What are Hofstede's five Cultural Dimensions?
http://www.geert-hofstede.com/
Power Distance Index (PDI) that is the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. This represents inequality (more versus less), but defined from below, not from above. It suggests that a society's level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders. Power and inequality, of course, are extremely fundamental facts of any society and anybody with some international experience will be aware that 'all societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others'.
Individualism (IDV) on the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, that is the degree to which individuals are inte-grated into groups. On the individualist side we find societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. The word 'collectivism' in this sense has no political meaning: it refers to the group, not to the state. Again, the issue addressed by this dimension is an extremely fundamental one, regarding all societies in the world.
Masculinity (MAS) versus its opposite, femininity, refers to the distribution of roles between the genders which is another fundamental issue for any society to which a range of solutions are found. The IBM studies revealed that (a) women's values differ less among societies than men's values; (b) men's values from one country to another contain a dimension from very assertive and competitive and maximally different from women's values on the one side, to modest and caring and similar to women's values on the other. The assertive pole has been called 'masculine' and the modest, caring pole 'feminine'. The women in feminine countries have the same modest, caring values as the men; in the masculine countries they are somewhat assertive and competitive, but not as much as the men, so that these countries show a gap between men's values and women's values.
Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) deals with a society's tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; it ultimately refers to man's search for Truth. It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising, different from usual. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize the possibility of such situations by strict laws and rules, safety and security measures, and on the philosophical and religious level by a belief in absolute Truth; 'there can only be one Truth and we have it'. People in uncertainty avoiding countries are also more emotional, and motivated by inner nervous energy. The opposite type, uncertainty accepting cultures, are more tolerant of opinions different from what they are used to; they try to have as few rules as possible, and on the philosophical and religious level they are relativist and allow many currents to flow side by side. People within these cultures are more phlegmatic and contemplative, and not expected by their environment to express emotions.
Long-Term Orientation (LTO) versus short-term orientation: this fifth dimension was found in a study among students in 23 countries around the world, using a questionnaire designed by Chinese scholars It can be said to deal with Virtue regardless of Truth. Values associated with Long Term Orientation are thrift and perseverance; values associated with Short Term Orientation are respect for tradition, fulfilling social obligations, and protecting one's 'face'. Both the positively and the negatively rated values of this dimension are found in the teachings of Confucius, the most influential Chinese philosopher who lived around 500 B.C.; however, the dimension also applies to countries without a Confucian heritage.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Flowtv.org
FlowTV is a critical forum on television and media culture published by the Department of Radio, Television, and Film at the University of Texas at Austin. Flow’s mission is to provide a space where the public can discuss the changing landscape of contemporary media.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Dates Numbers Places
http://www.cmu.edu/styleguide/dates_numbers.html
http://www.grammar-quizzes.com/punc-hyphen.html
http://www.grammar-quizzes.com/punc-hyphen.html
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Taiwan Documents
http://www.taiwandocuments.org/index.htm
THE TOKYO WAR CRIMES TRIALS
http://www.cnd.org/mirror/nanjing/NMTT.html
UN document
http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/draft%20articles/7_1_1950.pdf
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/imt1945.htm
http://books.google.com/books?id=gfaGv_JJRnEC&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=Nürnberg+Charter&source=bl&ots=or9geOcy7Z&sig=bMf4k59baaOZtn1xtSLW6vvDkzE&hl=en&ei=jkzzScvAGpWuMomb1csP&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#PPA73,M1
아시아 평화와 역사교육연대
http://www.ilovehistory.or.kr/index.php
동북아 역사 재단
http://www.historyfoundation.or.kr/MA/
THE TOKYO WAR CRIMES TRIALS
http://www.cnd.org/mirror/nanjing/NMTT.html
UN document
http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/draft%20articles/7_1_1950.pdf
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/imt1945.htm
http://books.google.com/books?id=gfaGv_JJRnEC&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=Nürnberg+Charter&source=bl&ots=or9geOcy7Z&sig=bMf4k59baaOZtn1xtSLW6vvDkzE&hl=en&ei=jkzzScvAGpWuMomb1csP&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#PPA73,M1
아시아 평화와 역사교육연대
http://www.ilovehistory.or.kr/index.php
동북아 역사 재단
http://www.historyfoundation.or.kr/MA/
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Junichiro Koizumi
Junichiro Koizumi (小泉 純一郎 Koizumi Jun'ichirō, born January 8, 1942)
Junichiro (first name) Koizumi (last name)
Junichiro (first name) Koizumi (last name)
Monday, March 09, 2009
Amos Funkenstein
`Renaissance man’ Amos Funkenstein dies at age 58
Friday, November 17, 1995 | by NATALIE WEINSTEIN, Bulletin Staff | obituaries
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/2028/-renaissance-man-amos-funkenstein-dies-at-age-58/
Called a genius and Renaissance man by his academic colleagues, Amos Funkenstein was known for reciting long passages verbatim in Latin, German and Greek decades after reading them.
Winner of the coveted Israel Prize for History, the U.C. Berkeley history professor could lecture effortlessly on nearly any element of Jewish or non-Jewish civilization from the biblical period through the 20th century.
Raised an Orthodox Jew in pre-state Israel, he was considered the quintessential apikoros -- a heretic who knew the tradition inside and out, yet rejected any belief in its divine origin.
Funkenstein died Saturday, Nov. 11 in Berkeley after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was 58.
"He was truly a Renaissance man in terms of intellectual interest," said Professor David Biale, director of the Berkeley-based Graduate Theological Union's Center for Jewish Studies. "He was probably the only genius I've ever met."
Considered rare even among world-class academics for his intellectual abilities, Funkenstein was primarily a historian of Judaism, medieval intellectualism and science.
He authored seven books and more than 50 articles, writing in German, Hebrew, English and French. His books included "Perceptions of Jewish History," "Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century," and "Sociology of Ignorance," which he wrote with childhood friend Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. At the time of his death, he was working on a multivolume study of the social and cultural context of knowledge in Western history since antiquity.
