How Information Technology is transforming Korea

Korean myths speak of the tokebi, an ugly little creature with a magical club that does everything. By striking the club against the ground and singing its spell, the tokebi can make anything happen.Children in the old days who heard of the story often sang its spell in the play ground, "Give me give me gold, Dook-Tak! Give me give me silver, Dook Tak!" The song is no longer heard by children at the play grounds and the story is rarely passed down orally in a family. Koreans no longer envies the tokebi's club, because the internet serves as the modern day of tokebi club. By striking their finger tips against the keyboard and making some typing noises, anyone with access to the internet can make anything they desire to pops out onto the screen.Sometimes the internet resolves the user's curiosity, and the other times they help the users to evade reality and live through another avatar character's life. Any place and any food can be studied without direct experience.From children to adults say, "ask Naver," when they are challenged in knowledge. Jisik-In, meaning Knowledge Person section especially in Naver is allowed for users to ask any kind of questions to get responds from whoever knows the answer. Users rate the information given by the Jisik-in with the stars. As of the end of June 2007, the emperor of the domestic Internet portal business was announced as Naver.Naver takes up 70% of the market in terms of the ratio of search engine inflow which is directly related with sales turnover, and based on this, NHN, the mother company of Naver, has grown into a huge business with market capitalization of 8 trillion won (US$8.66 billion).NHN made a sales turnover of 57.34 billion won (US$62.1 million) and a sales profit of 22.96 billion won (US$24.87 million) last year. Considering that the sales profit of Daum Communications, which is second-ranking, is 10.2 billion won (US$11.0 million), the power of Naver in the Internet portal business is unimaginable.Since Naver occupies Search, an access channel to information, Naver has acquired a nickname, Naver Republic. Naver has been playing its role as the most Korean internet user's tokebi club since its inception.High speed internet service was commercialized in 1998 and since then, 4.56 billion people (74.8%) of the entire population in Korea are using the internet. South Korea has a massive high-speed broadband spread, with a nationwide adoption rate of around 90 percent. The internet service adoption rate for each family is average of 90.8 % all throughout the states and the diffusion rate of Seoul and Kyonggi province reaches over 100%. Director Hyung Tae-gun of the Communications Commission said, "The internet usage areas are also expanding from e-mail and searching information to ebanking and electronic commerce. The high speed internet's impact to the society and its economy is expected to increase due to fast promotion of ubiquitous life in Korea. It is time for us to increase the quality of the internet."Interesting transformation is being made at online auction. Piece of drawing that cost over $1000 are selling way more in the internet auction than in off line. Although public bidding's bidding rate dropped down and the bidding price fell suddenly, online bidding on art works has tremendously increased.The website www.porart.com sold 197 paintings that worth more than $1000 from November 13 to December 13 in 2007. On November 28, 141 paintings with high value were sold in K Auction website. Other websites like Seoul Auction and D Auction sold over hundred paintings as well that are high priced. While the off-line auctions and galleries are struggling in business, the era of 100,000 dollars painting online auction has begun.December 12, 2007, the artists Kim Jong-ha's painting in 1981 "The Fantasy of Forest" made a successful bid at $ 110,000 and set a new history in internet auction. The amount of money that has to be put online to participate in the online auction also set its highest record this in 2007. 620,000 dollars from November 14 increased to 2.30 million dollars as of December 28. The development of portal art is guaranteeing the buyers to assist them with re-selling on internet auction any time the buyer wishes to sell the art piece.The 100% refund through reauctions online is promised within 3 years and the price will stay the same for three years. On the other hand, the bidding price is expected to drop fast if it is continued to sell 30% of imitations and loses the online auctions' credibility.But the problem begins as the younger generations in Korea is addicted to internet. Korea is known as one of the safest place on earth due to nationwide gun prohibition as well as highly limited access to hardcore drugs.Young people in the past never had to suffer from any kind of addiction until internet games were introduced in their lives. It is not drug overdoses that terrifies the Korean parents and threats the lives of Koreans, but the death related to online gaming overdose.A young South Korean man was recently found dead at an internet caf? in the city of Taegu after reportedly playing the game Starcraft for 50 hours straight.Multi-player gaming in South Korea is extremely popular thanks to its fast and widespread broadband network. Games are televised and professional players called Progamers are respected as well as paid, like sports stars. Pro-gamers there attract huge sums in sponsorship and can make more than $100,000 a year.This was something that the young generations never expected when the online games were first introduced in Korea a few decades ago. Now is a time when gameloving children look up to Pro-gamers and attempt to make a career for themselves by playing games.More than 15 million people, or 30% of the population are registered for online gamming in South Korea and the young people play the game so diligently and to the point of obsession and sickness. As a result, Korean government recently builds the boot camp called the Jump Up Internet Rescue School. It is the first school in the world to be built especially for Net addicts.Any Korean teenagers who find it difficult to drag themselves from the computer in order to consume a meal or fulfill their tasks are now facing the prospect of 12 days assault courses and intensive therapy sessions in Mokcheon, South Korea.The school offers a degree of military style physical exercise alongside horse riding, pottery creation, music skills, and various therapy workshops. Korea already has 140 internet addiction counseling centers and 100 treatment programs in hospitals around the country.The tokebi's magic club is only good when it is used to bring out what the owner truly needs. But when it is overly used, the magic club will be as threatening as Pandora's Box. Maybe that was why the Korean ancestors gave the club to the ugliest creatures that are fierce enough to keep clubs away from the man kind as they created and passed down the story.