A collection of 3-minute speech examples for civic seminar instructors to help you effectively communicate your message and engage your audience in a short amount of time.

 

Topic – Aging population

I have a Japanese friend.
He’s retiring and dreaming of a new life, and he wants to learn Korean culture.
The basis of culture is language.
It’s been a year since he moved from Japan to learn Korean.
At dinner a few days ago, he confessed that he felt like he lacked a sense of purpose and motivation to learn Korean compared to the younger students in his class at the language school.
I told him that it’s not surprising, since a young person’s learning goals may not be the same as an older person’s, and there will be a difference in their sense of purpose to accomplish something.
Nonetheless, he blamed himself for not trying harder.
Seeing the young man studying with passion, he must have felt something and regretted it.
Maybe it was his own negligence, maybe it was his lack of enthusiasm, maybe it was the pace of learning.
With the rapidly aging population and increasing life expectancy, there is no shortage of questions about the rest of our lives.
This is especially true in Japan, where the aging rate, the percentage of the population aged 65 and older, was 23.1% last year, the highest in the world, and in South Korea, where the aging rate is only 11%, but the rate of aging exceeds Japan’s, as the baby boomers are retiring in earnest.
Perhaps your Japanese friend’s example is a special case.
He’s retired from a lucrative job, and with his pension and other benefits, he shouldn’t have too much trouble financially, and he’s found what he wants to do and is doing it.
But not everyone who can afford it has that same vision.
Or even if they do have a vision and a dream, I think the placenta is the ones who can’t execute.
We need to think about how to bring the aging population back into society.
First of all, why don’t the government, along with the efforts to increase the dependency ratio, bring out the dreams and visions of the elderly and retirees and create a genre so that they can be implemented concretely.
We need to create a system where dreams and visions can be realized, so that older people can be re-integrated into society.
Even if they don’t, shouldn’t we take measures to support their dreams in their final years?

 

 

Topic – Gaming violence is not just a youth issue

The murder in front of a church in Jamwon-dong, Seoul, was shocking on many levels.
The killer, who stabbed to death a resident of Ssangmyeonbuji who was returning home from an alleyway, gave a “just” statement as to why he targeted the victim.
The killer and the victim’s home were about 70 meters apart.
The victim was essentially defecated on by a faceless neighbor.
The identity of the shooter, a 23-year-old dropout from a prestigious American university, is also surprising.
What’s noteworthy here is what triggered his homicidal urges.
The shooter reportedly enrolled in a psychology program at a state university in New York after high school, but dropped out when he couldn’t cope with school life.
He was emotionally disturbed.
What added fuel to the fire was violent video games.
The shooter said he stayed up all night playing a “sword fighting” online game and suddenly wanted to run outside and kill the first person he saw.
In fact, he continued to chase after his victim, who ran away bleeding, and ovulate his body, just like in the game.
Crimes of this nature have been occurring with alarming frequency as of late.
In November, a middle school student addicted to computer games killed his mother, Namura, and then took his own life.
In February, a young man in his 20s beat his mother to death with a blunt object after she scolded him for playing games, and in March, a couple in their 30s addicted to internet gaming starved their 3-month-old daughter to death.
The message is clear: even supposedly discerning adults can easily become addicted if they’ve been playing games since childhood.
It’s time for a fundamental shift in gaming policy.
While gaming policies have been geared towards protecting the emotional well-being of young people with poor self-regulation skills, it’s clear from events that the same applies to adults, and we believe it’s time to move beyond the confines of juvenile protection laws.
The problem of game addiction is that it is not a problem that can be categorized by the age of adolescents and adults.
So going forward, we need to stop looking at it from an industrial perspective and start looking at it from a sociopathological perspective, and gather our wisdom in preventing and treating this 21st century disease.
Thank you for listening, everyone.

 

 

