Letter from New York, Interview: Former KIDA President Eui Yun Kim

Letter from New York

Interview: Former KIDA President Eui Yun Kim

Interviewed and edited by JyaHyun Albert Lee

If we can express one person in one word, it would be “big” for Eui Yun Kim, my former teammate, friend, partner, and archenemy (the kind you hate to love and love to hate). For one, his mere biological being is worthy of the word. His habit of buying “big” for friends and juniors is also famous, as all of us have greatly benefited from his wealth of financial resources and the love to share them. One must be careful as not to miss his ‘exploding’ way of laughing that trembles the ground. Those close to him are also familiar with his big phone, Galaxy Note, that despite its name as the biggest phone on Earth at the time it came out, looked like a normal phone when Eui Yun was using it. One would be surprised to meet someone who does not know this guy in Korea; I would bet money that he will get to know practically everybody on the peninsula by the time of his daughter’s marriage.

But it is not the literal sense of the word “big” that captures the most important features of Eui Yun Kim. It is his enormous and sometimes seemly impossible vision that distinguishes Eui Yun from the rest of us. The expansion of KIDA this year was indeed largely inspired by his vision and enthusiasm. The vision for bigger KIDA presence in Korea debate community lives on today, even after his departure.

Most importantly, however, it is his big heart that we remember most about him. He cares for people in the utmost personal and brother-like way and makes sure that you are appreciated. Sometimes he would have you sit and listen to him talk about how he is sorry and thankful for all the sweat and blood. That was enough to motivate us to work like a demon the next day, not just for him, but for a bigger cause.

It is time that we look back and show our appreciation for Eui Yun. Your vision and hard work for KIDA is now bearing fruit. We thank you and miss you Eui Yun. Come back and work more for KIDA :)

The following is an interview conducted by KIDA Talks on Eui Yun's life in New York. 

Eui Yun, the big guy with big hands as we remember him, victimizing yet another individual at Youth Forum. And yet we love him for some sadomasochistic reason.

Please introduce yourself 

Hi my name is Eui Yun Kim (Also known as Brian or Buffalo Boy). I currently live in New York working at the World Federation of UN Associations (WFUNA). I was the previous President of KIDA, founder of Kyunghee Debating Society, and over-committed debate, and adjudicator during my college years at Kyung Hee University.

Eui Yun Kim and his UN Headquarters pass

How is work? What are your duties at the organization?

Work is great. It’s an extremely diverse environment with a lot of dynamics going on. As a Youth Program Associate, my role is to plan and implement youth programs for our organization working with youth from all parts of the world. From planning and running youth seminars and forums to managing one of the largest youth networks in the world, I’m having a great time here at WFUNA.

How is life? What do you do in your free time these days? Building another organization?

Life is treating me well. On my free days I meet with friends and enjoy the city life. Quite often, I meet with debate ‘dino-alumni’ and enjoy conversing over past memories. I was pretty surprised to meet a lot of former debaters here in the East coast. Recently I have been offered by the International Debate Education Association (IDEA) in New York to work in the Ad Hoc Development Committee to provide assistance in expanding and strengthening its debate programs.  

Ready to devour a poor piece of pizza

How’s New York? Fabulous nightlife, amazing eateries, and lots of sights to see? What do you like the most about New York?

Fabulous nightlife, amazing eateries, and lots of sights are what I like most about New York. Thanks for nudging an appropriate answer. Other things to add are the neatly organized city planning which makes walking a daily habit and the wildlife you can observe inside the cities including your daily favorites from cockroaches, rats, pigeons, unidentified bugs, big bugs, small bugs, and more bugs. 

As much as I like New York, I would vouch for Seoul because of constant pictures of ‘GoupChang’ Rebecca In Young posts on my Facebook page and the food and people in Korea.

What Eui Yun misses the most about Korea

How does it feel to be working in a professional environment, especially after serving as KIDA President? How did your experience as KIDA President help you in your current position?

Hey! When did KIDA become a non-professional environment? I feel extremely offended.

