Thursday, June 22, 2017

Hi Professor!

Professor. This is Christina Woo from your PIE and Prose&Paragraph class. I just want to thank you for a wonderful semester. I've learned to write better and to present myself more professionally. The topics we discussed in the P&P class was very interesting and the comments Professor gave me was very useful. 
Thank you so much! 

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Soyoung Woo/Chapter4 final draft/wednesday 1~2

3.Which "The Ant and the grasshopper" is closer to real life, Aesop's fable or the Maugham story? Why?

 

 

Life is unfair, but Do not give up

 

 

I think that Aesop's fable "The Ant and the grasshopper" is closer to real life because of course there are exceptions, but usually the world is more likely to be a more sincere person. I think that Maugham's story is included in the exception.

 

The original world is unfair. The innate things in the world affect our lives so much. For example, when I was high school student, I not only have my friend who listened very hard classes, but also who thoroughly examines and reviews. and I have a friend who does not study after listening only to class. in middle exam and final exam, the latter friend had better scores that the former. I think that it is unfair situation but people in the world should not give up and give up. If they are not inherently talented, I think that they will be totally abandoned if they do not even try. So I think Aesop's fable is more useful to the average than the Maugham's story. I think that it is almost impossible to win a born talent with innate endeavors but I do not think that there are very few people who are inherently 'very good' talent. Therefore, I believe that ordinary people will succeed if they try hard like Aesop's fable's an ant. So I think that Aesop's fable "The Ant and the grasshopper""is closer to the real life than the Maugham story.

 

 

 

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Seonghwan Cho / Chapter4 Part5 Draft2 / WED1-2

Working Mothers Need Help

 

As the generation went by, the role of men and women has changed. Among many changes, it is representative for women to be able to participate in economic activity. In the past, women can only do household chores and child caring. But today, We can find women in our workplace. This change seemed to be a blessing at the beginning because it means women can have same right right to work as men. However, nowadays it is a burden to women especially who have children. As the economic situation suffer hard time, it is difficult to make a living only by husband's income. As a result, women are forced to work in addition to taking care of their child and doing chores. Of course, I'm sure there is no one who thinks mother can do all of the requirements. For those working mothers, our society should guarantee their quality of life since they are members of our society. Through this writing, I'd like to deal with what society can do to help women balance work and family. And there are two main sections I will discuss one is political and economical and the other is sociocultural.

 

First of all, let's consider political and economical section. We need a policy to help working mothers. And the policy has to be practical and effective not nominal. What is now implementing is baby break it means child-care leave and subsidy for it. It looks seemingly great policy. However, many working mothers don't use the baby break. According to a research by the Korea Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, among 788 working mothers aged 15-49 since 2011, only 41.4% used baby break. It is because they worry to be fired or to get any disadvantages in workplace. The baby break is a paid leave so working mothers think the business owner doesn't like it. Actually, some business owners dislike those policies since they are business losses. Therefore, working mothers say the current policies are too nominal. Moreover, in addition to such difficulty in using, the policy itself is not effective. Allowed leaving period is not long enough to take care of young baby. Especially, the subsidy given while leaving is insufficient considering the price of diaper and milk powder. Working mothers also say what they really want is not a new policy but actualizing the current policies. To increase the utilization rate, policy makers should design more feasible policies which working mother can feel free to use while minimizing business losses.

 

Next is the sociocultural section. This can be more personal solution at the beginning because it is about conscious aspect. While the debate about working mothers is heated, many people still do not consider it is an important issue. I think it is due to traditional stereotype. I mean still there is perception that child caring and doing chores are women's own. That's why I said women are forced to work "in addition to" taking care of their child and doing chores in the first paragraph. I strongly believe that we need to break it down. Men should feel a sense of duty as to child caring and household chores. Just giving women right to work is not fair. If such change on personal perception is accumulated so that cultural change is made, we could relieve working mothers' hardship.

