Personal Profile Article - Interview with Fan

<Yang Fan>

 

As a classmate of fashionable Chinese woman "Yang Fan" with adorable smile and bright energy, I've always wondered how she did come to Korea, here Busan. Taking this opportunity, I could listen to her story.

How come?

Fan told how she decides to study abroad, and the answer was rather simple.

"I wanted to study foreign language, not an English." When she thought she would like to learn a new language, she was soon interested in Korean, which uses lots of Chinese letters.

Moreover, Korean dramas became very popular at that time in China, so she was naturally influenced from them, too. (She belatedly realized that the guys in drama are never common on the street in 'real' Korea. I apologized her instead of all Korean.) In 2014, finally she decided to study Korean, and boarded the plane bound for Korea.

Why Busan?

Then, why Fan chose Busan, not Seoul or near the capital city? According to her, it is difficult to watch an ocean view in China, such a vast continent. She added that there is only a biting cold in winter. Therefore, Busan was attractive enough to charm her. The optimum weather, great ocean view and the second capital city in Korea. "Not only because of the reasons above, Busan also has everything in it." She reeled off a list of hot places in Busan. Restaurant, shopping center, cafe, karaoke, cinema.. It seemed like she knew much more about Busan than me.

Plan for the future

Since the day Fan entered Busan University of Foreign Languages, she has been so busy with Korean and English lectures everyday. She's now a senior student, and there is only one last semester left before her graduation. She also needs to set a direction for the future and works for it after she finishes her course at Bufs. "I don't make specific goal yet, but I have some plans. I want to do this and that, so I can't easily determine my way."

Fan told me her three dream jobs. First, she wants to be a Chinese teacher for foreign students. She said it's not so difficult to get a certificate for teaching Chinese in her country. Next, as she loves travel so much, she dreams of being international tour guide. For the last, she considers starting her own business with family, here in Busan.

****

Just like many foreign students, Fan had lots of difficulties fitting in Korea at first. She was discouraged when her Korean didn't seem to be improved. However, unlike those students, she gave up nothing and has been steadily studying Korean and English as well. She's still struggling with languages and always busy working on them. In spite of her tight schedule, she's living with smile and shining with positive energy. That's why I believe Fan would achieve everything what she wants in the future days.

Go Fan!

Feel misery of miserable man in Misery

There are many stories of confinement, but Misery by Stephen King is the most ideal story among them. A man who is imprisoned in a lonely house by accident, and a woman who locks the man up and treats him cruelly day by day. Stephen describes the nervous situations and the man's desperate state of mind very well. The flow of the acts of woman-and she has a crazy temper at all- is also interesting. Stephen makes readers feel the thrill of horror and excitement as well, till the last page of Misery.

One day in a snowy winter, a famous writer Paul Sheldon woke up in a strange bed with a nasty wound on his legs. He remembered that he had a car accident on the slippery road. Annie Wilkes, who introduced herself as a big fan of his novel, told Paul that she found the accident scene and took him to her house to nurse him. The wound on Paul's legs were pretty severe, so he couldn't move at all without any help. At first, Paul thought Annie would send him to a hospital after getting better. Annie didn't seem to be a normal person, though.

As the days went by, Paul realized that Annie was a very dangerous psychopath woman. Annie forced Paul to burn his finished typescript, just because she didn't like the end of the story. This was only the tiniest little thing, compared with others. I couldn't describe all what Annie did to Paul. There were threats, bloods, knife and ax. I was really frightened when Annie took out the ax and said she's going to start an "operation" with it. It sounded horrible even though Annie had worked at the hospital as a nurse for ten years. Annie bought an old typewriter to Paul and made him write 'new' novel, only for Annie herself. To Annie, Paul is a pet writer whom she could make play with or murder whenever she wants so.

Although Paul suffered from those uncountable and miserable days, Paul never gave up his life. He madly wanted to take revenge on her. Could he make it? or fail to escape from her? I'm not going to tell the last part of Misery. I just strongly recommend you to try to read and catch up every scene. I guess you'll never regret trying it, if you ever enjoyed this kind of story. Please do not have a nightmare after reading Misery!

▲These are some screenshots from film of Misery. whew! horrible Annie!

Is it really difficult to be a ‘Good’ hero?

Have you ever imagined that you become an invisible man? I'm sure that you've once dreamed of having a supernatural power such as flying, teleportation, psychokinesis or something else cool. People have craved and imagined them for a long time. There are a bunch of movies dealing with special abilities. There are two movies, which impressed to me so much. One is Jumper(2008), story of telepoters called Jumper. The other one is Hollow man(2000), story of the mad scientist who successfully becomes invisible by science experiments, just like Griffin, the main character in this book.

