The islander // Issue 08

issue 08 // summer term 2014

ISLANDER TEAM WRITERS WRITERS

Hannah Cho, Y10, Jeoji

EDITORIAL Mrs Monaghan Ms Holt Mr B Brown Zi Won Kim, Halla Terry Kwon, Halla

DESIGN

Jennifer Park, Halla

Minha Kim, Y10, Jeoji

Jillian Chun, Halla

Laura Moon, Y10, Geomun

Diane Jung, Halla

Esther Song, Y10, Jeoji

Selene Lee, Halla

Joanna Song, Y10, Noro

Junha Hwang, Halla

Annie Kim, Y10, Jeoji

Scott Oh, Halla

Chelsea Park, Y9, Mulchat

Jiwon Moon, Y11, Geomun

Gemin Bang, Y9, Geomun

Jiho Choi, Y11, Mulchat

Alicia Cho, Y8, Jeoji

Josh Lee, Y11, Sarah

Claire Oh, Y8, Sarah

Lindsey Lee, Y10, Geomun

Gabriella Kim, Y8, Mulchat

Elly Jung, Y10, Geomun

Hannah Seo, Y8, Jeoji

Ashley Park, Y10, Geomun

Cion Choi, Y8, Geomun

Mrs ECT

Lina Kim, Y10, Mulchat

Kay Nam, Y8, Jeoji

Abby Ro, Y10, Geomun

Jinn Park, Y10, Sarah

Sein Lee, Y8, Geomun

Mr Lidiard

Celene Tae, Y10, Sarah

Shunto Shigatomi, Y8, Noro

Seok Yung Yu, Halla

Diane Lee, Y10, Sarah

Julia Kim, Y8, Geomun

Rachel Humphriss

Yejin Choi, Y10, Mulchat

Eunice Lee, Y8, Noro

Will Stocks

June Song, Y10, Mulchat

Jory Cooke, Y8, Sarah

Millie Ballard

Mr Taylor Jiwon Moon, Y11, Geomun Jiho Choi, Y11, Mulchat Brian Lee, Halla

CONTRIBUTORS Mr Hewlett MS Levy Mr Long Mr S Brown

by Karen Yoo, Halla Communication, our major source of connection and the link between different people from different backgrounds, is pivotal in everyday life. In order to express ‘Communicator’ I have drawn an image of two people, a speaker and a listener. I used tangled lines between the listener and speaker to demonstrate the complexity of communication - how it can be in numerous forms. Moreover, as our school is an international one that encourages multicultural society and global relationships, I chose to include a world map covered with words from different languages that all mean ‘communicator’, hence representing a global link between people from different backgrounds that is created by communication.

Welcome MrS Monaghan, editor / captain of the good ship islander and english teacher, welcomes you her final issue.

When I leave Jeju at the end of this term, I will take a few things to remind me of my amazing three years teaching at this school. I will take a few Harubang, many photos of us all on the beach, and tucked into my suitcase – a copy of the Islander. In years to come, I will look back and still see The Islander as the ultimate symbol of how far our students developed in the first three years of the life of the school.

Three years ago, we tried to start an online school magazine. We sat in the computer room and looked at the blank faces in front of us. Not one child came up with an idea and many struggled to attend more than two sessions in a row. It was, to say the least, a very frustrating experience.

Fast forward to now, our 8th edition. The computer room on a Thursday afternoon is filled with a buzz of excitement. Older students are working with younger students; students are working on articles that are stretching and interesting and crucially, on a topic that they have chosen themselves. It is the epitome of the commitment, challenge and collaboration that we require from all our students. It is, at times, almost as if The Islander runs itself.

The Islander is proof that our students are brilliant communicators. They communicate through their writing and artwork; they communicate to each other and to us, as staff, with confidence and flair.

But it’s more than that. The Islander shows that our students are communicating with the world around them, through articles about international issues and through engaging with topics such as languages, politics, history, food and everything that else that graces the pages of this magazine.

I know that this magazine will continue to thrive as our students go on developing their communication skills and I hope that the students continue to be incredibly proud of producing what must be, the best student magazine of any school in the world.

Artwork by Abby Ro, Year 10, Geomun

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Welcome

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Welcome

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Welcome

Photo by Brian Lee, Halla

All of us 6

Welcome

2013-2014 7

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GRADUATES

‘What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.’

T.S. Elliot

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TERRY KWON, HALLA, LOOKS BACK ON A FORMATIVE 3 YEARS FOR OUR FIRST SET OF GRADUATES.

September 26th, 2011.

That was when it all started.

Stepping into the main school building, together with my parents while being led by a tall, deepvoiced English gentleman with a semi-James Bondish look (who later turned out to be Mr. Monaghan, Director of Boarding and Section Head), I was simply awestruck at the sheer scale of the school facilities. A three-storey library. An opera house-styled theatre (Performing Arts Centre). A football pitch-sized field of grass (Astroturf). Fully equipped accommodation with spacious rooms (boarding houses). I blinked my eyes, and thought that all that I had just seen would be nothing more than a mere dream. But I was wrong. I was here, North London Collegiate School Jeju, where I would be studying for the next three years of my teenage life. An exceptional British education.

During the first few days of school, it was a bit hard to strike off that sense of nervousness and anxiety. A new beginning, new friends, new teachers, and a new school. I guess most, if not all, people would have been feeling the same way, unless they had had the opportunity to study at an international school somewhere else in the world. Except for two Korean-based subjects, Korean Language and Korean History, all the other classes were taught in English, by native English speakers. English, Mathematics, Sciences, Global Perspectives. The list seemed to be endless. It was slightly awkward at first, but I soon became accustomed to the NLCS way of life.

Then came the International Baccalaureate, two years’ worth of rigorous academic curriculum, accompanied by official examinations at the end of Year 13. Yes, it was slightly daunting – having to manage six subjects as well as core components.

You know, TOK, EE and all those other souldestroying acronyms. It was not really what students could call ‘a piece of cake.’ However,

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I persevered, never ceasing to follow the ‘Ten Commandments (IB Learner Profile)’ set by the IBO: risk-takers, communicators, and inquirers.

Other than the classes, I also greatly enjoyed the non-academic side of NLCS Jeju, given the wide variety of co curricular programmes that are provided by the school. Introducing an environmental awareness week as the oldest member of the Green Club; acting in ‘Us & Them;’ winning the House General Knowledge Competition; being a committee member for several projects, including Project Somosomo, Summer Fete, Leavers’ Yearbook and Canons Follies; helping young students in the Junior School by initiating a DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) programme and Indoor Athletics and finally, working as an editor and a contributor for NLCS Jeju’s official student magazine ‘The Islander.’

There will be a big ‘hole’ when Year 13 students, including myself, leave NLCS Jeju, after having finishing our exams last month, being marked down in history as the school’s inaugural graduates. It sounds amazing that we have come a long way in such a short time. Just look at how much we have achieved over the past three years, both in academic and co curricular areas.

We will miss Founder’s Day, the regular school notices, as well as all the fun and joy of being a student here at NLCS Jeju, but it is now time for us to say goodbye. We have to move on to bigger horizons, go out into the world in order to achieve our dreams and ambitions.

Regardless of whether we become a fresher here in Korea or; studying Politics, Economics, History or any other subject, we will always feel proud of one thing… that we have once been truly caring and open-minded ‘Islanders.’

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I’d like to start with a few questions…

Do you own a passport?

Have you ever used it to travel? I bet the majority of you are answering, ‘yes’.

I ask, because I have become particularly obsessed with the concept of travel and how that links with internationalmindedness and helping to cultivate an understanding of different cultures and countries.

Now, had I asked that question 25 years ago, I might have received a very different answer. Only a tiny handful of our Korean readers would have answered, ‘yes’.

As I am sure you know, prior to 1989, South Koreans were unable to travel outside their own country except on business trips, due to restrictions placed by the government on travel up until that point.

Things have changed a great deal and as soon as travel restraints were removed, South Korean people showed a great appetite for travel. A survey conducted in 2010 for example, indicated that as many as 50% of South Koreans intended to travel abroad for holidays- primarily to China and Japan, but also further afield to the UK, Russia and the US. Statistics indicate numbers of Koreans travelling abroad has increased by up to 10% year on year since 2000. This relatively recent growth in interest for meeting foreigners and travelling to foreign countries is something that really interests me about Korea, because it is so closely linked to international-mindedness.

Of course it is possible to understand other cultures and countries by studying them, reading about them, watching their movies and listening to their music, but actually travelling to that country and staying there, perhaps for a prolonged

period of time, not just a vacation, really provides a genuine taste of that culture and atmosphere. This is something that our exchange students with the UK will discover for themselves later this term.

Now we all assume that the passport is an absolute essential before you can travel, but that has not always been the case. And today I want to tell you a story about how this little document became so important and has made it possible for us to embark on all the amazing travel adventures and develop our international mindedness.

It starts with a called Fridthof Nansen.

He was an amazing looking guy, with a fabulous moustache , intense stare and awesome furcot. He was an champion skier, and a polar explorer amongst other things. One of those other things though, is quite surprising. This is the man we have to thank for the passport.

So let me tell you a little more about this fascinating man and just how he and the passport are linked.

Fridthof Nanse cam from Norway, in the far north of Europe, which partly explains the furcoat. He was born in the middle of the 19th century in 1861. In his early life, he was not really focused on internationalism- his passion was for adventure and science. He studied zoology at university and developed a real passion for oceanography, mainly, he said, because he wanted to work outside I the open air. He quickly showed his talent for adventure, embarking on sea voyages in the 1880s to establish new scientific understanding- proving, for example, in 1882,that ice forms on the surface of water, rather than below. And that the Gulf Stream, a warm current of water, flows beneath a cold layer of surface water.

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enerally, people in the 21st century are terrible when it comes to talking face to face with other people. We sit on the subway, in solitude, not even looking at the person sitting beside us.

50 years ago this would be very different because we would not have had phones and ipads to hide in. However, there is one man that doesn’t find it hard to talk to strangers at all. In fact, he’s made a career out of it.

Brandon Stanton is a gifted man with the ability to convince people to talk about the most fragile or sensitive moment

in their life, things that they wouldn’t reveal to anyone else.

He has used this gift to start a blog about ‘The Humans of New York’ and has set out to take 10,000 peoples’ photo and to add a snippet of their personal life to his records.

Communication is such a wide spread subject that there is no ‘official’ name for the study of it. This is probably because it comes into every situation, so to master it is to tackle every situation that you could ever be in. Brandon Stanton has mastered this skill. He says, “What I am trying to maintain is the culture of positivity”. He currently has 5 million followers on Facebook and is the author of a No.1 bestselling book.

But how does he do this?

Brandon has some rules for when he approaches people: Never approach people from behind ‘If their first reaction is “’whaa’ then you’re doomed, you could be mother Theresa and they won’t talk’ (From Brandon’s interview at the University College in Dublin).

It’s often better if the person is alone ‘It’s very paradoxical that even when people have heard of ‘Humans of New York’, even when they know that it is going to be shared with 6 million people later that night, if their friend is near them they’ll clam up.’

Always make eye contact ‘You need to be confident otherwise they’ll think, ‘Why is he so nervous? What’s wrong with me?’

By doing all of these things, he manages to make people feel more comfortable when he is talking to them. In a way, he has rediscovered the lost art of talking face to face.

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When you get the person’s attention ask them a broader question like; ‘When did you feel most let down?’ or ‘Give me one piece of advice’. He never looks for an answer in the first question; the first question is an opening to the next question, which will have a more personal answer.

Let’s say that the interviewee replied ‘take risks’ to the question. Brandon might then say, ‘When was a time when you didn’t take a risk that you regret?’ Now he is getting into more intimate answers that might go on his site.

As I said in the opening, people are communicating less and less. However Brandon shows us that although we are not communicating as much as 50 years ago, we are still willing, if not wanting, to do it. If all we need is a kind-hearted man to come up to us in the street and pay us some attention for us to tell him our most intimate secret, then surely we should be talking to each other face to face on the subway and surely we should be talking to each other more.

Welcome

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Welcome

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The Original Twitter Scott Oh, Halla, set out to find the most obscure language in the world. Silbo Gomero was only No. 5 on the list but it caught his attention.

“Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like riding a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life.”

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his is a quote from Brian Tracy, a Canadian motivational speaker and author of many inspirational books, and it suggests the importance of communication in life. Today, people are motivated to try and become a multilinguist, learning various languages such as French, Spanish and Mandarin - the languages that people, typically, are willing to learn for academic, careerrelated or recreational reasons.

However, there are various languages that people rarely know of. When I searched online to find a list of weird languages in the world, a large proportion of the list contained languages that I’ve never heard of in my life.

When it comes to being one of world’s most unknown languages, The Silbo Gomeron language is not an exception. On the small Spanish island of La Gomera, you can hear a vibrant whistling sound travelling miles down the mountains and this magnificent sound is not made by birds, but by people- probably telling neighbors that they left the gas on. Having a vocabulary consisting of just 4000 words, “silbadors”, from children to elders, use the whistling language, known as Silbo, to send messages (almost like modern day cell phones) across the island’s high peaks and deep valleys (the high frequency is said to help to carry the sound miles away).

To my surprise, Silbo is not really its own language; it uses any existing language to speak through whistling. According to historical records, it is said that the original language came from immigrants from part of today’s Mauritania, and they spoke a tonal language. Tones were important to the phonology (the branch of linguistics that deals with systems of sounds) of the language in order allow people speak simple sentences with just the tones and not lose meaning. This system has evolved to even imitating consonants by including glides and stops, which enable whistlers to convey complex phrases.

In the 16th century, the Spanish invaded the island and eventually the natives became extinct.

However, the Spanish immigrants used the whistling language and adapted it to their own.

Apparently, the system of the language was compatible with the native Spanish language since Spanish does not have phonologically significant tones and therefore pitch variation is used to represent vowels. Indeed, this became a popular language, especially amongst farmers and shepherds, because the geology of the area supported the long-distance communication.

Although, in the 1990’s, modernization threatened the existence of the language and it there was a potential that the language could become extinct, there has been lots of effort to get it away from the verge of the situation. The government of La Gomera made it mandatory for elementary students to learn the language and also El Silbo was added to the public school curriculum. Furthermore, to bring back the whistling renaissance and revival, UNESCO gave the protected cultural status to El silbo on September 2009.

Overall, it is quite ironic that people tend to be more ‘international’ as they learn new languages, but actually they are censored to have only a shallow view of the choices available because the reasons for learning languages usually involve jobs and university applications. Because of this, languages (including the whistling language) are becoming extinct due to an almost imperialism of superior languages, which people will only learn.

All languages have an equal value; the core of communication is about the connection made between groups of people, not using the skills in a materialistic view.

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H I E r AR CHY A n y s y s t e m o f p e r s o n s o r t h i n g s w h e r e o n e i s r a n k e d a b o v e a n o t h e r.

Lina Kim, Year 10, Mulchat, looks at how this age old social framework is being challenged by the students of NLCS Jeju.

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Hierarchy This system has been dominating Korea forever.