Topic – Contingent Workforce Discrimination

Good morning, everyone.
This year is the 40th anniversary of the death of Jeon Tae-il.
Jeon Tae-il was a labor activist who joined a garment manufacturing company in Cheonggyecheon Peace Market in Seoul at a young age and fought to improve working conditions, but felt the inaction of society and the impossibility of reform and committed suicide.
Despite being in a difficult situation herself, she fired herself up to study, work, and finish for the sake of women who are facing even greater difficulties.
I think about the non-regular workers who are suffering the most in this era.
I realize it was the 70s, so maybe that’s why. I nod my head and feel bitter that the same thing is happening now in the 21C labor market.
Jeon Tae-il’s words about wanting to live like a human being still apply today.
This is because the most common phrase used by non-regular workers is that they want to be treated like human beings.
Everywhere in the country, counseling sessions about unpaid wages are booming.
But they have nothing to fight for.
The workers know that the employers can’t afford to pay them, and they don’t have a clear concept of the company.
Businesses go bankrupt every day, and when they do, the owners hang themselves.
The chaebols make too much money to control, while small and medium-sized businesses go bankrupt and workers don’t get paid.
Although our society is raising its voice to realize a fair society, we need to come up with a way to solve the irregularities and innovate fundamentally.
The most unfair place in our society is the beginning of labor.
There are more suicides in Korea than homicide victims in Brazil.
People who have lost their safety nets due to labor flexibility after the crisis are desperately choosing to die.
It’s time to stop thinking that these are just other people’s stories and start thinking about their problems with compassion.
Thank you for listening.

 

 

Topic – Family Crisis

It’s called a crisis of familism.
In other words, it’s a human crisis.
When I ask people how many times a week their families sit down to eat together, the answer is often once, sometimes twice.
Maybe it’s because families are so busy these days that dads eat at different times, moms eat at different times, kids eat at different times, or maybe they don’t eat at home at all.
It’s a day when we don’t know where we’re going in life, and even the meaning of what’s most important in life has lost its direction.
What are the hearts of modern people filled with?
If our children grow up and live like that again, if they don’t have a personal meal once a week, it will be hard to tell them where and why to find the importance of family in the future.
Eating together isn’t necessary for love to exist, but it’s not just about filling our bellies, it’s about seeing each other’s faces.
In between sharing the family’s daily language of “salty, fresh, delicious, what’s next?” and eating a plate of vegetables together.
The warmth of spooning the stew together melted into my heart.
I think family is all about the atmosphere and words.
It’s not the big talk or the grand conversation, but the connection between the small, seemingly insignificant laughs.
That ease and depth of thought is what drives us creatively and passionately.
Family is about learning together, not individually.
There is no other place to learn to love and put aside selfishness than in family love.
Being hurt and sick at work or in society is the placenta.
How many of us live without getting hurt?
But what if I showed my children that in the process of comforting each other as a family, we learn new ways to love, develop responsibility, and learn patience.
It will lead to a commitment to do a little more and do it better.
When the home is gone, what is left?
What would a home without food bring.
Isn’t it time we took this simple and necessary act of eating seriously?

 

 

Topic – Air-conditioning culture

The rainy season has passed and all that’s left is the sweltering heat.
It’s hard to leave the house because the heat is suffocating when you open the door.
You close the windows to keep cool, and the world feels like a steaming pit.
With the heat in the upper 30s since early summer, major appliance companies have reported that air conditioner sales have jumped more than 80% year-over-year.
One particular product reportedly saw a 600% increase.
With such rapid sales growth and air conditioner shortages, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing spikes in power usage graphs when the heat wave hits.
In the summer of 2010, the skies were dry as a bone.
The rain would come out of nowhere, and then it would be gone.
It was like a flash mob, with the rain coming in waves.
I thought to myself, “The world is going crazy,” but I couldn’t bring myself to press the air conditioner shutdown button, even though I knew why.
Apparently, it’s hard to agree on anything. This summer’s peak electricity demand is also expected to reach a record high of 74.77 million,
and one of the main drivers of this spike is excessive cooling.
If we don’t change our overcooling culture, where air conditioners are sold like hotcakes and long-sleeved clothes are required for theaters, banks, and more, the rapid growth in electricity consumption leading to an energy supply crisis could become a reality rather than a concern.
If we only seek the artificial coolness of air conditioner breezes, we may lose our beautiful four seasons.
It’s nature’s way of doing things, and it makes sense.
It’s our air conditioning culture that makes it so stiflingly hot.
If we continue to insist on air conditioning, next year will be hotter than this year, and the phenomenon will accelerate.
If we go out of our way and try to artificialize it, we’re going to break down.
We need to conserve energy, keep the wisdom of summer as summer and beautiful, and try to keep the right temperature of 26℃.

