Winter Olympics in A New Community

The 2018 Winter Olympics will be held in South Korea's Pyeongchang County, which is located in the mountainous region to the northeast of the country. When the 1988 Summer Olympics took place in South Korea, the country was hailed globally as the Miracle on the Han River for its flourishing development. Today, an ordinary county in South Korea is preparing to host the next Winter Olympics and completing many modern facilities to accommodate the world's biggest winter sports tournament. This is a true miracle.

About 50 years ago, the New Community Movement (Saemaul Undong in Korean) started in Pyeongchang County. The Global Saemail Leadership Forum was held in the county last week. The forum was attended by South Korea's President Park Geun-hye. In her remarks, President Park talked about how the sense of togetherness (encouraging the you can do it" and we are the one" spirit) from the New Community Movement yielded great accomplishments and transformed the way people living in rural areas think. She noted how the labor productivity and income in rural areas improved significantly as people worked together and made the best out of the timely support of construction materials from the government by building roads and bridges with collective effort.

Within 30 years, South Korea transformed itself from a poor country that asked others for financial support to one of the ten most highly developed...