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Korea Business Success eZine – Summer
2006
Welcome to the Summer 2006 issue of the Korea Business Success
eZine of Korean Consulting & Translation Service, Inc. We hope
you find this information helpful to your business in Korea and with
Koreans everywhere.
Table of Contents
- Korean Language Proficiency Test Growing in Popularity
- Tension Brewing Again in the East Sea
- Online English-Language Information on Thousands of Korean Companies
- Feature Article: The Fate of Aging Apartments in Korea
- Korean Language Lesson - Saying "Please" and "Thank
You"
- Results of Recent Korean Elections
1. Korean Language Proficiency
Test Growing in Popularity
The tenth annual Test of Proficiency in Korean
(TOPIK) will be conducted on September 23rd and 24th at 73 venues in
28 countries.
The test will be held for the first time in India, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan
and another four test venues will be added in China. The number of
people taking the test is expected to top 30,000 this year. Starting
next year, the test will be offered twice a year.
Applications are being accepted now. People wishing to take the test
at a Korean venue should register online at http://topik.or.kr and
people wishing to take the test at a venue outside Korea should contact
the Korean embassy or consulate or Korean Education Center in their
respective countries. The TOPIK homepage provides details about the
test in English, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, German and French,
as well as the test questions and answers for the last 3 years.
2. Tension
Brewing Again in the East Sea
The sea lying between Korea and Japan
is called the East Sea by the South and North Koreans and the Sea of
Japan by Japan and most other nations, although a small group of Koreans
continue to lobby to have East Sea recognised as the official name
and have had some success. For the Korean perspective on the naming
of the sea, see http://www.eastsea.org/ and
for the Japanese perspective, visit http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/maritime/japan/sea.html#1
Dokdo is the name of these two small islands surrounded by 33 smaller
rocks with a total area of about 56 acres in the East Sea / Sea of
Japan. The Japanese refer to it as Takeshiman. It is about 215 km east
of the Korean peninsula and about 157 km northwest of Japan's Oki Island.
Both countries claim it as their territory but the island is currently
occupied by Korea. For an excellent account of the history of the territorial
dispute see http://www.geoc
ities.com/mlovmo/page4.html
On the one hand, having sovereignty over the island is important because
it confers rights to potentially large methane hydrate (a next generation
source of energy) deposits and also to fish stocks. On the other hand,
it is important for both countries to avoid any incidents which could
damage diplomatic relations and threaten trade between them.
At present, governments of both countries seem to be placing much more
importance on avoiding incidents that could threaten trade and have
adopted an unofficial policy of maintaining the status quo, i.e. Korea
claims sovereignty and occupies it while Japan claims sovereignty but
doesn't seriously attempt to occupy it or gain international recognition
of its claim to sovereignty while both countries try to present an
image of foreign policy strength on the issue to their own citizens.
Nationalistic feeling is high on both sides and has the potential to
escalate quickly and derail the efforts of both governments to avoid
a serious diplomatic and trade dispute.
The current tension is regarding South Korean plans to conduct a maritime
survey around Dokdo in mid-July. Japan has protested and threatened
to send out navy patrol vessels if South Korea goes ahead with the
survey.
A similar incident occurred in April this year when Japan announced
that it would conduct a maritime survey around the islands. The incident
was resolved when Japan called off its planned survey at the last minute
and the two countries agreed to delay the survey and hold maritime
talks instead to determine the boundaries of each country's exclusive
economic zones. The talks did not resolve the question of exclusive
economic zone boundaries but did defuse a volatile diplomatic situation.
3.
Online English-Language Information about Thousands of Korean Companies
Looking
for objective information about a Korean company on the Web? The following
sites provide English-language information that is accessible to non-Korean
clients.
* National Information and Credit Evaluation, Inc. - http://www.nice.co.kr
According to the site, National Information and Credit Evaluation,
Inc. is Korea's largest comprehensive credit information provider.
Founded in 1986, the company handles both credit ratings and information,
as well as asset management and customized research.
* Korea Information Service - http://www.kisinfo.com/eng
A variety of information is available regarding both Korean companies
and Korean consumers through Korean Information Service. Debt collection
and asset management services in Korea are also provided.
* Korea Credit Guarantee Fund - http://www.kcgf.co
.kr/english/index.jsp
This company offers online credit reports from a database of over 490,000
Korean companies. You can also place requests for collection on commercial
claims incurred during international trade. Various English-language
economic news items are presented on the company's web site.
4. Feature Article - The Fate of Aging Apartments in Korea
Around
the world, cities are having to grapple with the issue of aging apartments.
As apartments age, they noticeably deteriorate and require increasing
amounts of money to maintain them or, in some cases, substantial amounts
of money for major repairs and upgrades. As Korea has become a country
of apartment dwellers, this issue affects millions of people here.