 

 

Theme – Korea in the World

We asked the foreign athletes playing in Korea this year about Korea, and surprisingly, many of them said they knew very little about Korea before coming here. When they came to Korea, they were surprised by how well off they were, and they were surprised by the high level of culture.
It’s a little strange, because Korea is the country that hosted the Olympics and hosted the World Cup, and in soccer, Park Ji-sung is playing alongside the best in the world, and in baseball, Korea won the Beijing Olympics and finished second in the WBC.
I’ve read that Park Chan-ho has raised Korea’s profile in the US, or that Kim Yeon-ah has made the world aware of Korea. To what extent is this true? American baseball fans may remember Park Chan-ho, and young European dreamers may dream of figure skater Kim Yeon-ah. But how many people know the nationalities of Park Chan-ho and Kim Yeon-ah. It’s like this. Just like we don’t know exactly where Schubert, Romain Garrigue, or Van Gogh were from.
There’s a baseball player named Garcia. If you’re a baseball fan, you probably don’t recognize the name. He played for Lotte for three years. He averaged about 28 home runs and 100 RBIs a season, which was great.
He’s also got a big personality, so I think that’s what we were looking for. But do you know where Garcia is from? If you’re a baseball fan, you probably know: Mexico. But the average person wouldn’t even know Garcia, much less his nationality.
Park Ji-sung is Korean, Kim Yeon-ah is Korean, Park Chan-ho is Korean, Park Tae-hwan is Korean, and so on, but it’s not just for sports fans. It’s meaningful enough that a star athlete has been able to shed light on a previously ignored country.
However, we need to go a step further and find a way to promote Korea not only to sports fans but also to the general public.
In Asia, we are ahead of the curve, but that’s only in Asia. We need to think about Korea in Europe as well.
Thank you for listening.

 

 

Topic – Loneliness of the elderly

There’s a saying, “The loss of one old man is like the loss of a library.
Just as we look at libraries built with the fingerprints of the mind, we hope that the longevity of the elderly will become a beautiful tradition.
But it seems that we’ve been so busy celebrating youth that we’ve been too stingy to give old age the least bit of respect.
The social reality for the elderly is sobering.
In Japan, which has the highest proportion of elderly people in the world, there are reportedly 15,000 “loner deaths” a year – people who live and die alone, cut off from friends and relatives.
There’s nothing quite like the loneliness of facing the end of life with no children, relatives, or neighbors.
After all, they were the ones who had the sparkle of youth.
Old age is a critical time in life when we are given the final task of integrating ourselves, organizing our lives, and coming to terms with death.
We need social support to help us get through this time.
How many people do you know who were wealthy in their youth?
When they reach old age, they face a life of poverty.
I think there is a need for the community to take care of them for the rest of their lives.
We need to continue to expand care services for the elderly, whether they have children or not, so that they can die with dignity.
They were once the cornerstone of our country’s economic growth.
They deserve a little more social consideration.
Now that loneliness is a hot topic, how are my father and mother living?
I wonder if the stories of loneliness in the news are about me.
Why not say hello to your parents who live far away?
Also, be aware of the elderly living alone in your neighborhood.

 

 

Topic – Break free from stereotypes

I’m sure I’m not the only one who sees an elderly uncle or grandfather and wants to shoo them away.
Even if you want to be friendly with them, you can’t because they’re always yelling at you and scolding you.
We are uncomfortable with each other because we are difficult and adults see what we lack first.
I’ve never forgotten the bewilderment I felt when I found a seat on the subway and immediately crossed my legs as I sat down, only to have the old man next to me slap his knee and yell at me to get my legs down.
“I’m sorry,” you say, but you don’t know what you’re sorry for, and you blush at the stares you’re getting.
Last summer, I was walking past Hapjeong Station in my short pants when an elderly man stopped me and suddenly shouted at me with a huge smile on his face.
“Is this a swimming pool!” It wasn’t even the current fashion of missing bottoms, but there was something shining on the old man’s face.
It was the desire to scold someone.
It’s like water and oil, they just keep getting further and further apart.
They don’t want to mix, and if you look at them, they’ll burn.
Sometimes, I would watch the clueless young men on television and throw things next to me.
The unspoken accusations directed at me as I watch the fights between young and old people that often happen in the subway.
To whom is it directed?
I guess everyone interprets and judges in their own way.
Here’s a hint to the young woman in trouble: if you do the whole “what are you doing to me right now”, girly-girl thing, it’s only going to escalate.
It’s all about getting in and getting out.
‘She’s high-minded, her horizons are getting narrower and narrower instead of wider and deeper, and she throws tantrums when you talk to her.’
I don’t know if I’m even aware of these stereotypes.
I think of my grandfather, who used to work as a salesman at a bazaar.
He sold a 3,000 won imitation pearl necklace in half a second by politely saying to the lady who was looking at it, “Although it costs 3,000 won, it looks like 300,000 won because of your wife’s big bust.”
The young man next to me was screaming at the top of his lungs.
The adult even had the generosity to ask if I wanted a cigarette, with a relaxed expression.
It was a kind of discovery that age is not to be taken lightly.
They were right when they said you don’t just get older.

