Yesterday, at E-Mart something shiny caught my eye...and I put it gleefully into my cart. I mean, doesn't EVERYONE wish they had a pair of teal, zebra-striped shoelaces?  For 1,000 won (under a dollar) I could brighten up my slightly woe begone chucks. 

After taking off my work clothes today I figured it would be a perfect time to try them out...and realized that it is quite possible that I've been in Korea for too long. WHO ON EARTH PUTS SUCH STRANGE THINGS ON THEIR FEET?! Koreans do!** It's kind of fabulous and yet very frightening at the same time. Like seeing my adult coworkers wear rhinestone, Hello Kitty slippers in the hall.
(They aren't tied up all the way to the ankle for a reason...Korean shoes need to be easy to slip on and off since you generally don't wear them inside.)

My friend, Cowboy Batman, said that his moment came when he "realized [he] owned two ties that had sparkles in it."

I am very ready for summer vacation.

**I don't think it's bad that Koreans often wear bright, sparkly things-- I'm just finding it strange that I'm starting to want to wear them too...

This one's for real folks - no satire in this post. An e-mail from Greg Dolezal (current ATEK president) to ATEK members reveals the following:

Kangnam Labor Law Firm, which has been handling many of our cases for that last year, has decided that, due to the volume of ATEK members they help, they would create a special program that allows for a collective purchase of legal services. It’s called ‘Legal Assurance’.

Instead of paying the normal rate for consultations and representations, we would get a group rate. For a teacher who needs legal counsel or who wants to file against an employer, this comes as a huge savings. We have been asking for breaks on cost for a year now, and there is finally an official way to get this help on the cheap.

Kangnam, which is a top labor law firm in Seoul, has already given ATEK countless hours of free consulting on legal issues. Kangnam has even agreed to provide an online edition of their “Labor Bible” on our site. When this link is added, members can find the labor laws in English and in Korean, side-by-side. It will enable our own officers to quote the relevant passages to provide to employers or anyone concerned with a labor case. This saves us from any possible liability for providing ‘legal advice without a license’.

Please follow this link to learn more about Kangnam’s Legal Assurance Program: http://k-labor.com/tiki-index.php?page=Labor+Assurance&bl=n&saved_msg=y

The cost of the service is 20,000 Won per month. It is akin to having an entire law firm on retainer. This is an experimental program that will surely cause them to lose money in the short run. In the long run, if it is popular, other firms will want to be a part of this, and the prices and services may even favor us more.

Of course, they are a for-profit business, but this program could help so many teachers who need protection against employers who break contracts. They have generously provided free legal counsel to members for over a year. They have agreed to charge a small fee in order to open the service to everyone. Thus, we save, and they cover their costs. They are hiring a new lawyer expressly to handle these labor cases.

ATEK’s role is to improve the lives of teachers in Korea. I sincerely believe that successfully negotiating with law firms to establish a program like ‘Legal Assurance‘ is a tangible sign that we are accomplishing some of our goals.

There are limited spots in the initial program, so if you are interested it is on a first come first serve basis.

The way this program works is a lot like pre-paid legal insurance, albeit without as many restrictions and as much fine print. After chatting with Mr. Dolezal, I learned a couple of additional details:

First, this is considered a pilot program. If all goes well the program might be expanded to more people, making signing up even easier and the like.

Second, you don't have to be an ATEK member to join this program. ATEK's role is a bit like doing triage at a hospital - focusing on the more serious cases while weeding out the frivolous cases. Going around ATEK might gum up the inner workings a bit, but if you have a case where a lawyer would help, this is definitely worth joining.

The link: http://k-labor.com/tiki-index.php?page=Labor+Assurance&bl=n&saved_msg=y

Comments are open - play nice.

© Chris Backe - 2010

This post was originally published on my blog, Chris in South Korea. If you are reading this on another website and there is no linkback or credit given, you are reading an UNAUTHORIZED FEED.

I have some friends at work from Australia.  I will have to ask them if they refer to their country as “Aussie”.  Certainly, they seem to refer to themselves as ‘Aussies’, but I hadn’t heard that term for the country. Added later: My Aussie coworkers do say their country is sometimes also called ‘Aussie’.  My mistake.

Well, until I read today’s Korea Times, which has an article about Olympic Gold Medalist Park Tae-hwan moving to “Aussie” to train for future events.  In that article you can read about the Beijing Olympic Gold medalist or “Park, the 400-meter freestyle golded boy in Beijing…”

There is s0me interesting information how intensive training is at his level. For me, as a struggling sort-of national level swimmer in Canada, there were only one or two competitions I would prepare to race in best condition for in a year.  Let me break that sentence down.  I competed at several small competitions, and, at those times, I focussed on technique and pacing and the like.  I swam as hard as I was able.  However, on the day before such a competition, I may have trained for six- or seven- thousand metres in the pool.  I was not rested, did not alter my diet, and skipped other preparation activities before race day.  It takes a long time to get to peak fitness, and you don’t actually race at peak fitness.  you reach peak fitness, then begin to rest.  The total metres per day drop and the content of those metres changes.  When I swam at Canadian University National Championships (CIAUs – I think one of those initials is for ‘union’, but can’t remember; no one ever used the full title), I had trained hard for four and a half months and rested for a month.  Around Christmas, I might have competed in a 10,000 metre race, but in February, I wouldn’t be swimming much more than that in a week.

In the week before the race, I followed a high-protein diet followed by a high-carbo diet.  The consensus was that it wouldn’t really help for the distances we would race, but it helped us focus.  The thoughts about the upcoming races followed me everywhere.  Even into my dreams.  On the Wednesday or Thursday before the competition I would have nightmares about the races.  Friday and through the competition, the nightmares would end and the dreams would be about swimming well and with laser-like focus.

On Friday or Saturday morning, I would shave -everywhere the bathing suit didn’t cover.  The suit itself was new, lycra, and six sizes too small.

Wow, I really went on about it, didn’t I?

Anyway, the point of all that is to help explain why Park will not compete in ‘real’ competitions for over a year before his next big one.

Park won three gold medals in the Doha Asian Games in 2006 and snatched one gold and one silver medal in Summer Games in 2008.

However, he collapsed in the Rome World Championships in 2009 in all events he swam in ― the 200- 400- and 1,500-meter freestyle.

However, while training in Australia he took part in the New South Wales State Open Championships and captured three gold medals in the 100-, 200- and 400-meter freestyle.

This time he will not compete in any events during training.

( Source: ROK Spoonful )

Created for the Seven Luck Casino in Gangnam, by the Korean advertising agency Daehong Communications. Naturally, I like the concept, but unfortunately its effect is undermined by the poor English, which is simply inexcusable considering only foreigners are allowed to gamble there.

See Ads of the World for further details, and two more advertisements in the series.

(For more posts in the Creative Korean Advertising series, see here)

Filed under: Creative Korean Advertising, Korean Advertisements