It is particularly common and noticeable in Korean schools; there’s a huge, invisible gap between the year groups. Especially, younger ones feel that they can never talk to or hang out with older ones. However, in NLCS Jeju, this enormous wall is slowly being demolished, and you might think you are quite communicative with other year groups.

So, here’s the next challenge: it’s time to get rid of a wall between you and the Junior students - completely. However, it’s hard to communicate and spend time with Juniors because we are absolutely separated in schools and houses. Therefore, it’s important for you to step forward and try to communicate with them. It is hard to walk over to one of the Junior students and suddenly talk to them, so here are some tips.

SMILE!

This is the easy one: Smile. There isn’t anything that’s friendlier than smiling. When you smile at them, they will naturally smile back, but that’s not just it; they feel a lot of things from your grin: Affection, care, warmth, fondness…

Moreover, they will respond to you with saying ‘hello’ and waving. You might think this isn’t really communicating with them, but believe me. It is way better to exchange delighted smiles and hellos rather than passing each other in an awkward atmosphere.

HELP OUT!

Do something with them. In our school, there are so many activities that you can do with Juniors. For example, Janice Kim in Yr 10 volunteered herself to help with the Junior orchestra and she’s very much enjoying it. She personally thought that the cutest moment was when they asked her ridiculous questions that she could never answer.

Now it’s time to put your Islander magazine down (although you haven’t finished reading all the articles yet), stand up, and walk alongside the Harubangers so that you can actually give them a swift smile. Next week, you can make jokes around them, then the week after, you can do some kind of an activity with them and get ready to answer to ridiculous questions. They are the cutest ones to communicate with; you will never regret listening to my advice.

Famous Celebrities // Fanfics How many of you are fans of idols? A fanfic is an abbreviated word for fan fiction, and it features Korean idols (usually men) as the main characters such as TVXQ, SHINee, EXO, G.O.D., and Jacks Kiss. Written by the fans of such idols, it creates a story based on them, although it is normally false, and created mainly for enjoyment. For example, SM Entertainment (one of the largest entertainment companies in S. Korea) presented a fanfic a few years ago related to one of the boy groups in their own company, TVXQ in 2006 and over 3,000 copies of the stories were sold in just 5 days.

Professor In Hwa Lee (from Leehwa Women’s University) has said that fanfics “collapse the border between the readers and the writers, and it even breaks down barriers to entry. It also is designed to stimulate the netizens.”

However, in this article, we will prove that fanfics, although they are stimulating and fun, can also cause devastating results.

Fanfics were originally designed to be enjoyable and fun; however our society doesn’t stick to the rules. Some anti-fans of idols write negative fanfics for the idols they hate and post them on the internet, which everybody has access to. As soon as the people read the story, the idol has to go through an extreme collapse to their own lives - which is almost impossible to recover from. It doesn’t matter to the people what is the “truth”; what they see and believe is the truth. The real “truth” doesn’t matter to the audience anymore.

Do you know what a ‘power blogger’ is? A ‘power blogger’ is someone who owns a huge blog where the power blogger (owner of the blog) posts things on it and they earn lots of money by doing this, since millions and millions of people visit their blog everyday.

In one of the comics in Naver, there is a type of fanfic, called ‘ENT.’ It bases its story on the idols in SM entertainment. Many K-POP idols belong to this company, such as EXO-K and EXO-M, SHINee, Girls Generation, TVXQ, F(X), and BoA. In this comic, the power

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blogger is called ‘Foxstar’ (the internet ID he uses) and he is actually a simple high school student, or he looks like one. Apparently he is placed in the same class with a girl idol, who is pretending to be a normal teenager.

Her name is K and she has just debuted in a mixed gender pop group, called ‘4th of July.’

Unfortunately, Foxstar recognises K and forces her to pass on important information about SM, so that he could release fanfics with more detail related to the idols in SM. This comic shows that such a person could do just about anything to a celebrity.

This story ends with K and Foxstar’s romance, and although it does give the readers enjoyment, it also gives an important message - the internet is a dangerous place. The power within the internet is concentrated on a small group of people, and that group of people control the whole internet in S. Korea, and post what they want the people to know, not the 100% truth. Even though the people later find out, there’s nothing they can do to prevent it from happening again.

The Fifth Estate // Wikileaks This is interesting. You may think that physical power, weapons, cages, prisons or chains cause the most amount of distress and anger for human beings, but actually, the media can be the most dangerous and also challenging thing to control; it can cause all sorts of terrifying problems in the human world. n the film ‘the Fifth Estate’ and in fact, in reality, Wikileaks, a publicly-open website shares information from many high positioned authorities, governments of significant countries, and divulges acts of secret terrorists. A man called Julian Assange does all this.

This website destroys everything. As the world’s top secrets spill out into the public, significant groups around the world are in grave danger: they are being overthrown

by Wikileaks. They are losing control over the people, which means that no one will trust and rely on them anymore.

Let’s take one example from the film. A huge American bank, Mastercard has been broken down and all the secrets and the corruptions that the bank has been hiding are revealed to the world on July 3rd, 2013. This bank used to be recognized as one of the most reliable and widespread online banks, but after Wikileaks revealed everything, no one wanted to invest any money in Mastercard and the bank went bankrupt. This is

just one example of publicity overthrowing huge companies that seem like very trustworthy ones. So publicity after all, is really quite influential.

However, because the companies want to conceal bad secrets and corruption (and there are no positive secrets being concealed), Wikileaks can’t help but present negative ideas to the public. Therefore, the companies that have been largely affected by Wikileaks naturally want to destroy Wikileaks and try to recover their secrets. But Wikileaks is prepared. The whistleblowers who spill the secrets to Wikileaks are carefully protected by the Wikileaks system, which overlaps many articles from the normal newspapers and hides the data of the whistle-blower carefully underneath. Because of this system, many of the famous computer hackers cannot find out who spilled the secrets to Wikileaks.

Wikileaks is a very powerful organisation.

It can overthrow huge companies, communities, and even governments. It is secure: no one knows how, no one knows who. It is popular to everyone.

The question now is: should Wikileaks continue to exist?

1984 // George Orwell A world where everyone thinks the same, acts the same, and believes the same? That’s never going to be listed as anybody’s favourite world. Indoctrination (brainwashing) is repeating a belief to someone so endlessly that the person is forced to believe in your belief and reject any others. This can destroy people completely. It also means that the single dictator who indoctrinates other people has complete control over the community, even if what he or she is doing is illegal. People cannot deny that indoctrination is a negative thing.

That’s exactly what happens in 1984. Big brother, the dictator, forces people to follow his beliefs, to hate who he hates, to love who he loves, to think what he thinks. He thinks that it is the only way society can be cherished and stay safe and undestroyed. So he has people who work for him to capture the people who are suspected of disagreeing with him.

1984 is an extremely exaggerated example of what happens when there is no publicity. If no one is allowed to express their own opinions and thoughts, people often go into very unstable positions and start to think negatively and rebelliously, like the way Winston and Julia did towards the end of the book. Also, because everyone agrees on one single point, creativity is demolished, and hence, the community cannot improve for the people can live a more beautiful, positive, healthy life. Big brother’s oppressive act to indoctrinate lots of people is very forceful and impressive, but the fact that some independent minds like Winston can still establish unique identities and are able to still feel something more than what they are expected to feel, suggests that humans are social animals, and that publicity is able to be sustained in our society because we have strong and creative minds that can never be destroyed.

“War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.”

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junha hwang student director of clubs & societies introduces her vision for SOCIETIES

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To start with, I must tell you, societies shouldn’t be something you are reluctantly assigned to or where you commit your time unwillingly. They should really be the most enjoyable part of your school life, disregarding your academic life (Of course, studying should be your priority and source of excitement, haha - sarcastic laugh).

I came to realize that societies at NLCS Jeju act more as semiacademic clubs, especially for the academic societies like Maths and Economics, where groups of people who enjoy solving mathematical problems or talking all that gibberish about demand and supply curve and interest rate. But that’s more like a club.

The main difference between societies and clubs is that, as a society member, you are ambassadors that engage and communicate to people about your subject area by holding fun and interesting exhibitive events, such as lectures, games, movie nights and events, in order to let those people unaware of the fun involved in the Economics discussions to know about it.

You get to enjoy the things that you do with members in the society, things that you plan to do during your action week and definitely enjoy the fact that you belong to a group of people who share the same interest. And as you enjoy it more, you will also enjoy telling others about something you love.

Just a short notice before you swiftly drift away to the next page, Mr Taylor, Jason Dongho Lee and I will soon introduce you to the new Societies Renovation proposal at the beginning of the next Academic year, which will remain a secret for now.

We want your input. If you have any requests or suggestions for improvements to NLCS Jeju Societies, such as, further encouragement of the cohesion between the members within the societies, do please email societies@nlcsjeju.kr and I hope we can take account of your ideas in the upcoming proposal.

Words Terry Kwon, Halla Art Seok Yung Yu, Halla

Then and Now

There we were Looking above our heads into the shining yellow lights and feeling mesmerized There we were Standing out in the rain Soaking wet and cold for Founder’s Day There we were Being close to friends and teachers who are full of love and care There we were Dancing and jiving All night long to the music And now We are here Stepping into the future With feelings of Happiness and success

G Year 8 Geography Field Trip

allery

Greeks v Romans

Pied Piper

House Drama

Nepal Service Trip

Junior School Sports Day Pictures from some of our school events since the last issue

Year 8 Geography Trip

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Pied Piper

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Pied Piper

Greeks v Romans

House Drama

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Nepal Service Trip Photography by MRS ECT

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Junior School Sports Day

Design by Jiho Choi, Year 11, Mulchat

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#@*&% Words

W O R D S J i n n P a r k , Ye a r 1 0 , S a r a h ART Junha Hwang, Halla

What word starts with F and rhymes with duck?

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am sure you-know-what popped into your mind instantly. If your child by any chance laughs with you at this opening sentence, you might want to have a small chat with them. Of course, these days even the five-year-olds playing tag in the playground know all kinds of swearwords; other than you-knowwhat. And, since they don’t develop a language filter quite that early, little ones occasionally alarm their parents with interesting vocabulary.

It is extremely rare for teenagers in our proud, modern society to not know a single swear word. They might claim that they don’t use them, but the fact that they are exposed to a certain amount of profanities is certain. If you think about it, most of the movies over the PG-13 rating include quite a diverse range of curses, meaning even our sweet Year 7s are exposed to the vicious swearwords we would normally not say out loud in front of Mr Daly.

So why? Why do you automatically blurt out you-know-what when you bump your head into the door? Or when you accidentally forget to do your maths homework, or when you hear the footsteps in crescendo outside your door at 12:00AM with your laptop radiant?

Why do we swear?

Well, in defence of the profanities, I would say that swearing is nothing more than a way of reacting to an agonizing situation. You swear because there is no other word that exactly captures your emotion at that moment. Since not every one of us is a poet who can play with words to express such dynamic emotions, we use these curse words instead. Basically, we swear to ease the extreme pain, anger, frustration or surprise by letting them escape our mouth, concentrated into a single word.

But surely, in the complex mind of the human species, we must have better excuses for using such coarse language. I’m sure most of the elite NLCS Jeju students are familiar with ‘Dr Frost’, a web-toon sponsored by the green search engine. From this psychology-themed comic, I learnt that animals use violent acts (cats baring their teeth and etc.) to exhibit their unhappiness. Basically, the cats are not preparing themselves to get into a fight but are simply ‘threatening’ the opponent to step back by noticeably expressing their anger. So perhaps we as species, with the privilege of inventive language, swear as a sign of warning.

We swear to fully display our frustration or anger or any kind of unpleasant emotion that runs through our minds.

Nonetheless, we cannot deny the fact that we sometimes swear with the intention of hurting somebody; and that we do this much more often than we think. The very reason why profanities are frowned upon in most placesincluding our home and school- is because they are offensive to other people. If we swear directly towards someone else, we are not pouring our anger out on the situation. Using profanities towards somebody else isn’t fair.

It’s not fair to let out your anger onto someone else, whatever that person might have done wrong. It’s almost like firing gunshots at them; the only difference is that you are using the swearwords instead of bullets.

Profanities are accepted to a certain extent in most societies. They could be used as a show of affection to a close friend and can be used as a response to painful situations. Sometimes it’s better to use these swearwords and let your emotion out than to keep it all in and let it rot inside. But just keep in mind that although our curse is not as dramatic as the ones the wizards use in Harry Potter, it is more than capable of giving a permanent scar to somebody else.

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O’SULLOC A special report on the famous tea plantation and brand from The Islander Creation Team

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For the last issue of The Islander of 2013-2014 academic year, our Creation Team has decided to visit Jeju O’Sulloc and introduce us to all its features. Although we live in a school that is very close to O’Sulloc, we realized that we don’t know much about it. Therefore, as the excellent communicators we are, we decided to visit the place ourselves and find out what it is, what it does, and what it offers.

While we were there, we also did some interviews with the tourists visiting the place to find out how much they know about our school, NLCS Jeju.

This section will help you expand your background knowledge of O’Sulloc, which will help your experience there when you actually visit the place in the future.

Zi Won Kim, Halla

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An Introduction Sein Lee, Year 8, Geomun // Eunice Lee, Year 8, Noro // Shunto Shigetomi, Year 8, Noro O’Sulloc Tea Museum is a very well-known tourist attraction on Jeju near NLCS Jeju.

O’Sulloc has been open for more than 20 years, from 1983, and it has made great improvements during that time. It has transformed deserted land into a tea museum, attracting millions of people every year from various countries and regions. It fully displays Korea’s tradition in tea. The location of the tea museum is also very consistent to its purpose. It was deliberately built near the place of the exile, Jung Hee Kim, who played a major part in Korean tea history. It also contains a tea museum, two cafes, and even a cosmetics shop named ‘Innisfree.’ All these intriguing facilities are built in a large tea field, giving a very fresh and clean image.

In comparison to other tourist attractions on Jeju, what makes O’Sulloc so special?

O’Sulloc is different because it is not stuck to busy tour schedules and doesn’t try to show something that is brought in from outer regions and countries. It also does not have crowded exhibitions that are just pleasant to the eye only for a moment, leaving nothing that sticks in your mind when you leave the place. It shows the characteristics of Jeju Island, not through raw nature but with the green tea fields and buildings, equipped with activities that are designed to soothe and treat the numerous visitors. It fits in with the surroundings, but does not bore the curious sightseers. O’Sulloc is meaningful in the way that it reaches out to tourists who have different interests and pursuits.

Anyone can enjoy O’sulloc, even you.

O’Sulloc on Jeju, is not the only branch of the tea company, ‘O’Sulloc.’ There are many branches around the Korean peninsula, including Seoul, Busan, and many other cities. However, the people prefer O’Sulloc on Jeju because of the living and breathing nature that fulfills the desires of the tourists. People think the cafes are much

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more tranquil than the cafes in Seoul, and they think it is much more “natural” and interesting to be having tea in front of an actual tea field. Shockingly, some people stated that they never even heard of O’Sulloc in Seoul. They explained that even if there is an O’Sulloc cafe or shop in Seoul, it would not be able to follow the lovely atmosphere and the suitable environment of O’Sulloc on Jeju.

