(토요모임) [Nov. 7, 2015] Saturday meeting topic

[*시에나*]

1. This school teaches Korean dads 'how to hug'

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-10-28/school-teaches-korean-dads-how-hug

 

Chang is a student at the Duranno Father School in Centreville, Virginia — home to a growing Korean community. The Father School is a four-day retreat of sorts, designed to transform stoic Korean dads into more loving and involved parents. The oldest student is in his 70s, the youngest is just 27, and almost all have something in common — their wives made them come. 

 “She basically signed up and said, this is the start date. Go ahead and go,” Chang confesses. “But I’m glad I did it. They had homework, you know, that I normally wouldn’t do. It gave me some insights."

We’re in a church fellowship hall, where a live band plays modern Christian hymns, and the men sing along, followed by lectures and activities, including a lesson literally on how to hug. One arm here, bring the other person close, and no patting on the back. Then there are small group discussions that resemble both group therapy and a locker room huddle.

A volunteer in his 40s talks to a younger man in his 20s. “Do you think your father loved you?” he asks. The younger man pauses, and the older one answers for him. “Yes he did.  He just didn’t know how to communicate it.”

The Duranno Father School was started by a church in Seoul in the 1990s, as a response to an epidemic of absentee fathers in South Korea. Korean men work some of the longest hours in the developed world, Confucian values praised them for not expressing their emotions, and for some, it was the norm to physically discipline their kids.

By the third day, a few students have already dropped out. But those who remain are surprisingly honest in their sharing. Most say they’ve been disappointed by their own fathers, one worries about his teenage son, and another confesses he doesn’t see much of his grown children. A few admit with chagrin that they’ve turned out to be a lot like their own dads.

And the school’s not just about being a better dad. The men are assigned homework, like writing letters to their wives, and sharing a list of 20 reasons why you love her. Give her the kind of the attention you did while you were dating, the instructor urges.

One of the men shares the heartfelt letter he’s written to his wife. Since coming to the US four years ago, he admits life has been harder than he expected. “Living in a small apartment with children, unable to speak the language or find work,” he says, “we grew tired, and said more hurtful words than we intended.”

As it turns out, parenting is hard, and the stresses of immigrant life only make it harder. So a version of the Duranno Father School launched in the US in the early 2000s. A Korean version meets the needs of more recent immigrants, while an English language school serves the next generation. Over the years, the school has expanded to more than 40 countries around the world, with more than 300,000 graduates.

In fact, the school is staffed entirely by graduates. The older men say they don’t want to see younger dads repeat their mistakes. They don aprons and serve up coffee, as they share their own stories during breaks. Frankly, they say it’s easy to revert to their old selves in a matter of months, but in coming back to volunteer, there’s a community that keeps them accountable, says alum Dave Lee. 

“Even though I fall back on it sometimes,” he says, “through this school, it made me closer to my family — my wife and my children. I’m able to reflect back on things I’ve done wrong, or could have been done differently."

Families are invited to join the fathers for their graduation ceremony. The men change into the school’s signature referee striped shirts, as a symbol of their transformation. At the close of the night, the men file in with towels over their shoulders. They kneel before their wives and wash their feet gently, just as Jesus washed his disciples’ feet in the Bible. Women lean forward in their chairs, dabbing their eyes with tissues.

I meet a woman in her 50s, as she links arms with her husband and waits in line for their graduation photos. She’s holding flowers and eager to talk about the changes she sees in her husband. “You know, Korean men, they enjoy drinking.” She says her husband has agreed to drink less, and she’s thrilled. “I’m so happy to hear about this. Yes very, very happy.”

Fathers put their arms around their children, and smile for the camera — their wives look relieved and hopeful. Meanwhile staff are already circulating, recruiting new graduates to join their ranks as Father School volunteers.

Questions:

1. How do you describe Korean fathers? Do you think your father is a typical Korean father? Why or why not?

2. What do you think about this school that teaches dads 'how to hug'? Are you willing to take this class if you are a father or a mother?

3. Do you often express your gratitude to your family? How do you express when you do?

4. Do you think that you’ve also turned out to be a lot like their own mom or dad? What characteristics do you want to learn from your parents?  

2. Why Technology, Not Geography, Is Key to Cybersecurity

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-bildt/technology-cybersecurity_b_8391152.html

stevanovicigor via Getty Images

Once upon a time, two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, held summits to reduce the danger of a nuclear war. Today, the summitry is between the U.S. and China, a large part of which is to reduce the dangers of confrontation and conflict in cyberspace.

The stakes could not be higher. How the world responds to the threat of cyberattacks will determine the extent to which future generations will be able to benefit from the digital era. In addition to the possibility of conflict, there is the danger that governments will overreact, erecting barriers to information that undermine the potential of the Internet.

