bus strike in Seoul

Earlier this year while I was living in Gumi, there was a taxi strike. Now it is the bus drivers' turn. Thursday, November 22, 2012, a large number of bus drivers will go on strike across the country due to a bill being passed that would include taxis under public transportation. 

Check out this article by The Korea Times:

2012-11-21 17:31 No bus service today Buses stand idle in a parking lot in southern Seoul, Wednesday. Bus operators will halt their services starting Thursday to protest the National Assembly’s move to include taxis as means of mass public transportation.                                                                          / Korea Times photo by Choi Heung-soo   By Kim Rahn Traffic chaos is expected today as bus operators strike to protest the National Assembly’s passage of a bill to include taxis in the list of mass public transport. The Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee passed the bill Wednesday, despite strong opposition from bus companies as well as the government. According to the bill, taxis will be categorized as public transportation and thus will be able to get compensation for losses and other benefits from central and local governments as buses and subway operators do. Following the passage, the nationwide association of bus companies said their members will halt services for an indefinite period as it had threatened to do earlier. “We are indignant at the Assembly’s pushing ahead with the bill, ignoring opposition from citizens, the government and bus operators in order to win votes from the taxi industry ahead of the presidential election in December,” a director of the association said. According to the association, some 100,000 drivers of about 43,000 intra-city and inter-city buses will join the collective action, plus 20,000 drivers of 4,000 community buses. Operators and drivers of charter, express and tourist buses will not participate. While a final approval of the bill is up to a plenary session of the Assembly on Thursday or Friday, Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik asked parliament to put it on hold. The government has opposed the bill because it requires more money. “As the issue involves confrontation between related parties, we need to collect various opinions and discuss it further,” Kim said. The association claimed that taxis, if recognized as public transport, will get 2 trillion won in subsidies from central and local governments annually while they are already receiving benefits worth 760 billion won as fuel subsidies and tax credits. “Bus companies may have to share their government subsidies with taxis. Or the government will raise public transportation fees to secure more money, and citizens’ financial burden will get heavier,” the director said. He said both the ruling and opposition parties are pushing ahead with the bill for election purposes, as the number of people engaged in taxi operations is some 300,000, more than double that of the bus industry. As measures to cope with the bus service suspension, the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said subway operation hours in the nation’s six major cities will be extended by one hour. During morning and evening rush hours, the number of subways trains will also be increased. The ministry will also have some 7,600 charter buses operate for major inter-city routes across the nation. Officials of the central and local governments and affiliate organizations will be allowed to come to work at 10 a.m., an hour later than usual. Each elementary, middle and high schools are also permitted to set their own school hours. In Seoul, the city government will have 400 shuttle buses operate between major subway stations and bus stops.  rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr,

an.update.on.Seoul.life

It's been a crazy last few months.

I came to Seoul not really knowing where I was going to live, where I was going to work, how I was going to pay for rent and school and anything else....I came completely putting my faith that God sent me to Seoul for a purpose, and He was NOT going to let those words come back empty. 

...And here  I am. Two and a half months later. I am about to graduate level 3 of Korean studies and move to level 4. I am teaching part time jobs all over Seoul, from kindergarten students to adult company workers to everything in between. I have learned a lot about life and family and trust. Even when I don't understand and don't always listen to God, He is faithful and has unending mercy. So often, I try to do things on my own and try to figure it out. I am here now wondering where the next step is in life. As for His reasons for me coming to Seoul....I think it is FAR bigger than what I had thought it was about. He's teaching me that sometimes He gives us promises, but it does not mean those will happen immediately...it just means He knew we could handle it at the time. I think about the words found in Hebrews 11: 

"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.  If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them....These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised,  since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect" (Hebrews 11: 13-16, 39-40).

God gives us promises and we are secure in knowing that the "word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." (Isaiah 55: 11).

I might not know what that purpose is yet or whether it will even occur in my lifetime, but I need to remain faithful, knowing that He is in control. Instead of looking and trying to figure out the next move, I need to survive on my manna for TODAY. Our lives are but a breath, here one day and gone the next. "Let us live such lives that, though [others] accuse [us] of doing wrong, they may see [our] good deeds and glorify God" (1 Peter 2:12). Let us not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow has enough worries of its own:

 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6:25-34).
 


...God desires to do something amazing and glorifying through us. Are we willing to let go long enough to experience some of that unmeasurable joy and true life?