인도 철학에 보면 카르마와 다르마가 있습니다..(정확히는 티벳꺼라 하데요..)카르마는 이미 정해진 숙명입니다..불변이지요..그러나 그 과정 속에 있는 다르마는 자신의 판단과 행동..의지에 맡겨져 있죠..

비록 정해진 카르마 안에서는 자유로워질수 없지만..그 안에서의 일들은 우리들에게 맡겨져 있다는 말이지요..그래서 그런 가르침이 있습니다..'카르마에 굴복하지 말고 다르마의 길에 충실하라'

인도를 비롯한 적지 않은 동양의 철학 사상은 윤회에 그 바탕을 두고 있습니다..카르마와 다르마의 일은 이 윤회 사상과..인과 법칙에 근거하고 있습니다..한 사람이..전생에 많은 죄를 지어..단명해야 하는 카르마에 있습니다..그러나..그 사람은 그 삶속에서 다르마에 충실해서..참 열심히..성실하게..살았습니다..그럼..다음번 생에서는 헐씬 더 나은 카르마를 가지고 태어난다는 겁니다..즉..현세에서의 다르마가..내세에서의 카르마를 결정한다는 말이겠지요..

10월을 접는 이 즈음..
유학을 처음 나오신 분이나..유학을 준비하시는 분들이나..대부분 참 힘든 시기입니다..

수업을 들어가니..나오는건 탄식이요..뱉으니 한숨이로세..영어를 모르는건지..내용을 모르는건지..어쨌든 모르는거 투성이고..나도 한때는 난다 하는 사람이었는데...바보멍청이가 되서 멍하니 있고무슨 놈의 과제는 이렇게도 지치지도 않는지..쉬지도 않고.. midterm을 끝내고 나니..이거 쫒겨 나질 않을렌가..걱정이 한아름이고..

ETS는 한국 교육부에서 연수 받았는지..무슨 넘의 시험 시스템을 저리도 자주 바꾸나..GRE CBT로 돌린지 얼마나 됐다고..PBT로 바꾼다고 하나..난 아직 토플도 제대로 못 끝냈는데..점수는 높을수록 좋은건 당연한 이치일테고..학교 선택이나..SOP..시작도 못했는데..이를 어째..두달안엔 다 끝내야 할텐데..

유학에 대한 여러가지 비유가 있습니다..
학위와 군대와 의대는 똑같다..맨날 죽겠다..미치겠다..소리 하면서도..시간 지나면 다 끝내고..학위와 애는 달만 차면 나온다..고도 하고..
모든 비유에 빠지지 않는 요소가 있다면 시간일겁니다..지나고 나면..다 웃는 이야기가 되고..술자리 하하호호 거리는 소재의 한자락이 되지요..

2000년 10월..요맘때였습져...내일 10시에 시험이 있었드랬죠..밤샘을 하려다가 새벽 3시에 쓰러졌습니다..지독한 감기몸살이었죠..다음날 아침..앉아 있기조차 힘이 듭니다..교수를 찾아가 시험 연기하겠다고 했습니다..당연히 그 교수..진단서 가져오라 하죠..진단서는 진단서고..일단 가지고 있는 약 종류대로 다 먹고..이불 두껍게 쓰고 잤죠..

눈을 뜨니 오후 2시 즈음..땀을 흠뻑 흘리고 잤더니..열은 많이 내렸습니다..자..이젠 진단서가 걱정이 되는 겁니다..그럼 어떡하나요..다시 열 내야지..

동팡이네 동네는 대략 평양 위도쯤 됩니다..거기서 10월말..첫눈 옵니다..찬물로 머리 감는데 미리카락이 곤두섭디다..다 뽑히는줄 알았습니다..스프레이..다 필요없다니깐여..그렇게 오돌오돌 떨면서 샤워까지 하고..방에 들어와 창문을 열어 제낍니다..(윗통 벗어제끼고..) 피지도 못하는 담배까지 꼬나뭅니다..그것도 독하디 독한 말보르레드..몸을 오들오들 떨면서..연기에 켈록대면서..

