I will visit the U.S. Embassy today and the University of Seoul. Our group had meetings from 9am through 9:30 pm yesterday and as of yet, I have not been able to finish a couple of reflection pieces. My goal is to have a coouple posted by Friday.
In the meantime, the following newslink from NPR on North Korea is a fascinating look into this pennisula and society. It provides both a US and South Korean perspective of North Korea's connection to the outside world. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127836840
Finally, Brazil won its match over North Korea (2-1) on Tuesday (Wednesay in Seoul). The Korean front is suddenly buzzing with activity: UN deliberations on the sinking of the S. Korean vessel and threats of war (http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/06/15/un.north.korea/index.html?hpt=T1), N. Korea's participation in the World Cup (its first since 1966), S. Korea's upcoming World Cup match on Thursday, and S. Korean national strategies to make the Incheon region a global node of capitalism.
I look forward to sharing my reflections with you soon!
Regards from Yonsei University in Seoul.
June 15, 2010
June 14, 2010
An FYI: North Korean Soccer Article
Of possible and timely interest. Regards from Seoul!
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SPORT/football/06/08/north.korea.secret.team/index.html?hpt=C1
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SPORT/football/06/08/north.korea.secret.team/index.html?hpt=C1
Day 2 - Lectures & Meetings (Seoul)
Greetings from steamy Seoul, where the humidity rivals that of Macon, GA.
Today's agenda was busy with two lectures at the Fulbright Building, a huge business lunch, and a meeting at the Korean Women's Development Institute. I am in the process of drafting a new post that reflects on today's discussions on twentieth and twenty-first century history, economic development, and gender relations. I hope to have something posted in the next day or two.
June 12, 2010
Seoul (Day 1)
I arrived at 4:20 a.m.!
Today marks the beginning of my two-week journey through Korean society, culture, and higher education. My fellow Fulbrighters from San Francisco State, Princeton, George Mason, Harper College, Minnesota State, University of Minnesota, and NC State and I are based on the Yonsei University campus for our first week in Seoul, South Korea. One of South Korea's top three universities, Yonsei has been a center for East-West dialogue for the past 125 years. It will now be my base of operation for the next six days.
My objective over the next couple of weeks will be to learn more about Korean society and its policies toward higher education. I hope to understand how this national 'economic miracle' will address demographic change (population decline) and 21st century globalization. I furthermore aim to explore local perspectives of the on-going political threat to the north.
I look forward to sharing these thoughts and images with you over the next fortnight. I hope that you will enjoy this virtual journey as I trek among Koreans, their culture, policies, and geographic landscapes.
Eric Spears
Seoul, 13 June 2010
Today marks the beginning of my two-week journey through Korean society, culture, and higher education. My fellow Fulbrighters from San Francisco State, Princeton, George Mason, Harper College, Minnesota State, University of Minnesota, and NC State and I are based on the Yonsei University campus for our first week in Seoul, South Korea. One of South Korea's top three universities, Yonsei has been a center for East-West dialogue for the past 125 years. It will now be my base of operation for the next six days.
My objective over the next couple of weeks will be to learn more about Korean society and its policies toward higher education. I hope to understand how this national 'economic miracle' will address demographic change (population decline) and 21st century globalization. I furthermore aim to explore local perspectives of the on-going political threat to the north.
I look forward to sharing these thoughts and images with you over the next fortnight. I hope that you will enjoy this virtual journey as I trek among Koreans, their culture, policies, and geographic landscapes.
Eric Spears
Seoul, 13 June 2010
March 16, 2010
Global Learning in the 21st Century: Essential to Success
I recently spoke to an audience of Mercer University's finest freshman students. The purpose of my talk was to encourage them to plan a study abroad, research, or service-learning experience in their academic plan. Rather than 'talk up' the conventional aspects of study abroad: learn a language, have a once-in-a-lifetime experience, see a different place, backpack across Europe, etc., I decided to share some important and alarming information.
I explained that I learned during my recent trip to Qingdao, China (one of the biggest and fastest growing cities that you never heard of) that only 60% of qualified Chinese students have a space in a Chinese university. This means that 40% of qualified students in a country of 1 billion people will need to do their degree work abroad, and the USA is the #1 destination. In fact, there is a disproportionately high number of incoming international students and scholars than outgoing American students and faculty researchers. Education in the USA reflects this country's trade deficit. While the importation of foreign students and intellectual talent is actually a good thing for the USA and the world, what troubles me is that only a minority of American students study abroad and even worse, are not proficient in a second language, particularly a critical language such as Mandarin Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, or Arabic. This intercultural trade deficit, if you will, does not serve the US economic or political interests very well.
The 21st century in the 'developed' and 'developing' economies of the world is an informational, knowledge-based platform. Economic success depends on a population's set of intellectual skills that not only focus on innovative products, such as sustainable forms of energy, but also incorporate a set of intercultural skills, which enable our future leaders (a.k.a., current students) to engage with people who pose different perspectives, practice different religions, and speak different languages. The complacency of a post-Cold War America must transform itself from thinking itself as the only superpower to one that is both a competitive leader and a cross-cultural partner of other nations in the global political economy.
Students and other fellow citizens, I encourage you to read the works of Thomas Friedman and Fareed Zakaria. Think of ways you can truly engage the 'other' in the here and now and then imagine how these experiences can effectively change the trajectory of our country and world over the next few decades.
E.K.Spears (11 March 2010)
LEARN MORE! Fareed Zakaria on the 'Post-American World'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kg7_4og2Wk
I explained that I learned during my recent trip to Qingdao, China (one of the biggest and fastest growing cities that you never heard of) that only 60% of qualified Chinese students have a space in a Chinese university. This means that 40% of qualified students in a country of 1 billion people will need to do their degree work abroad, and the USA is the #1 destination. In fact, there is a disproportionately high number of incoming international students and scholars than outgoing American students and faculty researchers. Education in the USA reflects this country's trade deficit. While the importation of foreign students and intellectual talent is actually a good thing for the USA and the world, what troubles me is that only a minority of American students study abroad and even worse, are not proficient in a second language, particularly a critical language such as Mandarin Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, or Arabic. This intercultural trade deficit, if you will, does not serve the US economic or political interests very well.
The 21st century in the 'developed' and 'developing' economies of the world is an informational, knowledge-based platform. Economic success depends on a population's set of intellectual skills that not only focus on innovative products, such as sustainable forms of energy, but also incorporate a set of intercultural skills, which enable our future leaders (a.k.a., current students) to engage with people who pose different perspectives, practice different religions, and speak different languages. The complacency of a post-Cold War America must transform itself from thinking itself as the only superpower to one that is both a competitive leader and a cross-cultural partner of other nations in the global political economy.
Students and other fellow citizens, I encourage you to read the works of Thomas Friedman and Fareed Zakaria. Think of ways you can truly engage the 'other' in the here and now and then imagine how these experiences can effectively change the trajectory of our country and world over the next few decades.
E.K.Spears (11 March 2010)
LEARN MORE! Fareed Zakaria on the 'Post-American World'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kg7_4og2Wk
March 15, 2010
Welcome to Glocal Perspectives!
Welcome to my new blog! I am in the process of putting some ideas together. Please stay tuned.
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