Good evening, ladies & gentlemen! As the founding President of the Korean Ergonomics Society, it is a great pleasure & honor to have this opportunity to extend my warmest welcome to all the participants to this conference & to Seoul, where the historic 24th Olympic Games was hosted some years ago.

   Some of you, who do not know me well, may feel uneasy with my baby face. Some may half say "What's that young guy doing on the platform?" Rest assured. I am long past 50. I've been around. If my mystery of staying young interests you, I may share my secret over a few drinks.

   I am really happy that we have a full house tonight. To tell the truth, I've been inwardly worried about the overseas attendance, for no other reason than the reported "nuclear threat from the North." We Koreans didn't feel anything! The news on the pneumonic plague added insult to injury. I must admit you are a "brave bunch," who gathered here despite all these.

   Two months ago, a university in Colombia, South America invited me to give a short lecture. Considering all the scary news on drugs & the shooting of a soccer player who made a suicide-kick during the World Cup Soccer Games, "TO GO OR NOT TO GO," that was my question. I went anyway. I found the country very beautiful & peaceful, & the people very friendly.

   Really, more often than not, a good part of the news is nothing but a media hype.

   At international conferences like this one, we all speak English, of course with some interesting accents. To lighten up the atmosphere, let me throw you some English jokes I heard recently.

   1. An American tourist in London, forgetting that traffic there went to the left instead of the right, looked the wrong way, & was run down. He regained consciousness in an emergency ward & moaned, "Did I come here to DIE?" "No, sir," an English nurse assured him. "You came yesterDIE."

   2. Near the UN building, there once lived a Mr. Wing & a Mr. Wong. At 3 o'clock one morning, Mr. Wong's phone rang. He picked up the phone, listened a moment, then said grumpily, "You are WINGING the WONG number!"

   3. Of course, you know the noise a Japanese camera makes. It goes "CRICK" instead of "click."

   I know many of you came here as part-time tourists. So, a few facts of Korea must interest you.

   1. There are only 2 alphabets in the world, 1st, the Greek, & 2nd, the Korean; all other alphabets derive from the Greek. Take my word for it. By the way, pictograms are not alphabets.

   2. Korean language is related to Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish, Mongolian, but not to Chinese. True, we use many borrowed words of Chinese origin.

   Today, we have distinguished scholars & guests from 20 countries all over the world.

   As you are well aware, the 1st Pan-Pacific Conference on Occupational Ergonomics was held in Kitakyushu, Japan in 1990. Under the compelling catchword "Ergonomics at Work", the University of Occupational & Environmental Health hosted the conference with the booming participation of renowned scholars from 17 Asia-Pacific & European countries. The 2nd conference, held 2 years later in Wuhan, PR China was also a big success.

   The distinguished scholars & guests gathered here today testifies to the growing significance of Ergonomics & Human Factors in the Asia-Pacific region & around the world. One of the principal goals of this conference is to promote free exchange of new ideas & information in the field of Ergonomics research. Ergonomics has been increasingly applied to the analyses of various design issues, ranging from product development to occupational safety, & to ecology. These efforts towards developing safer & more user-friendly systems have undoubtedly contributed to the remarkable advantage of the Asia-Pacific economics.

   In this context, an Asia-Pacific Ergonomics Journal, in which research results are published readily without any language barrier would be nice to have for freer exchange of ideas. For such a journal, reviewers could correct English, & give friendly advice on the research methods. Reviewers' names could even be specified at the end of each article. Such a journal would supplement many local journals wonderfully, especially for non-English speaking authors.

   Trumpeting the importance of Ergonomics, here, tonight, would be like preaching to the church choir, & utterly superfluous. Instead, I will briefly characterize the Asia-Pacific situation & reflect on some problems we may be facing in the coming century.

   Compared to other regions of the world, the Asia-Pacific nations have shown outstanding economic performance during the past several decades. The Asia-Pacific region is home to the world's most vibrant economies. At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation or APEC meeting in Seattle a year ago [93.11.20], US president Clinton said: "What has happened in Asia is amazing & unprecedented... In a short time, [it's] economies have gone from dominoes to dynamos." APEC is called for to "create a true Asia-Pacific Economic Community" &, by 1996, "declare an ultimate goal of free trade in the region."

