The Korean Lecture

The doors of wisdom are never shut. -Benjamin Franklin


Yesterday I attended a lecture given by a professor from Inje University in South Korea. My department is currently having an exchange student program. 7 Koreans students is currently with us...adapting to the quaky student life I’ve been living for 4 years.... a very long time If it was a baby...he’d already be running and talking, ...I don’t know how life was as student there in Korea but I don’t thing is was much different. ..Well language was one.

So Prof Baek gave his lecture about bacteria, RNA and other stuff he was currently working on.... Being sleepy and since none of his lecture is related to my field of study or research...I paid very little attention at the slide...yes of course everything is about wanting to learn ...not understanding was the main reason why we start learning in the first place

Since I was sleepy and bacteria name is something I’ve left a long time ago...it became a quest of trying to understand what he was talking about. Koreans like Japanese sometimes sounded a bit weird talking in English....it just wasn’t their thing. I later discovered that a have quite an uncanny ability to understand him when others don’t. The same ability that stuck me with Mr. Deepak and Mr. Raj, both from India during my training day at Penang General Hospital. No other trainees are willing to understand their tongue twisted English, especially Mr. Deepak’s.

Maybe I grew up listening to all kind of English...Arabic, Sudanese, Australian, American, and England so I my ear adapt.

I for once respect the Japanese and Koreans...even though they don’t really use English as much as we do but they manage to be a very powerful economic power these days. 10 years ago we didn’t hear about a single Korean car but today ....’Kia’ is everywhere. Do I need to mention Samsung as well...? It’s big!

But what have we become? Proton...where art thou? We change the education system so much that the children get confused. Arabic today..Mandarin tomorrow, Science in English today..it might change to Malay tomorrow....who knows..the system changes everytime the minister changes...which is quite often.. do we need to blame the kids for being such a nerve wreck?

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. -Alfred Lo