"He had razor-sharp analytic abilities," said Robert Alter, a U.C. Berkeley professor of Hebrew and comparative literature who officiated at Funkenstein's funeral service on Tuesday. "He was very, very focused on thinking. That was his way of life."
Educated in a religious school in Jerusalem, Funkenstein served in the Israeli army and then studied for two years at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before transferring to the Free University of Berlin in the late 1950s. He earned his doctorate in history and philosophy at the university and began his teaching career there.
In 1967, he was hired to teach at UCLA. In the early 1970s, Biale became one of Funkenstein's graduate students and teaching assistants. From the start, Biale knew Funkenstein was different.
"He was beyond anyone else I ever encountered as a teacher," he said.
Funkenstein could offer detailed critiques of books he had read 20 years earlier, Biale recalled, and he would doodle mathematical proofs for fun.
"He had a photographic memory," Biale said. But even this ability was just intellectual pyrotechnics. "What counted with him was originality."
Unlike many of his peers in academia, Funkenstein rejected much of the formality associated with the job. He wanted students to call him by his first name and became friends with many of them.
In the late 1970s while still at UCLA, Funkenstein began teaching part of the year at Tel Aviv University, where he held an endowed chair in history and the philosophy of science. He stayed in Southern California until 1986 when Stanford University hired him as the first Daniel E. Koshland professor of Jewish culture and history as part of its fledgling Jewish studies program.
Funkenstein returned to UCLA three years later, but then left again when U.C. Berkeley hired him in 1991 as its Koret professor of Jewish history.
Among his lasting marks in the Bay Area: his role in creating the new joint doctoral program in Jewish studies between U.C. Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union.
In addition to winning earlier this year an Israel Prize, the highest honor bestowed by the Jewish state, Funkenstein had been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship at Ecole des Hautes Ecoles in Paris a decade ago.
In the early 1980s, Funkenstein also became an activist in the Israeli peace movement and worked to convince the government to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In 1991, he told the Jewish Bulletin that "the occupation of the West Bank has now reached the point where it's illegitimate," and he compared the lack of rights for Palestinians to the status of Jews living in Germany in the mid-1930s.
Last fall, Funkenstein was diagnosed with lung cancer, which spread to other organs. Soon after, Alter recalled, "he made this principal decision: As long as he could, he would go on doing what he loved."
Funkenstein continued working on his book and teaching classes at U.C. Berkeley until about a month ago when he came down with pneumonia and suffered a heart attack.
But even a few days before his death, he was still making plans for the future.
"He never lost faith in life," said Tony Long, a U.C. Berkeley classics professor.
Funkenstein was buried Tuesday in the Tel Shalom section of the Rolling Hills Memorial Park in Richmond.
He is survived by his wife, Esti Funkenstein of Berkeley, and two children from his first marriage, Jakob Funkenstein of Toulouse, France, and Daniela Funkenstein of Los Angeles.
Friday, November 17, 1995 | by NATALIE WEINSTEIN, Bulletin Staff | obituaries
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/2028/-renaissance-man-amos-funkenstein-dies-at-age-58/
Called a genius and Renaissance man by his academic colleagues, Amos Funkenstein was known for reciting long passages verbatim in Latin, German and Greek decades after reading them.
Winner of the coveted Israel Prize for History, the U.C. Berkeley history professor could lecture effortlessly on nearly any element of Jewish or non-Jewish civilization from the biblical period through the 20th century.
Raised an Orthodox Jew in pre-state Israel, he was considered the quintessential apikoros -- a heretic who knew the tradition inside and out, yet rejected any belief in its divine origin.
Funkenstein died Saturday, Nov. 11 in Berkeley after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was 58.
"He was truly a Renaissance man in terms of intellectual interest," said Professor David Biale, director of the Berkeley-based Graduate Theological Union's Center for Jewish Studies. "He was probably the only genius I've ever met."
Considered rare even among world-class academics for his intellectual abilities, Funkenstein was primarily a historian of Judaism, medieval intellectualism and science.
He authored seven books and more than 50 articles, writing in German, Hebrew, English and French. His books included "Perceptions of Jewish History," "Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century," and "Sociology of Ignorance," which he wrote with childhood friend Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. At the time of his death, he was working on a multivolume study of the social and cultural context of knowledge in Western history since antiquity.
"He had razor-sharp analytic abilities," said Robert Alter, a U.C. Berkeley professor of Hebrew and comparative literature who officiated at Funkenstein's funeral service on Tuesday. "He was very, very focused on thinking. That was his way of life."
Educated in a religious school in Jerusalem, Funkenstein served in the Israeli army and then studied for two years at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before transferring to the Free University of Berlin in the late 1950s. He earned his doctorate in history and philosophy at the university and began his teaching career there.
In 1967, he was hired to teach at UCLA. In the early 1970s, Biale became one of Funkenstein's graduate students and teaching assistants. From the start, Biale knew Funkenstein was different.
"He was beyond anyone else I ever encountered as a teacher," he said.
Funkenstein could offer detailed critiques of books he had read 20 years earlier, Biale recalled, and he would doodle mathematical proofs for fun.
"He had a photographic memory," Biale said. But even this ability was just intellectual pyrotechnics. "What counted with him was originality."
Unlike many of his peers in academia, Funkenstein rejected much of the formality associated with the job. He wanted students to call him by his first name and became friends with many of them.
In the late 1970s while still at UCLA, Funkenstein began teaching part of the year at Tel Aviv University, where he held an endowed chair in history and the philosophy of science. He stayed in Southern California until 1986 when Stanford University hired him as the first Daniel E. Koshland professor of Jewish culture and history as part of its fledgling Jewish studies program.
Funkenstein returned to UCLA three years later, but then left again when U.C. Berkeley hired him in 1991 as its Koret professor of Jewish history.