So how well known is O’Sulloc? When we went to O’Sulloc, we could find people from different Asian nationalities. O’Sulloc attracts millions of tourists every year, and the number of foreign visitors is increasing every year. People trust Jeju’s nature and they feel the serenity in their hearts, soothing their mind and appeasing their tea hungry mouths with flavorsome tea.

It was a great experience for us to visit the O’Sulloc tea museum on Jeju. If you are a person from anywhere else in Korea, you can recognize how O’sulloc creates such eco-friendly and trustworthy products. If you are a person from a foreign country, you can experience Korea’s tea tradition, and how Korea makes such crisp and refreshing tea. Even if you are a resident of Jeju, you can visit the tea museum, and always enjoy a nice cup of tea.

A Survey Rachel Cho and Nancy Kwon, both Year 8, both Mulchat wanted to find out who at O’Sulloc had heard of NLCS Jeju .

“We are a school that prides itself on the exceptional education we deliver. In part, this is possible due to the inspiration we draw from our mother school, NLCS UK and the important bond that has developed between the two institutions.”

We introduce our school to be such. But to what extent is our school known to the general public?

To find out about the view held by other people about our school, we recently visited O’Sulloc to conduct a survey with people from around the world. The outcomes were rather interesting.

This is the result from our survey. 70% of the O’Sulloc visitors were familiar with our school. It was interesting that there were lots of people who knew our school. The research was done among the diverse visitors. For example, we did our survey with elderly people from Suwon, Geounggi-Do, who came as a group in coaches, and also families from Seoul, Ulsan, and Daegu. Further more, there were also some university students who had come out for a short break from their long school terms and also some residents of Jeju City.

About 70% of our interviewees were parents, 10% were elders, and the other 20% were people like the students mentioned above. Also, we found out that most of the people actually knew our school, but from different sources such as news reports, friends and neighbours, and TV programs that introduced our school.

Because O’Sulloc Tea Museum is a tourist attraction site, it is probably not the most useful place to look at for finding out the general public awareness of our school. We hope that future Islanders will conduct this type of survey in a different place such as Seoul, where there are more diverse types of people, including parents who have children of our age and highly interested in education.

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Eating at O’Sulloc Hannah Cho, Year 10, Jeoji // Laura Moon, Year 10, Geomun O’Sulloc is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Jeju. At the museum, there are two cafes, O’Sulloc Café and the newly launched Innisfree Café, which provides visitors with a place to rest while enjoying various green-tea products. Both cafes are very relaxing places as there are so many nature-based food and drinks. They have also adopted beautiful ecofriendly architecture and interior design to provide a special café experience to their visitors of Jeju. While the two cafés are located very closely, each café offers a unique café experience.

O’Sulloc Tea House When you arrive at O’Sulloc, the first building in sight is the O’Sulloc Tea House. The Tea House offers visitors of Jeju an elegant and comfortable place to relax in the vast field of green tea. A true paradise for green tea lovers, there are so many different ways to enjoy green tea at O’Sulloc.

Visitors enter the door and smell green tea. Calm music is playing, relaxing them as they feel the warm atmosphere of the building.

In the Tea House, there is a museum and cultural space for visitors to experience and learn more about green tea.

The museum has sections where visitors can find out detailed information about the history of green tea, and the cultural space after the museum has different kinds of tea, green tea based cosmetics, and other souvenirs that the visitors can experience and purchase. When they enter the green tea house, there is a large plate at the entrance which is used to roast the fresh tea leaves. This is the section where customers can watch green tea be brewed.

Next, there is the most-loved cafe, where visitors get to taste a wide variety of green tea beverages and snacks. One of the best menus in

the cafe is the Green Tea Shake, which has O’Sulloc’s famous green tea ice cream on top of the green tea milk shake. Another wellknown menu is the Jeju Island Green tea, which consists of cold green tea latte with red beans on the bottom. It is very sweet, so visitors can taste and enjoy the taste of Green Tea regardless of age. The cafe also offers take-out services so customers can enjoy the flavors of Jeju green tea on the go.

Innisfree Right next to the Osulloc Tea Museum is another outlet where people can enjoy themselves: Innisfree Jeju House. It is a complex facility that offers a diversity of original experiences and relaxation. With its main purpose, which is to allow more people to experience and enjoy nature, the café provides a wide range of organic food and activities, all using natural ingredients.

There are three distinct zones in Innisfree. The Organic Green Café is the main feature as it attracts thousands of visitors each year with its organic food and drinks.

Moreover, people can enjoy themselves in the open space while enjoying the endless green tea plantation.

entertainment, resembling the sea as well. Furthermore, ‘Jeju Tangerine Oreum Shaved Ice’ is known as the best bingsoo in the café. It is full of vitamin C with tangerine pieces harmonized with tangerine syrup. The chewy texture of the tangerine and the well grinded ice are blended together. Although it is not filling, it is just enough for 3 to 4 people to share and enjoy.

Innisfree Jeju House is splendid for those who want to have a peaceful, relaxing time surrounded by nature. It is definitely recommendable to anyone who wants to enjoy an afternoon in a beautiful, comfortable, and relaxing environment.

Along with the main café, there is a zone where visitors can try out various activities. For instance, visitors can make their own soaps out of pure ingredients like green tea, citrus, and volcanic clusters from Jeju. Lastly, cosmetics containing natural ingredients are also presented on sale for visitors to test and relish.

One of the best-selling beverages in Innisfree is the ‘Jeju Sea Lemonade’.

Its flavour is reminiscent of the sea, while the lemon is combined with sweet canola honey to ensure its taste. Its decoration, using rocks and plants, presents visual

Although O’Sulloc Tea House and Innisfree Jeju House are located near each other, they both have their own features and atmospheres. Here are some pros and cons to keep in mind while visiting these two places.

Overall, O’Sulloc Tea House is a place where everyone can come and enjoy the natural beauty of Jeju with a cup of green tea. Whilst Innisfree Jeju House is just right to enjoy diverse activities and refreshing desserts. Both houses are definitely recommendable for all age groups who will like to relish a relaxing vacation in Jeju.

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Design by Jiwon Moon, Year 11, Geomun

H

ave you ever considered why we communicate? I have to admit I hadn’t given it much thought until writing this assembly, but it is an interesting thought. Why do we do it? Why do we need to do it? Well I suppose it can be broken down into three main categories of reasons: 1 Information giving and information receiving

Facebook, whilst it might appear comforting, is also actually quite depressing - it isn’t real.

2 To persuade, to coerce to empower 3 The need to communicate our feelings and emotions.

It is this third purpose of communication that I want to concentrate on today. For, it seems to me that it is the communication of emotion that has been, in many ways, damaged by the evolution of our society. In the UK, it was reported only last week that 1 in 10 children are now considered to have a mental health illness. Indeed 750,000 children in the UK are reported to consider that they feel as though they have nothing to live for.

And even closer to home, South Korea currently has the third highest suicide rate in the world.

Of the extraordinary 30,000 suicides in South Korea between just 2009 and 2010, 29% were said to be caused by psychological despair.

What is going wrong? Why are we on the one hand becoming a society with more knowledge at our fingertips than ever before but on the other hand a society riddled with mental illness?

It is my belief that all the technological advances in communication we have experienced have done an enormous amount to advance purpose number one – to know and give and receive information – but at the same time have had very serious and negative impacts on number 3 – to express and develop our emotional understanding. Whilst Facebook, smartphones, the internet, twitter and blogging, all do amazing things to pass knowledge and information, they also absorb enormous amounts of time.

Facebook, whilst it might appear comforting is also actually quite depressing - it isn’t real. Everyone else appears happier, more content, more successful than you. Only they aren’t, you are just not communicating under category number 3, you are restricting yourself to a very shallow form of communication number 1. A distorted image of information.

So what about Number 3? The communication, and therefore development, of feeling and emotion? For me it really is the most important purpose of communication. It is the expression of emotions and gaining insight and understanding into the world, others and yourself that is the most important feature of life’s journey. And that does not happen through blogs, Facebook, gaming sites and the internet.

It happens though other means of expression.

The technological revolution has done little to allow for this form of communication. And what a shame that is, for I am convinced that the health of society is far better served for it. Face to face communication, sitting down with someone and talking to them about the news, the state of the world, your feelings of loneliness and sadness, sharing your excitement, playing and laughing, are all a fundamental component of well-being.

But it is also more than this. Some of the most wonderful outlets for communication number 3 – emotional expression – come from great creativity. Creativity brings with it a sense of harmony and peace. There is a reason we run an Arts Festival at the end of every year here at NLCS Jeju and that is because it allows for creativity and expression, not in a computer game or on a social networking site, but in person, on paper, on stage, in a concert room – and I believe that is good for the soul.

So, as we start planning for our Arts Festival, our week of creativity and expression, I ask you to remember the importance of communicating with yourself and with all those around you to express our emotions and feelings such that in our own small way, we can try to bring about a greater sense of contentment and happiness. A contentment that is so lacking in so many parts of our society today.

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Could There Ever be just One Language?

Elly Jung, year 10, Geomun takes a look at Esperanto, the world’s first synthetic language.

Language seems to be the only way to communicate but at the same time, it is the most dominant barrier to communication. With everyone around the world speaking different languages, how are we supposed to talk to each other?

However, this idea of language being a barrier was seen as totally wrong with the invention of one special language: Esperanto.

Esperanto was designed by Dr. Ludwig L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be every person’s second language, so that people could communicate with one another while keeping their own cultural identities. The language has suitable features to be a worldwide second language as it consists of the easiest and simplest grammatical and sentence structures from different languages. This makes it right to say that a lot of nations from different countries are already prone to Esperanto unconsciously. However, even though Esperanto had the best qualifications, not many people actually use this language in their real lives.

Art by Rachel Humphriss

The failure of Esperanto, given that its aim was to be ‘the global second language’, was not because of the language itself. Indeed, the richness and potential of Esperanto is illustrated with a study from Manchester University, in which a group of Esperanto students won the French decoding strategy competition against another group who had been learning French since year 1.

In addition, Tim Morley, an experienced Esperanto speaker shared one of his episodes, which he experienced during his teaching period with the audience in a TED talk. Surprisingly, a 5-yearold child who could not read or write in English was capable of achieving those basic skills in Esperanto. Both of these cases clearly show that Esperanto definitely enhances one’s linguistic skills and embeds the power of this language.

The timing was the problem. In 1887, when this new language was introduced to the world, people had already passed the era of language evolution, meaning that most of the people did not face any problems with communicating within the area they inhabited.

Moreover, except for a minority of language geniuses, people have the typical stereotype that learning a language is highly time consuming and difficult. So who would be bothered to spend their time learning Esperanto?

Despite the fact that with this special language, it only takes about two weeks to master basic words or phrases to use in real life conversations, the subjects already had their own languages, with fixed perspectives.

This, with the relatively low awareness of the language, led to its failure.

What makes this language so easy to learn is its cohesive grammatical structures and simplified vocabulary.

For instance, with English, there are 3 sets of synonyms representing

‘facility’, classified into their sizes: ‘house’, ‘cottage’, and ‘mansion’. On the other hand, in Esperanto there is a word for facility: ‘domo’ and the word meaning small: ‘eto’ to form ‘dometo’, meaning house. Thus without having to study and memorize, people may be able to work out phrases themselves, which even enhances one’s creativity and ability to restructure any words just by learning Esperanto.

Indeed, there are currently quite a lot of people who are trying to increase the awareness of Esperanto, through different methods and media. One of the leading Esperanto activists in the past was an Esperanto poet called William Auld. He was a Scottish poet who wrote chiefly in Esperanto. He raised the positive perception of this language as he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. This allowed people to explore the richness and potential of Esperanto as he also organized the Global Esperanto movement (1977-80) and was president of Esperanto. Moreover, Tim Morley, whom I mentioned before, is also one of the present Esperanto activists who oversees the development of the Esperanto language.

I was highly astonished by the language and its capacity. Since I am residing in an educational environment where I have to speak my second language: English, Esperanto attracted me as it is proven to enhance one’s linguistic ability. I thought of all the difficulties and hardships that I have to cope because of the language barrier.

I exceedingly recommend everyone to challenge him or herself to learn Esperanto and to experience its power and believe that the future of this language is very positive. So why not all start by saying Saluton!

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Esther Song, Year 10, Jeoji Joanna Song, Year 10, Noro Lindsay Lee, Year 10, Geomun

ESTHER SONG

Although there is probably a more appropriate introduction to this piece, (such as “Every time I close my eyes, I can still feel my time in Nepal tingling on my skin,” or “I know that my experience in Nepal is one that I will look back on for the rest of my life”) it seems just right to start by acknowledging one self-conscious truth:

I did not want to go to Nepal.

Maybe it was because of the fact that my Googled Nepal weather forecasts all pointed to a scorching 32°C, and that despite this outrageous heat, women were only allowed to wear clothing below their knees and forearms for “religious” reasons. Or maybe it was the fact that the trip was right in the middle of my darling school break (this was probably key): whatever the reason, I have to say, I wasn’t too enthusiastic about this trip. It just seemed a bit too over the top, almost.

But fortunately, this reluctance

of mine vanished pretty quickly.

In fact, right at the moment I arrived at our guesthouse in Kathmandu, I knew that this trip wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

Our hosts, Sarah and Sujean, seemed to be one of the nicest couples I had ever met. Over the next three days we stayed at the guesthouse, they were incredibly welcoming and made us feel “at home”, literally (our stuff was all over the place by the time we reached the last day).

What’s more, Nepalese food was seriously, mouthwateringly good.

I still remember one meal that had

this cereal-like rice, mixed with meat, vegetables and egg. It was almost like a Nepalese version of Bibim-babexcept that the rice was like crisps, so it was like eating crisps with meat and vegetables - Awesome.

Besides our amazing hosts and the delicious food, the country of Nepal itself captivated me completely as well. The whole nation seemed to be buzzing with a sense of lively assiduity, with people and animals (cows, dogs, chickens) roaming around on the primitive Nepal dirtstreets, all with different purposes and directions-and I loved it.

Then of course, there were the children. The children of the mountains, or to be accurate, hills (apparently, Nepal only acknowledges something as a “mountain” if it has snow all year round). From the first place, the main purpose of our trip had been to help these children and do volunteer work in their schools- to bring some good spirits to the place, really.

However when it came to the morning that we had planned to go to the school, I was definitely not ready.

We were supposed to go there and spend the day teaching the children one out of four fields: art, music, volleyball and football; I was one of the five designated to teach music.

But on the bus ride heading to the school, the reality hit me like crazy.

We hadn’t planned the lesson carefully(though going through it a hundred times wouldn’t have made me feel any more prepared), we didn’t know how many kids were going to be there, or if we were going to be able to communicate with them at all. The whole idea

suddenly seemed mad. How was I going to teach anyone anything?

Fortunately, it turned out that the whole ‘teaching’ business wasn’t such a big deal after all. In fact, all that was needed to please the children were some clapping exercises, singing, and the wooden recorders that we had taken with us, which they goggled over like Korean kids would do over a new PSP. And - at that moment, surrounded by kids thrilled to their fullest extent at mere soap bubbles and balloons, I realized that what mattered wasn’t “teaching” them something.

Instead, it was sharing what I took for granted, and equally learning from the children that really mattered.

