When the Korean government  publicized the importance of holding G20 Seoul Summit last year, one of the major outcomes was the enhancement of Korea’s status in the international society. The slogan, “From Korea discount to Korea premium,” explains this benefit well. The words “premium” and “discount” here refer to the value of Korea, premium as good reasons to overrate Korea while discount indicates the grounds to underrate Korea. In this same sense of how a country is evaluated from outside, and how reputation works as an intangible asset to judge one’s status, recent dispute of Ewha being the major target of malicious rumors should not be dealt casually like it used to be.
Ewha’s image was not vulnerable to rumor attacks from the beginning. Rather, it used to be accredited as a prestigious university thanks to Ewha’s proud alumnae and its long rich history. Established in 1886 as Ewha Haktang by Mary F. Scranton, Ewha was Korea’s very first education institution for women. Under the Christian values of truth, goodness, and beauty, Ewha has been contributing to Korean society by nurturing national women leaders like the first female Korean doctor, the first female attorney, and many kinds of the first female professional in diverse fields.
All these proud achievements   and Ewha’s vision can also be witnessed in its campus architectures as well. The Welch-Ryang Auditorium stands for Ewha’s long history and its traditions while ECC stands for Ewha’s progressive present and future. As a whole, they represent Ewha’s noble values and its dream to keep the pride intact throughout the time.
However, despite all these efforts and achievements that Ewha has made during its 125-year-long history, misunderstandings and malicious rumors are trying to trample Ewha’s pride down.
Ewha thought those rumors were just a sign of jealousy of few irrational ones in the beginning, but this annoying problem became a serious issue when a few gathered in cyber spaces to purposefully spread unverified rumors regarding Ewha students. Organized internet cafes and communities began to pop up to attack Ewha’s images, and false rumors circulated more and more since the school was quite indifferent in dealing these pesky “jokes.”
Most of the baseless rumors describe Ewha students as typical sufferers of the Doenjang girl Syndrome; Ewha students like to dress up as a total package of Gucci and Fendi like luxuries from head to toe, having routine of sipping take out coffees from Starbucks being and etc. These kinds of “totally wasting on luxuries”  image were molded maliciously by few, but the problem is that these are now believed as typical image of Ewha girls by many outsiders, even though they have never been to Ewha campus nor made acquaintances with Ewha students.
The problem associated with all these bad rumors is not just about Ewha’s image being hurt. These rumors can affect prospective Ewha students who are interested in attending Ewha, and current Ewha students who love to be part of Ewha community and making efforts even this minute, waiting for their haydays to come and getting oneself prepared in Ewha, and last but not least, Ewha alumnae who now stand proud in the global stage.
We should not just see what’s going on but be willing to protect ourselves from getting discounts due to false but prevalant images of Ewha. It is time to take strong action and protect Ewha’s glory piled up for 125 years. Like many students showed their affection toward Ewha through posters, I also urge the school to promote Ewha premium; no, true image and values that Ewha deserves to be appreciated in Korea.
저작권자 © Ewha Voice 무단전재 및 재배포 금지