Two bison deaths at Hershey Park

    

On Sept. 7, two bisons was dead at Hershey's Zoo America because of last serious flooding. One drowned and the other was enthanized by the staff. Recently, A animal rights group PETA called for federal probe of the bison deaths. I have 3 questions on this case.

First, It is so big case for people here. When I googled this case, it showed me 506,000 results. I am surprised that deaths of two bisons can make such a big amounts of news. Last summer, South Korea had singular big flood in history but I've never heard any news of animals. I think American people think that animal is important as same as human more than Korean. I was also surprised that there is a word 'beloved bisons' in an article. It is hard to find this kind of word for anmials in the articles of newspapers in South Korea.

Second, I thought about enthanasia. Basically, I am not opposed to euthanasia. I think it's better to administer euthanasia than keeping unmeaningful life. But I am sure it has to be careful and be paid close attention. However, in this case, a staff shot a bison when he was in water. I am wondered how long the staff considered the bison's death and pain.

Finally, the biggest problem of Hershey's staffs is not to prepare evacuation. Everybody knew it was heavy rain and TV warned all day big flood. But they keeps saying they did not know the seriousness of flooding. I think it does not make sense and PETA said the zoo failed to evacuate the animals despite receiving warnings that severe flooding was imminent. In my view, they just ignored warnings and handled the flooding easefully.

The last flooding might cause many damages and victims. We can call it as a natual disaster. But we have to know human can prevent many of them.  

+ Why did they fail to evacuate the bison?

According to Hershey Park, the staff put the zoo evacuation plan into effect and began to move animals in danger spots to other Hershey Entertainment & Resorts property, including the Giant Center, Hersheypark, Hersheypark Stadium and Hersheypark Arena.

The flood waters rose very quickly in ther area occupied by two bison, said Mindy Bianca, Hershey spokeswoman. The bison weigh about 2,000 pounds each and stand about six feet tall.

+ What is PETA?

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals(PETA) is an American animal rights organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. A non-profit corporation with 300 employees and tow million members and supporters, it claims to be the largest animal rights group in ther world. Its slogan is "animals are not ours to eat, wear, experimetn on, or use for entertainment."

There are critics of their ways of campaign and euthanaia. There are also opinions that their advertisement is too exterme. In 2009, they eutanized 2,301 dogs and cats. They think if there is no shelter or home for animals, they will suffer pains and giving death to them is better than that.

Flooding, Who is in charge of it?

Do you remember flooding 2 weeks ago?

It might be YES, YES, YES.

It was huge disaster.

The front street was flooded, and people moved from uptown area.

Some roads became big ponds or a stream,

trees on the island was disappeared half of it.

The news was showing it again and again,

schools were closed, shops were closed, too.

(The mayor had said to close every shops)

But there was no one angry to the government.

People prepared everything themselves,

they didn't blame the government.

You might be wondered.

Why do I blame the government because of flooding?

 In Korea, there was flooding in this summer.

It was huge as like here,

subway station was closed as like New york,

cars were sinked, roads were disappeared.

And people were angry.

They thought it is in charge of the government.

To predict, To prepare.

The government need to build and fix a waterway,

and manage it for protection of flooding.

I don't think they are wrong, American and Korean.

I agree the government is in charge of flooding,

so its required to clean and maintain,

and the government has to be reproach for its carelessness.

But people also have to know the government isn't God who knows everything.

So they need to wait and keep on eye the government.

The government is a collaborator, which work together.

Hum.... Anyway, I like rainning, with a cup of coffee:)

Happy Chu-seok, Marry Chu-seok!



Happy, Happy, Happy!

It was awesome day.

Yesterday was a holiday, Chu-seok in Korea.

It's to celebrate to begin the harvest

t(Thanksgiving is a day to celebrate to finish the harvest)

and people shares these grains, fruits with whole family.

On this day, it's happen to huge moving in Korea,

because everyone try to visit there hometown to gather their family.

So,

I made a Chu-seok party with my new family, in Harrisburg.

I and Jenna had cooked more than 6 hours.

Nurumjeok(fried with vegetable and ham), Kimbab(Sushi with seaweed), Sesami reaf fried,

 Chicken stew(hot spicy), Fistbab(rice with tuna), Dongurangddang(fried beef, tufu and vegetable)

Ddukbboki(rice cake with spicy) and Sikhye(rice punci).

I was worried a little bit.

These food are not familiar with Americans.

Of course, I couldn't be sure my cooking..

However, everyone liked these!!

They were impressed taste, and enjoyed a lot.

I was so happy that they like korean food.

(and I didn't make disappointed my cooking, hahaha)

Even my family in Korea gathered together,

but I didn't miss them.

In Harrisburg, there are new family who enjoy Chu-seok with me!

Happy Chu-seok,

Merry Chu-seok!

(Traffic jam is terrible, but people don't give up to leave)

Social Media in South Korea

I think most of you have an account of Facebook. Nowadays, Social Media Service is growing up rapidly and smart phone boost it. So it became one of the important tools for everyone in private or public sector.

There are many social media services in South Korea. Koreans use global services such as Facebook, Twitter as well as Korean services like Cyworld, Metoday and Many portal websites offer blog service. Cyworld is the most famous SNS(Social networking service), which is similar with Facebook. Metoday is a same type of social media with Twitter. We call it microblog. I will explain the most popular social media service in South Korea, Cyworld compared to Facebook.

1.   The Biggist Korean SNS that Facebook can’t win in Korea, Cyworld

Cyworld that most Koreans are using launched in 1999. It is earlier than launching time of Facebook(2004). Cyworld offer the space to communicate with friends online like Facebook. The big difference between Cyworld and Facebook is openness.

If you sign in the site, you can get a “Minihompy” (Abbr. mini homepage) for the personal space.

 

Cyworld Minihompy

  

It is like a virtual home of each person. So Cyworld users visit friend’s home(Minihompy) to communicate with them on Cyworld. It is the way to use Cyworld. On the other hand, in the case of Facebook, it is like that people who hold their profile communicate one another in one big place. The way of cyworld is more inconvenient and closed.

We can see comments of strangers in News Feed page

 However, because of openness of Facebook, it is hard to personal communication that people don’t show to other people happen on Facebook. If you write on the wall of someone, all who are friends of the person can see it and it is easy. But Cyworld offers the feature to lock post and it can be shown to only the owner of MInihompy.

In conclusion, Facebook is good for communication with more people simply because of its openness. Compare to it, Cyworld is convenient to be used for communication with close people and when people share secrets and deeper things online.

2.   The present situation of Social Media in South Korea

-          Steep increasing of using SNS

According to a study of a Korean consulting company, the amount of a SNS used in South Korea increase 2.9% during last one year.  This percentage is the amount of a SNS used compared to the whole media using.

-          The purpose of using SNS

Most of Koreans using SNS have a clear purpose to use it. The study says around 70% of survey respondents use SNS in order to network with more people. The following is the result of Survey.

1.   to network with more people – 69.8%

2.   to get more information – 56.6%

3.   to update my situation – 38.9%

4.   to keep and arrange information they got – 31%

There is an interesting related to a second answer. 40% of respondents answered they trusted the information from SNS. It is much higher than 12.3% that answered they did not trust it. They think information from SNS is believable because of ‘retweet’(Twitter) or ‘like’(Facebook). It means they believe it because the source is their neighbor.

I think there is no big difference between Korean and American social media users. Both want to communicate with people more convenient. The interface of the service is the only difference. In fact, people who use Korean service and global service at the same time increases in South Korea. In my case, I also use several services depends on the purpose. I hope my writing be the chance that you can know Korea is also located in the trend of social media.