Among his lasting marks in the Bay Area: his role in creating the new joint doctoral program in Jewish studies between U.C. Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union.
In addition to winning earlier this year an Israel Prize, the highest honor bestowed by the Jewish state, Funkenstein had been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship at Ecole des Hautes Ecoles in Paris a decade ago.
In the early 1980s, Funkenstein also became an activist in the Israeli peace movement and worked to convince the government to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In 1991, he told the Jewish Bulletin that "the occupation of the West Bank has now reached the point where it's illegitimate," and he compared the lack of rights for Palestinians to the status of Jews living in Germany in the mid-1930s.
Last fall, Funkenstein was diagnosed with lung cancer, which spread to other organs. Soon after, Alter recalled, "he made this principal decision: As long as he could, he would go on doing what he loved."
Funkenstein continued working on his book and teaching classes at U.C. Berkeley until about a month ago when he came down with pneumonia and suffered a heart attack.
But even a few days before his death, he was still making plans for the future.
"He never lost faith in life," said Tony Long, a U.C. Berkeley classics professor.
Funkenstein was buried Tuesday in the Tel Shalom section of the Rolling Hills Memorial Park in Richmond.
He is survived by his wife, Esti Funkenstein of Berkeley, and two children from his first marriage, Jakob Funkenstein of Toulouse, France, and Daniela Funkenstein of Los Angeles.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
In Carmaker’s Collapse, a Microcosm of South Korea’s Woes, a NYTimes Article
By CHOE SANG-HUN
Published: February 23, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea — When Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, China’s largest carmaker, set its sights on overseas expansion in 2004, it first took a small hop across the Yellow Sea. It bought a controlling stake in Ssangyong Motor of South Korea, the most ambitious foreign venture for China’s surging auto industry.
Five years later, Shanghai Auto’s marriage with Ssangyong, a milestone of China’s rising industrial clout and South Korea’s deepening economic ties with its neighbor, is falling apart in acrimony and criminal investigations.
Walloped by declining sales and bitter battles with its Chinese parent, Ssangyong filed for bankruptcy protection last month. Its combative labor unions and some South Korean commentators have vilified Shanghai Auto as an exploitative owner that siphoned off Ssangyong’s technology, reneged on promises to invest, and dumped the company when the market turned sour.
Shanghai Auto has a different account of what went wrong. But the collapse of the venture is a black eye for China, which has pushed its top state-owned companies, including Shanghai Auto, to use the country’s enormous dollar-based savings to expand abroad. It may also serve as a cautionary tale for Western companies seeking a lifeline from cash-rich Chinese businesses during the financial crisis.
“The Chinese made us rosy promises and then betrayed us,” said Lee Chang-kun, a member of Ssangyong’s labor union.
The Shanghai company, which has partnerships with General Motors and Volkswagen in China that make it the country’s largest carmaker, said its troubles in South Korea revealed a deep-seated Korean bias against the Chinese. The company said South Korea remained fraught with difficulties for foreign investors, despite Seoul’s professed commitment to open up its economy.
“We hope that South Koreans of all walks of life will become objective and fair and abandon their prejudices against foreign investors,” Shanghai Auto said in response to written questions.
South Korea embraced China over the past decade as an economic and political partner, partly to offset its traditional dependence on the United States. Since the two countries formally ended Korean War-era hostilities and re-established diplomatic ties in 1992, China has replaced the United States as South Korea’s biggest trading partner.
But just as many South Koreans fret about the United States, it did not take long for many here to worry about overreliance on China as well. Korea is sandwiched between China and Japan and has come under the sway of both countries in the past.
Against this backdrop, modern-day failures like Ssangyong — and a similarly acrimonious breakup between BOE Technology Group, a Chinese electronics company, and Hydis of South Korea — loom large in Korean minds.
In 2003, BOE paid $380 million to buy Hydis, which makes displays for cellphones and laptop computers. A year later, Shanghai Auto bought 48.9 percent of Ssangyong, a specialist in sport utility vehicles and luxury sedans, for $510 million. It later increased its stake to 51.33 percent.
The Ssangyong purchase gave Shanghai Auto, known mostly for producing cars in China with foreign technology, an international brand of its own. Hu Maoyuan, Shanghai Auto’s president, said the deal allowed his company to “branch out into the global market.” Ssangyong researchers helped Shanghai Auto develop the Roewe, Shanghai Auto’s first independently made luxury car.
South Korea, once one of the most closed of the major industrial economies, began opening up to more foreign investment after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Foreign companies snapped up Korean banks and industrial concerns at fire-sale prices. When some later cashed out with sizable profits, South Korean workers began referring to them as meoktwi, a slang term that translates as “a thief who eats and runs away.”
Those fears increased when BOE used technology transferred from Hydis to build a new display panel factory in Beijing. When Hydis later ran into financial trouble, BOE did not pump in more money, leaving it to file for bankruptcy protection in 2006, according to Hydis employees. Now sold to a Taiwanese company, Hydis is a shell of its former self.
“BOE got the technology they wanted. All we got was layoffs,” said Hwang Pil-sang, a Hydis worker.
Shanghai Auto and Ssangyong never had much of a honeymoon. When the Shanghai company took over, Ssangyong was reporting net profits of $510 million a year. It was planning to roll out its new S.U.V. series: Kyron and Actyon.
But the new cars sold below expectations. Ssangyong’s hopes that Shanghai Auto could ease its entry into the rapidly growing but tightly regulated China market went largely unrealized, Ssangyong workers say. Heavy tariffs hindered Ssangyong’s sales in China. Ssangyong’s attempt to build a joint venture factory there faced red tape.
The two companies also clashed over how to expand sales. The 5,200-worker union demanded that the Chinese company infuse more cash, market more aggressively and speed up development of new models.