   I believe the Asia-Pacific nations' focus on education is one of their greatest assets. Higher education coupled with a free market system formed the essential ingredients to economic development in the Asia-Pacific region.

   I would like to take a few moments to briefly describe past experiences & future challenges of the Korean economy. In the past half century, Korea has transformed itself from a war-ravaged, very poor nation into one of the leading economies among the NICS. Korea hopes to continue to pursue this path of economic growth. However, several challenges are facing Korea in the domestic & international spheres. First, Korea is currently in the process of rapid political & socioeconomic democratization.

   On the international front, several important changes are taking place. For example, bilateral & regional approaches are increasingly prevailing in international trade. Some of the major closed economies such as PR China & Russia are moving towards greater openness. The future course of the Korean economy will be significantly affected by these challenges. Korea's ability to deal with them in a meaningful way will ultimately serve to reconcile international differences, & to assure greater economic prosperity throughout the whole world.

   Time & time again, we've heard that so-&-so developed this-&-that for the 2nd time in the world. In the good old days, we could import ideas developed in another country & use them directly on our local products. Such a practice no longer obtains in an open economy. There is no stand for a second place. On the face of it, this appears to imply keener competition. But, that's not the whole picture. In a closely knit society, a weak link ruins the whole chain. As the regional economies open up, cooperation & coexistence among the nations is not a luxurious virtue, but a requirement for common survival.

   Take, for example, the case of air pollution. Tall smokestacks may alleviate the local problems. But, they are not the solution. Smokestacks callously export pollution to neighboring cities & countries. We must avoid parochial solutions unless they are part of a global solution.

   What most of us do today appears naively parochial in light of the global situation.

   Currently there is a lot of talk about future automobiles, automated highways, smart houses, virtual realities, ... But the really fundamental Ergonomics questions are: "Do we need more cars? Are there better ways of transportation?" Similarly, smart houses are largely irrelevant to most of the people who live & starve in underdeveloped countries.

   "Knobs & dials" type of Ergonomics, as we now do it & teach it, will not succeed. Aren't we seeing the trees & not the forest?

   In the coming century, there will be many challenges to the direction of much current human factors work. The world population is expected to pass 10 billion. The ever-increasing demand for energy will aggravate ozone depletion & greenhouse effects. Confounded with the climatic anomalies, a global water shortage is a real possibility, with ensuing famine.

   Most problems call for interdisciplinary interaction, field-work, social action, & international cooperation. We will have to cooperate with other disciplines & other countries on a scale never seen before.

   There are already mechanisms for coordinating international efforts. Many local Human Factors or Ergonomics Societies are members of the International Ergonomics Association. International conferences like this one play an instrumental role in gaining a deeper understanding.

   APEC will continue with a program of technical cooperation & measures to facilitate greater trade. The World Bank, the United Nations, & many other organizations will look to our know-how in the coming decades.

   It may be difficult for many people in the developed countries to relate to international cooperation rather than international leadership, because until now they have been mostly self-sufficient. But in a not too distant future, nowhere will be safe from the pressures on our planet. It is imperative that we be sensitive to the global condition, both for short-term economic reasons & for long-term planetary survival. The more we apply Human Factors to global problems, the more tools we can make available, the better we will be prepared.

   Spirit of competition has to give way to spirit of cooperation & coexistence. As a noted scholar once put it, we may need, not just Human Factors, but "HUMANE" Factors.

   I trust you are having very productive & fruitful discussions, & a very successful conference. I wish you all a highly rewarding & memorable stay in Seoul. Thank you very much.

Banquet Address by Dr. Kyung S. Park Title: "Ergonomic Cooperation & Coexistence in the Coming Century" [Brief Bio of Dr. Kyung S. Park (as of 1994)] Dr. Park is the founding President of the Korean Ergonomics Society. He received the "Distinguished Foreign Colleague Award" from the American Human Factors Society in 1988. He has served on the boards of many international journals and professional societies, & has published over 100 research papers. He is now a Professor of IE at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology.