A Visit to Seoul (Series 1/100)

Some hundreds of years ago, a young scholar who lived in a remote village married a woman from Kwachon. After the wedding ceremony, he went to live with the bride’s family. His father, worried about his son, said to him, “There is only one hill separating Kwachon and Seoul. When you arrive in Kwachon, you must take care never to visit Seoul.”

“Why not, father?” the young scholar asked.

“If you set eyes on a bustling, flourishing capital city, your mind will become unstable and you will be unable to concentrate on your studies. Please promise that you will remember this.”

The scholar was a devoted son, and he always did whatever his father asked of him. Therefore, he promised that he would follow his instructions, and left for his wife’s house.

After he had been living there for some time, however, it occurred to him that it would be a shame not to go and visit Seoul, since it was so close by. He felt that if he did not go and see Seoul then, he would be unlikely to have the chance to do so in the future. Therefore, in spite of his father’s advice, he climbed over the hill and made his way to Seoul.

Once on the other side, however, he felt so uncomfortable going against his father’s wishes that he turned back to Kwachon after reaching the South Gate.

When he returned to his wife’s house, however, he reasoned with himself that it would be acceptable for him to go Seoul provided that he could keep it a secret from his father. Again, on the next day, he made his way as far as the South Gate. However, he again remembered what his father had said to him, and being unable to pass further, went back to his wife’s house.

He repeated this several times, going to the South Gate in the morning and then returning to Kwachon. A soldier on guard at the gate thought the scholar’s actions suspicious and reported him to the authorities. He was arrested and interrogated by the head of the police.

“Why do you appear at the South Gate every day? What are you planning to do?”

The timid scholar replied in a faltering voice.

“I recently moved to Kwachon after getting married, and had never been so close to Seoul before. It was my father’s words that made me behave in this way.”

“Your father’s words? Explain what you mean.”

The scholar related the whole story, and begged the officer to pardon him.

“Since I could neither break my promise to my father nor abandon my wish to see Seoul, I walked back and forth in front of the South Gate every day.”

The officer saw that the scholar was a devoted son, and said, “Unless you yourself had told your father, nobody would have known about your coming to Seoul. But you kept your promise nevertheless, out of devotion to your parents. This is conduct worthy of a true son, and you deserve to be rewarded. Since you are already in Seoul, please take the opportunity to see the city, and then go back to your hometown.”

The young scholar was rewarded by the officer and taken on a tour of the city by a military escort, before returning home to his wife. He eventually told his father what had happened, and related all he had seen in detail. Later, he passed the state examination and rose to become prime minister.

India-Korea CEPA (Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement): From Initiation to Agreement

The Korean government has processed CEPA (Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement) with India.

Since the CEPA negotiation was initiated by the declaration at the India-Korea Summit in February 2006, twelve rounds of negotiation have taken place. In February 2009, India and Korea signed the Interim Agreement in New Delhi. By signing the India-Korea CEPA on 7 August 2009, the trade agreement was settled between India-Korea.

CEPA is different from FTA in the following way:

CEPA stands for Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. As means literally, CEPA refers to a comprehensive type of FTA (Free Trade Agreement). While FTA stresses trade liberalization, CEPA underlines a wider range of economic exchanges in various fields including goods and services, trade, investment, and economic cooperation.

Meanwhile, the Korean government is processing SECA (Strategic Economic Comprehensive Agreement) with Mexico as well. This is another type of bilateral trade agreement. But unlike FTA, SECA allows market opening only in a limited number of areas. This type of bilateral agreement is generally preferred by the countries in South America, as this was regarded as an intermediary stage of reaching FTA. For instance, Mexico has transferred its SECA with Chile and Uruguay into Mexico-Chile and Mexico-Uruguay FTAs respectively.

India-Korea trade negotiation was finalized in the form of CEPA in respect of India’s request.

The expected impacts by India-Korea CEPA:

India-Korea CEPA is aimed at establishing institutional framework of bilateral relations in economic and trade fields. It is significant in two following aspects. First, CEPA will provide a stepping stone to establishing strategic partnership between India-Korea. India-Korea have a high degree of trade complementarity. While major Korean products exported to India are automobile components, mobiles and petro-chemical products, Korea imports basic materials from India such as naphtha, cotton thread and metal mineral.

Second, India is a market with a huge potential. India is the 4^th largest market after the US, China and Japan. It has the 2^nd largest population (1.1 billion) in the world and the PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) of GDP is as big as 3 trillion dollars. It is the 19^th important trade partner of Korea, and the trade volume between India-Korea is on the rapid increase. In this respect, India-Korea CEPA is expected to provide a stepping stone to prosperous relations between India-Korea.

Chronology of India-Korea CEPA

2006

7 February: Declaration of initiating CEPA negotiations at the Seoul Summit

2008

2-4 April: Inter-session Consultations of India-Korea CEPA (New Delhi)

29 May-2 June: 10^th Round of India-Korea CEPA (Seoul)

29 July-1 August: 11^th Round of India-Korea CEPA (New Delhi)

22-25 September: 12^th Round of India-Korea CEPA (Seoul) (tentative agreement)

23-25 November: 1^st Round of Legal Consultation of India-Korea CEPA (Seoul)

5-7 December: 2^nd Round of Legal Consultation of CEPA (New Delhi)

2009

9 February: Pre-signing of India-Korea CEPA (New Delhi)

7 August: Signing of India-Korea CEPA

Korea In Building Construction

Korean construction companies are among the limited number worldwide capable of offering Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) contracts, turnkey arrangements that encompass all aspects of the building process from design to project finance. Amongst many other projects, Samsung C&T Corporation's iconic super-tower, Burj Dubai, currently nearing completion in the United Arab Emirates, is one of the most outstanding examples.