It feels great working in a professional environment, especially in an organization like WFUNA. People say that the first professional job will affect the path of his/her future jobs. I can understand why. The working environment is very different from the descriptions many of my friends mention of a typical Korean workplace. From work ethics, office culture, and fellow colleagues, I can proudly say that every day is a learning experience and it’s actually fun to go to work every day.

At the office

Roles have changed from KIDA to WFUNA. As the President of KIDA, I was in charge of drawing the big picture and prioritizing the types of programs for the year. It was a different type of responsibility where I was faced with important and difficult decisions to reshape and reform a lot of challenges KIDA faced. Also, a lot had to do with leveraging the different interests of people around me and the members as well. Here in WFUNA, I follow a systemic establishment already built under the organization’ mission with my set of responsibilities. Decisions are made at a higher level and I only need to work in the best interest of our organization. This relieves me from a lot of stress I had before and allows me to focus on my work.

In general, not only as the President of KIDA, but as a debater, it helped me establish a career here. Although I did not believe the number one lie many seniors told me, namely that debate helps your career development, it seems like it does. Through meetings with colleagues and my boss, concise logical expressions on ideas are important to not only keep up but to present a point. Debating and working with debate people was a great warm-up for the professional world where in a short period of time is all you have to make your voice matter. 

The recent KNC was a huge success! Any word for Solbridge or the Champion, your successor?

Solbridge

I had my utmost faith in Solbridge in organizing the event and the CA pool in managing the tournament. Two days have passed and I’ve already received positive feedbacks from the other side of the globe. I thank everyone involved for making this happen, especially JuSeung Yi, Joe Shin, Joe Iesue, Min Jae Kim, and everyone else from SDS.

The Champion

Congratulations (We’ve already had a lengthy congratulatory talk over Kakao Talk)

Get back to work Hyewon Lee! Congrats to Youngcho Lee as well! 

The Successor, Current KIDA President

Get back to work Hyewon! J

When are you coming back? Will you be involved in the debate scene once you come back? People miss you!

I just got here three month ago and am not sure when I will return. But when I do return, I definitely will go back to the debate scene and contribute in whatever way I can. I haven’t really thought of debating, but you never know. Personally, I’d like to participate in a less competitive tournament with my little brother David, hopefully with Hyewon Rho and Minyoung Rho as well. 

Any last word for Korea debate community ?

Dear Korea debate community,

I hope you all had a fun time in KNC. I also hope that you don’t forget my presence, if there was any.

I’m currently having heaps of fun in New York and would like to warmly invite you to this great city sometime in the near future.

Throughout my college life, being a debater and a member of the community cherished my surroundings with great people, experience, and loads of debate stress. I hope that each of you hold on to the passion and excel in your debate and personal pursuance of gaining knowledge and building human relationships.

Thank You!

Special Recognition: Eun Song Kim

Special Recognition: Eun Song Kim

KIDA TALKS wishes to recognize a debater whose service the Korea debate community has benefited from greatly. Eun Song Kim, Korea University, had served as a treasurer of KIDA during the first half of this year and resigned from her position in July this year as she has been accepted to a Master’s program at Oxford University. She left Korea on September 23^rd, yesterday, to pursue her studies. The following is a short piece of recognition and thanks to Eun Song, written by her former teammate Hyewon Rho, Korea University.

"The contest is a lion fight. So chin up, put your shoulders back, walk proud, strut a little. Don't lick your wounds. Celebrate. The scars you bear are the sign of a competitor. You're in a lion's fight. Just because you didn't win doesn't mean you don't know how to roar."

Staying true to her favorite quote from a melodramatic show about doctors, Eunsong Kim was a debater that debated in every round like a lion.  We, her teammates, would have to write 'CALM DOWN' in red block letters on yellow sticky notes to remind her to, well, do as so, and occasionally our society members in the audience would raise and shake their hands to slow her down because well, she sounded like an angry rapper.  We are indeed proud that our previous Champion, Finalist and two-time Semi Finalist of the nationals is off to study abroad at one of the world's leading institutions, Oxford University to pursue a Master's Degree in Comparative Social Policy.  We look forward to seeing Eunsong active in the 'real' world where we know without a doubt, she'll be fighting for a better society, like a lion; strong, proud and with a little bit of swag.  Good luck, Eunsong - Korean debate will miss you. :)

