▲ There were only eating booths and pubs around the main stage
Letter from Jeju-NU Student

2013 Ara Daedong Festival was great and students really enjoyed it. But, there were some shortcomings which made students irritated. The first problem is about students’ safety and comfort while enjoying the festival. There were not enough chairs to sit, and the first two lines of chairs belonged to student council members.

A More irritating matter was that not only student council members but normal students who are lucky or friends of council members also sat there, even though other students waited for several hours to sit on those chairs. Students who waited for a long time felt it was really unfair. Also, students who were sitting near the aisle seemed really uncomfortable because lots of students were standing right next to them and invading their sight.

Standing students also seemed very uncomfortable too. Every student wanted to go nearer to the stage for a good view. But each student's greed made everybody annoyed. If council members would have blocked standing students not to break in to the aisle, this problem wouldn’t have happened. But when they noticed the problem, it was too late. So they couldn’t do anything but just blocking them not to break in anymore.
 
The next problem is about the booths. There were only eating and bar booths around the main stage. There should be more diverse booths to correspond with the purpose of the Ara Daedong Festival. The main theme is ‘adding dreams to the wobbling youth’. More interesting, memorable and enlightening booths are needed. More publicity activities of booth places are needed too, because those are not widely known, so students said finding the spots were difficult.
 
The last problem is about the trash. For this problem, three groups are responsible: students, booth operators and student council. At first, finding wastebaskets is difficult, and that makes students litter. There are trash cans; however, students don’t use them because if they do, they’ll miss the festival. When some students try to find a garbage can, they see the other litter on the ground and throw theirs down as well. A lot of booth operating students don’t clean up the remnants and leave the university. Student council is not concerned about this. When the festival ends, in the morning, street cleaners clean up the ground.
Festivals do not exist only for one group, those who enjoy them. People who join any festival should have responsibility. A street sweeper stated that this problem occurs every year. They don’t expect the ground to be totally cleaned up; they want trash to be in the plastic bags. This problem’s improvement is urgent.
 
▲ Street sweepers are cleaning the campus, after the festival
 
Letter from foreign students

I am a foreign student of Jeju-NU. I was so surprised that I didn’t find our organization JISO (Jeju-NU International Students Organization) taking part during the Ara Daedong Festival. I still remembered that our JISO did the ‘Foreign Food Festival’ and ‘I am an Ara Star too’ last year. I think we were very glad to enjoy the big festival. But I think almost all of us are very disappointed with this year festival. It seems that we are not students of Jeju-NU, we are only outsiders.

Compared with others, I am a lucky guy because our Chinese Students’ Union had taken part in the festival. But what they could do was only to make traditional food for us. Without the strength of the foreign students union, our food was very difficult to sell out. So we had to set up a stall in the street posing as traders, in order to let more people know we exist. Whenever I walked along the commercial street full of the stink of money, I would rather our students as well as other foreign students do not participate in this festival, because at least we could be relaxed, at least we do not need to look at a cue.
What I want to emphasize is that foreign students are also a part of Jeju-NU; we should have the right and obligation to properly enjoy this annual festival. Please pay more attention to us, please do not let us feel regret to leave our home to come to Jeju-NU.
 
 
Letter from students of Sara Campus  

I am a student of the Teachers College. I saw the cartoon that satirizes spending tons of tuition on inviting popular singers during the Ara Daedong Festival, in the 268th issue of the Islander. It reminded me of two things. First, I pay tuition fee to Jeju-NU like the rest of the students in Ara Campus, and for the second, I have classes during the Ara Daedong Festival. What it means is that I can’t enjoy the festival in the daytime for three days even if I have also paid tuition fee for the school.
We can enjoy the festival only after all of our classes end. Therefore it is almost seven o clock when we get there. The only things that were waiting for us were some drinking booths and kiosks. Every student wants to participate in the program of various booths and look around the active campus of the festival, but what about us? Why don’t we have the right to fully enjoy the festival?
We have the same school anniversary with Jeju-NU. The school should schedule our campus‘ festival along with Ara Campus‘. That way we could enjoy the right to be a part of what every student of Ara Campus does.
 
By Kang Yoon-Seo, Ko Yoo-Jin, Kim Gyu-Jeong, Liu Yuan-Yuan
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