Shanghai Auto said that it had agreed to invest more in Ssangyong, but argued that it intended to reinvest profits Ssangyong was earning. When Ssangyong’s profits sank, so did the available cash to invest, the Chinese company said.
Chinese managers began shedding hundreds of Ssangyong workers in 2006, and relations spiraled downward. Ssangyong employees went on strike for nearly two months. Workers barricaded themselves inside the factory and locked the managers out.
The Ssangyong union also accused Shanghai Auto of stealing technology, setting off one investigation by prosecutors in 2006 and another last year. Last July, acting on tips from the National Intelligence Service, prosecutors raided Ssangyong’s research center, searching for evidence of illicit technology leaks.
The union’s allegations are disputed by Shanghai Auto. The Shanghai company says it has a normal technological give and take with its subsidiary. It shared its own technology with Ssangyong. It properly accounted for and compensated Ssangyong for Korean technology it took back to China, the company says.
No charges have resulted from the legal inquiry. But it generated headlines in South Korea, where the media were already abuzz with reports of high-profile industrial espionage cases in which former employees of South Korea’s biggest exporters — Hyundai and Kia Motors, LG Electronics, the Daewoo shipyard and the steel maker Posco — were convicted of leaking, or plotting to leak, sensitive technology to Chinese companies.
In December, union members surrounded a car carrying Shanghai Auto officials and held it hostage for seven hours outside their factory south of Seoul, accusing the executives of absconding with proprietary technology.
Yang Hyeong-geun, a 20-year veteran of the Ssangyong assembly lines, said he and his colleagues initially welcomed Shanghai Auto because the Chinese company promised job security, entry to the vast China market, and new investment to double Ssangyong’s annual capacity, to 400,000 cars.
“We trusted their promise to help us into the vast Chinese market,” Mr. Yang said. “In the end, they kept none of their promises, and they got what they wanted: our technology.”
Published: February 23, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea — When Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, China’s largest carmaker, set its sights on overseas expansion in 2004, it first took a small hop across the Yellow Sea. It bought a controlling stake in Ssangyong Motor of South Korea, the most ambitious foreign venture for China’s surging auto industry.
Five years later, Shanghai Auto’s marriage with Ssangyong, a milestone of China’s rising industrial clout and South Korea’s deepening economic ties with its neighbor, is falling apart in acrimony and criminal investigations.
Walloped by declining sales and bitter battles with its Chinese parent, Ssangyong filed for bankruptcy protection last month. Its combative labor unions and some South Korean commentators have vilified Shanghai Auto as an exploitative owner that siphoned off Ssangyong’s technology, reneged on promises to invest, and dumped the company when the market turned sour.
Shanghai Auto has a different account of what went wrong. But the collapse of the venture is a black eye for China, which has pushed its top state-owned companies, including Shanghai Auto, to use the country’s enormous dollar-based savings to expand abroad. It may also serve as a cautionary tale for Western companies seeking a lifeline from cash-rich Chinese businesses during the financial crisis.
“The Chinese made us rosy promises and then betrayed us,” said Lee Chang-kun, a member of Ssangyong’s labor union.
The Shanghai company, which has partnerships with General Motors and Volkswagen in China that make it the country’s largest carmaker, said its troubles in South Korea revealed a deep-seated Korean bias against the Chinese. The company said South Korea remained fraught with difficulties for foreign investors, despite Seoul’s professed commitment to open up its economy.
“We hope that South Koreans of all walks of life will become objective and fair and abandon their prejudices against foreign investors,” Shanghai Auto said in response to written questions.
South Korea embraced China over the past decade as an economic and political partner, partly to offset its traditional dependence on the United States. Since the two countries formally ended Korean War-era hostilities and re-established diplomatic ties in 1992, China has replaced the United States as South Korea’s biggest trading partner.
But just as many South Koreans fret about the United States, it did not take long for many here to worry about overreliance on China as well. Korea is sandwiched between China and Japan and has come under the sway of both countries in the past.
Against this backdrop, modern-day failures like Ssangyong — and a similarly acrimonious breakup between BOE Technology Group, a Chinese electronics company, and Hydis of South Korea — loom large in Korean minds.
In 2003, BOE paid $380 million to buy Hydis, which makes displays for cellphones and laptop computers. A year later, Shanghai Auto bought 48.9 percent of Ssangyong, a specialist in sport utility vehicles and luxury sedans, for $510 million. It later increased its stake to 51.33 percent.
The Ssangyong purchase gave Shanghai Auto, known mostly for producing cars in China with foreign technology, an international brand of its own. Hu Maoyuan, Shanghai Auto’s president, said the deal allowed his company to “branch out into the global market.” Ssangyong researchers helped Shanghai Auto develop the Roewe, Shanghai Auto’s first independently made luxury car.
South Korea, once one of the most closed of the major industrial economies, began opening up to more foreign investment after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Foreign companies snapped up Korean banks and industrial concerns at fire-sale prices. When some later cashed out with sizable profits, South Korean workers began referring to them as meoktwi, a slang term that translates as “a thief who eats and runs away.”
Those fears increased when BOE used technology transferred from Hydis to build a new display panel factory in Beijing. When Hydis later ran into financial trouble, BOE did not pump in more money, leaving it to file for bankruptcy protection in 2006, according to Hydis employees. Now sold to a Taiwanese company, Hydis is a shell of its former self.
“BOE got the technology they wanted. All we got was layoffs,” said Hwang Pil-sang, a Hydis worker.
Shanghai Auto and Ssangyong never had much of a honeymoon. When the Shanghai company took over, Ssangyong was reporting net profits of $510 million a year. It was planning to roll out its new S.U.V. series: Kyron and Actyon.
But the new cars sold below expectations. Ssangyong’s hopes that Shanghai Auto could ease its entry into the rapidly growing but tightly regulated China market went largely unrealized, Ssangyong workers say. Heavy tariffs hindered Ssangyong’s sales in China. Ssangyong’s attempt to build a joint venture factory there faced red tape.
