Teacher: Carrie

When I was in Chicago, I enjoyed spending time with my children ice-staking and sledding. After I came back to Seoul, I was trying to find a place for skating or sledding nearby, but I couldn't find any suitable place. Recently, I heard the news that an outdoor skating rink has been established in front of the Seoul World cup Stadium,  which is just ten minutes driving distance from my house. So, I decided to go there with my children one Saturday. Unfortunately, due to the exceptionally warm weather, the ice was about to melt so the ice quality was not good for skating. I didn't want to let my children down, so I asked the manager to let us in. But, as I expected, he turned down my request saying that due to the poor ice quality, any skating would damage the skating rink. So, I had no choice but to look around the stadium facilities neighboring the skating rink with my sons. After I spent one hour watching the stadium with my children, I found that something unexpected was happening on the skating rink. There were a lot of people skating on the skating rink in question. What happened to the rink? When I approached the rink, I got a clear answer to my question. In front of the ice rink, several guys were carrying some cameras and they were taping the people on the rink. They were TV reporters. I noticed that while the reporters were taping the rink, the rink manager looked a bit worried about something. Why? Due to the warm weather, the ice was being damaged by the people on the rink. The truth is that he didn't want the TV reporters to go away without taping his ice rink, even though his skating rink had been seriously damaged. This incident made me realize once more that in Korea the press dominates all parts of our society. Oh my goodness, I also realized that I was skating around the reporters in the hope of getting some chance to be interviewed. 

Discussion questions:

Tell me about what you understood from the story!

1. Do you enjoy any winter sports?

2. Have you ever been ice-skating?

3. What is the dad looking for in Seoul?

4. Were they able to ice-skate?

5. Why did manger allow people to ice-skate?

6. What do you think about the power of the press?