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ON FEBRUARY 9th, the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games rung up the curtain with a magnificent opening ceremony. As athletes from 95 countries entered the pentagonal stadium waving their national flags, what attracted the audience’s eyes were a circle of anonymous people dancing in red uniforms. The choreography was not highly complex, being rather close to a series of minimal rhythmic moves. However, what impressed global citizens was the volunteerers’ effort of dancing without a pause for one hour. These members had accounted for a large proportion of the organizing workfor
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Lee Ha-eun, Lee Hyun-kyung
2018.03.17 19:11
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A LONG trail of shoeless, scuffed people walk between the rice fields to a nearby Bangladeshi village. Many of them carry bundles─meager belongings that they managed to save when they fled for their lives from home. But, can it be called home? "Home" has been a place of recurring violence; persecution due to religious belief, rape, arson, murder, internment, and economic destitution. They are one million ethnic Muslim minority that used to reside in Rakhine state, west coast of Myanmar. They are the Rohingya. This long history of persecution has spawned radical ideologies, resorting to acts
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Lee Ha-yun & Kao Raymond
2017.11.14 14:39
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AMIDST THE vibrant greens of the Yonsei campus, Appenzeller Hall is home to the newly established Institute for Global Engagement & Empowerment and the Ban Ki-Moon Center for Sustainable Development. The two centers, headed by former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, were established in order to foster the school’s spirit of volunteer and philanthropy and to nurture young and ambitious supporters of sustainability. A true and active advocate of sustainable development, Ban plans to assist the centers’ research efforts, missionary projects, and community services. During an interview with the s
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Ko Eun-biy, Lee Seung-yeon
2017.10.18 23:08
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WE ENTERED the cozy brunch café in Sinchon to meet the two North Korean defector students. Student K glanced at the menu and ordered a New York style brunch. Student A pored over the sheets for a longer while and finally decided on steak. Excited for our food, we even considered ordering some beer too, until we remembered that we were at an interview.Contrary to our perhaps prejudiced expectations, nothing stood out from the two students that revealed their unique identities as North Korean defectors. In fact, their banters about the recently released American horror film Annabelle: Cre
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Yeo Ye-rim Roh Hyo-jung
2017.09.03 19:58
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WHEN I entered the office to have an interview with the fourth wealthiest man in Korea according to Forbes, Kwon Hyuk-bin, I was surprised by his simple plaid shirt and his friendly-uncle-like disposition. I had expected more opulence from a man who has gained the honor of being listed in top 500 wealthiest people in the world, according to *Bloomberg* billionaire index. But he spoke nothing of things like Armani suits and a cabinet full of expensive whiskey bottles. Rather, he spoke passionately of his dreams. Here was a man who followed his dreams rather than the bounty. Kwon Hyuk-bin is one
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Kim Yeon-seung
2017.08.25 22:20
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THE NATION was shaken at its core by shocking news first reported by the broadcasting station, JTBC, on Oct. 24. JTBC disclosed the contents of a discarded tablet PC belonging to Choi Soon-sil, a close confidant of President Park Geun-hye, revealing that Choi had been involved in critical political scenes for the past several years. The tablet PC’s contents showed that, despite being an unelected and unauthorized individual, Choi had possessed and even edited highly confidential government content, including 44 presidential speeches. Further accusations were made that Choi had taken advantage
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Editors
2016.12.08 23:42
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THE MOVIE Surrogates depicts a future society in which the distinction between the real world and the virtual world becomes ambiguous. People no longer go outside of their houses themselves but instead confront reality with a surrogate robot. With surrogate robots, which are more attractive and younger than humans, people indirectly experience the world. People are also able to express a different version of themselves – a different self-identity. As crazy as it might sound, the life depicted in Surrogates is about to come true. Already, people are expressing different self-identities an
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Lee Kyung-chul
2016.10.04 20:27
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SOUTH KOREA’s pursuit of an advanced welfare state has always been challenging. Citizens agree with the necessity to build a better social safety net for everyone, but hesitate when it involves a greater financial burden. Such is the case for the recent welfare project of the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG). The so-called Youth Allowance Project targets the disconnected youth, a recent term brought up by the SMG to describe young people in their twenties who are neither working nor studying at school. However, doubts have arisen about whether the new program can really help these youths wi
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Yeo Ye-rim
2016.09.07 01:04
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CAN YOU imagine a society with no cash at all? It literally means that everything will be paid in electronic payment means, including money bets with friends, pocket money, and claw machines on streets. In fact, such a phenomenon is not far from reality, as South Korea has already taken its first step towards a cashless society. The Bank of Korea (BOK) announced in April that it will achieve a coinless society by 2020 in order to “reduce the inconvenience of carrying and using coins in shops or transportation and to lower the cost of minting coins.” Its plan is to create a noncash system in wh
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Yeo Ye-rim
2016.06.16 17:24
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2016 was a glorious year for Leonardo Di Caprio. He received his first Oscar award, which he richly deserved, for best actor in The Revenant. When, finally, the frenzy surrounding Di Caprio's Oscar subsided, the award ceremony was engulfed with a different controversy, facing criticism for the lack of African-American nominees. The problem of exclusion is not limited to the United States or the Oscars. The 2015 entertainment awards here in South Korea did not have any female nominees for the grand prize. During an episode of the comedy show Infinite challenge, South Korea’s most beloved femal