The two companies also clashed over how to expand sales. The 5,200-worker union demanded that the Chinese company infuse more cash, market more aggressively and speed up development of new models.
Shanghai Auto said that it had agreed to invest more in Ssangyong, but argued that it intended to reinvest profits Ssangyong was earning. When Ssangyong’s profits sank, so did the available cash to invest, the Chinese company said.
Chinese managers began shedding hundreds of Ssangyong workers in 2006, and relations spiraled downward. Ssangyong employees went on strike for nearly two months. Workers barricaded themselves inside the factory and locked the managers out.
The Ssangyong union also accused Shanghai Auto of stealing technology, setting off one investigation by prosecutors in 2006 and another last year. Last July, acting on tips from the National Intelligence Service, prosecutors raided Ssangyong’s research center, searching for evidence of illicit technology leaks.
The union’s allegations are disputed by Shanghai Auto. The Shanghai company says it has a normal technological give and take with its subsidiary. It shared its own technology with Ssangyong. It properly accounted for and compensated Ssangyong for Korean technology it took back to China, the company says.
No charges have resulted from the legal inquiry. But it generated headlines in South Korea, where the media were already abuzz with reports of high-profile industrial espionage cases in which former employees of South Korea’s biggest exporters — Hyundai and Kia Motors, LG Electronics, the Daewoo shipyard and the steel maker Posco — were convicted of leaking, or plotting to leak, sensitive technology to Chinese companies.
In December, union members surrounded a car carrying Shanghai Auto officials and held it hostage for seven hours outside their factory south of Seoul, accusing the executives of absconding with proprietary technology.
Yang Hyeong-geun, a 20-year veteran of the Ssangyong assembly lines, said he and his colleagues initially welcomed Shanghai Auto because the Chinese company promised job security, entry to the vast China market, and new investment to double Ssangyong’s annual capacity, to 400,000 cars.
“We trusted their promise to help us into the vast Chinese market,” Mr. Yang said. “In the end, they kept none of their promises, and they got what they wanted: our technology.”
Monday, February 16, 2009
Cultural discount, External rofit, Joint-consumption
As Maule (1989: 90) explains, 'the position of successive Canadian governments has been that cultural industries are on a par with national defense, education, and the judiciary and are vital to the preservation of national identity (p. 6)
Colin Hoskins, Stuart McFadyen and Adam finn. Global television and film: An introduction to the economics of the business.
Colin Hoskins, Stuart McFadyen and Adam finn. Global television and film: An introduction to the economics of the business.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
John Tomlinson and Cultural Imperialism
Original source of the text below is" http://www.bfe2009.net/3.html
John Tomlinson is Professor of Cultural Sociology; Director of the Institute for Cultural Analysis, Nottingham; Head of Research for Cultural, Communications and Media Studies (RAE Unit 66); and Chair of the School Professorial Group at Nottingham Trent University. John Tomlinson is an authority on the cultural aspects of the globalization process and has lectured at many distinguished universities across Europe, the United States and East Asia as well as at venues such as The Bauhaus Institute, Dessau; Tate Britain; The Council of Europe; the Festival Filosofia, Modena and Demos, Hungary. He has worked as a consultant on issues of globalization, culture and politics to several international public sector institutions including UNESCO, The Council of Europe, The Commonwealth Secretariat, and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and Nato Defence College. Articles, profiles and interviews on his work have been published in national newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, the Guanming Daily, Beijing, the Hufvudsbladet, Helsinki and on Finnish Television, YLE TV1 and Italian National Television and Radio (RAI).
John Tomlinson is on the editorial advisory boards of several journals, including Theory, Culture and Society, Journal of International Communication, Global Media and Communication and the Asian Journal of International Studies. Published books include Cultural Imperialism and Globalisation and Culture, and John Tomlinson's recent work has explored the place of speed within modern telemediated culture, resulting in his latest book, The Culture of Speed: The Coming of Immediacy published by Sage Publications in October 2007. He is currently developing research into the constitution of public culture and cultural values within contemporary capitalist societies.
KEYNOTE ABSTRACT
Emergent Agendas of Cultural Globalization
After nearly two decades of analysis of the cultural dimensions of globalization, the overall picture remains far from clear. The early - largely speculative - scenarios of the emergence of either a unified or a uniform global culture have mostly been abandoned, as the inherent complexity of the globalization process has been more properly understood. But we seem to be left with a set of familiar, seemingly intractable, issues. These are either problems of empirical difficulty – for example the nature, extent and significance of Western cultural dominance - or of essential theoretical dispute or value incompatibility - such as the unresolved debate over the competing claims of cultural cosmopolitanism and cultural diversity.
In one way or another, these debates have all been about the contents of global cultures - be these artefacts and their symbolic meanings, beliefs, tastes, styles, values, or identities. However, if we approach culture in a different way – focussing instead upon the core dynamics of global modernity itself – some new issues and perspectives present themselves. The lecture will explore two of these emerging agendas.
The first of these is what I will call the global management of cultural diversity. Whilst it is increasingly clear that global cultural diversity is not directly threatened by an overwhelming tendency towards homogenization, we are nonetheless witnessing a deep transformation in the context in which the diversity of culture exists. The inherently modern drive towards institutional regulation, combined with the ever-rising gradient of the commodification of culture, is producing new - and sometimes perverse - ways in which cultural difference is understood, promoted and valued.
The second agenda concerns the impact of the combination of an accelerating global capitalist economy - ‘fast capitalism’ - and the ubiquity of globalizing media and communications technologies on the common texture of everyday life. The reiterated practices, protocols and routines associated with these core features of contemporary modernity are producing a new and challenging condition that I call ‘global immediacy’, which is displacing some of the founding assumptions of the earlier industrial modernity which gave rise to the globalization process. The coming of immediacy has potentially far-reaching implications for the way in which we understand future cultural production and consumption practices and the values we attach to them.