It seemed genuinely amazing, how the smallest things could make the children light up with happinessand I have to say, although it does feel a bit cheesy doing so, spending time with the children certainly did make me think about my own life.

How I had a home with food, clean clothes, warm water, and electricity

that popped out whenever I wanted- I was suddenly feeling like the luckiest person in the world.

To be honest, I could write pages more on my trip to Nepal. In fact, I might even be able to produce a short novel if I started to mention our day in the city, fervently haggling over prices with shop owners, or that day in the huge temple, which was packed with monkeys sunbathing idly or picking out each other’s hair. However, I do feel that I have shared a good portion of my experience, or at least the part that genuinely touched my heart and left me with something to hold on to for a good, long time.

Still now, the thought of my time in Nepal leaves me with a heartwarming feeling of contentment.

It truly was an extraordinary experience, and I look forward to next year’s trip to Nepal, which I am definitely going to be a part of.

Because I know it will be more than worth it.

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JOANNA SONG

Namaste!

During last Easter break, I took part in the school service trip to Nepal.

We went as a group of around 12 students, from years 9 to 11, and the purpose of our trip was to help poor children in the Himalayas; we donated materials that are essential for their lives, and also played a variety of activities with them. I was very excited to help as this was my first time going to a very poor country for voluntary service.

We stayed in the Mountain Child guesthouse for two days in the capital Kathmandu, Nepal, and on the third day, we rode a bus to the mountaintop, where the

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children

were

waiting

for

us.

In Nepal, I was surprised to actually learn for myself how poor the country was. There were three aspects of Nepal that I found shocking and they further motivated me to help Nepal as much as I could.

Firstly, Kathmandu was very hot.

Yet, one of the facts that shocked me when I first arrived at Nepal was that because the national religions of Nepal were Hindu and Buddhism, females weren’t allowed to wear short pants, as well as short-sleeved t-shirts. So, I had to wear long pants and long sleeves all throughout

the trip. As a result, since it was just too hot, some of the girls and I bought one Nepali long skirt, and wore that skirt around the town and villages as if we were Nepali.

Also, another interesting aspect of Nepal that I learned was that it did not have a nice climate. Personally, I thought Nepal would have clean air with many trees around. However, my expectations were turned down.

In reality, Nepal had thick and unclean air, with many dust particles floating around. In fact, when we opened our mouth and closed them again, we were able to actually chew the particles in our mouth.

Additionally, I realized that Nepal had such a bad traffic system. There were no streetlights to indicate when the cars can move, and when the people can cross the street.

People would just walk straight into the street, and the cars would go past them. Cars didn’t event stop for the person to pass by. It was a bit potluck whether cars would hopefully go around me, or if I was unlucky, cars could hit me.

Despite all of this, I had a great time in the city, visiting Nepali temples, as well as doing a treasure hunt around the whole town that I went to. When I finally went up to the mountain to help the children, even though it was mid-way through summer, the temperature was very low, making us shiver and feel chilly throughout the whole night.

On the next day, we woke up early in the morning, and without taking

a shower, we rode a bus to a local school on the mountain. We weren’t able to take a shower since the water supply system was not built. It was even hard for us to brush our teeth.

When we arrived at the local school, we started with activities. We divided the activities into four categories: volleyball, soccer, art, and music. I took charge of the volleyball group, and taught the local students about volleyball. Surprisingly, they told us that their town sport is volleyball, and they were even better than me!

So, I just played many rounds of volleyball games with the little boys again and again. Also, at the end of the day, I participated as one of the volleyball players in the Nepal verses Korea volleyball match. The Nepal team won the match, but we still had a fantastic time together, and made many Nepali friends as well.

children as well, such as a Nepali traditional singing and dancing game, and the ‘catch me’ game.

I had a wonderful time mingling together with the children, and the children loved us as well.

Since the purpose of this trip was to help the Nepali children and figure out which aspect of their life we were to make donations on, we have decided to help them build sanitary arrangements as well as provide a better environment for education. We have already donated some notebooks and pens for the students to study, as well as some clothes for them.

I loved this trip to Nepal. I learned the happiness of helping others and I am willing to go on the trip again next year as year 11. This has been a great opportunity for me.

I also played simple games with the

Danabad!

LINDSAY LEE

What makes a good communicator?

If I had answered this question before I went to Nepal, I would have probably said ‘good speaking skills’, ‘ability to speak different languages’ or ‘having a wide range of background knowledge to share with others’. The service trip to Nepal however has given me a slightly different approach to answering this question.

I remember how shocked l was after arriving in Kathmandu airport.

It was not the enormous site of the highest mountain in the world, nor the magnificent historical monuments of Nepal, but the ‘15-minutes’ of 3 hours and 15 minutes time difference between Nepal and Korea, that sobered me at the airport, because until then, I thought time difference only occurred with units of hours, never with minutes. Now that I look back... it was such an insignificant matter!

And of course, Nepal was more than just the ‘15-minute shock’.

The day before we went to the local school in the Himalayas, we were divided into four teaching groups to make lesson plans for the Nepal kids. My group planned a lesson on teaching volleyball in detail, from leading a warm-up to setting a few rules for mini games. The biggest concern we had was ‘What if the lesson turns out to be too difficult for the kids?’ It was difficult to think of a way to teach something within a short period of time, but we managed to come up with great ideas and even rehearsed what we are going to say and how we are going to demonstrate. Since I felt like I was perfectly prepared and ready, I could not wait to go to the local school.

Finally the day came! I excitedly got on the bus, full of anticipation about meeting the Nepalese children, without having any clue of the potential hardship that was waiting for me. On the way to the local school, we were sandwiched in the small bus with no air conditioning and very little space between the seats and knees. Believe it or not, it was the hardest moment in the entire trip for me, especially when the bus was consistently jerking back and forth and I had to stay in one uncomfortable posture for more than 8 hours in the boiling weather.

Luckily I slept.

The next day, we finally headed to the local school. As soon as I spotted the kids, I realized that they were quite overwhelmed by a bunch of strangers and thought I should not ‘just’ be excited, but be brought down to the children’s level in order to become closer to the little kids, and then it was time to put our lesson plan into practice.

So, we got busy setting up the volleyball net in between a tree and a post and pumping air into the ball.

However, as soon as everything was ready to go, the total opposite of what we have expected happened.

What we discovered after the whole process of deliberate preparation and rehearsal, is that many of them were already excellent volleyball players. In fact, it ended up that they were much better than us. The plan we had put a lot of work into turned out to be useless. Though it was difficult, from this, I learnt that hasty guesses and suppositions that focus only on one thing, could be very risky and that we should always have a plan B, and even C, for unexpected situations.

During the volleyball matches, the ball kept fall off the cliff-like slope

and every time the ball slipped, the kids, without any hesitation went down the slope and brought the ball back. At first I was shocked because it was simply dangerous. In Korea, even if the ball goes slightly off the main court we are too lazy to get the ball back, whereas, the children here did not seem to be afraid of getting up and down the steep slope. Another interesting thing was that no one blamed anyone for making the ball fall off the slope, but bravely went down without any complaints. This was the time where I felt ashamed of myself for often blaming others when things go wrong, when the kids younger than me were actively searching for ways to overcome a barrier they faced.

It was not a big surprise that they did not speak decent English, and it was not the language we communicated with. In this case, where we did not understand each others’ languages, the universal language of body language was very useful, asking and answering back about each others’ age, family members, hobbies and so on. Some kids seemed outgoing, making big gestures and taking up lots of space trying to convey what they want to

say, whilst some were shy, making tiny gestures with their fingers to answer back to a total stranger.

It made me awestruck how some of the kids seemed to be mature and innocent at the same time.

Kids who seemed like 10 or 12 were carrying their younger siblings on their back, taking deliberate care of them. The younger ones seemed very comfortable on their older sibling’s back, which proved that the younger siblings completely trusted them like parents.

I could write a book about the whole trip if I was to write down all of the experiences that I remember from the trip - about the food, numerous flies, shopping, motorbikes (and their endless horns), the guest house and so on, but amongst the memories I have, the most vivid image I have is the image of children’s limpid eyes. Before we train our speaking skills, before we learn many different languages, before we build up our knowledge, I believe building capacity to be ready with sincerity is the first step. The Nepal trip, which started off with a ‘15-minute shock’ has ended up becoming a ‘100-year memory’.

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Design by Jiho Choi, Year 11, Mulchat

THE

THE lowest form of wit

Jinn Park, Year 10, Sarah

However much Shakespeare loved his precious puns, I personally find them quite annoying. There is no such thing as the ‘right’ occasion to use a pun as entertainment; unless you are desperately bad at making jokes that you actually have to memorise them to generate some pity-laughter.

Many people do point out my overly cynical view upon this lowly form of joke.

Some of them even try to convert me into a FPL - Fun Pun Lover - with their ambitious puns. On one occasion, a very good friend of mine (a fanatical FPL), in a poor attempt to suppress her laughter, came up to me and said, “What was the name of the first group of female astronauts?” When I didn’t react appropriately, unable to contain herself she blurted out- “Space Girls!”

I seriously thought about giving her a high-five. In her face.

Why do I hate puns so much?

Well, as Samuel Johnson once famously quoted, ”Puns are the lowest form of wit.” The only reason I find puns annoying is because they are very often unnatural and almost always artificial. Of course, there are great poets and writers in the world who come up with punchy, original puns. However, most of the time, puns are used by the lazy people who just don’t bother to be creative.

The world is flooded with meaningless puns, and I just cannot appreciate them.

I mean no offence to the FPLs by any means; I completely respect their love for the little jokes that charms our frequently dull lives. It’s just when people mindlessly jabber about their learnt-off-the-internet puns that I get frustrated.

Puns are a wonderful way to generate laughter, but not in that way. If used with a touch of sarcasm or irony, I would appreciate them a whole lot much more.

So if you ever do come up with a cunning, charming pun, please feel free to try converting me into an FPL.

THE

THE lowest form of WHEAT Celine Tae, Year 10, Sarah

Much to the dismay of my brother and many of my friends, I love puns. When I come up with a pun during a conversation, no matter what the situation or atmosphere is like, I just can’t refrain from pointing it out. My favorite type of internet meme are the ones with puns – one and pun rhymes – and rhyme scheme is what I find the most exciting in a poem.

However, disappointingly, most people consider puns as ‘bad jokes’, and frown at me when I ‘mindlessly’ blurt them out.

My brother, who absolutely detests puns, even seems to get offended by them – I try especially hard not to tell him any pun jokes when I don’t want to pick a fight (when I do, that’s a whole different story).

Still, I insist upon telling puns, and that’s because I’m sure most people secretly enjoy them behind their wrinkled forehead and narrowed eyes, and also because puns are really useful in many occasions.

The Korean Facebook page pun-jokesking (언어유희왕) has over 136,000 subscribers(2014 May), which straightaway proves my point. Also, celebrity name memes are all over the internet.

Literature, too, does not neglect the charm of puns. Shakespeare was a master of puns: Richard III laments, “It is the unkindest tied that ever any man tied”, Romeo whispers “Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes with nimble soles; I have a soul of lead”, and Hamlet has the line, “A little more than kin, and less than kind.” Poet John Donne sings, “Thou hast not done, For I have more”, punning with his name “Donne” and his wife’s name “More”.

Teachers are no exceptions. In Biology, Miss Read gave us a riddle – Read and Riddle sound similar – “Why do mushrooms get invited to all the parties?” “Because he is a fungi”. Mr. McLeod, despite his antipathy towards such a lowly form of humor, sent me a physics pun: “At the start of the 20th century Albert Einstein developed a theory about space. It was about time too.” (As all physics related stuff, it took me a little while to get, but it’s not too bad, is it?)

Puns are also great for cheering somebody up – they induce warm laughs. Of course, it wouldn’t be for the best to tell jokes at someone grieving or outraged, but with the right timing and occasion, telling a sweet pun joke can be the perfect comfort, especially when you can’t do anything to help.

Throughout last week, I was deep down my bottomless well of depression because of my unpredicted bad ABRSM result. In spite of all my practices, I barely managed to pass the exam. But then at the end of the week, my tutor sneaked in a sentence on our gappie’s word board - she wasn’t too happy about it - saying “Celine was unhappy with her harp exam result, and now she keeps harping on about it”, and I actually felt much better when I saw it.

Puns too are jokes – they are only for a few laughs. If you already are a pun lover, that’s great. If you’re not, well, well done for reading this article anyways, and I hope this article opened your eyes and mind. If it didn’t, I sincerely wish you will recognize the incredible charm of puns one day: then you’ll thank me a latte.

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ASHLEY PARK YEAR 10 Geomun

Why do we

Have you ever struggled expressing your ideas or thoughts? Well, some of you may have not, but some certain people, like myself, may have experienced this a lot. Simply, being a good communicator is to express yourself confidently and creatively in more than one language and in many ways. This means that you can either communicate verbally, bodily, or even in a written form through many different languages. Indeed, this requires plenty of knowledge and fluency to convey your position clearly and if you don’t, it can result in misunderstandings and misinterpretations.

Why do we communicate? Well, the most significant reason why is to express and convey our ideas. But it can be revealed in various forms such like persuading, informing and arguing. Have you ever thought about a world without any communication? How suffocating and frustrating would it be? We must be thankful for having the ability to speak and think simultaneously. This is what distinguishes us from animals. However, being an even better communicator requires you to collaborate effectively, listening carefully to the view of other individuals and groups. So, I would like to introduce my perspective on becoming a good communicator.

Doing this requires a lot of confidence, as it puts what you were thinking in your mind into action. Keeping your thoughts to yourself is not a form of communication. You need to try to convey what you think to others. Do not be afraid of what others would think of you. No one on this planet deserves to degrade or intimidate your ideas. But if you inevitably have to face the situation of being discouraged, just confront it. This would rather strengthen your capability to convey ideas skilfully and unhesitatingly. It will not only make you confident but also help you think logically and creatively.

Design by Brian Lee, Halla

Have you ever struggled expressing your ideas or thoughts? Well, some of you may have not, but some certain people, like myself, may have experienced this a lot. Simply, being a good communicator is to express yourself confidently and creatively in more than one language and in many ways. This means that you can either communicate verbally, bodily, or even in a written form through many different languages. Indeed, this requires plenty of knowledge and fluency to convey your position clearly and if you don’t, it can result in misunderstandings and misinterpretations.

Why do we communicate? Well, the most significant reason why is to express and convey our ideas. But it can be revealed in various forms such like persuading, informing and arguing. Have you ever thought about a world without any communication? How suffocating and frustrating would it be? We must be thankful for having the ability to speak and think simultaneously. This is what distinguishes us from animals. However, being an even better communicator requires you to collaborate effectively, listening carefully to the view of other individuals and groups. So, I would like to introduce my perspective on becoming a good communicator.