 

As to this topic, I have had an interview with one working mother, who is a friend of my cousin sister. Her name is Hye-sun Lee, and she has two children. They are 8-year-old and 6-year-old each. She works in IT field. Of course her husband is working. She wanted to talk specifically about the golden week holidays earlier last May. There were Buddha's birthday, Children's day, and 2017 Korean Presidential Election day. Her children's elementary school and kindergarten announced there will be temporary holidays from May 3rd to 9th. However. Her husband and she couldn't apply for a leave because there was many works to do. Even though they could use it legitimately, realistically it is hard. As a result, both parents could not take care of their children by themselves. Instead, she asked her sister to take care of them. Whenever she does so, she feels sorry to their children for not having a time together. She strongly said that there are many working mothers who are temporary-employee or are working in small company. She added those women are usually told from business owner "if you want to use baby break, just quit the job. There are many people who could substitute for you." She finished the interview with this remark. "To actualize the current policies is what the government should do first. Working parents must feel free to use the policies. Also, all working parents want to be a sincere parents to their children."

 

Today, I talk about hardship working mothers are suffering nowadays in two main sections and related interview. People in our society need to change our recognition about women's role. And the policy maker should make the current policy more practical, possible, and effective as well as just make new policies. To conclude, I hope in the future women can live a more satisfying life.

 

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Hyobin Jeon/chapter 4 final draft/Wed12

Three Kinds of Careers based on Sex

 

            Recently, the gap between certain jobs which were qualified only for the men or women in the past is getting smaller. For example, imagine the situation when someone says "I am a nurse" and we do not know whether this person is a man or woman. In the past, there is a high possibility that this person is a woman because almost the whole nurse are woman at that time. But, nowadays, a lot of men are trying to be nurses, and the number of these men nurses is increasing rapidly, so we can not assure this person's sex. As we can see in this one simple example of nurse, world of career keeps changing very fast. However, there are still some differences between what men can do better than women and vice versa. So today, I am going to categorize careers for three parts depending on sex and explain some examples of these three categories.

            First of all, there are some parts of careers which men can perform their own role better than women actually do such as construction workers, taxi drivers or the workers of distribution center. These jobs have characteristics that require exhaustion of physical strength of workers. Imagine the site of constructing tall buildings and structures. In this site, the laborer have to carry heavy subsidiary materials, go up and down a lot of long staircases, and run around the large building sites. Or, you can also think about the day of taxi drivers. They have to sit in narrow space in the car and drive all day for their passengers. The workers of distribution center have important roles of carrying customers' packages which are sometimes so heavy or fragile that they need a particular attention. Generally, these jobs are mostly qualified for men socially. So, these is a special area where men can do better than women do because of the differences between men and women.

Secondly, there are some parts of careers which women can perform their own role better then men do such as kindergarten teachers, nurses or a social worker. At the kindergartens where are full of young mischievous children, teachers should take care of these children as following them. Similarly, fundamental role of nurses is to attend their sick and ill patients at the hospital and that of social workers is also to look after social minorities by being a companion to talk with or doing certain things which minorities can not do. Generally, these jobs are mostly qualified for women socially. As we can see these examples, the part that women can perform much better than men generally do have characteristics related with the ability of volunteering for someone and taking care of them.

Finally, there are some parts that do not have a clear separation of who can perform far better their roles between men and women. Jobs such as middle, high school teachers or chefs can be categorized as this part. These jobs are not clearly divided as jobs for men or jobs for women today. According to my aunt, who is now working as a history teacher at high school, there is little gap between the number of men and women among her colleagues at work and also that of their abilities as teachers. Instead, she said that the ability of teaching knowledge to students is depending on individual, not on sexes.

In this writing, I wrote my own three categorizations of careers depending on sex. Although not every careers can be defined clearly by these three parts I explained above, I think that my explanation can be the most general categorization when dividing careers. I hope that all readers could share various opinions about careers through this writing.

 

 

 

Hayeon Jin/ Chapter 4 Final/ Wed 1-2

3. How can we solve the conflict of working mothers? In other words, what should society do to help women balance work and family if they must or want to work?

 

Working Mothers? Why not Childrearing Fathers?

The birth rate of the society nowadays is consistently plummeting. The price index has reached a new high, while the wage has not risen much. Given that, it is hard to sustain the family with single income. This explains the reason why the number of working mothers has drastically increased for past two decades. Many of the working mothers find it tough managing both work and childrearing. Therefore, strict implementation of childcare leave in the companies and the reformation of the stereotyped gender roles in the society are needed.