'그런데..내가 이렇게까지 해서 여기 남아야 하나?..왜 그래야 하지?..'
그렇게 서럽고 속이 미어져 본 기억..그렇게 많지 않았습니다..

한 시간에 한페이지 리딩할까 말까하고..하루에 서너시간씩 자면서..도서관 문열고 들어가서 문닫고 나오고..며칠돌이로 밤샘도 하고..그렇게 보낸 모든 시간은 모두 책만 드립다 파는데도..반도 못 다하고..(까놓고..신삥 유학생이 1주 독해를 무슨 재주로 3-400페이질 합니까..숙제도 있는데..) 노트 필기는 교수가 칠판에 써준거 아니면 하지도 못하고..그져 책가방만 들고 왔다갔다 하는..따라지 인생..수업시간에 앉아 있음 모하나..하나도 모르겠는걸..어짜피 독학해야 하는 걸..

교수에게 진단서 주고 며칠있다가 혼자 재시험보고 나서 나오는 길..그 날따라 올려다 본 하늘은 왜 또 그리도 푸르던지..
"이런 날..난 모람.."

이런 기가 막힌 시간이 지나..동팡이는 '무사히' 졸업을 했지요..얼마전 여기 온지 몇년 된 사람들과 이번에 온 분들과 모여 있다가 불쑥 한마디 나왔습니다..
"지금쯤 한번 울때 됐지?.."
신입생들이 와~~거리면서 웃는거 보면..그들도 저와 같았나 봅니다..지나고 나면 다 이렇게 웃으며 이야기를 하는가 봅니다..(동팡이도 개구리가 된 모양입니다..)

옛날 사람들은 처음 공부를 시작할때 20년 기간을 잡습니다..천자문에서 시작해서 사서삼경 등 어려운 수준까지 익히는데 10년이 걸렸고..그리고 10년은 세상을 돌아다니면서 세상을 배웠다고 합니다..이 세상을 돌아다니는 힘든 과정인 10년을..자기것으로 만들고 성실히 잘 버티면 이전에 공부한것에 플러스 알파가 되고..중간에 포기하고 나면 그 때까지 했던 공부를 말짱 꽝으로 만들고 마는거겠죠..(설마 진짜 그랬겠어요?..이게 다 비유겠지요..)

초심이란 말..카르마와 다르마란 말..유학생활에서 무엇이 세상공부이고..무엇이 책공부인지는 잘 모르겠습니다만..세상을 다르게 보게 된것 만은 분명한거 같습니다..특히나 확실히 책 공부를 접고..세상 공부를 하는 와중엔..참 많은 생각과 마음 가짐을 가지게 합니다..


아래의 글은 제가 두번째 학기 Urban Theory 시간에 썼던 페이퍼입니다..최종본이 아니라 reference 부분이 빠진 곳이 좀 보입니다..어짜피 제출하는게 아니라 그 양식을 보여드리는 것이니만큼..자세한 내용에 대한 언급은 다음 장에서..

Urban Poverty and Government Policy to Solve the Problem

Introduction
William Julius Wilson mentioned in his book, ‘The Truly Disadvantaged: The Hidden Agenda (1987)’ that many of inner city problem stem from the fact that middle-class blacks all moved out once housing segregation broke down. Although there is no racial problem in South Korea(thereafter Korea), the ghetto, Wilson addressed, existed. The situation is same. By the effects of the suburbanization of employment, which has excluded the urban poor who remain in the inner city, those who are doing very well do better, and those who are doing very poorly do much worse. However, since other racial groups do not existed in Korea, the problem would be caused by the economic factor. This paper focuses on the idea that the economic factor is the primary in making the ghetto.In this paper, I mention first, the definition of several terms and ‘concentric zone’ by Burgess, address the ghetto and housing segregation in Seoul, the capital city of Korea, and compare with two cases, U.S. and Korea. Finally I summarize the efforts to solve the problem.