Junior Islander Team Jay Yang, Y6, Harubang Hojin Jang, Y6, Harubang Erica Park, Y6, Harubang Esther Lee, Y6, Harubang Andrew Jang, Y6, Harubang Lisa Ko, Y6, Harubang Ireh Kim, Y6, Harubang James Oh, Y6, Harubang Angeline Lee, Y5, Harubang Sarah Woo, Y5, Harubang Vivi Lee, Y5, Harubang Elysia Bae, Y5, Harubang Sunny Cho, Y5, Harubang

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Patricia Chung, Y5, Harubang

a man with many dreams

Sarah Yoo, 5EW, learns from the life and times of the Apple maestro

steve Job’s life was like a yo-yo. He failed sometimes, getting all tangled up, he wound up his yo-yo again ; some times he failed, but he never gave up. This attitude meant that he made loads of changes in the computer industry and its history.

Before researching famous speech makers for this article, I did not know much about Steve Jobs. However once I started to read about his life and his company I realised that he was much more important than I first thought. He may not be a famous world leader or pop star, but he did follow a career that led to the world having new technology and better communication with those around us.

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

This famous quote matches his life because it shows that Jobs was not afraid to admit when he made mistakes. When he was fired from his company, he realised his mistakes and improved on them, and in time he started his own company. When he had cancer, he knew what he had to fight it and concentrated again on his Apple company. Like this, Steve Jobs always had his goals and dreams in his heart, and so he could achieve his goals one by one, and all of them in the astonishing qualities.

Faced with the cancer, many ideas and other dreams would have been in his mind. If he was like the normal sort of people we see out on the street, he would have panicked and he would, of course, thrown his dreams away. However, as he was not the normal kind of person, he continued trying to achieve his goals until he died. It means he tried to get as close to his dreams even when he was also fighting with medical problem . It is a shame that I am mentioning how ‘normal’ he was because not everyone is like him and If the world was full of people like Steve Jobs, everyone would be able to achieve their dreams and we might be living on the moon by now. However, it’s not. Normal people we see out the street or meet at the near supermarket are, it’s sorry to say, not Steve Jobs . We should all at least try to be like steve jobs once in our life. Sometimes its worth tangling up your yo-yo once or twice if it means you achieve your dreams.

Erica Park & Esther Lee, both 6NB give us the low down on what made Abraham Lincoln such a superb communicator.

Looking at communication and communicators, we thought about Abraham Lincoln, who was considered a great speech maker and thus godd at communicating his ideas and convincing others. Below is a more detailed look at some on Lincoln’s more notable speeches.

WHO WAS ABRAHAM LINCOLN? Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States of America. He was assassinated in April 1865. He was the leader in the Civil War which was one of the bloodiest battle in US. He also made speeches and tried his best to stand against slavery.

The Gettysburg Speech Best Line: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Why was the Speech Made: In his speech, he said that the US will fight for freedom not just for US but also for the whole world. Also it was to encourage the ones who volunteered to go to the war and lost their lives in the civil war. It was a very important speech for all the people in US and for the world.

Cooper Union Address The Cooper Union Address was held in February 27th, 1860. The speech itself was about an hour and a half long compared to the Gettysburg speech which was only 2 minutes long, it was pretty long.

The actual length of words were 7,715 and again, compared to the Gettysburg address (269 words) it was pretty long. Abraham Lincoln received $200 in his speech.

Famous Lines From the Cooper Union Address:

About the Gettysburg Address Speech: The speech was made in November 1868. It is one of the most famous speech that Abraham Lincoln made.

“Let us have faith the right makes us might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” This line was the line where Abraham Lincoln ended his Cooper Union Address.

A phrase you might not know:

Facts You might not know:

‘Four scores seven years ago’

The famous picture that was taken during Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address was by Mathew Brady.

A score is known to be an old word for 20 years.

Therefore four scores is 80 years and seven years more is 87 years..

After his Cooper Union Address, he did not go directly home. He went to New England and did eleven more speeches.

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Historical

Speech Makers

Andrew Jung & Jay Yang, both 6BB.

There are some outstanding leaders in this world. There are also some historical speeches that have been made from these great speechmakers. We have looked at five different speech makers. Some are war time speech makers and others are still alive today, however one common thing is that they are all people who influenced others through their ideas and speeches. In this article, we will discuss the highlights of speeches of Edison, Churchill, Pope Francis, FDR and Dick Costolo and their influence on the world.

SIR Winston Churchill A very famous wartime Prime Minister in the Uk and he helped defend Europe from Hitler. Also, he was a great speechmaker. For me, his best speech was ‘Never Surrender’. Here is the part of it; ‘...We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing-grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!’

Pope francis He is focused on creating a connection with people, and he has clearly communicated that the church should be less judgmental, more inclusive.

His easy and lovable manor has made more people listen to the church and follow their advice, rather than dismiss it. Before, the Catholic church took a hard stand against issues of abortion, marriage etc. However, Pope Francis has tried to be a good listener, and as such a good communicate to his followers.

Franklin D. Roosevelt The 32nd president of United States of America, made a speech after the attack on Pearl Harbour.

He said the Japanese Empire declared war on the US from the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour.

This speech encouraged the US Congress to vote in favour of America joining the war, and as such bring an end to it with the defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945.

Dick Costolo The CEO of Twitter. His idea about using technology for communication made twitter a very wealthy and well known company. He uses his humor to persuade people to use twitter. He is direct about the main point of what his is saying, be it when talking on abig stage, to a meeting or even just tweeting.

99% perspiration and 1% inspiration makes Genius What can you think of? What I think of is the revolution for the whole humanity. Also, light makes our lives extremely comfortable. And who invented this? It of course is Thomas Edison. Edison tried 456 times and at the 457th time he finally succeeded. That one invention changed everybody’s lifes. Finally, I think that we must all try to accomplish something. One of Edison’s speeches was that 99% of our work will be perspiration which is effort and 1% will be luckiness which is inspiration.

Finally, we can see the importance of trying to communicate ideas as these historical figures had. It they hadn’t, who would know where humanity would be now.

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How Communication Differs Between Cultures Vivi Lee and Elysia Bae, both 5EB. Did you ever think of how other people from different countries get along with each other? This article has a brief look at the ways we say hello in various cultures, not just the language we use but the body gesture that is typical of that culture.

Korea: An-yŏng-ha-se-yo.

Gestures they use are slight bow and a handshake (right hand in one or both hands).

China: Ni hao Gestures they use are nodding greets

AUSTRALIA: g’day mate Gesture used is usullay a hand shake.

France: bonjour Gestures they use are one kiss on each cheek or shake hands.

America: hello Gesture used is usullay a hand shake.

England: hello Gesture used is usullay a hand shake.

India: namaste Clasp hands at the chest

Japan: konnichiwa Gestures they use are nodding greets.

These are the major countries and their greeting ways. Hand shakes are the most common ways of greeting. The kissing of each cheek in France is common in most European countries.

No matter how you say hello, it is important that you do. To not do so would be rude, and to begin any communication, you have to start with “hello”.

Are we Still Good Communicators? sunny choi, 5EB

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what you are deeply feeling, or do they just look cute? Also, do we have emoticons for if we need help, feel anxious or worried?

These days, there are many forms of communication with others. We could skype, send a message or email, write a letter or make a phone call. However, all these forms of communication have an element of ‘lost in translation’. Though we can express our ideas, we cannot express our true feelings. We use emoticons to do this, but do they truly tell the other person

If we talk or have a chat, I think meeting face to face is the best thing. If we text, we might not know someone’s true feelings..

How could we know? (except saying if he’s happy or sad.) Let’s try to communicate more by face to face talking, not living in the world of our phones.

here are many different kinds of communication. There is body language, speaking, writing letters and texting. Two different people who live in different countries might use a translator. A translator is good at translating languages, but they might translate other’s feelings. If something can’t be translated of not applicable in another language, we say that it is ‘lost in translation’.

Do you really think that now is better than the past? I don’t think so. Of course our technology and social media has improved much, but our “expressing feeling” hasn’t been able to develop with it. Is the future of communication becoming like the below picture?

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COMMUNICATE In this article, Lisa Ko and Ireh Kim (6NB and 6CR) we were trying to get different opinions from students and teachers around the school about communication. So we interviewed many students and teachers around our school about communication. Interestingly, they each had a different opinion Asking the question, “What does communication mean to you?” or “What do you think communication is?”

Sibo Kim, 6BB: “Communication is when the leaders, like presidents, announce in front of the citizens their concluded opinion on certain subjects.”

Mr. Hardee from senior school: “I think communication in a teaching context is about trying to convey your passion for a subject or the world around you to the next generation.”

Millie the Harubang Gappie: “Communication allows us to convey our thoughts and feelings, whether it is in a social conversation or a formal speech in front of peers. Communication allows us to expand our knowledge and share our own with others around us.”

Max Kim, 6CR: “I agree with Sunny. I think communication is SNS device too.”

Mrs. Reed Clancy from 6CR: “Communication means getting your ideas to be understood by someone else. This can be through spoken and written word, but there are many other ways to express yourself, such as gestures, facial expressions, tone, and actions. Communication can also happen through the visual and performing arts as well.

Esther Lee, 6NB: “ I think communication is a way of talking through a computer to someone on the other side of the world.”

Erica Park 6NB: “I think communication is a way of talking through words, speeches and body language.”

Mr. Brown from 6BB: “I think communication is the dialogue and sharing of ideas between two or more people. An opportunity to develop ideas beyond our own understanding and thus improve cognitive power.”

Sunny Baek, 5EW: “Communication to me are email, facebook and other SNS devices.”

Mr Spragg: “The best communicators are often the best listeners and or readers. Being able to listen to or read and understand what others are saying or writing can be just as important as writing or speaking clearly.”

Hojin Jang, 6CR: “Communication is the development of the world and the development between of how we communicate between centuries.”

Millie the Harubang Gappie: “Communication allows us to convey our thoughts and feelings, whether it is in a social conversation or a formal speech in front of peers. Communication allows us to expand our knowledge and share our own with others around us.”

What I find particularly interesting about communication is that you have to pick and choose how to best share your ideas, thinking about your audience and the purpose of your communication. For example, when I’m back home in Boston, I’ll use the word “wicked” as an adverb when I’m talking to my friends: “The movie was wicked awesome.” “It’s gonna be a wicked scorcher out today.” I wouldn’t use that word very often here though with my students because they wouldn’t understand what I meant since that word only has that meaning back home. I wouldn’t use it with some of my coworkers either, because in your job you’re usually meant to speak more formally and those expressions are slang.

And did you know, there are hundreds of words and expressions across various languages around the world that just don’t translate or have an equivalent in other languages? This is why your teachers sometimes tell you, “I can completely understand what you’re trying to communicate, but there just is not a word for that in English.” Sometimes with my husband, I’ll use expressions from Spanish from when we lived in Ecuador, because there isn’t an English equivalent that means exactly what I want to say. For example, when someone makes a joke about someone else, I’ll say “iQue fuerte!” which in English would be close to,

“How strong!” but it really is closer in meaning to, “That was really unkind.”

It just sounds better to me, but again, I can’t use the expression with people who haven’t shared the experience of living in a Spanish-speaking country.

Your teachers might also sometimes tell you, “We just wouldn’t phrase it that way” for other styles of writing you might try when directly translating your ideas from your first language into your second. This happened to me when I was first learning Spanish and studying abroad in Madrid, Spain. I went into a cafe and said, “Puedo tener una botella de agua?” which in English is very close to “Could I have a bottle of water?” My friends, who were also just learning Spanish, thought that sounded fine.

However, the Spanish waiter knew exactly what I meant, but people don’t order in that way in Spanish, so he made a joke about what I had said instead! I learned after that to order properly as they did in Spain.

So you can see, it’s to think about communicating with your message and you want to

very important who you’re when forming not just what communicate!”

Thank you to all the people who participated in our interview. It seems like a lot of people have the different opinions about communication. But what do you think?

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What relationships do you have with pets?

Many people have a close relationship with their pets. These people treat their birds, cats, dogs or other animals as members of their family. So they always stay with their pets. Many people spend a lot of money caring for their pets. Pets sometimes are good friends and there is a famous saying that ‘a dog is a mans best friend’.

According to PFMA, in 2013, it is estimated that 13 million (45% of ) homes have pets in the UK. The pet population increased by 4 million to almost 71 million.

We, throughout our lives, will have connections with many different animals. This connection will most likely happen at home, possibly from a dog, cat , rabbit or hamster. All these animals have different ways of communicating with us. Dogs will bark, cats will meow and a hamster or rabbit may scratch.

Animals as we know, do not talk. This stops full communication however we are still aware of our pets emotions.

Then do you have close relationship with wild animals like lions or chimpanzees?

The world is populated with many different types of wild animals.

About 20,000 species of fish, 6,000 species of reptiles, 9,000 birds, 1,000 amphibians, and 15,000 species of mammals. Most of them are wild, this means we have little or no control over them, making it difficult to communicate or start a relationship.

However, two very famous relationships between wild animals and people are Jane Goodall & Chimpanzee and Ace Bourke & his Lion (Christian).

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JANE GOODALL Jane goodall was born on April 3, 1934, in London, England.

Her fascination with animal behavior started in early childhood. In her childhood, she observed native birds and animals, and read about literature and zoology and ethology. From an early age, she dreamed of going to Africa to meet and observe animals to observe their natural habitats.

At the age 18 she left school and found employment at Oxford University.

In her spare time, she worked hard on documentary film in Africa. In addition, Jane Goodall was sent to study the monkeys, which live on an island in Lake Victoria.

Jane Goodall returned to England to work on an animal documentary.

Her first try to observe a group of chimpanzees failed; she couldn’t get no nearer than 500 yards. She tried a pattern of observation, appearing at the same time every morning.

The chimpanzees soon got nearer and near,er and they could get as close as 30 feet.

We now know from Jane Goodall that she had dream of going to Africa and she liked animals from when she was a child, and Jane Goodall didn’t give up for getting near with chimpanzees and learning more about their feelings and habits through proactive communication.

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Ace Bourke & Christian the lion Ace’s close friendship with Christian the lion begun in 1969. Ace was a young Australian traveller. When he arrived in London, he bought the lion, and called him Christian. Ace lived with Christian. When Christian became big, they moved house to a bigger house.

While he lived with Christian, Ace made two documentaries, ‘ The Lion from World’s End‘ and ‘Christian the Lion’. These two were made about their life in London.

They moved to Africa. After Christian went back to Africa, Ace published ‘A Lion Called Christian’ It was republished at 2009. It is about christian’s early life. After Christian moved to Africa, he went back to wild.

After years later, Ace was invited to Africa and tried to find Christian.

Christian was there. They hugged and they were happy. With the love and trust that Christian had, he became a symbol of the relationship between human and animal.

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Martin Luther King A Charismatic Communicator

James Oh, 6BB

One well-known communicator was Martin Luther King, Jr. He was a black man fighting for the rights of his people in the 1960’s. In America during the 50’s and 60s black people were separated from white people.

America had brought black people from Africa to use them as slaves. They mixed together with white people and they became African-Americans. However they were just treated like slaves and then Martin Luther King appeared.

He was born in the U.S.A. He helped many black people. I learnt about life of black people’s after watching a film called “The Help”. This film was based on 1900s when black people suffered discrimination. Discrimination meant to be treated unfairly.

Martin Luther King, Jr became extremely well known both in the black community and also with the government due to his tremendous help for black people.

He gave a very famous speech that was called “I have a dream.” His speech was held on August 28, 1963, in Washington D.C in front of the Lincoln museum.

That speech was affected by Lincoln’s speech called Gettysburg. He was wellknown as a brave person who never gave up fighting for black people’s rights. This is one of the reasons why I admire him. There was also some people who tried to make them free such as Abraham Lincoln. He had done a speech about black oeople’s freedom

and equality for all like Martin Luther King, Jr., but over 100 years before.

He tried and tried to convince the government using his speeches and he also organised peaceful protests such as not riding a bus. A person named Raura Parks started a peaceful protest by not moving her sit. After that problem, every black person started to stop riding a bus.

Do you know the interesting fact that Raura Parks said she didn’t move because her legs hurt? Finally Martin Luther King became a well-known communicator.

He actually made equality of human rights in America. I think America is continuing being to try to be equal and fair because of Martin Luther King, Jr .

Martin Luther King, Jr is famous because of his speeches, his peaceful protests, and his mental attitude. At a risk to his own life, he helped other black people.

Some white people seriously hated black people. KKK(Ku Klux Klan) were a group of people who killed and threatened black people. Later on, they also killed and threatened some white people who supported black people. Martin Luther King, Jr. was finally assassinated by some killers. Every black and white people were sad about his death. Because of his work and standing for equality, people say that he was similar to Mahatma Gandhi. Everyone who is living these days also admires him. He was brave, he was helpful, and he was fighting for equality for all people.

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The Evolution of Communication

Hojin JANG, 6CR.

Before the days of people using electronic devices to communicate to each other, there were times when they only spoke orally to communicate. Over time, the sharing of ideas and texting people became easier because of the new technology. We are going to explore how humans have developed ways of communicating with each other until now.

Neanderthal Cave Painting was used as the first way of communicating. The Neanderthals are scientifically called Homo Neanderthalensis.

Neanderthal Cave Paintings exist in Puente Viesgo, Spain. For the Neanderthal people, it showed how they survived by killing animals and where the most meats to eat were. Even though they did not know how to talk aurally, they could communicate by showing some art and drawings.

33,000 BC

750 BC

Smoke signals have been a way to communicate since 750 BC. It was used for communication over a long distance. The smoke signal was used by Native Americans, Chinese and Aboriginal Australians. Chinese soldiers communicated by smoke signals on top of the Great Wall of China. The distance that could be communicated was as far as 750 km away. The Native Americans used smoke signals, every different tribe used smoke signals in a different way for a different meaning.

In 550 BC the Postal Service began and it is still used by people today. This makes it the longest running form of communication. Most of the shopping sites such as Amazon ships their items by UPS. UPS is a postal service / shipping company, which is commonly used in America. It take about 2 days to 3 days to get the item when you send an object or mail to some.

550 BC

1150 AD

Starting from 1150 AD, Carrier Pigeons were a good way to communicate. Pigeons were even used by secretaries and coding people who were involved in WW1 and WW2.

It was a very good way to communicate even though it was very far to travel the distance from one place to another. Pigeons could travel 160km at once. Carrier Pigeons could carry up to 75g, which is about 17.5 pieces of A4 paper.

During 1871 the Telephone was made by Antonio Meucci not AG Bell. Antonio is an Italian person and he used a string from one house to another through the house’s ceiling as the first speaking telephone. Even though it wasn’t a smart phone for that century it was a great invention that began the dawn of global communication.

1871

1965

Eventually, technology had improved and in 1965 Email was created. Email is now used by millions of people throughout the world on sites such as gmail, naver mail and daum mail. In the past it was called ‘electronic mail.’ Now it has become bigger and bigger.

Bigger companies brought the system into the company and now we can use email easily and comfortably.

In the 1990s some Search Engines began, such as Google. The search engines were not very popular at the start but soon were so popular that 40% of the whole world uses Google search for searching. The search engines now are connected to various different websites and blogs but in it’s early years, the search engine has begun with only few websites. These search engines are made of code.

1990

2002

Social networking began in 2002. The top 15 most popular social networking sites are Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr, Instagram, VK, Flickr, Myspace, Meetup, Tagged, Ask Fm, Meetme and Classmate but Korea’s popular social networking app or site is Kakao Story. Social networking shares where you are and what you’re doing with friends or people near you.

The “Evolution of Communication” took many steps before we manufactured electronics to communicate with each other. So we should be thankful to the people that took the steps to further think about communicating effectively and efficiently with electronics, adapting ideas from earlier inventions.

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SIGN LANGUAGE Angelina Lee, 5EB

People always communicate with each other, most of the time verbally.

Even if they don’t know the language that another person is speaking, they try to communicate with the words they know. However, what if you can’t hear or can’t speak? They communicate with hands. They have a special language using their hands that they use to communicate, called sign Language. It influences a lot for deaf people’s lives as they meet other people who can’t speak or hear and together they can still communicate through sign language. There is different sign language for different cultures and languages.

Sign Language was invented by Juan Pablo de Bonet. He published the primary book with the purpose to teach deaf people. It was a revolution in communication for deaf people.

Sign language allows deaf people to still achieve as much as people who are not deaf. I think it’s a good way of communication because they can’t write down all the words that they want to speak. They might need to write down what they think when they are talking with a person who can’t use sign language, but even so it’s easier for them to communicate with their own language with each other. In addition, I really admire the inventor of sign language which causes so much suffering and worry for those who are deaf. It must have been hard to design signs to stand for words. I speculate that if there was no sign language, the person suffering from deafness would be uncomfortable in the world and suffer from a lot of stress. By the design and use of sign language, we are ensuring the equality of human rights for handicapped people.

Along with sign language for deaf people, there is also braille for visually impaired people, again ensuring a quality life for them.

As such, Sign Language is very popular now, many deaf people use sign language as well as non-deaf people in order to communicate with their friends or loved ones who are deaf.

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Design by Brian Lee, Halla

A

pproximately 10% of communication is the words spoken, 40% is the tone of voice, and 50% is body language.

Communication (from Latin commūnicāre, meaning “to share”) is the activity of conveying information through the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, visuals, signals, written, or behavior. It is the meaningful exchange of information between two or more living creatures. Everyone communicates; everyone is a communicator.

But what type?

There are four types of communicators – dominant, people - person, dependable and detail.

In a conversation the dominant person is the active, confident, decisive, independent one - a problem-solver, the organized and punctual one. Dominant types go from point A to point B in a straight line and warm colors, such as red, describe their active personalities. These people get easily bored and appreciate straight-forward instructions.

Therefore, these people need others to control their speed and keep them calm.

People-person types go from point A to point B by taking many short side-trips or points on the way. Light, warm colors, such as yellow describe their social butterfly personalities. The people - person type needs people and relationships and likes to communicate, relate, and share. They are optimistic, emotional and friendly, and are almost always available to others.

Dependable types go from point A to point B in a curved or wavy line, like a wave. Blue is a good color to describe their calming, slow, gentle personalities. To deal with dependable type people, others have to give them plenty of time and slow down to match their speed. These types of people do not go well with dominant types of people

because their personalities conflict directly.

Detail types like to sit on point A for a while and decide whether or not to go to point B. Cool colors such as violet describe this steady-as-a-rock type personality. Similar to the dependable types, these types of people need lots of time to finish one project assigned to them. These types of people also try to criticise their own work and tend to fall in depression. So, people close to them have to continuously encourage them to not give up and move forward.

According to a recent survey that was carried out to students in Yr 9 at NLCS Jeju, most of the boys were people-person types.

They were friendly and optimistic to most of the problems and this was helpful when conflicts happened. The other chunk was the dominant type and this type got easily addicted to new games or sports. These types tend to finish their work quickly but not with quality. Not the type that teachers would like to see in completing homework!

The result for girls, on the other hand, was highly contrasting. Most of the artistic types were detailed in their work but consumed a lot of time doing it. The girls in the other chunk were mostly dependable types, which was quite awkward because as a year 9 girl, we thought that there must be lots of dominant types. However, girls tended to think carefully before making decisions and had the ability to control their minds freely.

During our lives, we face problems and conflicts during communication with various people. These conflicts are mostly caused by our ignorance of different types of communicators, and we occasionally hurt people’s feelings without noticing.

To prevent these kinds of conflicts, we must understand the difference between communicator types and try to stand in the other person’s shoes. If you can do this, you are one-step ahead of others - a great advantage in your career!

Stranger than Fiction Jillian Chun, Halla

“Your great-grandmother would have hit you with chopsticks.” My mom murmured during dinner one night. I was spitting out fishbones over my bowl of rice, trying not to choke on them. “Why?” I asked halfheartedly, not knowing that it would be a beginning of a very long tale. My mom explained that my great-grandmother was very strict about table manners, or any manners in general. Born a daughter to an extremely wealthy household, her house had ninety-nine rooms, complete with servants’ quarters. There, she was given a thorough education of everything a woman needed to know, like different types of bowing for elders and equals, or which form of salted spinach went into the china bowls and which ones were destined for earthenware pots. She learned calligraphy and the art of conversation, and how to lay out a table fit for kings. She was wedded at sixteen.

“She didn’t see her husband until the wedding night, of course’. My mom told me.

“I remember grandfather joking that he had heard she was very beautiful, and found her a tad below his expectations. But what could he do? They were married.”

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Married they were. She gave birth to her their first child at seventeen, and had seven more.

They became an army surgeon, a farmer, a nurse, an artist, an acupuncturist, and a fulltime mother. Despite being a young mother, she never forgot the traditional manners she learned as a child. “Grandmother told me off a lot. For not standing up when an adult came into a room, or for passing an adult in front when I should have walked behind, and such.”

Mom also remarked that her daughters-in-law had a hard time laying out dinner tables at family gatherings. “I vividly remember them being told off for putting stew in soup pots, or pouring soup in stew pots.” This all sounded very new to me. Our family is quite lax on manners, and while my parents expect me to respect them, we weren’t taught gestures of formality. Also, the food my mom describes was sometimes strange to me - like cold potato noodles, which were apparently my greatgrandmother’s specialty. “Cold potato noodles?

How do you make noodles with potatoes?”

Mom shrugged. “You do. I miss the taste, actually. But I’m not sure how they are cooked.”

My grandmother, although probably not to the degree of my great-grandmother, was also a lady, according to my mom. Raised in a wealthy family, she was one of the very, very few women who attended university at the time. She didn’t get married until she was 27, a scandalously old age. In fact, my grandfather often tells of the time he first visited grandmother’s house, and was served a fresh dish of watermelon dipped in iced fizzy drink. “That moment, I remember thinking ‘This woman is rich!’ Having ice in the middle of summer was a big privilege.” Perhaps owing to the novelty of the ice, my grandparents got married shortly thereafter. My mom had another story concerning watermelons.

“My birthday was in June, so your granddad would always arrive with a watermelon in his

arms. He’d go to Busan market, the largest market in the town, and get the largest watermelon there. He’d always say he brought the biggest watermelon in the city of Busan for me.” Cakes existed but were not as conventional as they are nowadays. “Plus, the watermelon was often the most impressive food during a birthday dinner, even if we had cakes.” So, the family stuck candles on the split red watermelon and lit them to sing my mom ‘Happy Birthday’.

So, the family stuck candles on the split red watermelon and lit them to sing my mom ‘Happy Birthday’.

My dad then intervened to also tell a story from his childhood: “We’d steal watermelons from next door farms and eat them, hidden behind barns.” My dad grew up in the countryside and his childhood was spent stealing watermelons, making snow-sledges in winter, or catching dragonflies and frogs. “Not true. We caught sparrows as well,” he says.

Apparently, catching sparrows was one of the boys’ favorite pastimes. If they were successful, they would bring the sparrows to local pubs where old men were idly sitting drinking. The old men would give them small change for candies in exchange for the sparrows, which they fried in makeshift fires and ate with their so-ju. “But sometimes we took pity on the little creatures chirping pitifully in the net, and didn’t have the heart to give them away. So we freed them. Then we’d try to catch them again, and perhaps let them go again. And then I’d fetch my mother doing the laundry by the river, and we’d go home together.”

70th birthday of my grandfather, with the watermelon sisters and their families

My grandmother still complains of the laborious laundry she had to deal with. In a period without washing machines, doing laundry in winter meant you took your laundry to a nearby river, cracked the thick ice formed over the creeks, and beat down on each article of clothing with a wooden stick while holding it down in the deathly chill of river-water. “Must have been hard.” I comment to my mom, who replies by saying “Your other grandma didn’t have that problem.” Surprised, I asked back; ‘What, she had washers?” My Mom’s answer is short and sweet. “No, she had maids.”

But all was not easy for my maternal grandmother, as well. She had the grueling job of cooking meals for her dead father-in-law.

For a year after his death, she followed the tradition of keeping his picture on an alterlike structure in a room and serving him three meals a day, in front of his picture. It is said that the spirit of the deceased come to eat the food, and will be pained by hunger if not served these meals regularly. “I actually don’t think you’re grandmother believed all that, as she majored in Economics and everything. But I guess it was more about following a tradition, and also reminding yourself not to forget about the dead.” Nevertheless, the tradition is almost completely forgotten in modern Korea. “We don’t cook three times a day for the living, so how would we cook three meals for the dead?” My mom asks. Certainly the modern food culture of eating out or fast food has greatly lightened the mothers’ burdens for cooking heavy meals three times a day.

Listening to these stories, I understood again how strange the rapid social change in Korea is. There are recipes that have simply vanished, others that are forgotten. Many mothers do not make their kimchi any more, and rely on their mothers’ skills for their yearly supply of

kimchi. Just talking with friends in school, I spot all forms of food culture; some mothers hardly ever cook, others still maintain the traditional, grueling schedule of three meals a day. Some of my friends cannot eat more ‘traditional’ food like fermented soybean soup, while others find food like water slugs or steamed chrysalis absolutely distasteful.

My mom never cooks pork trotters or chicken feet, so I’ve never eaten them, although they are popular dishes in the culture. The attitude towards manners is also interesting - some of my friends have families that are very lax on manners, others still wait for the fathers to come home before they can have dinner, even if everyone else is hungry. Some parents ask their children to use formal language to address them, but some do not, at least in private.

Some families have large family gatherings where all members of extended family come together, while others are individualistic to an extent they all have padlocks to the doors to their private rooms. Hence, I can’t reach any general conclusion, and I cannot say which traditions are good and which are not.

All I know is that I have lived a long time thinking all Korean families would have eaten and talked in much the same way I talk and eat, and just one or two generations back, things were vastly different. I also know now that parents have many valuable and surprisingly entertaining stories. I had always assumed that my mom was just that, a ‘mom’, and my dad just that, a ‘dad’. Yet, my mom was once a girl who liked cold potato noodles and my dad was a sparrow-hunter. I had thought stories only existed in spacious libraries or the turbulent world of the internet – but try talking to your parents, connect with generations before you, and there are stories to be had, all enlightening, sparkling, stranger than fiction.

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JUNE SONG, YEAR 10, MULCHAT WONDERS WHAT DO OUR STATUSES SAY ABOUT US?

The Social Networking Service, known as SNS, forms a very important part of our communication. Lots of SNSs criss-cross our lives - Twitter, Skype, or if you want an older example, Myspace.

One of the most popular SNS is, of course, Facebook. There are 4.5 billion ‘Likes’ generated everyday on Facebook alone. 757 million people log onto Facebook daily. Five new profiles are created every second.

We chat with people, see their photos, and even, empathize with them through Facebook. It is an important part of our life, and we tend to “craft” our words in order to get a response from others. So, how do we do this? How do we shape our communication to fit Facebook?

Things that we won’t even think of doing in real life are actually possible through Facebook (I won’t mention what yet), and a lot of people take advantage. Let’s face it. Your status means a whole lot more than what it seems.

There are many more “suggestive” Facebook behaviours, but let me stop there, because I want to talk to you about something else.

Since when did we have to use such suggestive language when we were talking to friends?

When we used to talk to friends face to face, we could just say what we wanted to say. Of course we would go through public humiliation when what we said was wrong, but still, we didn’t have to be so crafty with our words.

If you need attention, say so. You don’t have to suggest it, because your real friends will understand, and they will give you the attention you need. You don’t have to sit in front of a monitor to receive the attention you want.

If you want to look smart, try cracking really intellectual jokes when your friends are around.

This is hard, but it will be more effective than just copying and pasting a random person’s

quote on your Facebook wall.

I think communication is all about expressing yourself. You do have limits - expressing yourself to a degree that makes others feel uncomfortable isn’t communication - but it’s better than doing nothing. I am not trying to undermine communication through social media, because it is vital to human life today. But I still think that communication through social media cannot satisfy our needs for communication.

So why don’t you muster some courage? Why don’t you start with the most obvious things?

Shut that monitor, turn off that screen. Look up and offer a greeting. Communication in the real world is so much more than communication in the virtual world, and saying something is never the same as suggesting something. And believe me, you’ll love it.

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How young people communicate Kay NAM, Year 8, Jeoji

T

he teenagers of the twentyfirst century are nearly all engaged, somehow, in wireless networks: the Internet, Social Networking Service (SNS), and their basic elements such as texting and calling, even in different parts of the world. Whereas, the previous generation didn’t even have cellular connection and they could not have ever imagined that they would be walking around with smartphones today.

Every time I go back home for the holidays, one of the reasons that I miss my friends so much is because the way my parents talk to me and the way I talk to my friends are absolutely different, and I feel that it is really challenging to adjust to my home environment. So, that was the motivation for me to think about what is so different between the communication styles of people in different generations?

The biggest difference that I feel is that in friendship groups, we tend to use more slang compared to the complete, perfect sentences, including the appropriate vocabulary, which is the speaking style of adults. Slang not only helps our understanding of the subjects we are talking about, it also reduces the amount of time needed to explain fully about them. In a way, it is quite easy to speak just between us with the terms that we usually use (which no adult ever understands).

This difference, I think, is totally linked to the younger generations’use of smart phones. According to government data from South Korea, 80% of teenagers from age 12-19 own smart phones and 20% of them are known to be addicted.

South Korea is one of the most digitally advanced nations and 2.55 million people are addicted to smartphones, using them about 8 hours a day.

Just by looking at the statistics, we can definitely see that it is a serious problem - people are not the creators of such technologies but are its mindless slaves. It is difficult to admit but I feel quite guilty about the fact that I am sometimes prone to use a lot of my time watching Youtube videos or just surfing the internet without a purpose.

So, how is this linked to slang? This obsessive use of smart devices shortens a lot of conversations. When people chat, they don’t use full sentences. They abbreviate the words so that they sound the same but can be written shorter. Because these things continue for three or more hours a day, people are quite used to the style of speaking and are likely to speak to their peers in the same way. Consequently, speaking in an extremely simple manner becomes their daily life, which isn’t weird for them at all. This is where the contrast between my parents and me happens.

Therefore, it is not about sheer difference of interest; it is the electronic devices that made those awkward conversations. This really made me think about the way that young people are communicating. I was utterly shocked by the fact that people are not leading human lives but those of a robot. So this holiday, I have found a way to become a normal communicator again. It has been five days since I quit going onto Facebook and I feel like I have talked to people more than talking through the program, which made me feel alive.

It’s been good to talk to my parents again – using normal language that we can all understand.

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MRS MONAGHAN I think it’s important, before I start to write about the huge changes that our time on Jeju have wrought, to explain a little about where we’d been before Jeju. To put it simply – I had been nowhere. Apart from a brief trip to Beijing for work, I had never been outside Western Europe. I believe I may have been the least travelled member of the NLCS staff. My girls, Lizzie and Emily, hadn’t ever really been anywhere either. They had been safely ensconced on a pretty street in a North London boarding school campus for their entire lives. Why then, we asked ourselves many, many times in the first few months of being here, did we uproot them and us from a perfectly comfortable existence? Well, that’s the answer.

It was comfortable; it was easy and we both had come to realize that there was a lot more out there – in the big, wide world.

Nearly three years ago, we arrived on Jeju. It’s almost impossible to talk about change at that point because EVERYTHING was different. I think this is best exemplified by our first trip to Emart. Now, British readers will be familiar with our family’s previous shopping experience as we lived equidistant from a Marks & Spencer’s Food Hall and a Waitrose, in which everything was familiar, and gorgeously packaged, and we knew the people behind the counter, and there was cheese, and butter, and, and…

So, cut to the first Emart visit. It took me two aisles to burst into tears. I didn’t recognize ANYTHING. There were Godzilla sized live crabs and a vegetable that looked a little like a giant radish if you didn’t look too closely, but that was it. It’s easy to forget, but in our first few months, there were no Western products. The sudden introduction of pesto over a year later still ranks as one of the most exciting events in NLCS Jeju history.

This least travelled teacher, who had previously been terrified of flying, was now hopping on planes every few weeks.

It wasn’t just the food. It was the smells, the language, the road signs, the people. Everywhere we looked, all we saw was difference.

The Global Education City did not exist; there was no CU, no sliced bread, none of the wonderful selection of cafes that grace the island now.

So, different it was. But was it necessarily worse? No, not at all.

Among all this difference, were so many aspects of our new life that were better. SO much better.

The first time we hit the beaches, our son had come to stay after travelling in the US. He saw what we, perhaps, couldn’t – this place was beautiful. The white sand and blue, blue sea of places like Hyeopjae Beach have since featured highly in my Facebook albums – they certainly had nothing like this in London! Who needed Waitrose when you had clean air and spectacular scenery?

And it wasn’t just the location – it was also the school. Suddenly my morose, home-sick girls were learning to scuba dive and surf.

They sang in musicals, competed in sports events and had their art exhibited – none of which they had ever done before.

This least travelled teacher, who had previously been terrified of flying, was now hopping on planes every few weeks. We spent Christmas in Vietnam and the summer in Thailand. Lizzie saw Hurricane Sandy in New York and played netball in Tokyo. Different was now good – very good.

Three years on and is it all still so exciting and unfamiliar? No. I don’t cry in Emart anymore (although I did get very emotional at finding nan bread this week). We now have facilities around us and we have got used to the fact that everything is written in Korean – after all, we are in Korea.

However, we do our time here an incredible disservice if we just consider what we have become accustomed to. What we’ve experienced is a lot more than that – I think it’s been a time of huge change – for all of us.

My girls now feel they can tackle anything. Their next challenges – of University and a new school in the Middle East – seem easy to them. They have faced real difficulty here and have come through it stronger, closer and a million times more resilient.

They leave Jeju having made lifelong friends and having done a thousand things they would never have considered doing in their cozy London lives.

And me? For me, the changes are less tangible but far, far more important. I’ve learnt that living is more than ticking off days in a familiar routine. However hard it’s been, I have felt more alive here than anywhere. Three years ago, if someone had said that I would now be moving to Dubai, initially on my own, and that my children would be spread around the world, I would have just laughed – and gone to Waitrose.

My husband is now an Iron Man. He spends hours enjoying the open spaces, the calm sea and physical environment. We are all healthier for being here.

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ZI WON KIM I can still remember the day I first came to this school, North London Collegiate School Jeju.

The anticipation, the excitement, the thrill. I had a quite complex and unexplainable feeling in front of all the experiences I now have had. A British style school in South Korea halfway around the world. A brand new school with brand new buildings and everything. It was just too spectacular for a 15 year old to bear.

Above all, the fact that I will be staying in a boarding house with my friends and all other students was something that I was really looking forward to. Looking back now, the boarding experience I had with my friends was very meaningful and enjoyable.

Waking up early in the morning to get in the shower first and get properly ready for morning registration, finding my friend in his dorm whenever I need him during prep time, and secretly staying up late into the night to talk together will be just some of the memories that I will carry with me forever.

Leaving all the awes behind, when the lessons began, I quickly had to learn how to study in this new style of education. One of my first memories of NLCS Jeju is when I, as a class, received a homework from Mr. Waterson on Geography. The task: write an Essay. (write a wha..?)

As a student who was only able to write English essays on Toefl, an essay task on a field of academics was a totally new challenge for me. In the end, I submitted a small piece of paper, one-sided, that must have been about 50 words or so. I remember Mr. Waterson getting frustrated with our first ever “essays”. (Haha! So embarrassing.)

At that time, who would have thought that those teenagers would one day become an adult who can now write a 1000 word essay in a snap and even a proper 4000 word extended essay with a bit of an effort? It’s amazing to think that we were all able to manage it in the end.

Other than academic skills, when I look at my friends now, I see a lot of talents that they did not have 3 years ago. Now, my friends are: fluent English speakers, Rugby Champions, great musicians/dancers/artists.

But for me, the major two of my new talents are Journalism and Photography, which I was able to discover from The Islander, the school magazine.

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The Islander has in fact, changed my path of life. In the past, I only thought of studying maths or physics. That’s why I joined The Islander as one of the founding members. I originally thought of being a photographer.

However, with compliments and encouragements from a great editor and a great teacher, I was able to develop my skills in writing and photography, and also skills in managing young student reporters as a student editor. So now, I am considering maths and physics along with economics and management as my future career.

3 years ago, when I was asked to write an article myself for The Islander, I said I’d try because I was not really confident with my writing. The result was a bit… unexpected I should say. My whole article were edited to fit in the article in terms of the content’s attitude towards the school. I wrote an article criticizing the school for enforcing students to go and watch a polo game, but in the end it was transformed into a thank you message from the students for taking us to the polo game. It was a bit frustrating, but certainly a useful experience that helped me become a good student editor later.

For 3 whole years, I have been writing essays and reports and learned the skills needed in academics. For 3 whole years, I have been taking photographs for the school and found my talent. And for 3 whole years, I have been going to the girl’s ICT room every week to do my job for The Islander in NLCS Jeju to learn how to work with others in life.

3 years of The Islander in NLCS Jeju has certainly transformed me into a whole new person.

Now, I see myself not as an immature adolescent who needs help in writing articles, but an independent adult who can help others in writing articles. Now, as I await college, I am looking forward to what I will experience and learn for the next few years as an adult just like I did as an adolescent when I first entered the oval glass doors of NLCS Jeju.

THE

STUDENT

COUNCIL IN ACTION HANNAH SEO, YEAR 8, JEOJI JULIA KIM, YEAR 8, GEOMUN

Around the school, there are many people who help to enhance the pupils’ school life; the teachers and staff are the first people who we think of.

However, there are another group of people who passionately and consistently try to help to improve our lives at school. We call them the ‘Student Council’.

Acting like a bridge between students and teachers, the Student Councils have been working sincerely throughout the year to solve problems and discuss complaints. Our school students chose School Council members for their year group and 12 people were selected at the last vote.

To better realise and recognise the jobs that the Student Council does, we have been interviewing the Year 8 members to learn how hard they work to communicate with the all pupils.

Sean Jang, Year 8, Jeoji What kind of jobs do you mainly have? To improve students’ school life, the Student Council gathers students’ voices and discusses based on those.

How do you communicate and listen to your year group? As you know, we regularly have year group assemblies. Other student councils and I often use concerns and comments that come up in year group assemblies to be able to understand students’ opinions.

I assume that there will be some major problems that you need to solve, what are those and how do you solve those? I definitely think that bullying is still a big problem even though teachers, staff and the Student Council is consistently putting effort to solve this problem. Furthermore, verbally bullying other people by swearing and spreading rumours are also considered as major problems within the school community.

Does the action of communicating help to find resolutions for the problems? It is always useful and helpful in terms of finding solutions for the problems. For instance, bullying is an example.

We tried very hard to listen to the students’ opinions towards bullying and we eventually were able to change the concept of bullying within the school society.

Cion Choi Year 8 Geomun What kind of jobs do you mainly have? I mainly get some complaints of “things to improve� from my year group, and I represent our year group as a year group representative and present those in Student Council meetings. It is kind of like being a chain between the teachers and students.

How do you communicate and listen to your year group? As I have mentioned, I get suggestions from year group assemblies and also I sometimes ask the pupils in our year group about what you want the school to do for them. Additionally, some students voluntarily suggest the things that they need to me.

I assume that there will be some major problems that you need to solve, what are those and how do you solve those?

Even though I think that bullying is the one of the problems in the school community, students do not come up and talk to us of their own accord about those issues; there are now peer mentors and other strategies that help students. However, despite the fact that bullying is still a major issue in the school community, I think that we have some problems in terms of the academic part of the school.

Does the action of communicating help to find resolutions for the problems? The action of communicating definitely helps us due to the fact that there is no way that we could know what the students want and need when we cannot communicate.

As a student council representing our year group, I hope that students will voluntarily visit us and tell what they need, rather than complaining within themselves.

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Welcome

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Welcome

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#1 Situation Your roommates have a fight while you’re out for a rehearsal.

How to Win Friends and Influence People. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High.

Difficult Conversations: How to Have Conversations that Matter the Most. Skill with People. Bringing out the Best in People. The Definitive Book of Body Language.

If you don’t have any noonchi, you might start off talking to them about your rehearsal. You won’t notice anything until it gets slightly awkward between the three of you. If you actually don’t have any noonchi, you’ll then begin asking them about the strange atmosphere, which will skyrocket the awkwardness in the room, and end up dumbfoundedly tilting your head this way and that wondering what had gone wrong with them. Then it’s probably for the best for you to shut up, and even if you do so, the best that’s going to happen would be no further increase in the already peaking discomfort of the room.

These are only a few of the hundreds of books offering help with communication. It’s unbelievable how so many people seem to need assistance for such a simple, ordinary thing we do everyday. But then if you really think about it, communication is difficult. You’ve got to listen to the other person, respond, say what you have to say, decode the facial expressions and watch out for the body language. Honestly, it’s a lot of work.

But if you do have noonchi, that’s a completely different story. You would walk into your room and feel the tension in the air, and see your roommates each sitting in front of their desk, working, and realize right away that something is wrong. Then, depending on the situation, you can choose to either try and make it up between them, or silently get on with your own business.

But even if you accomplish all these, success is not guaranteed; things can always get blurted out of your mouth, and you can always misunderstand the other’s point. If you are one of those people who frequently make those mistakes, here’s what you need: noonchi.