The presence of child care leave system in the companies is so faint that most of the employees can't use it. The child care leave system is supposed to be mandatory by laws in all the companies. However, the defect and the shortage of laws make companies worm their way out of letting employees use it. This makes many working women struggle with their work and childcare. Many of them can't even fully spend their maternity leave but get back to their work. Based on the interview I had with my fathers' friend, working mother, she was unable to fully spend her maternity leave. The boss had tacitly given her a sign that she would be transferred to different station if she empties her space for a long time. What is worse is that she was not the only one who had suffered from such injustice. Some of her co-workers even quitted their jobs for this reason.

Thus, there should be strict implementation of childcare leave by strengthening the surveillance whether the companies are keeping the child care leave system properly or not. Plus, the punishment in case of the nonfulfillment must be reinforced. The government should also tighten up and add details to the regulations regarding child care leave system in a new way. It should not only be the women but also the men who should use that system. The male employees must be given a chance to care their children, and this can only be done with the reformation of the stereotyped gender roles in the society.

Have you heard of the term "working fathers" or "childrearing mothers"? I know that your answer is no. The society had been patriarchic for most of the time. The status of women has been risen starting only few decades ago. It is proven by one statistics, that the percentage of women executives in the 100 major companies in Korea 2016 is only 2.2%. The society had given all the burdens of childcaring to the women. However, the world has changed. We should break such stereotyped gender role. Just as mentioned above, the society should guarantee and foster men to use child care leave. We should always remember that it must never be only the women but also the men who should be responsible for childcaring. Only by then can the working mothers balance both work and family.

What society can do for struggling working mothers are the strict implementation of childcare leave in the companies and the reformation of the stereotyped gender roles. The conflicts that working mothers are facing now will not be solved in an instant. We all need continuous attention in order to make world better for working mothers to live in.  

 

 

Christina Woo/Chp4 Final draft/A3

Time for a Change

             It was unusual for women to work in the previous century. Most women stayed at home while men worked; women did not stand the chance to discover or fulfill their potential, and it has not been long since society started to approve of women standing equally with men. However, the conflict of working mothers is still unsolved. I have cut it down to two main points on methods for society to help the working mothers to balance their work as well as their household work. The first point is that society should reinforce the child care service, and the second point is that working women in Korea should be able to leave work on time.

             Firstly, the number of child care service has already increased by a great amount. A Korean child care accreditation proposed that 80% of the child care facilities has been legally approved, whereas the 20% of the facilities has not. However, although these facilities has been approved, there are still many of them that are morally unrighteous. For example, child abuse is the biggest reason why parents hesitate to send their child to the day care service. Child care should be a place of justice and I believe the government should strengthen the service by paying extra attention on the child care service by checking up on these facilities frequently and only allowing verified facilities and services for the children, also by hiring well educated people who truly has a heart to take care of the children. If so, mothers would feel secure and safe at work and children would feel that they are taken care of. It will then be a win-win situation for the parents, the child care service, and the children.

             Secondly, workers should be able to leave work on time. This is a law that people follows well in other countries such as the US. However in Korea, it is difficult to see workers who leave on the original given time. When I filmed a show in Los Angeles, the crew were strict about the given time. For instance if the film time was from 12pm to 8pm, they would stop working at 8. However in Korea, many workers spend the night flat-out working at the office or because their boss had not leave. Well, there is just no time to walk on eggshells. The government should hurry on and reinforce the system of allowing workers to leave on time especially because working mothers has a household to take care of, and it is said that the hardest job in the world is to the household work.

             In conclusion, as much as professional success is important, it is the parents' responsibility to take care of their children. Society has had enough latchkey kids wandering around without knowing when their mothers would be back home. Since the majority of mothers now are co-breadwinners in the family, this should not only be a conflict to mothers, but I believe it applies to men as well. The conflict of working mothers should be quickly solved and hopefully the government will take actions on making good solutions to help working mothers to balance their career as well as their household work.

Sunday, June 4, 2017

Sangwon Park / Chapter 4 second draft/ Wed 3-4

Two motive which make us work 

 

 There are two reasons why people work. The first one is the motive which comes from our inner mind. And the second thing is our motive by the external circumstances. Because our will is the owner of our behavior, Other reasons besides these are non-existent and even cannot exist.

 Let's take a look at the each reason. The motive which I mentioned first is originated from our own will. That means our wish to do working makes us work. On the contrary, the second motive is regardless of our wish because this is coming from the external conditions, not an our free-will. 

 Today, sadly, most of us work by the second motive. The typical case in second one is comparing to others. This kind of act encourage us not to follow our own hope because the feeling that lag behind makes us feel jealous and stimulate a sense of emulation. Well, we can feel contentment when you achieve the purpose even if you work by the second motive. However, the degree of satisfaction will not be as good as the one when you follow the previous motive because that can only lead our real inner wish.

 

For our welfare, we should live according to our own voice. What is much happier than doing what you really want? For that, we need to pursue the first motive. In other words, when you work it is important to follow your own will in order to feel real happy because "Happiness is not what others give, it is what I feel." (William Shakespeare)

 

Sungtae Kim/ Chapter 4 final draft/ Wednesday 1~2

The Purpose of Working

The basic job of students is studying, but some students don't like this job. I'm one of those students who hate studying. It was irritating to continuously work to improve exam scores throughout high school life. Considering the future, I had to work harder but it was easier said than done. Some people feel in the similar way with their job. They don't want to work sometimes, when the situation compels them to work for living. This might make them look at negative sides of their job and end up making vicious cycle by worsening the feeling even more. I guess this is why some people who work in totally different jobs say in similar negative nuance about what they do. To crack this vicious cycle, people need to think about the purpose of working. This might help them try to find positive things as they work. Work have purposes which can be summed up into three words; nature, achievement, and identity.

Working is the nature of humanity. It is one of desires that human has. If not satisfied, this desire can cause bitter consequences. The victims of unemployment can suffer from poverty and solidarity. But the biggest problem that makes a failure of their life is emotional problems such as lasting depressions and loneliness. These feelings can cause harsh decisions like suicide which is becoming a common thing nowadays. This desire doesn't end even when people get older. My grandfather worked in a company as an engineer until age of 70s. He enjoyed working and said that his friends envy him of working until that age. His friends tell him that he is the happiest person among them. Working is a nature of human which can be bailed by other hardships in life but eventually will turn out in later life.

Work is a mean that leads to achievements. When we ask elementary students about their dreams, they pick up names of jobs that sound good for them. These dreams are specified or modified along their lifestyle and taste. Working helps them achieve these dreams and get what they want. Children always find new things in their life and learn. This is not different for the grown-ups who get new experiences through working. Those experiences sometimes can be as harsh as bitter failures, but eventually will give a sense of accomplishment. On the other hand, if people don't work, they will lose the chance to taste the thrill of achieving things. When we do activities, we have aims of those acts. We read to get knowledge and we run to get some exercise. But if we only have aims and don't behave, those aims have no meaning. Walking through our life, we have bigger goals and working will take us to those goals.

Finally, people find their identity through jobs. Identity means the true inside of a person that includes thoughts, characteristics, and past experiences even. The work that we are doing shows those identities and help oneself recognize it. Identity is like a big picture. We cannot recognize the picture with a small piece of it. Let's say we have a 5000-piece-puzzle in front of us. If you want to know the whole picture you need to put those pieces together. Identity is like a puzzle that can only be completed through hints that come from each piece. Every job that we do in our life can influence our identity. Those works will transform it according to new experiences. One day in the future you may complete the identity and feel proud about those efforts.

In conclusion, the purpose of working can be separated into three parts. It is the nature of human. It is a mean that leads us to achievements. And finally, it helps people find their identities. Working will help us achieve these purposes and eventually help us look at piles of work as beneficial things in our life. Sometimes they give pressure and stress, but concentrating on these purposes will help us look our works in positive sight. These changes in our thoughts will give influence on our behaviors and will have improved our results of both our work and our life in few years from now.

Hye-ri Lee/Chapter 4 final/Wed 1-2

Why Do People Work?

 

  In the world, there are numerous workers who work hard in various fields. Then, why do those workers work? Why do teachers teach students? Why do scientists experiment? Why do firefighters extinguish a fire with a fire hose? In my opinion, there are three main reasons for working; for myself, for other people around us and for the better world.

