The Martian, 2015

             Have you experienced total confinement in your life? It is unusual to experience for normal people even in Earth but the main character in this movie was stuck alone in the planet of Mars. About 80% of this movie’s background is mars and this place definitely plays key role in this movie. It emphasizes survival instinct of human and strong companionships among groups of theirs.

 

            One reason for Mars being indispensible factor of this movie is that it shows people’s strong survival instinct. There are some movies already deals with survival in isolated island such as ‘Cast Away’. However, this movie ‘The Martian’ is showing more of our survival instinct by choosing movie’s background by Mars. As we know, Mars is another planet of ours, there is not enough natural resources to live. These limited condition makes dramatic scenes in the movie. For instance, the main character is growing potatoes in the spacecraft by humans manure. Also, the main character is making all kinds of essential sources to survive including water and oxygens which is natural in Earth. Obviously, Mars which contains harsh and deserted environment shows strong survival instinct of human.

 

            Another reason for Mars being important factor is it stresses touching companionship among crews of spacecraft. The main character was working for NASA and left behind while their crew was exploring Mars for scientific research. While he was struggling to survive in Mars, movie also shows the rest of crews are also trying hard to rescue the main character. One of scene draws these strong connection is that despite of risk for dying, all of their crews decide to go back to Mars to save him. Also, there were some obstacles outside the space but they pulled through it well under one strong purpose to save their friend. This friendship could stand out because of Mars. If the place was easy to reach it won‘t be that dramatic. Because the Mars is very far from us and hard to get there, we could feel more touching companionships among them.

 

            There was no movie that deals with survival in place of Mars. This fact gave me freshness and also Mars in movie provided me chance to think about human’s survival instinct and friendship as well. As science develops and world environment are changing we might face more various dangerous situations like the main character. Like this movie says, it is important to keep two word ‘survive and friend’ in our minds.

 

 

 

Adapting Geo-tourism in Jeju Island

‘Honjeoopseoyea’. For Koreans this word would be familiar. It means welcome in Jeju’s local accent. Nevertheless, except for those few famous words, their original accent is so different from Korean standard langue, it is hard to understand for even Koreans. Likewise, not only languages, Jeju-island has something special on their own. This uniqueness is attracting a lot of tourists. It seems like tourists are helping jeju’s economy, but they are actually ruining it. However, adapting the concept of geo-tourism could be the key for enhancing Jeju’s economy. Specifically, the possible effect can be creating more jobs and developing various local-based industries.

One possible effect of putting geo-tourism in Jeju is that it could generate jobs for local people. Geo-tourism’s basic idea is based on their locals and workers for geo-tourism must understand locals well. On the other side, Jeju-island can satisfy those needs. Just like other cities, Jeju is also suffering youth unemployment issues. Majority of young people are leaving island for getting jobs. Combining these two, we not only can solve problems but also create econmic profit. Using sufficient human resources, geo-tourism will operate well, and if it operates well it would definitely bring incomes to island.

Another positive aspect of geo-tourism is that they could balance development of industries in Jeju-island. While traditional tourism prosper, only certain industries can be developed. For example, a lot of tourist from traditional tourism used to stay at guesthouse. Since then opening guesthouse became one of trends in jeju, this industries have grown explosively in short time. As a result, guesthouse is now suffering over-supplying problems, while other important local industries that represents Jeju are missing. This inequalities among industries is messing up economic eco-system of Jeju. However, by geo-tourism we can revitalize local industries. For instance, developing Jeju’s own local based tour program such as ‘Experiencing Haenyeo’, the industry of Haenyeo could get chance to start again.

We have rights to experience exotic and peaceful atmospheres of Jeju island but we also have duty to protect them. If we do nothing for them the economic ecosystem of Jeju will be destroyed and without sound economic environment Jeju would not survive by enormously large amount of tourists. Applying the concept of geo-tourism could require long time and a lot of efforts, but once applied adequately it would certainly bring positive effects. At this point, our task is to study and develop more detailed, customized geo-tourism model for Jeju.