 

 

Theme – Homelessness in our time

‘For a gypsy who has lost his nest,/The coming night is terrifying,/The beauty of the sunset seen by others is only a shadow of fear,/(interruption)/He gulps down water as if it were his friend,/And lays his shameful body down anywhere.
This is an excerpt from a homeless poem left on the wall of a homeless shelter in Seoul.
The desperation and sadness of having nowhere to sleep is palpable.
It was written with a dream of a world without homelessness and a desire to end this life.
Only those who have experienced it know what it’s like to not have a roof over your head.
Hunger is the worst of the survival pains, followed by homelessness.
A homeless person is literally someone who has no home and sleeps in the dew.
They eat in the wind, sleep in the dew, and suffer in the darkness with no end in sight.
The number of homeless people in South Korea was 8,956 as of 2021, according to the official government count.
The number exploded during the IMF.
During that period and the global financial crisis, phenomena such as bad credit, job loss, and family breakdown intensified.
It’s not just an individual problem, it’s a societal problem.
And yet, the image of homelessness in our society is extremely negative.
They are seen as lazy, helpless, disgusting, potentially sick, and criminal.
As a result, homeless people are often the first to be targeted as criminal suspects.
They are also targeted for social policing and exclusion.
88 During the Seoul Olympics or the 2005 APEC meeting in Busan, Korea, there was a rush to hide homeless people as if they were a shameful thing that should not be seen.
It is not an exaggeration to say that homeless people were almost treated like criminals.
It’s time to stop thinking about homeless people as an invisible entity in our society, subject to control and isolation.
Homeless people are equal citizens of this society.
They may be living on the streets by choice, but they are everyone’s family, friends, and neighbors.
The person who wants to get out of that place the most is the homeless person themselves.

 

 

Topic – Bullying

Bullying is sometimes more painful than physical abuse.
There was a time when bullying was an issue in society at large.
An unforgettable line comes to mind.
I think it was a program called ‘I Want to Know.
It was a student saying, “The reason I bully is so I don’t get bullied.
I remember thinking to myself, that’s ridiculous.
In real life, the kid who was being bullied did something wrong that deserved it, and everyone was angry with them, so they bullied them.
But the media reported that there was a silent war going on among students with a me-too mentality.
It made me feel uncomfortable, as if what a few were doing was the behavior of the many.
Fast forward to today, when bullying has become a neologism.
Like that kid back then, I don’t think anymore kids lead bullying to avoid being bullied.
The world has changed, and kids are probably in their own league, pecking order and setting the rules.
They have their own leagues in every field.
Whether it’s school, work, or the military.
I think especially in the military, it’s a very strict place where there’s hierarchy and obedience, so I think bullying there is very traumatizing.
Even in the military, especially in an organization with a strong sense of belonging, such as the Marines, the psychological pressure on the bullies can be great.
I don’t know why anyone would volunteer to be a Marine when you see all these mass shootings on TV.
I can only imagine the pain that Cpl. Kim, who suffered from mental anxiety, must have felt if he was treated like a ghost by his predecessors and successors.
It is clear that strong soldiers come from strong discipline.
Control is necessary to maintain a high level of discipline, but I don’t think it can be called true discipline if it is built on anti-human behavior like bullying.
What do we learn when we’re ordered to dance naked and beaten for no good reason?
Is it a sense of self-deprecation that this is what society is, this is what the military is.
The idea that the senior officer who gives this order will go out into society and live as an ordinary person, mixing with ordinary people, or that he or she will rise to the top of the social elite.
They have a mindset that is beyond comprehension, yet they are dressed in the colors of normal people.
Anger comes first.
The anger extends beyond the person and into society.
It’s actually the organization that fosters the psychosis.
No matter how much discipline is needed, I don’t think it can trump conscience and character.
The danger of bullying is that the perpetrators have no sense of guilt.
They feel like they’ve gotten what they deserve.
Even in “The Purple Man,” the two soldiers who executed the “code red” are portrayed as exemplary soldiers and routinely helping victims.
All we hear from all sides is that a soldier on leave from the military killed himself, that he was killed, that he was killed.
I wonder if it’s time for a systemic overhaul of the entire military.