John Tomlinson is Professor of Cultural Sociology; Director of the Institute for Cultural Analysis, Nottingham; Head of Research for Cultural, Communications and Media Studies (RAE Unit 66); and Chair of the School Professorial Group at Nottingham Trent University. John Tomlinson is an authority on the cultural aspects of the globalization process and has lectured at many distinguished universities across Europe, the United States and East Asia as well as at venues such as The Bauhaus Institute, Dessau; Tate Britain; The Council of Europe; the Festival Filosofia, Modena and Demos, Hungary. He has worked as a consultant on issues of globalization, culture and politics to several international public sector institutions including UNESCO, The Council of Europe, The Commonwealth Secretariat, and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and Nato Defence College. Articles, profiles and interviews on his work have been published in national newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, the Guanming Daily, Beijing, the Hufvudsbladet, Helsinki and on Finnish Television, YLE TV1 and Italian National Television and Radio (RAI).
John Tomlinson is on the editorial advisory boards of several journals, including Theory, Culture and Society, Journal of International Communication, Global Media and Communication and the Asian Journal of International Studies. Published books include Cultural Imperialism and Globalisation and Culture, and John Tomlinson's recent work has explored the place of speed within modern telemediated culture, resulting in his latest book, The Culture of Speed: The Coming of Immediacy published by Sage Publications in October 2007. He is currently developing research into the constitution of public culture and cultural values within contemporary capitalist societies.
KEYNOTE ABSTRACT
Emergent Agendas of Cultural Globalization
After nearly two decades of analysis of the cultural dimensions of globalization, the overall picture remains far from clear. The early - largely speculative - scenarios of the emergence of either a unified or a uniform global culture have mostly been abandoned, as the inherent complexity of the globalization process has been more properly understood. But we seem to be left with a set of familiar, seemingly intractable, issues. These are either problems of empirical difficulty – for example the nature, extent and significance of Western cultural dominance - or of essential theoretical dispute or value incompatibility - such as the unresolved debate over the competing claims of cultural cosmopolitanism and cultural diversity.
In one way or another, these debates have all been about the contents of global cultures - be these artefacts and their symbolic meanings, beliefs, tastes, styles, values, or identities. However, if we approach culture in a different way – focussing instead upon the core dynamics of global modernity itself – some new issues and perspectives present themselves. The lecture will explore two of these emerging agendas.
The first of these is what I will call the global management of cultural diversity. Whilst it is increasingly clear that global cultural diversity is not directly threatened by an overwhelming tendency towards homogenization, we are nonetheless witnessing a deep transformation in the context in which the diversity of culture exists. The inherently modern drive towards institutional regulation, combined with the ever-rising gradient of the commodification of culture, is producing new - and sometimes perverse - ways in which cultural difference is understood, promoted and valued.
The second agenda concerns the impact of the combination of an accelerating global capitalist economy - ‘fast capitalism’ - and the ubiquity of globalizing media and communications technologies on the common texture of everyday life. The reiterated practices, protocols and routines associated with these core features of contemporary modernity are producing a new and challenging condition that I call ‘global immediacy’, which is displacing some of the founding assumptions of the earlier industrial modernity which gave rise to the globalization process. The coming of immediacy has potentially far-reaching implications for the way in which we understand future cultural production and consumption practices and the values we attach to them.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Vernacular Culture
As an analytical category in cultural theory, "vernacular" appeared as early as 1960 in an American Anthropologist article entitled " Vernacular Culture." In this article, Margaret Lantis used the term to refer to "the commonplace" (p. 202). "High" culture was only accessible by the elites of a society, but "vernacular culture" remained accessible to all. From this usage, two vectors of meaning came to be associated with the term. On the one hand, vernacular forms are those available to individuals or groups who are subordinated to institutions, and on the other, they are a common resource made available to everyone through informal social interaction. Based on this dual meaning, the vernacular came to refer to discourse that coexists with dominant culture but is held separate from it.
As the concept emerged in communication studies however, it became bifurcated along these two lines. On the one hand, the vernacular is imagined as local discourse that is distinct from larger institutional discourses. In this "subaltern" view, the vernacular voice is that of the subordinate counteragent seeking to be heard over hegemony. On the other hand, the vernacular is imagined asa shared resource, a sensus communis, or community doxa, In this "common" view, the vernacular is a communal chorus that emerges from the multiplicity of voices speaking in the noninstitutional discursive spaces of quotidian life. Both of these conceptions, however, rely on a strict division that fails to fully account for the vernacular's hybrid characteristics (p. 493).
Howard, G, H. (2008). The vernacular web of participatory media, Critical studies in media communicaition Vol 25(5). pp. 490-513.
As the concept emerged in communication studies however, it became bifurcated along these two lines. On the one hand, the vernacular is imagined as local discourse that is distinct from larger institutional discourses. In this "subaltern" view, the vernacular voice is that of the subordinate counteragent seeking to be heard over hegemony. On the other hand, the vernacular is imagined asa shared resource, a sensus communis, or community doxa, In this "common" view, the vernacular is a communal chorus that emerges from the multiplicity of voices speaking in the noninstitutional discursive spaces of quotidian life. Both of these conceptions, however, rely on a strict division that fails to fully account for the vernacular's hybrid characteristics (p. 493).
Howard, G, H. (2008). The vernacular web of participatory media, Critical studies in media communicaition Vol 25(5). pp. 490-513.
Friday, January 09, 2009
Charles Hedrick
http://polebridgepress.com/Fellows/hedrick.html
Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies
Southwest Missouri State University
Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies
Southwest Missouri State University
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Newspapers in Scottsboro Case
Burmingham News
Burmingham Ages Herald
huntsville, Alabama
Lafayette, Alabama
Burmingham Ages Herald
huntsville, Alabama
Lafayette, Alabama
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Be nice to people on your way up
Be nice to people on your way up because you meet them on your way down.