Definition and Background
Poverty can be defined as follows; “people are poor when they do not have the material basis for sustaining social life and for the production of culture. The conservative position is that poverty is a result of the personal failings or weaknesses of individuals and groups.…(Socialists claim that) industrial capitalism produces poverty by wage and labor police.” (Kuper 1996, p.234) And the poor people live in ghettos, defined as “a very poor area of a city in which a lot of people, often of the same race or region, live closely together and apart from the rest of the city, or a part of society or group that is in some way set apart from the others.” (Cambridge 1999, p.594)
Ernest Burgess offers a model for understanding the ghetto called the “concentric zone,” the core of which is the central business district (CBD) with housing transition zones of various qualities radiating outward. There is an economic determinism underlying the scheme; that is, the further out one goes, the better the housing becomes.
In the classic model, alongside the CBD, an area of impoverished, dilapidated slum called the “zone of deterioration” exists, consisting of neighborhoods that are “submerged regions of poverty, degradation, disease, and underworlds of crime and vice.” (Pile et al. 1999 pp13-14)

The Ghetto and Housing Segregation in Seoul
The history of Seoul as Korea’s capital city began during the era of the Joseon Kingdom in 1934, when the city’s construction was carried out inside city walls, along four inner mountains, and including areas outside the walls within 4km. These areas became Seoul’s CBD, and the basic framework of its urban planning. The poorest villages were, and still are, generally located in the mountains, as well as the areas near the walls. Most residents in these villages came from rural areas in Korea, and are usually described as “people who live in the highest place in Seoul, but live the lowest.”
The reason for these villagers’ ‘low’ states can be traced to the Korean War. During the mid 1960s, the government’s nationwide ‘Five-Year Economic Development Plan’ was focusing on the development of Seoul and Gyeonggi-Do, which is the province around Seoul. Since it was easy to find workplace there, the villagers came to Seoul asking for jobs. Picture 1 represents the change in the population in Seoul. As time went by, from 1960s to 1994, the concentration of population become more serious, and we can notice the development sequence in Seoul, from the north to the south.
Seoul is divided by the Han River, which has northern and southern regions. Since the 1970s, southern Han has developed as one of Seoul’s sub-cores. Along the southern river are high-rise apartment buildings generally inhabited by the middle and upper income classes. Due to the influx of population from north of the river, the area in south of the river has expanded rapidly, and has come to be associated with ‘luxury’ and ‘wealth.’ The main residents in the southern area of the river are ‘white color’.
Due to the dense population of Seoul, five new satellite towns were built in the late 1980s to function as suburbs around Seoul. Picture 2 shows the five new towns and Seoul. According to the research by Go and Park (1993), most of the inhabitants, many of upper or middle class, would commute to central Seoul from southern Han or other middle or upper class living areas within Seoul, leaving areas that would be occupied by the new poor, making certain areas more into a ghetto. (Go & Park p.66)

The problems in the Ghetto
The most serious problem in the ghetto is pessimism, which leads to further poverty. According to the JoonAng Ilbo’s survey, “16 percent of households are led by only one parent. 76 percent of household heads are unemployed. 35 percent have felt the urge to commit suicide, and 11percent actually attempted suicide at least once. While 33 percent of the residents feel they need counseling on family matters, only 8 percent have received it.” (JoonAng Ilbo 2001c p. 5)
Family life in ‘ghetto’ areas is very difficult, as poverty and unemployment can cause pessimism, domestic violence, and divorce.

rural exodus - construction workingman - domestic violence and alcoholism - family apart

Due to this progress, the number of poverty household would increase, along with the social cost because the number of households which need help increases.
Most of the underclass fails to overcome family crises caused by poverty. Family troubles and breakdowns usually lead to permanent poverty, and broken homes cause children and seniors who cannot live by themselves to be abandoned, which in turn leads to further poverty.

