Complexity in History: Who Should be Blamed?

              In a class, an English teacher asked me ,"Who should be responsible for throwing nuclear bombs in Japan? Should the scientists who invented it be accused?" I said, "Well, I think the government which took an advantage of the scientific invention should be accused. Any invention such as dynamite and airplanes can be beneficial and harmful, largely depending on how people use it. " I think my answer was convincing enough, but the teacher reasoned that nuclear bombs, which are definitely weapons, would not have been made without those scientists and thus the scientists should be accused!

               To me, this question was very hard to answer with confidence. The responsibility for this incident in Nagasaki and Hiroshima can be attributed to many individuals and groups, and I think this is the complexity when we try to have a consensus on recognition of historical events. For example, Some people could argue that WW2 would not have happened if WW1 did not happen even though both of them did not seem directly related each other. But then, if Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria did not go to Sarajevo, WW1 would not have happened. But then, if....

              I think we can endlessly keep attributing the cause of the WW2 to the past events. History, most of the time, happens with cause-effect relationships. Thus, if I try to answer the question teacher asked in a class, I could say, "Perhaps, the god should be responsible for the nuclear bombs because it created us."

An Innovative Solution to Great Pacific Garbage Patch

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljrbtYlku-k

            I have watched this Tedtalk about how the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can be solved. The speaker is a18 year-old highschool student, and I find his idea very innovative.

            . We have always thought of education and increasing the awareness as a first-step of the solution for such global environmental issues. But we have never thought of how we can directly solve such issue. His idea is rather direct and simple because his idea is a machine that is simply trapping trashes.
           

            His idea is still very radical because he used ocean current as a mover of the machine to save the maintanace costs of the machine. As a result of this low-budget solution, he expected some entrepreneurs could invest to profit from selling plastics. This profitable solution certainly increases demand for investment.

            His idea is not concrete yet and we might have to be skeptical about his statistics and expectations. But his idea is innovative and I believe some developments will be made on his idea.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

            Have you ever heard of Great Pacific Garbage Patch? For those who have never heard, it is an environmental issue in which trash mainly from Japan and the United States are accumulated in the center of the Pacific Ocean as a result of North Atlantic Gyre.

            I just found this serious and global environmental issue from my geography class and was totally shocked that Japan was the large contributor of throwing away garbage in the ocean. In Japan, I used to hear that Asian Dust and air pollutions from China were very problemic for Japan, and I see many people complained about China`s loose environmental policy. Nevertheless, I have never heard of my Japanese friends and media talking about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Although Japan should be largely responsible for this issue, many Japanese people including myself are not aware of this global issue. (which is also problemic!)

            I think when I consider any global issue, I cannot judge the responsibility for it based only on my personal experience which is often influenced by Japanese media because my country might be doing something unacceptable in other parts of the world. From this finding, I realized that "perspectives" are very important whenever we evaluate the responsibility of any country for the global issues because a seemingly environmentally friendly country like Japan - at least I think Japan is - can be a monster in "unknown" environmental issues.

My Holidays in Saigon Changed My Perspectives on Vietnamese Community

I visited my fatherland (Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City) during this lunar year. I had some interesting findings there.

1-I am trying to call HCMC as Saigon because HCMC might defame the people in Saigon. (Just for those who do not know the difference between Saigon and HCMC, Saigon was a name of HCMC before the Vietnam became one country in 1970s.) But people there actually call Saigon as HCMC, and my dad told me that people now would not care much about whether we call Saigon as HCMC or Saigon. This fact told me that there is now better integration of North and South Vietnam because people try to follow the name called by the current Vietnamese government.

2-The flag of Vietnam, as you may know, contains a big yellow star and red background, both of which obviously represent socialism. I thought Saigon (I still call Saigon to show some respect even if people there may not care.) did not want to put up the Vietnamese flags, but I saw many houses there putting up the Vietnamese flags. That scenery of houses with many Vietnamese flags told me that people now feel they are a part of Vietnam and not South Vietnam.

I have visited Saigon for many times, but this time was a bit more interesting as I tried to see Saigon with lenses that I had never tried to put on. :)

Chaebol and Economic Disparity

Chaebol is a term to describe  South Korean large conglomerate. As some of you may know, the economy of South Korea largely depends on Chaebol as the top 10 large multinational corporations take up 75% of GDP in South Korea.

But I just learnt that the 90% of employees are taken up by small and medium-sized businesses, and yet the rest of the 10% (Chaebol) dominate the GDP share in South Korea. This certainly tells us about economic disparity. Workers at small and medium-sized businesses do not economically benefit as much as those at large corporations do.

From the South Korean national government`s perspective, however, it cannot easily give a solution for the economic marginalization. These South Korean multinationals lead the economy of South Korea and yet their existence cannot support the employment in South Korea. Thus, the government needs to consider benefit and loss for each conflicting groups and take a policy which allows both to benefit to some extent (win-win solution!).

Still, to me, ensuring the equity within the country would be relatively more important than allowing small portion of people to dominate the country.

The Way a Product is Advertised Tells a Typical Lifestyle in Your Country.