GI Underground Press
1969
Washington DC - First issue of OM The Servicemen’s Newsletter published.
http://www.sirnosir.com/timeline/chronology_GI_press.html
Movie "Sir No Sir" website also includes the chronology of GI underground press
Washington DC - First issue of OM The Servicemen’s Newsletter published.
http://www.sirnosir.com/timeline/chronology_GI_press.html
Movie "Sir No Sir" website also includes the chronology of GI underground press
Alice Paul Institute
http://www.alicepaul.org/alicepaul.htm
The Nineteenth Amendment
In 1917, in response to public outcry about the prison abuse of suffragists, President Wilson reversed his position and announced his support for a suffrage amendment, calling it a "war measure." In 1919, both the House and Senate passed the 19th Amendment and the battle for state ratification commenced. Three-fourths of the states were needed to ratify the amendment. The battle for ratification came down to the state of Tennessee in the summer of 1920; if a majority of the state legislature voted for the amendment, it would become law. The deciding vote was cast twenty-four year-old Harry Burn, the youngest member of the Tennessee assembly. Originally intending to vote “no,” Burn changed his vote after receiving a telegram from his mother asking him to support women’s suffrage. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment. Six days later, Secretary of State Colby certified the ratification, and, with the stroke of his pen, American women gained the right to vote after a seventy-two year battle. August 26th is now celebrated as Women's Equality Day in the United States.
http://www.sirnosir.com/timeline/chronology_GI_press.html
Movie "Sir No Sir" website also includes the chronology of GI underground press
The Nineteenth Amendment
In 1917, in response to public outcry about the prison abuse of suffragists, President Wilson reversed his position and announced his support for a suffrage amendment, calling it a "war measure." In 1919, both the House and Senate passed the 19th Amendment and the battle for state ratification commenced. Three-fourths of the states were needed to ratify the amendment. The battle for ratification came down to the state of Tennessee in the summer of 1920; if a majority of the state legislature voted for the amendment, it would become law. The deciding vote was cast twenty-four year-old Harry Burn, the youngest member of the Tennessee assembly. Originally intending to vote “no,” Burn changed his vote after receiving a telegram from his mother asking him to support women’s suffrage. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment. Six days later, Secretary of State Colby certified the ratification, and, with the stroke of his pen, American women gained the right to vote after a seventy-two year battle. August 26th is now celebrated as Women's Equality Day in the United States.
http://www.sirnosir.com/timeline/chronology_GI_press.html
Movie "Sir No Sir" website also includes the chronology of GI underground press
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Asahi database
http://database.asahi.com/library2e/
Constructing Immigrants
A Historical Discourse Analysis of the Representations of Immigrants in US Social Work, 1882-1952
http://jsw.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/6/2/169
Constructing Immigrants
A Historical Discourse Analysis of the Representations of Immigrants in US Social Work, 1882-1952
http://jsw.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/6/2/169
Monday, November 24, 2008
Valerie Jarrett's Life Lessons from NYTimes
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/jarretts-life-lessons/?scp=1&sq=Ms.%20Jarrett&st=cse
1. To thine own self be true.
2. All leaders are passionate about their beliefs, even the ones you don’t like.
3. Trust your gut after you have listened, studied and learned from those with a diverse range of opinions.
4. You never know who is watching, so work as hard as you can regardless of the assignment.
5. Don’t stay in your comfort zone too long.
6. As my grandmother would say: put yourself in the path of lightning.
7. Be flexible because opportunities rarely knock at the most opportune moments.
8. Take time to be kind to everyone.
9. Focus on your priorities.
10. In order to lead, someone must follow.
11. Effective leadership depends on your ability to connect and motivate people, not on your title, position or power.
12. Set high standards for yourself and your team (lead by example).
13. Take the time to develop personal relationships all along the way, and really cultivate those upon whom you depend. In order for them to help you, they must know you. And you must know what will motivate them. Nurture them so they can help you lead. They must believe in not just your ideas, but you.
14. Good will matters.
15. Women are particularly good at listening and studying their audience.
16. Have the courage to make tough decisions.
17. When you lead, not everyone will follow, and that’s okay.
18. You will fail. Don’t take your failures or your success too seriously. Learn to laugh at yourself. Trust me. It helps.
19. Affiliate yourself with worthy institutions, lead by good people who share your core values.
20. You can have it all, just not at the same time, and in the proportions you may want.
21. To those who much is given, much is expected.
1. To thine own self be true.
2. All leaders are passionate about their beliefs, even the ones you don’t like.
3. Trust your gut after you have listened, studied and learned from those with a diverse range of opinions.
4. You never know who is watching, so work as hard as you can regardless of the assignment.
5. Don’t stay in your comfort zone too long.
6. As my grandmother would say: put yourself in the path of lightning.
7. Be flexible because opportunities rarely knock at the most opportune moments.
8. Take time to be kind to everyone.
9. Focus on your priorities.
10. In order to lead, someone must follow.
11. Effective leadership depends on your ability to connect and motivate people, not on your title, position or power.
12. Set high standards for yourself and your team (lead by example).
13. Take the time to develop personal relationships all along the way, and really cultivate those upon whom you depend. In order for them to help you, they must know you. And you must know what will motivate them. Nurture them so they can help you lead. They must believe in not just your ideas, but you.
14. Good will matters.
15. Women are particularly good at listening and studying their audience.
16. Have the courage to make tough decisions.
17. When you lead, not everyone will follow, and that’s okay.
18. You will fail. Don’t take your failures or your success too seriously. Learn to laugh at yourself. Trust me. It helps.