  First, some people work for themselves; for their self-realization and wellbeing. For example in aspect of self-realization, a movie director wants to be the best movie director in the world. The best movie director is the person who he really wants to be. So, having a purpose to be the best director, he decides to make the best movie in the world. To achieve this purpose, the director works much hard. People work for becoming someone who they want to be. Also, people work for their wellbeing. We are generally rewarded for our working. This salary is necessary to enrich our life. Most people want to eat good food, live in comfortable house and do their hobby freely. So they work for improving the quality of their lives.

  Second, another people work for others around them, especially family. My mother said that all the people cannot do their favorite things for themselves. My mother wanted to be a painter, but now works in a company irrelative to art. A painter is a hard job to succeed and commonly earns money unstably. So it is difficult to take care of old parents and little children, as a painter. For this reason, my mother gave up her dream. Like this, others' wellbeing can be one of the reasons for working.

  Lastly, someone works hard for changing a world. Some people might find flaws and problems of his or her society, living in there. Those people want to solve problems in the world and make the world more positive. For instance, an architect had concern about a weak construction and collapse accident in her society. She wanted to change the world safer. So she works hard for constructing much solider buildings than before. This hard worker contributed to change the world better.

  All the workers have their own purposes of working. Someone works for their self-realization and rich life. Another workers perform their duty to take care of their family. And the others work hard to making the better world. This sense of purpose can make worker harder working and affect on the world positively. 

Ye Eun Park / Chapter 4 final / Wed 1-2

Korean traditional fable and culture of work

 

"The Ant and the Grasshopper," has message that emphasize importance of work. When I read this fable, one Korean traditional fable came in my mind. The fable's name is "The Lazybones that became a cow." It has message that is very similar to lesson of "The Ant and the Grasshopper." Speaking in short about the plot of story, there was a man who is lazy. He always fiddled around doing nothing. Watching cow that pluck grass, he thought that "I hope to be a cow that is free." One day, he wore a cow mask, he really became a cow. He had to work hardly after becoming a cow. Afterward then, the man that became a cow ate radish and turned to human finally. At last he realized importance of work and then he became a diligent person. "The Ant and the Grasshopper" teach us with comparing the ant that is diligent with the grasshopper that is lazy and always play. On the other hand, "The Lazybones that became a cow" send the message with describing a lazy man.

 

Like the Korean traditional fable shows, Korea is one of the countries that regards working very important thing. Especially, I think meaning of work is very special in Korea because our country grew rapidly and greatly thanks for Koreans who very hardly work. We said this growth "Miracle of the Han River." I think this miracle gave our country hard-working culture and the culture has lasted so far.

 

I'm very proud of my country's growth so I can't deny importance of work. However I think Koreans sometimes force hard-working overly. For example, in Korean company, working overtime at night is so prevalent. Many employees suffer by this custom. It's not phenomenon that occur only in company. In Korean high-school, students have to study at night overly. They can't have enough sleeping time. It seems like machine that keep at work without rest. When I watched employees and high school students, I can felt their fatigue. They lost smiling and dozed off in subway.

 

In this sense, most Koreans think work is very different from recreation. Recreation has to have pleasure and relaxing. Korea's most works don't have pleasure and relaxing. However one choose job because one likes the job's work, they often felt disappointment by overly hard-working. In Korea, it's difficult to regard work as recreation.

 

My sister is one of the hard-working people. She said that she always works hard in university because she wants to be prepared perfectly when opportunity comes to her. Also she said she often feel her less sleeping time and this lack of sleeping leads to dozing off in class. She mentioned she knows importance of relaxation but she can't get rest time without worries because of a lot of tasks. She said that she chose her major because she loved her major's studying but sometimes she has feeling of doubt about her choice recently because of excessive studying.

 

Many foreigners in Korea said that Koreans are always busy and work overly. I think so too. Korea need to have more break and recreation time. I believe rest time will make our country more healthy and passionate.

 

Jeeny Jung/ Chapter 4 Interview/ Wed 1-2

Interview

-interview of topic 3-

 

Q1. Do you work now, even though you have kids?

A1. No, I do not work now.

Q2. Have you ever worked when you had kids?

A2. Yes, I have 2 children and I worked when I only had my first child. But after having my second child, I quit my job.

Q3. What was your job and did you like it?

A3. I used to be a nutritionist at a company and I really liked my job. It was the job I had dreamt for since I was young and it was what I majored at my university.

Q4. What was the main reason you quit?

A4. Even though I liked my jobs, children were more important to me. I managed to combine work and family when I only had my first child, but it wasn't easy after having my second child. Taking care of two young kids and at the same time working was quite impossible. Also, I felt that I should stay at home and spend more time with my kids when they were young.

Q5. How was your day when you were a working mother?

A5. I was really busy those days. First, I woke up very early to prepare and eat breakfast with my family. And after I helped my husband to go to work, I spent time with my child. I had time in the morning hours since I could go to work late compared to my husband. So after spending some time with my daughter, I went to work after driving my child to kindergarten. And when I came home at the evening I cleaned the house after eating supper with my family.

Q6. How could you keep up?

A6. Because I enjoyed my job. Even though it was little bit exhausting to combine family and job, it was fun to continue my career.

Q7. Don't you regret quitting your job?

A7. No, I don't. I rather think that I might have regretted if I hadn't quit my job. Because I spent great times with my kids and made good memories by staying with them. Also, it was good that I could take care of them when they were young like educating them about manners.

Jeeny Jung/ Chapter 4 second draft/ Wed 1-2

Solutions to Working Mothers

 

 In the past, women were limited to participate in the society. Nevertheless as women's right started to improve, there have been changes in people's prejudices that women should only be housewives. And this became the background of many working mothers nowadays. However, despite the high rates of working mothers these days, our society lack social welfare systems which can relieve the burden of working mothers. Therefore many of them are under stress between work and family. For instance, they get worried about their kids when they work overtime. Thus, to help these working mothers, our society needs social welfare services and policies like child care facilities in companies and guarantees in parental leave.

 

 Firstly, child care facilities in companies are needed for working mothers to maintain their careers. As there are many working parents these days, it is natural for children to go to day care centers. However the problem is that inexpensive public kindergartens are unavailable. Their low capacity cannot afford all children, so parents have no choice but to send them to private kindergartens which require high costs. But not all of the parents can manage to pay these expenses. Therefore in these cases, usually working mothers quit their job to take care of their children. But if a social policy is made to establish child care facilities in all companies obligatory, working mothers do not have to quit nor feel the burden of expense. Also, they can spend more time with their children while lunch time and break times.

 

 Secondly, parental leave should be guaranteed by law. Usually when people request for parental leave, many companies refuse or may discharge the employee. For example, there was a case of a women who asked her company for maternity leave. But as the company aimed for productivity, they only gave her two options to eternally quit or to just stay. She had no choice but to stay because of the family's economic condition. And this is actually a common situation in our society. So it makes it hard for working mothers to maintain both since they cannot use parental leave nor send too young children to facilities. However when the parental leave is obligated by law and even increased in period, working parents can raise and take time with their children to a certain age and then slowly come back to their work. They no longer have to worry about being kicked out of their companies for using parental leave.

 

 In conclusion, working mothers can relieve burden if children care facilities and parental leave is obligated by law. However the most important thing is to change thought's about mothers taking full care of children. Because of this prejudice, even though parents equally work, the conflicts whether to quit or to maintain often only appear to mothers. Therefore, we have to change and even take action in reality that fathers also have same responsibilities on the family. By this, working mothers can ease the burden and divide family responsibility.

Hyunseo Jung/ Chapter 4 final/ Wed 1,2

Working Mother, The Greatest Person In The World 
 
Being dismissed by their work. Being moved to the lower department. Being passed over for promotion. These days, we can see many scenes in the drama or movie that woman who got married is treated unfairly. Do you think it is just fiction or just drama? The answer is No. It reflects the most realistic reality of our current society. There are many conflicts of working mothers. Although many stereotypes toward the woman have changed, the perception that woman especially mother has more responsibility on child than the man is prevailed. So our society thinks woman will be hard to focus on their own work if woman becomes impregnated than before because woman need to care for both work and family. So how can we solve the working mother's concerns? I think there should be some policies oriented to the needs of working mother.