In Korea, tenants of apartments, not the landlords, pay a monthly fee
to the company who constructed the apartment to maintain the garden
and the elevator, employ security guards, clean common areas, remove
rubbish and paint the outside of the building from time to time. The
fees are not enough to pay for major repairs or upgrades.
Apartment buildings in Korea are kept neat and tidy and are by no means
allowed to completely run down, but they do gradually start to show
their age with the passing of time and some will develop structural
or safety problems. The government in Korea has a policy of inspecting
apartments aged between 20 and 40 years to see whether they are safe
or need to be demolished. With the huge number of apartments built
in the last 30 years, this is a very big task.
At present, the issue of old apartments does not present a major problem
because the land on which the old apartments sit is usually in prime
locations and developers can make a profit by demolishing the old buildings
and building taller ones in their place. The apartment owners benefit
because they get a brand-new roomier apartment in the same location
for free or at greatly reduced prices. The developers benefit because
they effectively get the land cheaply and can sell the apartments which
they don't have to give in exchange to the previous owners for a considerable
profit.
Most apartments that are current candidates for demolition are 12 floors
or less with units having small floor space and can be profitably demolished
and replaced with taller and roomier apartment buildings. However,
the same may not be true of the current generation of 20-40 floor roomy
and super-roomy apartments when their turn for demolition comes up
in 20 to 30 years. That will be an issue for the officials of the future
to grapple with.
5. Korean Language Lesson - Saying "Please" and "Thank
You"
I'll start with "thank you" because its usage is
straightforward. There are actually two words for it: "kahm-sahm
-ni-da" and "ko-map-sum-ni-da".
The two words are interchangeable and if you use them often, you will
do well in Korea.
Saying "please", however, is a bit more complicated since
its usage depends on the context and involves grammatical understanding.
If you want to ask someone to give you or pass you something, then
that is easy: [Thing you want given or passed] + "ju-seyo".
Here is an example:
"bbahng" [bread] + "ju-seyo" = Please give me some bread.
To make it a bit more polite here, you could add the word "johm",
as in "bbahng johm ju-seyo".
The word "jeh-bahl" means "please" in the literal
sense and you might find it in a Korean phrasebook but its meaning
is close to "I'm begging you" and is therefore not appropriate
for everyday situations. Instead, polite requests are formulated by
modifying the ending of the verb that you wish to request and adding "ju-seyo",
which is the word for "give". Together in a combined grammatical
structure, they have the meaning of "please [do something] for
me".
Explaining the rules for modifying the endings of verbs is beyond the
scope of this article so I will just leave you with a few simple examples.
The text in bold is changed when adding "juseyo".
"seol-myung-ha-da" + "ju-seyo" = Please explain it to me.
- "seol-myung-hae ju-seyo"
"bo-i-da" [show] + "ju-seyo" = Please show me. "bo-
yeoh ju-seyo"
"sonmul bahd-da" [accept gift] + "ju-seyo" = Please accept
my gift. "sonmul bahd-ah juseyo"
"dashi mahl-ha-da" [say again] + "ju-seyo" = Please say
that again. "dashi mahl-hae ju-seyo"
6. Results of Recent Korean Elections
Elections were recently held in a number of regional and municipal
areas and the GNP, a conservative party that has not fared well in
national or presidential elections on the previous two occasions, won
12 out of 16 key contests. The result was a big defeat for the Uri
Party, the progressive party in power at the national and presidential
level. This resulted in the leader of the party resigning. Even the
Uri Party's attempt to raise the profile of the party by getting ministers
from the national government to resign their posts and run as candidates
in the local elections didn't appear to have any effect.
North Korea's efforts to influence the outcome of South Korean local
elections also appears to be equally ineffectual. Prior to the elections,
Minju Joson, an official North Korean newspaper, carried an editorial
that basically equated a vote for the GNP with a vote against the June
15th 2000 Joint Declaration on Inter-Korean Co-operation and urged
all South Koreans to vote and vote against the GNP in the interests
of a unified Korean nation. htt
p://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2006/200606/news06/01.htm#7
The June 15th 2000 Joint Declaration on Inter-Korean Co- operation
is an agreement signed by Kim Dae Jung, the current South Korean president's
predecessor, and Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, that established
the framework for beginning to normalize North-South relations and
work towards the long-term goal of unification.
It would appear that both the Uri Party and North Korea are strongly
in favour of the June 15th 2000 Joint Declaration while both the GNP
and the US government are not. It is something that the Uri Party,
known as the Millennium Democratic Party at the time, created and has
tied its fate to and something that progressive voters would tend to
be naturally inclined towards. The North Korean leadership probably
sees it as a way to revive and develop their ailing economy and maybe
to also gain political credibility domestically and internationally.
The GNP, on the other hand, tends to be critical of the Joint Declaration
for making too many concessions to the North and producing few tangible
results, and is sceptical that it can ever work.
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