19. Affiliate yourself with worthy institutions, lead by good people who share your core values.
20. You can have it all, just not at the same time, and in the proportions you may want.
21. To those who much is given, much is expected.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Korean Screen Quota: Views and Analyses
http://www.cine21.com/Article/article_view.php?mm=005001001&article_id=36791
2006년 1월 26일, 대한민국 정부는 스크린쿼터를 146일에서 절반인 73일로 줄인다고 공식 발표하였고, 이를 둘러싼 찬반 논란과 영화인들의 반대 시위가 이어지고 있다.
2006년 3월 7일, 이해찬 국무총리가 주재한 국무회의에서 스크린쿼터를 146일에서 73일로 줄이는 영화진흥법시행령 개정안을 통과시켰다. 통과된 개정안은 7월 1일부터 시행 중이며, 스크린쿼터문화연대를 중심으로 한 영화인들이 반발하고 있다.
http://breaknews.com/new/sub_read.html?uid=80341§ion=section37
□ 한미FTA는 돌아올 수 없는 강
한미FTA는 다른 FTA와 다른 큰 특징이 있다. 최악의 독소조항만을 모으면 △네거티브 리스트(negative list) △역진 금지(rachet) 장치 △미래의 최혜국(future MFN) △투자자-국가 소송제(ISD) 등이 있다.
'네거티브 리스트'는 시장개방의 원칙으로, 개방하지 않을 분야를 쓰는 것이다. 개방할 분야를 쓰는 방식에 비해 개방 폭이 훨씬 넓을 수밖에 없고, 새로 생기는 서비스분야는 무조건 개방된다. 새로운 서비스는 미국에서 압도적으로 많이 생기고, 무조건 개방이 되기 때문에 전부 미국기업이 독점하게 될 것이다.
개방 대상을 분류하는 기준으로 '현재유보'와 '미래유보'라는 개념이 있다. 간단히 정리하면 미래유보는 앞으로의 국내 상황의 변화에 따라 개방 폭 조정이 가능한 것이고, 현재유보는 조정이 불가능한 것이다.
김현종 본부장이 미국에서 한미FTA를 하자고 애걸을 하니까 미국이 내세운 4대 선결조건의 하나가 스크린쿼터 축소였다. 과거 146일이었던 한국영화 의무상영일수가 73일로 반토막났고, 영화인들은 한미FTA 협상과정에 스크린쿼터를 미래유보에 넣어달라고 요구했지만 결국 현재유보에 들어갔다.
여기에서 래칫(역진금지장치)이 문제가 된다. 래칫은 톱니바퀴의 역회전을 막기 위한 걸림쇠 장치를 말하는데, 개방 폭을 확대하는 것은 가능하지만 그것을 되돌리는 것은 불가능하다는 뜻이다.
현재유보에 들어간 스크린쿼터는 73일 이상으로 늘리는 것은 불가능하지만 만약 이명박 정부가 스크린쿼터를 50일로 줄여도, 다음정권에서 73일까지 되돌리는 것이 가능했을 것인데, 래칫 조항이 들어가면서 73일로도 늘릴 수가 없게 됐다. 만약 한나라당이 또 집권을 해서 20일로 줄이면 다시 그대로 고정이다. / 정태인
2006년 1월 26일, 대한민국 정부는 스크린쿼터를 146일에서 절반인 73일로 줄인다고 공식 발표하였고, 이를 둘러싼 찬반 논란과 영화인들의 반대 시위가 이어지고 있다.
2006년 3월 7일, 이해찬 국무총리가 주재한 국무회의에서 스크린쿼터를 146일에서 73일로 줄이는 영화진흥법시행령 개정안을 통과시켰다. 통과된 개정안은 7월 1일부터 시행 중이며, 스크린쿼터문화연대를 중심으로 한 영화인들이 반발하고 있다.
http://breaknews.com/new/sub_read.html?uid=80341§ion=section37
□ 한미FTA는 돌아올 수 없는 강
한미FTA는 다른 FTA와 다른 큰 특징이 있다. 최악의 독소조항만을 모으면 △네거티브 리스트(negative list) △역진 금지(rachet) 장치 △미래의 최혜국(future MFN) △투자자-국가 소송제(ISD) 등이 있다.
'네거티브 리스트'는 시장개방의 원칙으로, 개방하지 않을 분야를 쓰는 것이다. 개방할 분야를 쓰는 방식에 비해 개방 폭이 훨씬 넓을 수밖에 없고, 새로 생기는 서비스분야는 무조건 개방된다. 새로운 서비스는 미국에서 압도적으로 많이 생기고, 무조건 개방이 되기 때문에 전부 미국기업이 독점하게 될 것이다.
개방 대상을 분류하는 기준으로 '현재유보'와 '미래유보'라는 개념이 있다. 간단히 정리하면 미래유보는 앞으로의 국내 상황의 변화에 따라 개방 폭 조정이 가능한 것이고, 현재유보는 조정이 불가능한 것이다.
김현종 본부장이 미국에서 한미FTA를 하자고 애걸을 하니까 미국이 내세운 4대 선결조건의 하나가 스크린쿼터 축소였다. 과거 146일이었던 한국영화 의무상영일수가 73일로 반토막났고, 영화인들은 한미FTA 협상과정에 스크린쿼터를 미래유보에 넣어달라고 요구했지만 결국 현재유보에 들어갔다.
여기에서 래칫(역진금지장치)이 문제가 된다. 래칫은 톱니바퀴의 역회전을 막기 위한 걸림쇠 장치를 말하는데, 개방 폭을 확대하는 것은 가능하지만 그것을 되돌리는 것은 불가능하다는 뜻이다.
현재유보에 들어간 스크린쿼터는 73일 이상으로 늘리는 것은 불가능하지만 만약 이명박 정부가 스크린쿼터를 50일로 줄여도, 다음정권에서 73일까지 되돌리는 것이 가능했을 것인데, 래칫 조항이 들어가면서 73일로도 늘릴 수가 없게 됐다. 만약 한나라당이 또 집권을 해서 20일로 줄이면 다시 그대로 고정이다. / 정태인
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