First, government should support nursery facility that children can stay until the parent's quitting time. Working mothers said it impossible to take care of their children without others' help. Like this one of the big worries of working mother is that their children are left in the empty house without any caring. So to deal with their difficulties, the government should give a support for exceeded caring and tutoring. When we look at the Denmark's welfare policy, Denmark government is operating free childcare facilities for the working parents. This policy received favorable evaluations so the birthrate of Denmark is constantly increasing.

Next, there should be a policy for woman who returns to their work after maternity leave. Normally the average period for maternity leave is 6 months. When they return, they will notice that many things are changed. New projects are started, and employees are changed, and the overall style of the company may be changed. Then they will have difficulties with getting used to their work. So to solve these problems, the company should provide about 1 or 2 months as adjusting period. During this period, they can understand the overall atmosphere of changed company. This will help working mothers start their work and can fill their blank quickly after they return.

Also, government should set the fixed period for maternity leave. The reason why there should be a fixed period for maternity leave can be explained by many real cases. According to one interviewee who worked more than 5 years as a public official of city hall, she said she got pressure by her employers because of her maternity leave period. Sometimes she got pressured by answering her returning date. More seriously, some employers requested her to use the minimum maternity leave. Like these examples, the company usually wants to shorten maternity period to fill the blank quickly and to improve the work productivity. But this can be dangerous for women who came back from their work after childbirth. So there should be a clear and fixed maternity leave period so that mothers can have a rest without stress.

The working mother problems must be handled and solved. If it continues, it can cause another serious social problem. Imagine that if all the women begin to think that the best way to handle both family and work is not having a baby, this can lower the birthrate. So it is not just the mother's problem, it is whole of our problem. Mother is not a person who raises a child and care for the family. She is the greatest person in the world, who can handle everything and has enormous power.


Minyong Han / Chapter 4 Final Draft / Wed 1-2

Work Is Life Itself

   People have been working since humans were born into the world. They had to work or else they were left behind for dead. Work was something you just had to do for evolution. And then, farming dramatically developed, contributing to a rapid increase of human population. This surplus population didn't have to work in farming industry because they had enough food. They started to work in other areas such as religion, commerce, military service, and so on. However, variety of jobs was limited, and aptitudes were not considered. Now that people are working based on their aptitudes, they started to care about why they work. Some of them work in order to provide for their family even though they are unwilling to, but others enjoy their work! How do they choose their job, and why do they work?

   For starters, people work because they want to accomplish something in their life, and they want to contribute to the development of their society. In the fields such as science, education, politics, and economics, people work to leave our children a better world. New science discovery can save millions of children in the future, and it can facilitate communication among people with more advanced technology. The list goes on and on. Teachers and professors pass down their knowledge to the next generation or even help make better theories. Politicians and economists allocate resources optimally, so the next generation benefits from our work. People work because they want to help build a better life for ourselves.

   Next, people work because they don't want to get sick of themselves. Let me elaborate on what I mean by this. When you don't do anything at home although you're able to work, you start to hate yourself. Because you live off somebody else's money when you don't work, you grow dependent on that person. This dependency drives you mad. You should give him excuses every time you want to spend money, and you can't pay for anything on your own. In this situation, you naturally begin to think you're incapable of anything, and you don't deserve to live. Eventually, it leads to depression. The only way to cure depression here is work. When you work, you think you're worth everything and you get confident in yourself. Work gives you a reason to live. Personally, I tutor in English to earn extra money, and it gives me joy. I feel like I'm achieving something and I feel like I'm worth it. 

   Lastly, people work not to get disconnected from their society they're in. People interact with others through work, and they make friends on the way. Work connects you to your society, and you feel included in your community through work. If you don't do any work and get stuck at home, you wouldn't have any link between you and your community. To sum up, people have an inborn need to be connected to something, and work helps them with it. 

   Those are the reasons why people work. First, people work in order to achieve something in their life and leave a better world for the next generation. Second, people work because they want to feel they're worth it. Work gives people confidence, and a reason to live. Why live when you don't do anything? You feel happy when you work. And, you can think back on your achievements and feel happy in later life if you work.