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Chinese holidaymakers flocking to Korea 2012-01-18 19:16 Korea’s Lotte Department Store runs its first advertisement in China’s state-run newspaper People’s Daily on Jan. 17 and 20 to attract more Chinese travelers to the stores during China’s Jan. 22-28 spring holiday season. (Yonhap News) At least 45,000 Chinese travelers are expected to flock to Korea during the neighboring state’s biggest holiday beginning over the weekend, according to Korea’s tourism agency. An average of 800 million Chinese people travel abroad or visit local regions during the country’s Lunar New Year holiday, which falls on Jan. 22-28 this year. Expecting the number of Chinese visitors to increase by about 35 percent from the previous year, the Korea Tourism Organization has been preparing events for the large influx of tourists. “As 2012 marks the 20th anniversary of Korea-China diplomatic ties, we are anticipating some 3.4 million people from China to visit the country this year,” said Han Hwa-joon, head of the KTO’s China bureau. Chinese tourists have taken up the largest share of the Korean tourism sector over the past few years, largely due to the growing interest in Korean culture in China and the growth of the country’s economy. Some 2.2 million Chinese came to Korea last year, spending up to 13 trillion won on high-end products including cosmetics, jewelry, designer-brand bags, watches and clothing, according to data by local market researcher Bain & Company. In a separate survey taken by Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry last year of some 300 major stores and duty free shops in Korea, nearly 60 percent answered that Chinese travelers have “stronger spending tendency” than people from Europe, Japan and elsewhere. Starting off with the 2012 Korea Grand Sale ― offering special discounts in shopping, accommodation and transportation to foreign tourists ― the KTO has launched special discount promotions for China’s Union Pay credit card users. Those who shop with the card in stores in Myeong-dong, Jeju Island and other popular destinations will receive special discounts and bonus points. The KTO expects Chinese travelers to spend at least 60 billion won ($52 million) with the Union Pay card in January alone, the amount adding up to 100 billion won including cash. Korea also plans to have a Visit Korea Year ceremony in Beijing in February and to hold cultural performance road shows in some 18 major Chinese cities. The KTO has been operating a Chinese-language website (www.xinger.kr) since 2010, with detailed information for travelers planning trips to Korea by themselves. The website includes information on passport and visa issuance, plane ticket purchases, and shops selling items worn by popular Korean celebrities. The fourth edition of “M Xinger,” a magazine for Chinese travelers, will also be published, introducing Korea’s Lunar New Year’s holiday culture, the 2012 Korea Grand Sale, best ski resorts in the country and other useful information. Some 2,000 volumes of the magazine will be distributed at major tourist information centers in Korea. The lack of accommodation in Korea, however, is expected to remain a problem during the season. According to a study on seven major hotels and resorts in Gyeonggi Province by the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization, some 8,700 Chinese travelers have already made reservations, which is almost three times the number of last year. Adjacent to Seoul and Incheon International Airport, the region has been seeing a large growth in travelers after Seoul. Major hotels and resorts in Gangwon Province and Jeju Island, also popular among Chinese tourists, also have more than 90 percent of their rooms booked with 21,600 and 17,000 reservations made, respectively. In a survey conducted in October last year, major travel agencies in China said they could draw hundreds of thousands more to visit Korea “should Korea secure more rooms” to accommodate them, according to the KTO. Having recognized the problem for several years, the tourism agency has been trying to increase and upgrade accommodation facilities in the country through the Benikea and Korea Stay (B&B) programs. Along with continued effort at government level to secure more accommodation, the KTO plans to introduce luxury travel packages for Chinese tourists this year to enhance Korea’s image. “Many Chinese travelers regard Korea as an inexpensive tourist destination, especially compared to Japan, which can create problems,” KTO President Lee Charm said. “Luxury packages would be effective in changing the Chinese people’s thoughts even if only a few people actually buy them.” <Questions> 1. What is your plan during Lunar New Year holiday? Do you think people’s attitudes toward traditional holidays have changed? 2. What would be the advantage/disadvantage of receiving as much as 45,000 Chinese visitors? 3. If Korea wants to attract more tourists, what can be improved? 1 in 4 elementary students admits to being bullied Jan 18,2012 One in every four students in the upper grades of elementary school have been bullied by schoolmates but nearly half kept silent about their experience, a survey showed yesterday. According to the survey of 1,377 fourth- to sixth-grade students of five elementary schools in Seoul by Childfund Korea, a nongovernmental child welfare organization, 25 percent said they have experienced bullying at school. The survey was conducted from September through late December of last year. The results were released after a recent string of suicides by young students who had been bullied triggered anxiety over rampant violence in South Korean grade schools. The respondents cited spreading malignant rumors, beating or pushing and verbal abuse as the most frequent types of bullying. Coming in second was hazing with unpleasant words or behavior, including sexual slurs, followed by theft of belongings or money.