Noonchi is a Korean concept - the definition would be the ability to notice others’ feelings or the atmosphere quickly. It’s almost like deduction, but more sensebased. Although Sherlock Holmes is good at deduction, he isn’t an expert of noonchi, because the main bit you’re trying to get with noonchi is the emotions. This concept is not definite in Western culture, but rather developed here in East Asia, especially in Korea and Japan. It’s a crucial element for the maintenance and improvement of relationships, both private and public.

Noonchi divides into two big streams: situation and people.

#2 Situation Your girlfriend is angry at you.

When someone, especially a female, is angry at you, noonchi becomes your most precious assistant.

Noonchi with an individual is about reading between the lines - you need to have a real sense of what they actually want to tell you besides what they actually do. True, it’s not right for them to want you to read their minds. But some things are really hard to say out loud, and what else can you do if you want to maintain a healthy relationship? A bit of mind reading wouldn’t do much harm. This applies to friendship as well - again, especially if you are a girl. I’m usually the one without noonchi, so I know what it’s like to be noonchiless around an angry friend. Trust me, it’s lethal for your mental health.

The examples above are rather specific, but noonchi is crucial for every relationship you have in your life. When you are presenting something in front of a crowd, have an important interview, with your parents, or even in a morning registration, there is not an occasion that goes smooth noonchiless.

As you’ve just read, noonchi is a similar concept to wits. Communication without words, I would say. Still, noonchi might seem complicated, and its application even more so. So why do we need to learn to use this intricate art of noonchi?

Noonchi can easily turn you into a quick-witted person without much effort.

First of all, noonchi is a valuable life-saving skill.

You probably are applying it right now without even realizing it (survival instincts, you know). Let me give you a really obvious example. Suppose it’s April Fool’s day. You and your friends were planning to play a harmless prank on the teacher, something that he will let go without you getting into serious trouble. Then the target, your all-time-favourite teacher walks into the classroom, dumps his planner and Macbook onto the table and slumps down into his chair. He rubs his face in frustration and calls the register reluctantly. Are you going to pull that prank? Or will you play the character of “model student” just for today? If you apply noonchi to this real life situation, you will behave really well that day, because you can easily deduce that the teacher isn’t in a good mood today. A harmless prank can lead you to serious trouble if the teacher isn’t really feeling well. So you and your friends decide to stay down for today and save your prank for the future. In this case, you’ve avoided green slips and being told off. But if you apply this situation into an adult life situation (in other words, substitute the word “boss” for “teacher”), you’ve just avoided being sacked. In the earlier example or your girlfriend getting mad at you, you’ll probably save yourself from breaking up with her by using a bit of noonchi. Now you know why noonchi deserves to be called a life-saving skill.

Not only that, noonchi can easily turn you into a quick-witted person without much effort. An example would make this seem more obvious, so let me present you with one. You are on stage, with your fellow friend. You and your friend are performing a duologue, meaning that the audience’s attention is focused directly on you two. You and your friend glide into the middle of the stage, and now you wait for your friend to say the opening line. But then, your friend starts trembling, mumbling under her breath

and shuffling her feet. Now if you are a person with noonchi, you will instantly recognize this as a sign a sign that your friend forgot her first line. So what you will do, as a person equipped with noonchi, is to ad-lib, so that your friend can remember the rest of the duologue. You can argue that ad-libbing on the spot is hard, but I think it’s much easier than trying to be a witty person by cracking useless jokes. Plus, after that little incident that no one really noticed, your friend will be truly thankful to you for saving her from public humiliation, and you two might stay friends forever. Also, in the earlier example of your two friends having a quarrel, if you manage to make up between the two friends using noonchi and a few sweet words, you will be well-liked by both of them.

Noonchi is a method of communication without words. It isn’t really as high-tech as telepathy, but much more useful. You can’t communicate by telepathy with anyone on this entire planet, but you can communicate by noonchi with the entire planet.

With this, you can easily be a teacher’s pet, or the most quick-witted person that your friends have ever seen. Without this, you will be the most ungrateful person your friends ever had the chance to meet.

Still, the presence of noonchi does not make all other possible methods of communications useless. What we really wanted to say in this bundle of sketches, otherwise referred to as an article, was this: Communication without words is as important as communication with words. Speak to your friends, and let them know about your feelings as much as possible, and therefore relieve them from the pain of trying to be mind-readers. But please, have the grace to use wordless communication (like noonchi, or mind-reading, if you really can) to figure out what to say to a psychologically injured friend.

Girls Basketball June Song, Year 10, Mulchat, documents a remarkable 3 years in the upward trajectory of Girls Basketball at NLCS Jeju.

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Girls Basketball

W

e’ve all heard the phrase “NLCS Jeju has come a long way since we first opened”. Teachers are always amazed at our achievements, but come on, what do we really know about these achievements? As a member of the Girls High School basketball squad, I would like to give you an explanation of our achievements.

To tell you the truth, I didn’t realize how far we had come until I started reflecting on our experiences.

NLCS Jeju Girls Basketball really has come a long way since 2011. Most of us had never played basketball before - dribbling and pivoting were strange new words - and even if some of us did know how to play, almost none had played basketball in a competitive situation.

Our first ever basketball match back in November 2011, was against Busan International Foreign School (BIFS). It was a hard game, because BIFS is definitely one of the top girls basketball teams among Korean international schools. Both high school and middle school teams lost, but we learned a lot during the games, and some of the girls started scoring excellent baskets towards the end of the game, which was great. We also played football with the BIFS girls and suffered a loss, but let’s face it, we are basketball players, not football players. Minjoo Jeong, Year 10, now

recalls “I was extremely excited about our match against BIFS as it was our team’s first ever game.

The overwhelming physicality of the other team and the high percentage of foreigners intimidated us a lot.” She also added, with a laugh, “At the end of the day we had to admit that they have been playing basketball and football for so much longer than us. Still, it encouraged us to practice much harder.”

The year after, NLCS Jeju basketball teams made a huge leap. Both high school and middle school teams trained really hard - two hours during the week, three hours on Saturday mornings, and Sunday afternoons if Miss Levy called for it. Their efforts paid off. The high school team came 3rd in the high school division of the Korean International School Activities Conference (KISAC). They competed against a lot of experienced teams and managed an excellent result. The middle school teams came 1st and 3rd in the middle school division of KISAC. This was an amazing achievement, considering the fact that some of us in the team had only started playing basketball very recently. Due to the fact that we entered two middle school teams (Varsity and Junior Varsity), we had to compete against each other in the semi final, which was a painful experience, but we learned to support each other, and overall, we middle school girls especially, recall this as one of the best moments since we started playing at NLCS Jeju.

This year the teams have continued to improve, and shown further success. The high school team repeatedly beat the other Jeju international schools, (except for a few times, where we were missing a lot of players), won the Jeju International School Activities Conference (JISAC), and came 2nd (Varsity) and 4th (Junior Varsity) in this year’s KISAC championships. This was a step up from last year’s results, and Miss Levy, our coach, was really happy about it. “We did better than last year, and I’m sure next year we can do one better and win the tournament.”, she said. The middle school team won almost all the games they played in Jeju, except one against KIS, and finally came 3rd in the KISAC championships. During the KISAC tournament, the team came top of their group, but had played so hard whilst winning their first two matches, that they ran out of energy and lost their semi final game against BIFS. The girls played some exceptional basketball and came away with 3rd place, which was the least that they deserved.

Though I can’t say that all of us enjoy training, we certainly do learn a lot of things through both training and games. “Because basketball is a team sport, you learn how to get along with older and younger students who aren’t in your year.” said Joanna Song, in Year 10. Korean students find it hard to talk to older pupils because of the age gap, but basketball seems to take the awkwardness of communication away.

After all, no matter how old we are, we are a team. One of the lessons I learned whilst playing basketball is about always being supportive.

Because basketball is a team sport, you need to support your teammates at all times, or else the game falls apart. Elizabeth Chang, Year 10, enjoys the team spirit that basketball creates. “I’ve been playing basketball for a year. When I first got into the squad, I could barely dribble and walk at the same time. But no one discouraged me or made me feel embarrassed. Instead, they all helped and supported me all the way through.” She said. “The time and effort everyone puts into basketball is what makes it really meaningful. I am really looking forward to the next basketball season!”

We all started playing basketball at different times. A couple of girls in Year 10, including me, and a few in Year 9 started playing basketball two years ago, when the school first opened.

Some started last year, and some even started playing this year. All of us, no matter when we started playing, learned such valuable skills through playing basketball. We made new links in upper years and lower years, and we also made new friends. We also won majority of our games, which is always a good thing in competitive sport. And what’s more, basketball is now certainly one of the biggest girls’ sports at NLCS Jeju.

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Sports Desk is back to bring you all our latest sporting news and achievements.

PE and sport continues to help shape the school’s identity. We have enjoyed offering our students How much sport can you cram in to a short summer term?

Answer – a lot!

Thanks to the dedication of students and staff NLCS Jeju has competed in a wide range of sporting activities, matches and tournaments this term. There’s been tremendous success, challenging occasions and mass participation. We have listed the results from this term in a table at the end of this report. Enjoy!

Athletics, as a co-curricular activity, has run since September 2013 and within that time the sport has become incredibly popular. The appeal of running is evident across a range of ages with year 6s through to year 12s attending regularly. With the interest growing it was only fitting to organise an athletics meet between Branksome Hall, KIS and ourselves which gave students and opportunity to show their ability in competition. We have many strong athletes who showed their class when competing in the two local meets. It is hoped that next year there will be an elite track and field team who will travel to the mainland to compete and perhaps progress to representational honours.

The HS Football team entered two competitions this term. The first was the KISAC competition in which 4 international schools in Korea had entered. The team played some wonderful football, winning the competition convincingly, scoring over 20 goals and conceding just 2. They topped the group on Saturday winning all three games and met BIFS in the final on Sunday winning 6-1, with a hat-trick apiece from Peter Kim and Jinook Lee. The second competition we entered was a local Jeju HS league. The team was unlucky to lose their first game missing several chances that would have better reflected the balance of play. In the second game the boys were outclassed by the favorites and were unable to match their superior fitness and technique. Fortunately the team had a week to train for the third and forth games and this helped, as the forth game was a 3-0 win.

The Girls Middle School Basketball team had an extremely successful season, winning 17 out of 20 matches. The highlights of the season were winning the JISAC tournament against BHA and KIS (both A and B teams came first). In the KISAC tournament held in Seoul the girls came 3rd out of 6 teams. They played some excellent basketball, but ran out of steam when it came to the semi final against BIFS. Every player made contributions to the team, but Irene Jeong was top scorer for the season with 40 points. A special mention also goes to Kate Lim who worked extremely hard on the court and was an excellent role model to the other players. 8 players scored 20 points or more, which is a huge achievement. Over half of the squad had never played a game before and the success is down to the hard work that the players put in during practice. Next season I’m expecting first place in the KISAC tournament and a win against Jocheong (our local Jeju rivals).

A fantastic number of girls have taken part in co curricular football this year. They have shown enthusiasm throughout with highlights being the KISAC competitions in October and May and, of course, the trip to Phuket last November. The players have learnt quickly and with their fierce, positive attitude, always compete well. The team will go from strength to strength, becoming better in attack and, I have no doubt, will achieve further success in next years tournaments.

The MS Boys Basketball team is a relatively inexperienced squad who learnt quickly and worked well together this past term.

The guards developed an understanding of one another and learned effective screen moves. The forwards started to gel and play inside on both rebounding and drop step moves. Most games this term were against a strong KIS side who had far more in the way of practice time and who became a strong team winning the KISAC basketball tournament. We did run them close on a number of occasions and managed one draw and one narrow loss in our four meetings.

The narrow loss was the highlight as this was in the KISAC tournament.

High School

Middle School Malaysia Cobra 10’s A well-planned itinerary for the week in Malaysia gave the boys several matches with local school and club teams as a build up and a couple of days sightseeing and shopping before the Cobra 10’s tournament started.

Many of the teams in the tournament were of a very high standard and all were used to the heat and humidity. NLCS Jeju managed to draw one, win one and lose one match in the pool games.

Winning the first match the next day in the bottom half gave us some hope of making a final but we were well beaten in the semi final.

When focused the boys played well, showed their rugby skills and at times gave everyone an clear idea of what they had achieved in a very short time in a non-rugby environment such is Jeju.

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The HS Rugby team trained vigorously all year.

Unfortunately due to grounded flights and a cancelled tournament they have only had three games so far, winning 2 out of 3. The wins came against two visiting teams, TCIS and a visiting club team from Hong Kong. The third and toughest game came against Daegu High School. The team played very well with some great tackling and hard running. Tries were scored by Seoyon and Sam Ha and the game finished 28-14 to Daegu. Having had a break due to exams the students are back to full training and we look forward to the National 7’s Tournament in Busan on the 13th and 14th June. Visit the schools facebook page to see the HS Rugby team’s results.

Middle School Rugby Youth National Championships NLCS JEJU once again travelled to Seoul to compete in the 2014 Middle School Rugby National Championships. As last year’s winners, there were high expectations for the 17 students that were chosen to compete.

The competition has been fierce in previous years, making it the highlight of the NLCS Rugby calendar. This year was no different, with 14 teams competing from different provinces throughout Korea.

NLCS Jeju started their title campaign on the 24th May against the spring tournament runners up Seongnam Middle School. It was a tough match, but the NLCS students managed a convincing victory and played some excellent rugby. NLCS Jeju managed to win their next 2 matches against Kyungsan and Cheongju Nam to secure a place in the final. The final match against Seoul Sadaebu was a bruising encounter in which many players stepped up their game. Unfortunately NLCS lost the match but secured a fantastic 2nd place finish in Korean middle schools toughest competition.

BASKETBALL MS Boys A team 13 – 42 Jeongcheon MS Boys B team 22 – 20 Jengcheon MS Girls A team 18 – 6 KIS MS Girls B team 16 – 8 KIS KISAC Boys 3rd place boys and girls MS Girls 24 – 2 BHA MS Girls 15 – 2 BHA MS Boys A team 12 – 24 KIS MS Boys B team 10 – 26 KIS MS Girls A team 34 – 22 Jocheon MS Girls B team 13 – 8 Jocheon FOOTBALL HS Girls 1 – 0 KIS HS Girls Football A 0 – 1 BHA HS Girls Football B 2 – 0 BHA KISAC Girls W 3 D2 L2 KISAC Boys W5 D0 L0 HS Boys W 3 – 0 HS Boys 1 – 4 Jeju HS HS Boys 0 – 5 Jeju HS HS Girls 0 – 0 HS Football Boys 0 – 3 Namnyung A HS Football Boys 1 – 0 Namnyung RUGBY HS 7’s Tournament Won 1 Lost 3 HS; Played 15’s P2 W1 MS Rugby National championships NLCS Jeju 28 – 5 Seongnam NLCS Jeju 68 – 10 Kyungsan NLCS Jeju 31 – 17 Chungbuk NLCS Jeju 29 – 12 Sadaebu

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The Islander From the students and staff of NLCS Jeju Issue 09 available December 2014

NLCS JE JU San 1-6 Gueok-lee // Daejung-eup Seogwipo City // Jeju 699-931 // Republic of Korea

ENQUIRIES Admissions: +82 2 6456 8410 admissions@nlcsjeju.kr www.nlcsjeju.co.kr

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