Figure 2. Overview of Three Generations of 20 households in ghetto (persons)
Source : JoonAng Ilbo 2001a p.1

To cut off the poverty for the next generation, children have to be protected. Their parents are working at construction sites or factories. However, since these jobs are mostly dangerous, injury is likely. They are often unable to work, or even move without help. As a result, it is up to the children, who are often under 18 years of age, to make a living. Instead of attending school, they try to make money as newsboys or shoeshine boys, among other jobs. The pessimism that results for these low-income children can only lead to further poverty, or even involvement in crime. Also, since the education rate of Seoul is extremely high, it is important to graduate from high school before finding work. If someone does not graduate, it is difficult to get an office job in Seoul. Thus, there are less education opportunities is equal to unemployment

What are the similarities and differences between cases in the United States and Korea?
As Wilson points out, “historic discrimination is more important than contemporary discrimination in understanding the plight of the ghetto underclass”(Wilson 1987, p.192). However, in the case of Korea, the contemporary factors are more important especially when compared with the United States. The Korean War in the 1950s and the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 played roles in creating a ghetto in the urban area of Korea.
As mentioned previously, urban poverty began with the great losses during the Korean War. Affected people moved to Seoul looking for jobs. However, since they were mostly farmers, they were not skilled at certain tasks, and it thus first became difficult to get jobs in Seoul. Their poverty was reproduced in the next generation. Years later, the Economic Crisis in 1997 caused the closing of many companies, leading to the number of jobs decreasing accordingly. According to the survey by JoonAngilbo (2000), almost half of the employees who lost their jobs have not found work since the crisis. (JoonAngIlbo 2001b p.5)
Just as in the U.S., the change of mode of regulatory affected poverty as well. Cho (1995) notes that major industries in Korea have recently been restructured under the reformative atmosphere. They are said to develop the regulative principle, Post-Fordism.
As a result of restructuring industries, employment and wage relations have been polarized between the core and peripheral workers, with the latter becoming particularly vulnerable to the negative effects, usually because of a need to reduce labor force and wage cost. As this change occurs around Seoul, a large number of metropolitan workers join the poor. (Cho 1995, p.75)
It is the similarity between the cases of U.S. and Korea that caused the change of mode of regulation from Fordism to Post-Fordism, which began urban poverty and caused it to develop. The influx of population from the rural areas was based on the new wave of regulation, Fordism, represented by mass productivity and mass consumption. Because many labors were needed to produce and consume commodities, many farmers had migrated to urban areas, turning the low-class in the rural into the low-class in the urban one.
Since the 1970s in the U.S., and the 1980s in Korea, new movements have developed based on more flexible forms of economic organization and production, along with more diverse patterns of consumption and life style such as Neo-Fordism and Post-Fordism. Under the new mode, Post-Fordism, characterized by decentralized, flexible, and disposable units means the large scales of factories in Metropolitan Areas are not needed any more. At the same time, the rental payment has increased in Seoul, so the factories that need mass labor have moved out from Seoul, lessening the opportunities of employment.
However, a clearly different issue is the ethnic issue. Due to only one ethnic group in Korea, tension or segregation by race does not exist. Although I understand the real meaning of ‘ghetto’ usually refers to race, I cannot mention this issue in this paper.

Government role to solve the problem
The government policy to solve the problem should focus on two issues: to cure extreme pessimism and to cut off the running poverty from generation to generation. To do so, the government’s lead on preventing the emergence of slum culture should be followed. Policies that only give out benefits will make the low-income class fall further into poverty. Instead, work should be encouraged.
Education
According to the census data, in October 1999 there were 37,800 households in Seoul that are entitled to the basic living protection, by which the Seoul municipality provides them with various kinds of welfare money. (National Statistical Office, 1999 p.399) However, it is not the fundamental way to break the cycle of poverty for the succeeding generation.
One of the ways to solve the poverty stigma is education. As it is, Seoul’s government policy for low-income student education does not help them attend college, leaving them to make money rather than to continue their education after graduating high school. And if they attend college, they do not have enough to pay the tuition. As such, the government needs to suggest that the students do not need to submit the tuition.
Job training
Another necessity to help the poor would be to enhance to desire to work and to provide practical help with job training or more opportunities of employment.
The main cause of unemployment is simple: there are too many workers who chase too few jobs. Wilson (1987) suggests a massive government program similar to the New Deal. He argues that the program will allow the poor to do better than they would do themselves, and may be one way to solve the problem. However, it could also be a burden of budget and taxation for the government. In contrast, an easier way may be to establish training centers to raise skilled workers for industries.
Skilled, young, and experienced workers who lost jobs usually quickly return to workplace. However, low- skilled, old, and uneducated workers do not succeed in regaining employment.
Child Care
In order to protect children from crime, as well as to improve the employment prospects of their mothers, the child care system must be improved. Possible solutions include an increase in 24-hour daycare centers, and job programs for mothers living in the ghetto.
All of the policies and effects coincide with public and private sectors. The private sectors would like to hire more skilled workers that can adapt to produce their commodities or services. Because job training may not be sufficient, the private sector should participate in support programs from the government. A more fundamental reason for this is that solving the problem of poverty requires all of the effects in society, not just in government.

Planning role to solve the problem
In her article “Educating Planners: unified Diversity for Social Action” (1996), June Manning Thomas argues planning programs need to develop learning environments which promote the acceptance of diversity, which she says will increase the educational opportunities of ignored groups, women, and minority. They will be able to perform better, she says, because they have confronted urban problems with which these groups are familiar and faced.
We live in a space that is an accumulation of several layers including economics, law, architecture, sociology, environment, and engineering. To develop this space we should consider all of these layers. Planning can enlighten these points because it focuses on these spatial issues. It means that we should consider all of the facts in order to solve the problem. As such, a comprehensive long-term program of economic and social reform is needed. Planning role focus on the social reform as diversity.

Conclusion
Although there is no racial issue in Seoul, Korea, the ghetto exists. By the effects of the suburbanization of employment, which has excluded the urban poor who remain inner city, those who are doing very well do better, and those who doing very poorly do much worse. The most serious problem of the ghetto is the pessimism of the residents causing poverty succeed to next generation
Due to the change in regulation, from Fordism to Post-Fordism, urban poverty would be more serious. However, in Seoul, the contemporary factors are more important. The Korean War during 1950-1953 deprived them of everything, and the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 derived them of hope.
To solve the problem, policy should focus on cutting off the poverty for next generation. To do so, I suggest that more education opportunities to the poor, development of a job training system, and improvement in the child care system. Most of all, all of the policies and effects coincide with public and private sectors. Moreover, to make policies, diversity in the society has to be considered. All of the effects are based on the comprehensive long-term program of economic and social reform.

Reference
Cambridge 1999 Dictionary of English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Cho, Myungrae 1995. Metropolitan Restructuring and the New Poverty Urban Studies Korea Urban Institution
Go & Park 1993 A Study of Changes of Housing Movement and Behavior after Construction New Towns, Seoul: Korean Research Institute for Human Settlements.
JoonAngIlbo 2001a Where Soju is Shop’s Biggest Seller (April 9)
JoonAngIlbo 2001b A Job once Lose is Seldom Regained (April 11)
JoonAngIlbo 2001c Estrange from Kin and Aging in Poverty (April 12)
Kim, J. C. & Choe S. C. 1997 Seoul, the Making of a Metropolis: Chichester; New York: Wiley
Kuper, Adam and Kuper, Jessica 1996. The Social Science Encyclopedia London ; New York : Routledge
Kwon Y. W. et. Al 1995 A Study of Seoul Area, Seoul: Hanwool
Lee, K. S. 1998 Modern Korean Cities; Korean Cities: 83-104
National Statistics Office 1999 Social Indicators in Korea, Republic of Korea
Pile, Steve, Brook, Christopher and Mooney, Gerry 1999. Unruly cities? order/disorder London; New York: Routledge in association with the Open University.
Thomas, June Manning 1996 Education Planners: Unified Diversity for Social Action Journal of Planning Education and Research 15:171-183
Wilson, William Julius 1987. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Hidden Agenda Readings in Urban Theory Oxford; Malden: Blackwell Publishers


 chapter 3 동팡이의 미국 이야기 - 30.카르마와 다르마

 chapter 3 동팡이의 미국 이야기
- 31.미국서 페이퍼 쓰기(1)