By Anne Su

The Korean Air office on Wilshire Boulevard is part of the Wilshire Grand Hotel. Korean Air Lines Co. announced in 2009 its plans to demolish the hotel and build a high-rise office in its place. Photo: Korean Slate

K-pop and kimchi tacos aren’t the only bits of Korean culture in the United States: South Korean businesses are stepping up and investing in a rich, multicultural city like Los Angeles.

Korean Air Lines Co. is constructing a hotel, office and retail complex valued at $1 billion on the site of the Wilshire Grand Hotel. Hyundai Motor Co. recently invested $150 million to upgrade its Orange County facilities.

Annually, small- and midsize Korean companies are contributing to the tens of millions of dollars that flow into the Southern California economy. This is the latest trend of Korean investors wishing to traverse the cultural bridge that joins Los Angeles and Seoul.

According to California Watch, there are more than half a million South Koreans with strong business ties to their home country in the Los Angeles area. Almost $16 billion worth of goods were traded between South Korean and Southland ports in 2009.

“With its juggernaut export economy, South Korea is flush with cash. Its trade surplus for July 2010 was $5.6 billion. And some of that money is coming to California,” said Edward Park, a sociologist at Loyola Marymount University specializing in Asian American studies, to the Los Angeles Times.

The growth of South Korean businesses stems not only from efforts by the local and state governments of California but also by U.S. immigration policy. Beginning in 2008, the federal government no longer demanded visas from visiting South Korean citizens, thus giving a boost to South Korean investments.

Analysts point out that it is more likely that foreign investors send initial cash outlays to places with a personal or cultural connection.

Only recently did  South Korea amend its law of foreign investments on high technology businesses. Besides small- to middle-sized businesses seeking opportunities, all kinds of Korean capital venture funds are interested in biotech and high-tech partnerships in California.

On January 24, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a lobbying campaign for a U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement in Los Angeles. Southern California undoubtedly would be the major beneficiary. This would be further encouragement from the U.S. to increase trading and establish deeper bonds with South Korea.

By Vivian Yan

StarCraft's infectious competitiveness has made it a global phenomenon, including South Korea, where a gaming scandal shook the eSports world in April. Photo: Flickr

A life and death war between three futuristic civilizations plays out in a far-flung galaxy, while a crowd of 30-odd students watches every move of the battle on a projected screen in a room here on Earth.

Somewhere else on our planet, a man taps furiously at his computer with a precision honed by years of training, controlling each action his army makes against its enemies.

This is StarCraft, perhaps the most popular computer game in the world.

Since its release by Blizzard Entertainment in 1998, a unique global culture has developed around competitive play of the strategy game. The fever has only heightened since the release of StarCraft II on July 27. USC and 176 other colleges brought this culture onto campuses throughout North America with the foundation of a competitive gaming organization called the Collegiate StarLeague in spring 2009.

This year, senior computer science major Bada Kang is leading the expansion of gaming culture at USC. He is the president and co-founder of the USC eSports Club, where enthusiasts gather to strategize, discuss and play multiplayer computer games. Though its main focus is StarCraft, the club has grown to include games such as Counter-Strike and WarCraft III’s Defense of the Ancients.

Just what makes these computer games – and StarCraft in particular – so attractive? Many cite the game’s accessibility, thanks to low system requirements and ease of play.

Both StarCraft and its sequel are set in a distant galaxy where three races come into conflict: the Terrans, humans exiled from Earth; the Protoss, human-like aliens with advanced technology and psionic powers; and the Zerg, an insectoid alien swarm developed not with machinery but with genetic mutations. The basic gist of the game is that players control one of these races and attempt to destroy another player’s base while defending their own.

But what has made StarCraft a global phenomenon is its infectious competitiveness. Club member Allen Kou began playing StarCraft like many other club members.

“My older brother and a bunch of the friends around the block got into [StarCraft], so I started playing with them,” said Kou. “And then I just got really into it, because I couldn’t stand losing.”

As an international student from South Korea, Kang was part of the explosion of internet cafés in Asia that led to a massive gaming culture.

“It’s one of the favorite pastimes [in South Korea]. We’d go to a really cheap cyber café that’s always crowded because it’s so cheap. We’d go there Saturday mornings because no one would be there,” said Kang. “We’d get our spots and we’d play for like four hours. It’s like a bonding experience, like saying, ‘Hey, let’s go to karaoke and hang out. Let’s go to the cyber cafe and play a few StarCraft II games.’ It’s a really cheap form of entertainment. And they’re open 24/7, so it’s very accessible.”

Huge popular interest in the game attracted businesses and companies, which began setting up professional leagues and sponsoring teams. StarCraft-focused television channels broadcast games between top players, shoutcasters analyze and describe matches like sports commentators, and the best gamers have become celebrities in their own right. Though news in April of a gambling scandal in which 11 South Korean players were accused of throwing matches shook the eSports world, such high-profile drama emphasizes its profitability and competitiveness.

While gaming culture in America is not as prevalent, it is nonetheless making an impact. The finals of the World Cyber Games, the largest international eSports event, were held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from Sept. 30 to Oct. 3. Sean Plott, a USC graduate student in interactive media who hosts a live web show analyzing StarCraft matches under the alias day9, also shoutcasted for matches.

Though USC eSports is devoted to following top players, analyzing their matches, and learning and developing new game strategies, it is nowhere near as competitive as the WCG. According to junior Jane Chen, co-founder of USC eSports, CSL is just a place for fans to play at a casual level.

“It’s fun, and it’s your chance to play for your college,” said Chen. “It’s also a good place for people to meet other people who have the same interests.”

At the heart of CSL and USC eSports, the basic idea that first made StarCraft popular still holds true: simple, fun competition between friends hanging out together.

By Vivian Yan

An English-learning magazine in Germany. The popularity of learning English is increasingly global. Photo: Flickr.

My parents used to send me to Chinese school in the summer with the vain hope that I might learn to speak or read Mandarin.

I didn’t learn either, because when you’re 10 years old you don’t care about speaking a language no one else at school speaks. All you want to do is watch Pokémon, play handball with friends or watch “Monsters, Inc.” – all of it in English.

The funny thing is a lot of parents now want their kids to do what my parents didn’t: speak more English.

Western schools are expanding globally as more parents in Asia want their children to grow up with a strong foundation in English. Perhaps one of the most dramatic examples is the Jeju Global Education City in South Korea, slotted for completion in 2015. The self-contained community will house 12 Western schools on a 940-acre plot of land that will operate solely in English.

Asian governments are encouraging construction of these internationally-focused schools. Their goals include boosting Western investment in their respective nations and educating their youth in the core international language of business and commerce.

But is it a good idea to create such an environment? Is the trend toward Western schools a positive one? In some sense, yes: foreign investment bolsters a nation’s economy, and anyone who’s ever written a résumé knows how cool it is to say you’re multilingual. Furthermore, bringing English-speaking schools closer to home means families don’t have to split between moving to a Western nation and staying in their home country. Relationships aren’t strained by time and distance.

Yet at the same time, completely enveloping a child in a new language can be damaging in many respects. For one, a language learned as a child can be easily lost. My siblings and I grew up speaking Cantonese but dropped the language almost completely upon starting grade school. By sending their children to English-only schools and supporting the creation of English-only cities, Asian families risk the loss of their native languages and the cultural understandings those languages convey.

For example, teaching in English could mean that many children are unlikely to learn the terms of different subjects in their own language. Such a handicap could be especially detrimental when studying history or literature: Western schools are likely to focus on Western history or writers with Western ideas and Western terminology. Language differences could further result in trouble cross-communicating. As a Chinese American living in California, I learned about Mao Zedong – but say his name in Chinese and I’ll have no clue who you’re talking about.

The loss of language is especially detrimental to culture. Any ethnicity has its own idioms or way of thought based on its respective way of life, but by distancing kids from their language, parents pull them away from their cultural heritage. Asian parents may further imply to their children that their culture and language is somehow inferior to English because of an emphasis on learning English over, say, Korean.

The loss of their native tongue could also lead to massive generational gaps. My inability to speak Cantonese leaves me unable to communicate with my grandparents beyond phrases like “thank you” and “I’m hungry.” I will never understand stories they might tell about my ancestors because of this language barrier, meaning that I cannot learn my own family’s history from a direct source. A devastating realization for a history major!

Rather than focus on complete English immersion, Asian countries should aim for moderation. It is highly beneficial for students to learn English, but it is just as crucial for them to learn and honor their native language. It took me 3 years to learn how to write my name in Chinese and many more years before I recognized the significance of my own language and culture. When it comes to teaching their own children the value of their heritage, Asian families should not waste even half as much time.