How old are you?

Oct. 7. It was my birthday.

I invited some friends and had the mexican dinner with them.

At that time, I got a lot of questions to ask my age.

I answered "25 In America, but Im still 26 in Korea."

If you are American or European, you are confused this sentence.

If you are Chinese or Japanes, you can understand exactily what I told.

Yeah, It's different to calculate age between them.

In America and Europe, a baby is 0-year-old when he is born.

And he is 1-year-old after 12 months past.

In Korea, Japan and China, a baby is 1-year-old when he is born.

And he is 2-year-old after 12 months past.

I celebrate my birthday, but my age isn't changed on that day.

Every 1 on Jan, everyone get 1-year-old together.

People of 3 countries thinks it is a human being even he isn't come out yet from the belly of mother.

So they add 1-year-old when he is born.

One more thing, I have 2 birthday in one year.

One is 1986.Oct.7 followed by sun calendar,

the other is 1986.Sep.4 follewed by moon calendar.

Long times ago and utill now, Korea has moon calendar.

It's not public calendar, but we our holiday(new years day and Chu-seok)

has to calculate on the moon calendar.

I hope its enough to explain how to calculate age in Korea.

......

......

and I prefer American's way..

I want to be young!! ;_;



Burqa and the rights of Muslim women

On Oct. 8, we have a Teacher workshop on Muslims. I learned many things about Islam and Muslims. Among them, I got more interested in Burka. So I will talk about Burka and the controversial issues on that in this post.

Burqa means an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic religion to cover their bodies in public places. Usually, people who don’t know the name call it just a veil. There are several kinds of veil that Muslim women wear and they are called as other names depending on the level of body exposure. Burqa is the kind of veil that covers the most part of body among them.

It became as a symbol of repression to women because of Taliban in Afghanistan. They forced women to wear Burqa as one of their extreme policies. Still now, in many Islamic countries, Women are reinforced to wear Burqa by husbands and government. They have to live behind the veil. They cannot make friends on their communities because the purpose of Burqa is to hide women from people. Only her family who are presented by her husband can see her own appearance. Yes. Burqa means the subordination to men for Muslim women. The biggest problem is they cannot choose to wear this Burqa or other clothes.

So, do you think we have to get rid of Burqa because of it is a bad thing? Many non-Muslim has that kind of opinions, especially in Europe. Many countries in Europe want to take it over from Muslim women because they are afraid of Muslims who live in their own territories. It makes even the word ‘Islamophobia’.

Last year, France banned Burqa. They had many ridiculous reasons such as the violation of rights to equality. They said women who wear Burqa violated the rights to equality because they could see other’s face but hid their face. It doesn’t make sense. It’s like if I am naked, you have to be naked because it is fair to do so. Even ban on Burqa is the contradiction itself. People blame forcing Muslim women to wear Burqa. The prohibition of Burqa also compels them not to wear Burqa.

I think their movement against Burqa is not to protect Muslim women’s right but to oppress Muslims by using the symbol of their religion. In reality, Muslim women have protested against Government who prohibit their own garment.

 "This is an attack on my freedom of conscience, my freedom of religion, my freedom simply of being a woman, so this is a really big attack on my own life”.

This is said by one female of protesters. Burqa can be suppression to Muslim women but at the same time, it can be the most valuable thing to them.

Commercial Breaks

This monday, Gossip Girl that is my favorite drama started its season 5. Because of it, I watched TV for the first time in USA. I was really excited and concerntarted on TV. However, My Gossip Girl was often interrupted by commercials. I already knew that there are some commercials in one show in USA but it was too much! I didn't know which one was longer, the drama? or commercials? The commercial breaks came around 4 times during watching the drama. I could watch the drama for 4 minutes and had to watch commercials for 3 minutes.

During a program on American TV...

    

            A program 4 min.                 ->             Commercials 3 min.          ->        A program 4 min.

In korea, commercial breaks during one program show on the public broadcasting channel is prohibited. They can emit commercials only before and after the program. On cable channels, commercials are inserted in the middle of a program but the length and the number of times depending on the length of programs are limited by regulations.

Few years ago, there were vocies to introduce commercial breaks in the middle of a program for profit of advertisers. They insist the income of advertisers is getting reduced so the introduction of commerical breaks is needed for the efficiency of advertisement. The government and broadcast stations also agreed with them and they pushed ahead to do it.

However, public people didn't want to accept it. They were opposite against it because of right of wathing. They said people have a right to watch TV without interruption of commercials. So Korea can't bring commercials in the middle of a program.

In my opinion, I understand this system can promote industry of advertisement and help them to live more but commercial breaks in programs annoys me. Under korean system, viewers can control channel when commercials come out and go back to the cannel when the program that they want to see starts if they don't want to watch commercials. But in America, it is hard to change channel when commercials are on air because they don't know when the program start again. It's really inconvenient for viewers and just good for advertisers.

In most ways, I support American's free-regulation system but when it comes to commercials, I think proper regulating is not bad and needed.

Glad to meet you, Congressman Tim Holden.

It was a office of congressman, Tim Holden.

There were people to say hello each other

and they talked lively in the hall.

Someone talked about family as a greeting,

on the other hands, the other talked to discuss the hot issue in Harrisburg.

I turned my eyes to the office.

(Because I didn't know who they are..., but I said hello a lot in there, too.)

I looked around the pictures on the wall

and articles in the newspaper.

These show me who he is and what he did.

Something was so old, so I could guess he has worked so long time.

There was a football picture, so I could he like a football.

Tim Holden started to speak in front of people.

He spoke not fast, not slow.

Everyone in the hall concentrated on his speech to understand what he said.

(I also tried to focus on it, but its too difficult to understand for me.)

After his speech, people started to ask questions to him.

A guy asked what is plan for Harrisburg and he explained the answer what its going.

Congressmas needs to communicate with people, voters.

They have to speak their supporters opinion in the house and public.

In a same time, they also need to pursuade their supporters.

Even some people suggest an idea to give benefit to them,

it always can't be good,

in the view of federal gov, or in the view of state gov.

He tried to communicate with them.

So people tried to understand him.

It was good chance to remind a duty of politician.

......

(Anyway, the lunch was delicious!)