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Kim Yeon-seung
2016.05.11 00:26
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“THE PRICE good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men,” said Plato. Plato’s quote implies that a society full of politically ignorant people will be led by a government that fails to represent their interests. Unfortunately, South Korea is currently undergoing a similar situation. The 20th South Korean general elections will be held on April 13 of this year, but in fact, young people are reluctant to vote. Even though they realize the importance of voting as their civic duty, many denies to engage in political affairs. They are dominated by general weariness and
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Yeo Ye-rim
2016.04.06 16:38
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ON THE 28th of January, a press conference hosted by the Students’ Unions of several private universities in Seoul took place in front of the National Assembly Building. More than eight Students’ Unions, including the 53rd Students’ Union of Yonsei University, united together to demand that proper operation of the Tuition Review Committee be guaranteed and that government subsidies for universities be expanded. They claimed that increasing government aid to private universities could bring a decline in tuition fees, thus opening up higher education to all students, regardless of their househol
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Hong You-kyoung
2016.03.04 16:17
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TO BUILD an “Environmental, Integrated, and Cultural Campus,” the Baekyang-ro project was initiated on March, 2012 and ended on September of 2015, under the slogan of creating a “Green Place of Integration and Exchange, Communication and Culture.” The massive-scaled project has finally been completed, letting students relish the reborn Baekyang-ro at last. Baekyang-ro has been a central part of Yonsei University’s history as a place where memorable moments of Yonsei students’ lives on campus were captured. As so, the renovation of such a meaningful site itself has been a controversial topic am
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Choi Ye-seon
2015.12.06 17:27
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NOVEMBER 17 is Patriotic Martyrs Day in Korea. Its date originates from the day Korea lost its sovereignty to Japan, and it commemorates the martyrs who fought valiantly for the country’s independence and died before seeing Japan’s surrender in 1945 at the end of World War II. Sadly, not many people nowadays know what the anniversary really celebrates. However, forKoreans, having knowledge of their ancestors, towhom they owe the current peace, is important. With Patriotic Martyrs Day not so far away, it seems opportune to ponder the emotion of ae-guk, love for one’s country, and learn about th
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Kim Yu-jin
2015.11.05 03:09
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“I AM reminded of a famous adage by Guanzi that growing grains will offer a year of prosperity, and growing trees will offer 10 years of prosperity, but growing people will offer 100 years of prosperity.” President Park Geun-hye made this statement in Beijing at Tsinghua University on June 29, 2013. A unique aspect of her speech, entitled “Opening a new period of two decades, a trip of trust between South Korea and China” was President Park delivered the first four minutes in Chinese, accentuating her effort to enhance Sino-Republic of Korea (ROK) ties. China, one of Korea’s most crucial partn
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Kim Ye-eun
2015.10.06 20:24
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THIS SEMESTER, Yonsei University adopted a new method of course registration known as the Yonsei Course Enrollment System (Y-CES), which combines three systems – mileage, time ticket, and waiting number. Whereas server crashes and chronic failures to register for desired courses were taken for granted under the previous registration system, Y-CES was expected to be free from these deep-seated plagues of course registration. The new system is currently Yonsei’s proudest boast, with president Jeong Kap-young even having announced his intent for the university to patent Y-CES and promote it
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Cho Yun-myung
2015.09.08 01:54
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THE STRUGGLE against the abrupt change of working conditions of numerous cleaning workers based at the Yonsei International Campus in Songdo has definitely been the hottest campus issue this semester. At the end of 2014, 23 among a total of 72 female cleaning laborers were discharged without forewarning to reduce school budget. The service charge, which according to the school general manager takes up about 12.3% of an average undergraduate’s tuition, has been increasing by around 22% annually for the past years. To confront this situation, the laborers and the student committee guarding labor
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Kim Ji-sun
2015.06.28 20:43
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A FEW MONTHS ago, a sentence on an online second-hand retailer captivated many consumers: “Honey Butter Chip For Sale.” Although the asking price was higher than the original sales price, the product sold out in the blink of an eye. Even at such an inflated price, people paid for the chip without any hesitation, expecting to receive them within the next few days. However, the chips never came. It turned out that 10,000,000 was swindled in total. Recently yet another product on a different online retailer has drawn attention: an empty bag of Honey Butter Chip, with a slight scent of the fable
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Paik Ji-eun
2015.05.11 19:57
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THE WEALTH gap has once again seeped into the education sector. According to the Ministry of Education’s recent announcement, households earning more than 6 million per month increased their private education expenses, while those earning less decreased their expenses. However, this phenomenon is not limited to private education alone. Households with incomes in the top 20% spent nearly eight times every month on education-related spending compared to those in the lowest 20%. As statistics suggest, the polarization of education based on money seems to have gotten bigger than ever. Must “good
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Choi Jean
2015.03.30 18:34
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“DO YOU know who I am?” Some ask this question rhetorically with disbelieving angry eyes. After asking the question, those people then usually proclaim their grand titles and names themselves. This “do you know who I am” card has been used by many people to gain the upper hand in a situation. It is the most representative case of gab-jil; a compound Korean word combining the word gab, meaning a being with superior power, and the suffix jil, meaning an act of doing. The word gab-jil refers to any wrongful acts committed by gab, the superior party, to eul, the subordinate weaker party. Gab-jil h
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Moon Sook-hyun
2015.03.02 14:12