Courtesy: Hyewon Rho, Korea University

Tournament Report: Hobart and William Smith Fall Classic

A Short Report 

on the Hobart and William Smith Fall Classic

by Peter Kipp, Professor, Department of English Literature, Ewha Womans University

Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS), located in Geneva, New York, holds a pre-season BP tournament each year.  Basically, it’s like the type of intervarsity (IV) tournament that the KIDA council is encouraging our schools to host.  I attended this year, on Sept. 15 – 16, as an independent adjudicator.  I really should have taken photos—but am totally out of the habit of doing that.  Still, I hope the following observations will be of interest to KIDA members.

Outline of the Tournament:

Date: Sept 15-16

Style: British Parliament

Team cap: No team cap, 32 teams participated

# of Prelim Rounds: 5

Convener: Anna Dorman (Hobart and William Smith Colleges)

CA: Eric Barnes (Coach, Hobart and William Smith Colleges)

This year’s event featured 32 teams (including two swing teams from the host school) from eight colleges: HWS, Cornell, Colgate, the University of Rochester, and Patrick Henry College—all from the USA, and Wilfred Laurier College, Queens University, and Hart House from Canada.  There was a mix of rookie teams and experienced teams (including winners of national-level tournaments last year).  Regular BP tournaments in North America are held in separate circuits for the U.S. and Canada, and those in the U.S. run in conjunction with policy debate tournaments, but this was only BP.

I’m not sure what sort of system there is (if any) for keeping track of points or declaring someone a champion in BP, but I do know that the points for policy debate add up during the whole season and make a difference in who gets to go to national championships and who doesn’t.  From talking to debaters, though, it seemed like most of them were treating this as a chance to warm up “off the record,” and, in some cases, for policy debaters to try out a different genre.

Motions and Results:

R1:  THS the use of torture by democratic regimes.

R2: THS efforts to increase human cognitive abilities using genetic manipulation.

R3: THB the US should make ownership of functional handguns illegal.

R4: Given the choice [i.e.: only these two choices], THB that a nuclear-armed Iran is preferable to a US invasion of Iran.

R5: THW allow individuals to opt out of social security.

Semifinal and Rookie Final: THW allow gladiatorial mortal combat as a professional sport.

Grand Final: THB that fashion magazines do more harm to women than pornographic magazines.

Results:

There was no team cap, and nearly half of the teams in the whole tournament were from Cornell, which seems to have a pretty strong debate club.  In the rookie final, all four teams were Cornell teams.

Main Break:

Two teams from Hart House, three from Queens, and three from Cornell

1^st seed, Hart House (Vince and Murphy), 15 points

2^nd seed, Cornell, 13 points

The rest of breaking teams had 11 or 10 points

Semi-Finalists:

Two teams from Hart House, two from Queens

Grand Champion:

Queens(Kaya Ellis and Will Gibson)

Second Place:

Queens (Amelia McLeod and Katherine Fu)

Best Debate:

The best one I saw was the semifinal featuring the 2^nd, 3^rd, 6^th, and 7^th ranked teams.  I attribute this to the fact that it was a semifinal (rather than a final, where the teams tend to be more tired and more nervous at the same time), plus the topic (topics that seem crazy at first often make the best debates).

Anyone who has debated for a while will probably be able to guess at some of the clashes; the main ones were freedom of choice vs. government responsibility to guarantee safety, plus the question of how extensively and in what way violent sports (especially viewership of them) impacts society.  All four teams did an excellent job, with the only easy decision on the part of the judges (I was one of them) being that the Opening Government should not advance—though they had a clear case setup and gave really humorous speeches, they didn’t add a lot of depth to their arguments.

The eventual decision was that both closing half teams would advance.  Though Opening Opposition did a good job of discussing impacts on young people, lower socioeconomic classes, and minority groups—and thus also calling the idea of informed consent into question—their arguments also didn’t have enough depth to fully counter government bench questions about where they saw a justification for denying free choice when other dangerous activities (such as joining the military or participating in other violent contact sports) also were seen as legitimate despite having greater impacts on the same groups.  That work of rebuttal was partly done by Opening Government, but fully fleshed out and explained in the closing half.  Closing Government and Closing Opposition, in contrast, both offered somewhat greater depth of reasoning than Opening Opp., and Closing Opp. (the eventual tournament champions, from Queens) also offered some arguments about the extent of governments and laws in setting moral precedents and the impacts on society of commodifying death for entertainment that seemed very insightful and strong.

It’s hard to describe the real excellence of this debate, even in a paragraph as long and full of big words as that last one, because the summary labels I gave to arguments don’t really capture their quality or the depth of analysis and example that were used to support them.  This was a debate equal in quality to anything I’ve seen anywhere—Worlds included.

By comparison, the grand final was only about as good as the best debates at KNC—still good, to be sure, but not world class.  One nice touch in the final, though, was the OG’s reference to the semifinal motion in opening the debate: “In the semifinals of this tournament, Canada met the USA in mortal combat, and emerged victorious.”  The final also saw the tournament’s other best one-liner in response to a POI:

POI from CO (in the context of a clash over whether women are more empowered to talk about pornography’s influence on their lives or fashion’s influence on their lives): “Women can talk about fashion magazines with anybody, any time, but they can never talk about sex.”

Answer from MG: “I don’t who you have sex with—but when I have sex, I certainly talk about it with my partner.”

Tournament Atmosphere:

• I was very much an outsider at this tournament—knowing exactly nobody (I saw the announcement on the Internet and just wrote to the convener to see if I could go as an independent judge)—so I can’t comment in depth, but people seemed to be having a good time.  Teams generally sat together in the briefing room, without too much running back and forth to talk to people from other schools, but that may be partly because at least half the teams were rookies, and they probably didn’t even know all of their own teammates yet.

• Food was just so-so, and there were no social events, per se.  One nice aspect of the tournament was the plentiful donuts, bananas, bagels, and coffee provided each morning.  There was enough coffee to last through the afternoon, and that got me through the day on Saturday, since I had to get up at 5:00 a.m. to drive to the tournament, and hadn’t slept well the night before.  Saturday lunch was cold pizza.  Saturday dinner was scheduled to be provided, but, when the tournament ran late, dinner was cancelled along with R5, and everyone just let out early.  Sunday lunch was subway sandwiches.  All this was for a $50.00 registration fee—and I think people in Korea might have complained if they had their Saturday dinner cancelled after paying that much.  But, nobody at the HWS tournament seemed to mind.  Rob Snowe from Patrick Henry was even raving the next morning about the great Indian restaurant he went to with his team the night before.  I think the operating assumption in the U.S. is that everyone hosts one tournament a year, and it’s OK if they charge a bit extra on the registration fee and use it as a team fundraiser.  Maybe that’s something we can consider at KIDA?

• Though the food seemed a bit sparse, I have to say the trophies were very nice.  Best speakers (top 3 rookies & top 10 open division) got big art pieces of blown stained glass (Murano style) mounted on solid wooden bases with the tournament and award name on a brass plate.  Semifinalists got carved wooden boxes with brass plates.  Finalists and above got big enameled dishes with brass plates.  Unlike other BP tournaments I’ve been to, there were also awards for a second place team in both the novice (rookie) and main divisions.

• I met one Korean guy from Cornell, Daniel Yoon, who said that he had judged at a YTN tournament during vacation and was hoping to be back in Korea in the future to do more debate work.  He is regularly a policy debater, but went to this tournament to practice BP and learn more about Parli style.  There seemed to be a few other Koreans on the Cornell team as well, because, at one point, everyone was watching Psy’s “Oppa Kangnam Style” video, and all the non-Koreans were asking a lot of questions.  Score one for Korean pride!

• North American teams travel a long way to tournaments (Patrick Henry College is in Virginia—a seven or eight hour drive away), so it wasn’t surprising to see several schools leave after the break announcement (remember that only three colleges had teams break).  The U. of R. stayed to watch the semifinals, but only the Canadians were left by the finals (plus me, and a few of the HWS debaters).  So, it’s not just in Korea that debaters leave a tournament early.  That said, since it’s pretty easy for most of us to get home from tournaments (if they’re in Seoul, anyway—I know this is changing), I think it would be nice if more people stayed to watch semifinals and finals in our country.