The story of The Invisible Man begins with the appearance of a stranger putting a bandage to his entire body. People simply think that he might be hurt bad, so he tries to hide his body. However, while the man stays at an inn, he is getting more and more hysterical everyday. There is a sound of clinking bottles and murmuring of voices from his room, and some mysterious events are happened in the town. By the time people feel suspicious about him, he unwraps the bandage and announces that he is invisible as a result of success of his experiment. The man disappears without paying his room charges.

The invisible man finds Marvel, a homeless man, on the street and threatens him to follow his order. He forces Marvel to steal money or food by providing help. The invisible man's unpredictable and uncontrollable crimes become known to people. One day, Marvel runs away from the ruthless man and tries to hide himself in a bar. The invisible man follows Marvel to catch up with him, but he gets hurt from the people at the bar and makes a near escape. The man trespasses on Dr. Kemp's house and asks for help. After Kemp treats his wounds, the man reveals himself Kemp's old classmate, Griffin. Griffin tells the story how to become an invisible man and his plan to make a terror. Kemp judges Griffin to be very dangerous, so informs on him to the police.

Policemen secretly come to arrest Griffin. As we all know, the main character is never caught by the police so easily. Anyway, Griffin manages to slip out of the house with injuries. Referring to Kemp's advice, both police and people try to isolate Griffin from any help. he can not sleep well or eat food, because people bring dogs to find Griffin and watch everywhere. Griffin loses his temper and back to Kemp's house to attack him, but he is finally caught by people, and he meets a tragic end.

I had two questions when I finished reading the last page of the story. The first is, why the man who has special ability always use it to commit the crime? He could gain both fame and wealth by using the ability, like Iron Man or members of Fantastic 4. The second one, which sounds rather weird, is why didn't Kemp-or whoever was close to Griffin pour flour to him? Then, they can easily find where he is even though he is invisible..

Like the invisible man in this book, or the mad scientist in the hollow man, Many people dream of having supernatural power. No one says that is wrong desire to have. However, when the power happens with violence and unethical act, we can say that is completely wrong. The 'power' could be money, high social status or something else, not only the supernatural power existing in our imagination. I guess the author wanted to tell us that the one’s desire to rule the people by the power would end in tragedy, after all.

We should enjoy crimes 'in text' only!

American crime stories

retold by John Escott

Oxford (stage 6)

My Score: ★★★★☆ 3.5/5.0

I love criminal stories. They usually have robbery, cheating, murder.. and all bad things. Those interesting elements make me keep reading. (because They provoke curiosity about next story. I never mean I like crimes in real life! )
This book contains seven crime stories. Some stories are short, but the others are rather long.

1. Death Wish -by Lawrence block

The beginning part of the story was interesting. It revealed how Mark prepared to take revenge on Edward, who killed his wife on purpose. I thought, it's a good thing we don't have legal guns in Korea. Whew!


2. Death on Christmas Eve - by Stanley Ellin

This is the shortest story, but the most impressive one. I was in a little shock when I read the reversal in the last part. I want to give this story the top rank!


3. The Heroine -by Patricia Highsmith

One's desire to be accepted as an essential person could make him cruel. This phrase came out to mind: It is hard to fathom the real minds and intentions of men.


4. Ride the Lightning -by John Lutz

I was disappointed because the crime was not planned meticulously, and detective Nudger couldn't show his ability at all. I miss Sherlock!


5. The Lipstick -by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Elinor died after falling from the hospital building. People believed that she committed suicide, but her sister Louise didn't believe it and tried to find the truth herself alone. Louise never would be close to the truth if a little girl suddenly hadn't appeared and gave the important clue to her.


6. Lazy Susan -by Nancy Pickard

I think this is a kinda comedy story. Can Laziness of someone really turn into crime? If so, I could be a professional and habitual criminal already... Anyway, It is the second one I recommend you to read in this book.


7. The Gutting of Couffinal -by Dashiel Hammett

Ughh! I never like Russian novels or short stories because of terrible name of characters! How do you read-or remember when their names are Zhukovshi or Pleshskev? I can't even imagine how they pronounce it. lol  Moreover, the story was kinda boring, so I'd like to give the lowest grade on it!

Overall, I enjoyed the stories because they had different kinds of crime. Some stories gave me stress a bit, though.

It could be valuable for you to try what you don't like before!

What do you have in mind when you hear the word 'reading'? Well, two years ago, I would say "yuck!" or "eww!". Fortunately, I don't feel the same about reading now. Can you believe I enjoy it and even recommend my friends to try to read? It was a 3-month-class, which gave me a chance to change my mind about reading.

I was not a sort of person who likes to read a book before I took a class with Professor Nelson in my sophomore year at University. Nelson welcomed us to join his 'exciting reading class', but his words were not so trustworthy because of his serious look. During the class, students should read at least three books in a week and made book reports with those books. That is to say, students should tried hard to read and read, so that one could score higher than others in the class.

Honestly, I didn't enjoy reading at all because I usually thought reading is one part of study. Obviously, reading English books is helpful to improve one's English skills. This is true. However, it could be a burden when it turned to a mandatory thing, especially for the student who have to do it anyway. Well, I thought I made a bad choice and felt sad to be deceived by his words. It wasn't so exciting, and the class gradually became a kind of competition just like 'Who read the most this week?'.

Of course, I also eagerly participated in the competition. I mainly chose books, which had easily understandable stories regardless of  their genre. It was my strategy to read as much as possible in a short time. After reading more than twenty books, I naturally discovered my taste in reading. I felt bored when I read love stories, growth novel or SF genre. Also, I hoped them to be end soon with those stories. Otherwise, the genres such as detective, crime, mystery and horror were quite different from what I mentioned above. They made me feel nervous during reading and curious about the next story. It was the starting point for me to enjoy reading itself.

After knew exactly what my taste was, I could save time choosing books to read. I mastered the series of Sherlock Holmes during the class. There were Agatha Christie, Edgar Ellen Poe, Stephen King and so on, my favorite authors. I didn't get stressed by reading, because it was not an assignment to me anymore. One day, professor Nelson kindly asked me to try other genre after he reviewed my book reports. I understood what he meant, but I kept reading in my way. I believed that enjoyable reading was only exciting reading to me! At the end of the class, I could see a lot of books on the list in my book report. I remembered the score was great, too.

It's been two years since I took the class. Now nobody forces me to do so, but I visit school library to borrow short stories books. I can't say I'm a bookworm, but reading becomes one of my favorite things. I am truly thankful for that. What if I did not join the Nelson's class? What if I gave up reading in the class? If so, I'm sure that I still have a bias against reading: It is such a boring thing. I learned that judging something that I've never tried before is kind of dangerous behavior. It deprives people of opportunity to find one's precious part of life. I would be aware of it, and try to take a positive view of everything I meet.

Don"t you think we need a delivery service here at school?

I bet, if you’re a person who graduates or attends a university, you must have ordered food delivery service on campus more than once. In Korea, it is a common scene to see students eat Chinese food, fried chicken and others, which are delivered to school. However, all students at BUFS couldn’t do that after relocation of campus to Namsandong. I am truly opposed to this new rule. I think that students should be allowed to have food delivery service at school. There are three reasons why I object to the rule. The first and the second are about problems of a school cafeteria, and the third one is about the rule itself.

First of all, foods at the school cafeteria are mostly overpriced. Students who have ever used the cafeteria say that there’s no reason for those foods to be so expensive . I’ve heard some complaints about them. For example, it was hard for someone to find ‘pork’ from ‘Stirfry Pork Over Rice’. It was not the only meal which is contradictory to its name. The prices of foods are higher than Daeyun campus’, but the quality of food seems not to be better than before. There is another problem that our school cafeteria has.

Secondly, students have few choices available in the school cafeteria. They offer common foods about six to ten. It is far from enough to satisfy all students’ tastes with several options. We sometimes want a pizza, or a hamburger maybe. Sadly, we never get them without food delivery service. In other words, we have no choice but to go to the school cafeteria or a convenience store.

Lastly, the rule banning food delivery service is an administration rule of the university. It is unfair to enforce the rule without an agreement with students. Students have difficulty in finding a restaurant with reasonable prices near the university. It takes a long time to go to the Busan National University area. Therefore, most students who have little time for a meal are forced to eat an overpriced meal at the school cafeteria or instant foods bought from the convenience store. In this situation, the rule is only against student welfare.
I'm not the first one who found the problems as mentioned above. Many students already have made complaints about the school cafeteria and the new rule. However, the office of the university has been ignoring them. I think that the best solution of the problem is allowing students to have food delivery service. The next best way is lowering the food price at the school cafeteria. It seems to be simple for us, but not for the university probably. I believe that school should respect student's opinion and try to listen it, even though it is complicated to handle the problem in a short time. Also, I hope to see students enjoy their meal what they want on campus in the near future, making 'Green Campus' at the same time.