In a way, we are already in a low-level continuous conflict in cyberspace. China is not the only country that is engaging, through direct or indirect state action, in massive cyber operations against other countries' political and economic structures. We are in the midst of one of those historic shifts when offensive technologies are cheaper and more powerful than defensive ones.

Clearly, there is a need for rules of the road in cyberspace, and perhaps cyber-power summitry -- the U.S. is the Internet technology leader, while China has the largest numbers of users -- is the first step in this direction. But the danger is not only political confrontation between states. Fear of loss of control within states is driving new data localization requirements and other new barriers that would ultimately fracture and even balkanize the Internet.

In Russia, the Kremlin clearly has its own reasons for stipulating -- despite the unavoidable economic cost -- that all data generated within the country be stored on Russian-based servers. But equally worrying are policies in the European Union that, in the name of defending citizens' privacy, are leading to the erection of barriers to the free flow of data.

In some European countries, not least Germany, there seems to be a conviction that citizens' data will be safe only if it is stored on European soil, out of reach of, say, evil American spies. This simplistic philosophy also seems to have underpinned the European Court of Justice's recent decision invalidating the so-called Safe Harbour agreement, which facilitates the free flow of information across the Atlantic. As a result, the entire legal framework for these data transfers has been thrown into disarray.

Ensuring the protection and integrity of data is indeed a vital issue. But this has very little to do with where data are stored. Attackers based in China recently broke into the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and stole files with sensitive information on federal employees that compromised some 22 million people. Chinese and Russian hackers routinely penetrate secure industrial and government networks in the U.S. and Europe. And several countries are tapping underwater cables carrying the world's communications. So what problem does data localization actually solve?

The solution to privacy concerns lies not in data localization, but in the development of secure systems and the proper use of encryption. Data storage actually means the continuous transfer of data between users, with no regard for Westphalian borders. Security in the digital world is based on technology, not geography.

With the rapid development of global value chains, our economies are becoming increasingly dependent on the free flow of data across political borders. With the advent of new, global technologies such as blockchains -- continuously growing transaction databases used, for example, to sustain virtual currencies -- the notion of data localization becomes even more misguided.

The OECD has just issued a report highlighting how data-driven innovation will increasingly drive the economies of the future. Crucially, it stresses "the need to promote the 'openness' in the global data ecosystem and thus the free flow of data across nations, sectors, and organizations."

These principles are enshrined in the just-concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will govern trade and investment among 12 Pacific Rim countries, including the U.S.. The rest of the world should follow suit.

Indeed, a huge global agenda of digital governance -- the new domain of diplomacy -- lies before us. It includes the establishment of formal and informal norms for state behavior, better legal mechanisms for addressing cross-border cybercrime, transparent national legislation for law enforcement and endorsement of the need for encryption to protect the integrity of data. In all of these areas -- and more -- efforts to deal with cybercrime and terrorism must not undermine the principles on which the Internet is built.

China will face a choice. Today, it talks about its so-called "One Belt, One Road" initiative to link its economy with those of Central Asia and Europe. But China's global future will be as dependent as everyone else's on One Net -- an open, free, dynamic and secure Internet.

Europe also faces some important choices. The EU must not allow a muddled understanding of digital realities to give rise to profoundly damaging digital protectionism. It must overcome the institutional barriers that make it seemingly impossible to forge a common position on external cyber policy. And it needs to take the foreign policy implications of its actions seriously: When EU countries talk about data localization, others do, too.

Finally, the U.S. needs to adapt as well. It must accept that it is no longer the only global cyberpower, and that its own behavior must comply with globally accepted norms to which all must adhere.

The Internet has already become the world's most important infrastructure. But this is only the beginning: soon it will be the infrastructure of all other infrastructures. Policies born of confusion, chaos and confrontation have no place in this new world of opportunities.

Questions:

1. How much do you think data is important for national, military or economic development?

2. Cyber-warfare is a new threat to countries and their adversaries. How damaging do you think cyber-warfare can be for countries? And how could countries prevent it?

3. What kinds of efforts do you make to keep your personal information safe online?

4. Which do you think is more important--guaranteeing the free flow of data or protecting citizens’ privacy and data in cyberspace? And why?

[*시에나*]

벌써 11월이네요. 아트에스프레소도 새단장을 했다고 하는데 엄청 기대돼요. 모두들 이번주 토욜날
즐겁게 뵐 수 있길~^^

[세계일주]

오늘 서울 왔어요.비가 많이 오네요. 재미있고 즐거운시간되시기를.

[*시에나*]

네, 선생님~! 아쉽네요. ㅜㅜ 하지만 다음주에 즐겁게 뵈어요 ^^