on the compass of life.

Balance between Work and Family

According to the Korean Herald, the National Statistical Office (NSO) has announced that the South Korea’s total fertility rate dropped to 1.08 last year, and reports the number of newborns has also dropped nearly 8 percent to 438,000. The fertility rate is the lowest in the world, and broke South Korea’s 2004 record of 1.16(click here, for full text).

There are a lot of reasons concerning the low birth rate. Most of all, child rearing is getting more difficult. That's the obvious reason. As the list of 100 best companies to work for 2007, almost one-third of the best companies offer on onsite child-care center. Here is the rank.

In many ways, however, Korean companies need to consider about employee's family. The balance of between Work and Family is hot issue, but it's getting more important than before.
Here is one woman working at frontier of Work and Family area in Korea. Her name is Julie Lim, CEO of WorknFamily. Work and Family Inc. is the family-friendly consulting company in Korea. They offer vital information about bringing up children, taking care of the elderly, educating the disabled and client adjusting Work-Famliy Balance.

I wish WorknFamily will be the leading company in employee's wealth area. Here is some recommendation. First of all, the core capability of consulting firm is the professionalism in their business. They need to proof that they have the best solution. Second, building network with clients is also important. If they succeed to make a buzz with open seminars or brunch meetings, it's really helpful to take the initiative. Finally, they should take proper position in the industry ladder.

English with Jennifer

At work, my supervisor and 1SG sometimes felt frustrated in conversation with me. Worse, it's happened in conversation by telephone. Whenever we don't make ourselves understood in English, I'm also frustrated and ashamed of poor language skill. However, I don't give it up because I can learn from faults and develop to success next time.
Even though I've studied English almost for 10 years, I began to speak English 3 years ago when I went to study at TU-Berlin, German as an exchange student. I think using language is more important than learning. I tried to learn several language such as Germany, Italian, Chinese, and Spanish. After a few weeks, I forgot almost. From this experience, I swear most important is to keep using foreign languages after learning it.
Following this view, I got great lucky because I still have 11 months more to conduct military duty as KATUSA. As using English, I practice English with many materials. I prepare multimedia rather than books.

I'd like to introduce my online English tutor, Jennifer. Here is one of her works.

Like this, she uploads videos of quality English lessons. Practice makes perfect.

TOEFLtv on YouTube

Following the definition of wikipedia, the Test of English as a Foreign Language (or TOEFL, pronounced "toe-full") evaluates the ability of an individual to use and understand English in an academic setting. It sometimes is an admission requirement for non-native English speakers at many English-speaking colleges and universities. The TOEFL test is a registered trademark of Educational Testing Service (ETS) and is administered worldwide.

That's why so many students who would like to go aboard for studying in English speaking countries try to get high score of TOEFL. These day, I'm also considering about taking the test because of same reason. I happened to find that ETS is launching TOEFLtv on YouTube. Here is a piece of cake.


Everyone can share their know-how of learning English through TOEFLtv. Besides, I think it's really good what you can listen English with various foreign intonations. It helps you experience a meeting with world-wide business partners.

Ku6.com, ChinaTube

Among Jim Rogers' best advice,

Master more than one language - and make sure one of them is Mandarin

He always emphasizes two things, those are commodity and China.
I happened to visit Ku6.com, which is Chinese video portal like YouTube.

Seoul Metro Cut-Man, instead Push-Man

Between the end of 1980s and the beginning of 1990s, Korean economic was on a fast track. Korea growth rate made two digits. At that time, Korean rapid-rapid(빨리빨리) custom began famous in the world.

The rapid custom made some weird jobs. One of those is push-man who push people into a train. Seoul Metro used to hire push-man in order to load more people at one time. As the GDP is growing on the stable state, people is going to have my cars. Soon, push-man faded away into history.

In proportion as Korea stands up on the threshold of developed country, people begin to consider quality of life. Seoul Metro sets security screen doors at subway stations to protect from missing someone's step. However, rapid custom is not disappeared. People try to go through security screen doors just closed and get an accident. Because of the security problem, Seoul Metro have to bite the bullet and hire cut-man, instead of push-man 1990s. Someone is glad to hear this news concerning employment.

However, I don't agree with that. First of all, subway cut-man relates to a problem of labor flexibility. Professor Chang, Ha-Joon(장하준), author of Kicking away the Ladder said labor flexibility make more irregular jobs. Dr. Chang noticed that many irregular positions in service industry are a far away from productivity. Second, Seoul metro should have tried to design Nudge in order that people stop to take risk instead a cut-man. Cut-man could be helpful to decrease accidents in a shot term, but in a long term setting Nudge decrease cost as well accidents. In conclusion, cut-man is an evidence of social disorder.

Tong Yang Securities Come Ture My Proposal

I wrote a proposal concerning a salary of ROK soldiers at a business course, spring semester 2008. No one supported my proposal, even my team members didn't think of it seriously.

Here is a summary slide of the proposal.
After 1 year, Tong Yang Securities(동양증권) launches a CMA bankbook for soldiers. I'm happy to read that news. This CMA is not exactly same with my original proposal, but this shows me one kind of realistic results.