Expected to be the world's tallest building, its precise height has not yet been revealed, but it is expected to be at least 700 meters high, nearly twice the height of the Empire State Building, and 200 meters taller than the current tallest building, the Taipei 101 in Taiwan. The 55-story Emirates Towers Dubai Hotel and 73-story Raffles City Complex in Singapore, both built by Ssangyong
Engineering & Construction, and Samsung’s 88-story Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia, completed in 1998, are also famous architectural landmarks.
Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction, a South Korean water plant builder, has developed an unrivaled leadership in its field. Doosan holds a 42 percent share of the worldwide market for water desalination, and expects to earn at least $40 billion over the next 20 years from sales to the six countries of the Arabian Peninsula – United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Building on its success in the Middle East, it is now planning to expand
into other regions such as North America and Africa.

Source: 50 wanders of Korea, Vol -II Science and Technology

Research and Development Process In Korea

Korea has became the destination of research and development for last few decades. As in Indian case, education system is borrowed by UK so in the case of Korea borrowed by US system. Normally 4 years of undergraduate study after 12 years of high school and then graduate study (Master 2 years, and Ph.D. 3 years and more).

Most of the professors are US educated have great command in their area and very helpful to the students (very exception in some area). They work too much and demand for the same from the students. It is very normal for a Korean professor to come at 9:00 am and left school by 10:00 pm. I observed one thing very interesting here about the outlook of the office. Normally Indian professors have small room, some books and rarely some other stuff. But Korean professors' room is full of books, and all daily needed stuffs even some time bed too. Probably, Indian professors room is not his/her headquarter but act as brach office and his/her head quarter must be in their home.

How they guide to graduate students?
That depend upon the professors, but in general all the professors have weekly meetings. For example, my professor use to have meeting on every Saturday from 3:00 pm onwards. Few graduate students present their work in the meetings and get comment from the professor as well as peers students. I think it is good way to guide, every one has opportunity for presentation and that seminar is a kind of in-house seminar.
Beside that, they have special summer/winter class. Here, Normally semester lasts for 3.5 month and about 2.5 month break between semesters. In this vacation, students use to organize their time by this special summer/winter course beside summer/winter courses by university.

One more notable thing against India is about time limitation for thesis submission. You can submit your dissertation by semester wise based on your own programmed time. It means that if you want to submit thesis in particular fall/spring semester you have to inform and do all the papers work and then finally your thesis will be evaluated for that particular semester and you will be awarded degree.

Do they have coursework in graduate study?
Yes, normally for Master program we have to take 24 credits and for Ph.D. course we have to take 36 credits. Beside these credits, we have to pass language course (depending upon schools) and thesis qualifying exam. And after passing these requirments you will be called as 'doctoral candidate'.

Some useful sites for exploring Korea

Here I will try to update some important websites in various areas in Korea.

Culture:

http://koreanhero.net/
This website is about some heroic stories of Korea.


Education:

Tenure: faculty verses housing

One of my good friend mentioned that In United States, true contribution of research (or in other words radical research) starts after getting tenure. Before tenure faculty members do not take risk for radical research because it may harm in getting a tenured position. And after a long talk I observed tenure position is very important for research especially radical research.

I revisited the issues of tenure in housing. How tenure is important in housing? I felt that there is great linking in tenure for radical improvement in housing especially for urban poor.

But How we are unaware and the very same 'tenure' is more stressed in academic domain but less stressed in solving housing issues for urban poor.

There is need to link urban slum problems with their tenure of land in more depth. Let us build our cities slum free with maximum tenure of land to underprivileged section of society.

Kyoto a historical, envorionment friendly city

Here, I will note down few interesting things about Kyoto journey. Kyoto is accessible by many international airports. But I went there by Kansai International Airport, which is constructed on man made island. This is wonderful example of high level of civil engineering input. Since its construction it has sunk more than 8 meter. It has provided lessons for other airports like Hong Kong Airport and probably to Incheon International Airport.

Japan in general and particularly Kyoto impressed me for many resons. First, its multi-cultural nature. Although I am living in Seoul a cosmopolitan city but have not observed too much multiculturalism despite government intention. In East Asia we rarely see any Halal food but they have arrangement in their University cafeteria and even in reception parties. I remember most prestigious university of Korea SNU tried for the same in past but could not succeed. So this could be one lesson for Korea from neighbor country japan.

Second, very friendly with environment. I observed many people ride bicycle including university students and professors. Kyoto has very good cycle friendly path.

Third, City has many world heritage sites and government is very serious to conserve it. Heritage conservation helped buildings and precincts conservation one hand and tourism promotion in other hand. Probably, this nature of Kyoto has guided it for low dense development. In the city we can feel harmony in development. The buildings are very much in integration with each other.

You can feel the very same about Kyoto in photographs tour.