Monday, November 25, 2013

While staying for years in Seoul, South Korea, there are few social etiquettes that are ingrained in people's mannerism. Here, I would like to share about social discipline that helps people be organized and above all cultured & civilized. So what is that social discipline? This is "queue" or simply "line up". I googled to get its definition. Here it is, " Queue is a line or sequence of people or sequence of people or vehicles awaiting their turn to be attended to or to proceed." Synonyms are many - line, row, column, file, chain, string. For many, this may not sound important or may seems a usual. However, I take it as reflection to social norms but have not recognized its long term implication or social value that it portrays.

Monday, November 18, 2013

About South Korea

I have decided from now onward, i am going to write a paragraph or so about what i observe and learn here in Sooth Korea. My focus would be socio - cultural and political landscape so we would in a position to learn how South Koreans developed their country from ashes to economic powerhouse.

Firse, let us try to go to roots of South Korea as a nation. I would like to therefore put forward some questions so we can get answers. The simple approach that i am going to utilize to get information or data would base on the mantra that "for every reason there should be another equally valid reason".

  • What is the meaning of Korea?
  • What does the colored Korean flag signify?

The word Korea is said to derive from the word "Goryeo". The Goryeo is the name from Goguryeo which was an old country in the North of Korean peninsula up to very North East Russia. Goguryeo has two parts. "Go" and "Gauriy" in Chinese means High, Top level, Heavenly. "Gauriy" or in nowadays Chinese "Gauli" means beautiful norhtern Country. The word Korea in an ancient language "Goryeo" means the beautiful country in the North.

Every Country designs a flag that holds special meaning for the people and the state. So is the case for South Korea. The South Korean flag is beautiful with a blue and red taegeuk in the center in the white background. A taegeuk looks similar to a ying and yang symbol. There are four trigrams evenly place around the taegeuk. each of these is black in color and represents a different aspect of the South Korean culture. It is a simple flag with a lot of meaning. The flag was given its official reign in january 25, 1950, though it was chosen as far as 1882.

Another sole intention of my writing would be to search for Cheap and Affordable Technology (in short CAT). Just yesterday, i happen to discuss with a colleague of mine, what does the word "innovation" mean, although we use this word very often and I think, this has become a catch word for this century of Inofrmation technology (IT) revolution.

So I googled this word and came very close to a very comprehensive definition through Wiki answers as  "the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, inarticulated needs, or existing market needs. This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments and society

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation)