주제공지 7월 27일 주제입니다.

[sam@]

저는 sam입니다. 그 동안 딴 분들이 내주신 주제가지고 스터디했는데 막상 처음 주제 준비하려니 쉽지않네요...저 밤샜어요.^^ 담부턴 주제내 주신분께 고마워 하면서 스터디 해야겠네요...

TOPIC 1. Matchmaking enjoys resurgence as some favor efficiency more than
romance

It might seem out of date to think of a middle aged woman introducing single young people from wealthy families for the purpose of marriage, but it's not as absurd a prospect as we might imagine.
Matchmaking is alive and well in Korea and, in fact, on the increase.

According to the Korean Institute for Health and Social Affairs, about 41 percent of the couples who wed from 1998 to 2003 did so through matchmaking. The rate had been declining since the '80s, hitting a low of 24 percent in the early '90s. However, matchmaking has been making a comeback as a practical and rational young generation looks for an efficient way to find mates.

A matchmaker named Lee, who calls herself Madame Ttoo, has been pairing the sons and daughters of high society for 11 years. However it's not only the wealthy and the famous who are getting help from matchmakers, she says, adding that more upper-middle class people are asking her for help.

"And it's not just the parents who come to me," she says. "These days, young people are much more active in voicing the specific qualities they seek in their future spouses."

For instance, "I have seen many customers who let their longtime lovers go and chose a whole different person as their life partners," she explains, adding, "It seems that the younger generation is becoming much more calculating."

Lee asserts that there is much less risk of an unsuccessful marriage if a couple is introduced by a professional matchmaker. She is usually asked to find candidates with similar backgrounds and qualities, she says. Because of the similarities, couples can become close in a comparatively short period of time, and thus end up walking down the aisle more easily, she claims.

Koo So-hyun, 28, who got met her husband through a matchmaker two years ago, is fairly satisfied with her marriage and said she would willingly recommend the route to others. "When you go out with someone, you can easily become blind to the crucial conditions of marriage. But the person's financial basis or family background is very important," she says.

"My friends told me that I was a snob for considering the qualifications before meeting the person. But because we knew what we could expect beforehand, my husband and I could pull off the whole process of wedlock without any problems," Koo said.

Matchmaker Lee gets anywhere from 5 million to 20 million won for a couple that ties the knot, and 200,000 to 300,000 won just for setting up a date. There is actually no limit on the price because if she "grabs something big," the fee goes up.

"The funny part is that not all the prominent families ask for someone from a similar family," said Lee who remembers setting up some unexpected matches.

"A few years ago, the owner of a newspaper wed his son to an orphan. He had asked me to find someone who could concentrate only on supporting his son, and so the fact that the woman had no family actually worked in her favor."

Last year, an elderly woman who had raised two sons by herself asked Lee to find a bride for her elder son, a doctor. "The woman's second son, a prosecutor, married a woman he had gone out with for two years. Her daughter-in-law was treating her so badly that she felt betrayed. For her elder son, she wanted someone who was not too rich, clever, or pretty - just someone who knew how to serve her elders well. Actually, it was harder to find someone like that," said Lee with a laugh.

When introducing people who are both from prominent families, Lee has to be especially careful because they somehow are all connected with each other and rumors spread fast, so it's best to make the first match a success. To do this, Lee usually meets the mothers several times to be sure what they want.

To be sure, many people are still skeptical of such marriages.

But, "How you meet is not really important if you are prepared to see for yourself whether this person is really a good match for you, Lee said. "That is why I usually recommend couples see each other for at least a month before getting married. What I do is a small job. The rest is all up to the couples."

#question
1. What is your favorite method to meet your future spouse, arranged marriage or love marriage? If you are not a single, how did you meet your partner?

2. what is the good point and bad point of arranged marriage?

3. Some people say that we have to meet many candidates before we make final decision to marry with someone. What do you think about that?

4. Have you ever been a matchmaker to introduce man and woman to each other?
What is the result of that?

5. Could you tell us who the worst partner of your blind date was? What happened?


TOPIC 2. A Killer Within Us

An unprecedented series of killings took place in Seoul and other cities over the past year before most of us were even aware about it. On Sunday, a 33-year-old unemployed man confessed to an 11-month killing spree, preying upon mostly affluent elders or young masseuses, with the number of victims rising up to 26. Particularly shocking was that the suspect, Yoo Young-chul, brutally murdered innocent people as a means of venting his pent-up anger and hatred toward society.

Yoo, who had spent one third of his life in prison due to 14 previous convictions, seems to think women rejected him because he is poor and that his poverty is attributed to rich people’s domination of wealth. But he targeted only the elderly and prostitutes with careful planning and complete destruction of evidence. His inhumane crimes can never be excused under any circumstances.

Though these crimes can happen at anytime and to anybody, society needs to trace the source of this endless hatred. It is hard to deny that the extreme egoism, materialism and disregard for human lives bolstering these trends have combined to deepen the alienation of social outcasts. This results in desperate frustration, which in turn leads to lethal violence.

This shows that society is no longer free from monstrous and incomprehensible crimes we used to only see in foreign films. Worrisome in this regard is the lagging investigative capacity of the police. Despite the wide police investigation, the suspect was caught accidentally because of a telephone call from a massage shop operator. The police did not even know Yoo was the suspect of the serial killings and let him escape custody once when he feigned an epileptic seizure.

As society increasingly becomes materialistic, horrific crimes by insane persons are bound to rise. The police need to classify and systematically manage the records of criminals with mental illnesses. They ought to improve ability for scientific collection and analysis of information, and develop investigative techniques to cope with changing crime patterns. Hate crimes stem from frustration and resultant prejudices. Society can hardly remain free from the responsibility for sowing the seeds of such hatreds. Every component of society needs to think hard about its fundamental solution, such as a system to embrace socially alienated and frustrated people, while dissolving blind hostility toward the wealthy. Without efforts to soothe those who abandon themselves to despair, our social ills will never health.

#question

1. how did you feel about this murder case, when you heard first?

2. Of the two things that are external environment and individual character,
which one is the most responsible for this kind of serious crime? And why?

3.Korea has the law of death penalty and put a serious criminal to death.
But some people say that this law violate the human right. What is your opinion?

4.How can we do to avoid being a victim of crime?

5.Do you think Korea is safe from crime rather than other countries, relatively?

[피제이]

헉..새벽..5시..수고했습니다..

[코로나]

수고하셨습니다 ^^

[사토시]

수고했어요~ *^.^*

[뮤짱~]

크 . . 부담이 장난이 아니죠^^ 수고하셧습니다.

[Martina]

늦은 시간까지 수고 많으셨어요... 재미있을 것 같네요 *^^*

[자몽]

쌔~앰~~정말루 수고가 많았네요........그래도 완성하고 나니 기쁘죠?........나두 쌤처럼 그랬었다우!

[sam@]

감사함돠~~^^ 모두 즐건 스터디가 됐으면.... 근데 서포터스를 구해야 되는데..누굴 색출할 지...^^

[비쥬]

수고많으셨어요~결국 밤을 새셨군요..ㅎㅎ 나도 그랬어요..

[오떨이]

수고 많으셨습니다. 주제내는게 정말 많은 부담이 돼죠...그래도 한번쯤 해볼만 하다고 생각 됩니다. 정말 수고 많으셨어요.

[홍군(홍영곤)]

수고하셨습니다..^^

[마이클]

수고 입빠이했심다...............^^