중앙데일리

[FOUNTAIN]Out of Africa

“The human race originated in Africa.” Charles Darwin, an evolutionist in the 19th century, advocated that theory, and asserted that the primitive ancestors of the human race had lived in the southern jungles of Africa. The primitive human being, similar to the ape, went through dramatic evolution, while walking out of woods and traveling to Asia and Europe via the savannahs, or tropical plains. He believed that human beings began to stand erect…

June 16,2003
[OUTLOOK]Film quotas manipulate culture

"The U. S. film industry occupies 65 percent of the French market, 85 percent of the Italian market, 90 percent of the German market and almost all of the British market. Is that still not enough? "Is there then a quota required for releasing American films? "Sorry to say, but we should take measures to restrict U. S. films from completely occupying screens of other countries. You have imposed various restrictions on the import of Japanese ca…

June 15,2003
[VIEWPOINT]Open societies and eased tensions

The North Korean nuclear row continues to escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula as it undercuts the inter-Korean rapprochement process. Although opinions diverge as to the prescriptions to the current stalemate, such trying times solicit us to go back to the basics. We need to prose the fundamental question of what it is that we truly desire. Every man is instilled with the desire to live the good life. While still insufficient, we have made…

June 15,2003
[FOUNTAIN]Shuttling hither and yon

The word “shuttle” is on Koreans’ tongues again because the leaders of Japan and Korea agreed to open air transportation links between Haneda Airport near Tokyo and Seoul’s Gimpo Airport. The word initially referred to a part of a weaving loom that travels back and forth from left to right to insert threads between the longitudinally-spaced threads. That back-and-forth movement gave rise to the word’s usage as a verb meaning to move back and for…

June 15,2003
[OUTLOOK]Not with a bang, but a whimper

History shows us that as surely as a person who is born is bound to die, one day a country rises only to fall some day. This unchangeable law has been true of all countries, small or big, and even the United States, master of the world as it is now, can be no exception. But what about Korea? Are we on our ascent to our climax or are we on the downward slope toward the end? A common sign of a country’s fall is the simultaneous occurrence of in…

June 13,2003
[FORUM]Seoul on the outside looking in

The United States Military Academy at West Point is located about a 90-minute drive north of New York. The commencement ceremony was held on May 31 this year. There were 846 graduates who received their commissions in the U.S. Army, and among them were 31 Korean-American cadets, the largest minority group after black Americans. About 30,000 family members and acquaintances gathered in Michie Stadium for the ceremony. The stadium was brimming with…

June 13,2003
[FOUNTAIN]An unequal gift exchange

The isolated Yanomami, living in the Amazon basin near the Venezuela border, are the last tribe on earth that preserves their indigenous culture. This belligerent tribe maintains its ties with other tribes through trade. The Yanomami’s tradition of barter is unique. After providing a good, they demand reciprocity in goods, but they do not want immediate return. They accept whatever is the recompense at a later time. During the wait, they visit …

June 13,2003
[OUTLOOK]Waiting for the bird to sing

Whenever Japanese discuss people, they always seem to mention three prototypes: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu, who vied with one another during the feudal age of Japan. The distinct personalities of these three warriors are described in an anecdote of how each of them tried to make a silent bird sing. Oda slew any bird that would not sing while Tokugawa waited for whatever length of time it took for the bird to sing on it…

June 12,2003
[TODAY]A different view of a family feud

The drama of the Iraq war has obscured two other, though only diplomatic, wars within the West: one between France and Germany against the United States, the other between those two and 18 other European nations, including Spain, Poland, Britain and Bulgaria, who refused to distance themselves from America and to accept the leadership bid of Paris and Berlin. It was a typical Western family quarrel, though a very serious one. After all, even in …

June 12,2003
[FOUNTAIN]Portrait of a young artist

James Joyce (1882-1941) is considered a genius who was ahead of his time in literature, just as Picasso was in painting and Schoenberg was in music. The day Mr. Joyce met his lifelong companion, Nora, was June 16, 1904. The reason Irish people celebrate that day every year is that Mr. Joyce carved the memory of his romance of that day in his masterpiece “Ulysses,” a fictional treatment of what happened June 16, 1904 in Dublin, Ireland. This is…

June 12,2003

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