(It's been a while since I posted on this blog last time. I had a busy mock examination for two weeks, but I will keep writing this blog as long as I can!)

I walked down the street in Hanoi, Vietnam to get to my favorite coffee shop. And I suddenly came across with bunch of motorbikes with advertisements on their back seats. Since then, I was thinking that the most effective advertisement would be different because it is largely based on a typical lifestyle in your country.

In Japan, the most popular and convenient transport is a train; thus, I see a large number of advertisements wherever you walk within the stations. In the United States when I visited 2 years ago, I did not see as many advertisements as I did in Japan. Instead, I still receive so many ads from American businesses via e-mail, probably because the internet access rate in the United States is significantly high. In Vietnam, needless to say, motorbikes are vital transports for majority of Vietnamese people, so there is no wonder why I saw the motorbikes with advertisements on the street.

Now, how are products advertised in your country?

Mother House: a Small, Yet Successful Japanese Company in Bangladesh.

Many people argue that a multinational company exploits both human and natural resource in a developing country. Such business destroys the local tradition and pays minimal wages to its workers. But is there any way to solve this problem, and yet to maximize business opportunities in global markets?

Mother House, a Japanese clothing and accessories manufacture, has unique operations in Bangladesh. Let memake two points about this company.

1-Many workers in a developing country are unskilled and receive low wages. However, Mother House trains unskilled workers to manufacture high quality products and charge premium prices on these products. As a result, workers are more skilled and receive higher wages than anyone else at other manufactures.

2-"Americanization" leaves a concern that it wipes out the local tradition in a developing country. However, Mother House sells clothes and bags which are based on the Bangladeshi tradition. This business activity does not neglect the culture in Bangladesh. Instead, it promotes the uniqueness of Bangladeshi clothing to other mass markets such as Japan. This sustains the Bangladeshi tradition and encourages other local entrepreneurs to export their cultural products to other countries.

HL Extension Geography!!!!!!

I was regretting bit about my diploma subjects because I wanted to take history and economics in addition to geography and business management which I currently take. But I will no longer regret.  The HL extension of geography, whose theme is "Global Interactions" , will start from next week.

I pre-read the fact sheet about globalization as homework, but the concept is just fascinating because this course is well beyond what students are expected to learn in geography classes. It involves not only environmental sustainability, but also political, economic and cultural interactions between countries. As we are taking every subjects separately, we tend to think from only one perspective. For example, you might think about profit maximization but not about ethics and women empowerment when you take a business class. But in this geography HL extension, I will consider Globalization from different geographical perspectives:environment, politic, economy and culture. This is just awesome....!!!

Food Culture in Italy

              Have you ever noticed the Italian people tend to be conservative about food? The TV program broadcasted the food culture in Italy. The TV program carried out the interview about what foreign cuisine Italian people liked. And the surprising fact was that they answered that they were all satisfied with Italian food, more specifically their local cuisine. Resultantly, this passive attitude toward the "foreign cuisine" causes an issue for some international businesses.

              Because the Italian food is embedded so strongly in the Italian culture, many multinational fast-food chains such as McDonald often face difficulties in entering the market in Italy. In addition, The Japanese owner of the Italian food restaurant encountered some discriminations when he first opened the restaurant in Milan because nobody in Italy would ever think that "Japanese can cook Italian food for Italian people in Italy."

              All of these facts struck me. We see many Italian restaurants wherever we are in the world, but we do not see many foreign cuisine in Italy. However, on the other side, Milan will hold a Milanoexpo-2015 whose main theme is "Feeding the Planet". It will be very interesting to check out how much Italy would accept the other food cultures from all over the world.

Can Africa be the Most Productive Energy Producer?

Africa is still recognized as a continent with scared natural resource and low economic developments. This fact discourages investment from more economically developed countries as there is no reason to invest in regions without any economic potentials.

However, I still see potentials in Africa in terms of energy production. It is said that the whole continent of Africa produces the annual electric power consumption of the world population by absorbing solar energy for only 6 hours. Now, knowing this fact, we suddenly see possibilities of economic development in Africa. Production of solar energy develops not only African economy but also sustainable and renewable resource.

Still, some issues are remained. Firstly, a current solar panel absorbs only 20% of solar energy. Secondly, high cost of installment and maintenance limits the targeted users. Thirdly, current technology cannot transport electricity from one continent to another. Nevertheless, rapidly developing technology will eventually increase efficiency of energy absorption, lower the costs of installment and make energy transfer easier. Therefore, even though installment of solar panels does not immediately give excellent outcomes in Africa, the bright possibility still exists.

New US Sanctions on North Korea

Recently, North Korea showed a positive attitude toward a high-level summit with South Korea. Even though this statement would possibly re-strengthen political ties between two countries, South Korea welcomes new US sanctions on North Korea. It seems that the American condemnation of a possible cyber attack from North Korea influenced the South Korea's acceptance of new sanctions.

I personally think South Korea's action was right. Though this act of welcoming sanctions ultimately worsens its relation with North Korea, the relation with the US is more economically and politically important for South Korea. The US is the one which militarily protects South Korea from threats of North Korea. Therefore, the decision about which country South Korea should be with was very obvious in my opinion.