The Point of No Return
The Phantom of the Opera, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s masterpiece, was open to the world via YouTube for only 48 hours, yet more than 10 million viewers were able to seize the priceless experience of watching the legendary musical at home. The majority of the art industries, including musicals, are facing physical limitations and some decided to provide their work to the world for free by unique measures. As we are slowly adapting to the life of quarantine and social distancing, we even more carefully bring up the question: Will we be able to return to our original lives? Have we passed The Point of No Return? (*A musical number of The Phantom of the Opera)
A whole generation of children have been deprived of adequate educational environments, and some tasted discouragement even before they made their first steps of their career. As the social minorities were the first to lose their jobs, some are confronting actual threats, hardly being able to resist the direct impact on their quality of lives. As the world is focusing on predictions of our post-corona lives, what will become our new normal?
Overseas traveling, art, education and every field in the market will not be able to dodge the aftermath of the virus. Handshakes will no longer be a universal way of greeting, and online meetings became a new alternative for business conferences. Capabilities of politicians are under reevaluation, and exchanges between countries might not be as straightforward as before. Additionally, when COVID-19 comes to an end, we must recognize what has been pushed out of our priorities, for example, the environment.
Being surrounded by inevitable change and forced to keep up, we naturally know we must prepare for our post-corona lives. For the 239th edition of the Sungshin Mirror, we tracked social trends and examined issues born under the state of confusion, and the Cover Story analyzes COVID-19 in comparison with precedent diseases, SARS and MERS.
To cope with the unprecedented situation, for the first time, the previous edition of the Mirror was shipped to each of our readers to overcome the indefinitely extended online classes and we are still brainstorming for a better method to deliver our articles off campus. Two new Cub-Reporters and two new Cub-Designers joined the team in April, and we are excited to unveil the first output of our newly assembled team. Our next edition is scheduled for next semester and hopefully at that time, we will be ready to present our publication throughout campus.
By Na Hyunah Editor-in-Chief (pseudonym98@naver.com)