* Thank you Professor Kipp for your contributing article to KIDA Talks. :)

Sogang BP Tournament Report: Result and Motions

SOGANG BP TOURNAMENT 2012.9.1-9.2 in Sogang Univ.

FOUR PRELIM, 8 TEAMS TO SEMIS

SEMI FINALISTS : KU A 허근영 이원형/ KU B 노혜원 채동희/ CUDS A 김원준 조동현 / HDS A 김소영 구현석

GRAND FINALS : SDS B 정재동 정소안 / SDS D 이희승 조영진 / EDIS + KU 김은지 이상민

GRAND CHAMPION : HYDS A 신건섭 김시경

Motions:

R1 THW grant the mentally ill and their families the right to refuse medical treatment.

R2 THBT professional sporting leagues should be responsible for sports related injuries and conditions for the lifetime of their athletes.

R3 THW abolish the use of insanity as a legal defense

R4 THW limit the voting rights of the elderly

SF THW introduce an international minimum wage.

GF THW not allow political parties to be based on religious grounds

Courtesy: Albatross Debating Society and Minyoung Rho

Savor beautiful motions

Time to gear up for the day, K.N.C

Written by Kim Hyo Jeong

How was your first week of the fall semester?

Screaming?

I guessed so. Some might have screamed with happiness for having back silly chats with your friends again, while some have screamed about your destiny for having terrible professors for your future classes. Whatever those reasons are,

Welcome all of you for being back at school!

Here KIDA DPI has prepared a compile of debating motions of previous two years in international debating competitions briefly. Take advantage of this, and we hope you to get good results in coming 2012 KNC.

Wish you good luck, lovely :=)

Savor these wonderful motions.

We divided motions into five categories:
Politics, Economics, Rights, Religion, Welfare

Motions are from :

North America Debate Academy 2012 Motions, North America Debate Academy 2012 Motions, The 3^rd Thiland World Schools Debating Championships 20122011 Asian British Parliamentary Debate Championship hosted by North South University 2011, Northeast Asian Open 2011

The Motions: "It's Gone" / "I've Got Misery", 1964 Havoc SH 105

Politics

THBT states should not compensate individuals who choose to live in disaster areas

THW sign an international treaty banning Cyber warfare

THBT a strong dictatorship is better than weak democracy

THBT military intervention is justified to protect civilians from the state

This house would enforce a no-fly zone over Syria

THBT The UN should hire Private Military Contractors for its military operations.

THBT First Nations' people who live in geographically separated areas should be given complete autonomous self-government

THBT the Mexican Government should remove all limits on law enforcement and the military in the fight against organized crime

THBT African Union states should stop cooperating with the ICC.

THBT Republika Srpska should secede from BIH.

THBT Israel should preemptively strike against Iranian Nuclear facilities

THW try the Syrian dictator, Al-Assad.

Economics

THBT the Eurozone should harmonize its debt through Eurobonds

THBT income equality should be prioritized over economic growth

THBT the ECB should unconditionally buy significant amounts of government debt from struggling Eurozone countries

THW require all media outlets to be organised as cooperatives, owned and run by journalists only

THW end all fiscal austerity measures and increase government spending.

Rights

TH supports rehabilitation over retribution for juveniles

THW require schools to stop teaching a gender normative* curriculum** (*Based upon societal stereotype of traditional gender rules. **Courses, subject matter and activities.)

Parents should have access to their children's social networking sites

THW Ban international adoption

THW Legalize multi-partner marriages for both men and women

THW allow individuals to sell their votes for financial compensation

THBT Crimes committed by police should be punished more severely.

Marriage is an outdated concept

THW Require politicians to send their children to public schools.

THW Allow wildlife refuges to sell valuable animal parts.

This house believes that zoos should be eliminated

THBT the music industry should not facilitate the comebacks of artists who committed violent crimes.

Religion

THW ban all religions from actively seeking conversions

Welfare

THW implement a one child policy in countries where the average age is very low.

THBT We should not give money to beggars.   

THW End compulsory education in developing countries.