About 53 percent of the victimized students said they sought help from their parents, teachers and friends after the incident, but 47 percent said they did not. Asked their reasons for not seeking help, 28 percent cited a fear of making things worse while 19 percent thought reporting the bullying would be of no use. Sixteen percent said they thought bullying was no big deal while 11 percent were afraid of the bullies taking revenge. The survey identified routes taken to and from school, out-of-the-way neighborhood areas, classrooms and school corridors as the most common places for student-on-student violence. Despite the recent heightened awareness of school violence, a decision by the Seoul metropolitan education council to employ “school sheriffs” under the direct control of school principals has drawn strong criticism from some parents. The council last month decided that private guards placed at schools in the capital to prevent student violence, kidnapping and sex crimes would come under the direct employment of school principals as part of cost-saving efforts, according to the Seoul metropolitan government. Parents’ organizations, however, say the change would mean a return to an outdated system of placing retired soldiers and police officers in schools as volunteer guards. <Questions> 1. What do you think is the main cause of school violence? Who should bear the responsibility of protecting young students? 2. What can be the solution to school violence? Do you think documenting the perpetrators’ penalties on their school records or reinforcing legal penalties will alleviate the problem? 3. The North Face brand has become one of the hottest status symbols among young students. Some scholars say the North Face phenomenon is driven by a sense of desperation to avoid being left behind. If you were a middle school student, do you think you would have followed the trend? What if your son or daughter wants to have it? People Judge in the Blink off an Eye Talk about snap judgments! People decide whether another person is trustworthy within a tenth of a second, a new study suggests. Researchers flashed photographs to about 200 test subjects, in some cases for 1 second and in others for a small fraction of a second. The participants were asked to rate each face and also to state how confident they were in their conclusions. "If given more time, people's fundamental judgment about faces did not change," said Princeton University psychologist Alex Todorov. "Observers simply became more confident in their judgments as the duration lengthened" Todorov has done similar research in the past. It all suggests snap judgments are common. "The link between facial features and character may be tenuous at best, but that doesn't stop our minds from sizing other people up at a glance," he said. "We decide very quickly whether a person possesses many of the traits we feel are important, such as likeability and competence, even though we have not exchanged a single word with them. It appears that we are hard-wired to draw these inferences in a fast, unreflective way." It's not clear why we judge so quickly. But Todorov has done brain imaging that suggests our mind's fear-response region may be involved. "The fear response involves the amygdala, a part of the brain that existed in animals for millions of years before the development of the prefrontal cortex, where rational thoughts come from," he said. "We imagine trust to be a rather sophisticated response, but our observations indicate that trust might be a case of a high-level judgment being made by a low-level brain structure. Perhaps the signal bypasses the cortex altogether." Meanwhile, he has no clue what we look for."We still don't know the physical features of a face that lead to a particular trait inference," he said. "We know generally what makes a face attractive, such as its symmetry, the proportions of its parts and the like. But what is it about a face that makes you think its owner is an essentially competent person? That's the subject of another study, one that needs to be done." <Questions> 1. When do first impressions play a key role? Do you think your first impressions are usually accurate? 2. What is the most important quality your current/future boy/girlfriend should have? 3. What was your first impression of other TN members (just for fun!)?
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