On My Way To Korea

Re-elections

For those who don’t know what happened last year at the Seoul National University (SNU) student elections, there was apparently some foul play including wiretapping (yes, you heard that right; wiretapping during a university student body election).  For at least the past week there’s been a lot of posters put up and now flyers being passed out for the upcoming re-elections.

Privitization of SNU

I had heard that Korea over the past while has been privitizing the state-operated companies, but I had no earthly idea that this included SNU.  Here’s an article that covers the whole privitization aspect.  There’s been a bunch of banners around campus talking about rejecting the ‘법인화’ which I have recently found out means privitization.  Here’s a video (in Korean) for those interested.

EDIT:

Here’s some documents sent to me (sorry, Hangeul format) directly from SNU regarding the transition:

Dean’s Message
Privitization Vs. Public
Privitization Brochure

Protesting the SNU Board of Trustees

Two days ago there was even an organized protest on campus in front of the administration building by a labor union.  The big banner says that the board of trustees is closed and un-democratic and should be dissolved.  The signs say things like ‘do professors eat 10 bowls of rice in one meal,’ ‘Presidential election: 1 person 1 vote,’ and ‘Board of Trustees’s equality: professors 100%, workers 10%, students 0%.’  Here’s an article (in Korean) for those interested on the subject.  Here’s a pic: