Open Post #3

(Note: Today's post might be all over the place as I'm trying to collect my thoughts in the midst of my neighbor's weekly Thursday night ragers - a.k.a beer pong, incessant screaming, yelling, top 40 blasting, and drunken laughter until 4 a.m. Can't you tell I'm already annoyed?)

Upon finding two shoe boxes full of photos and letters buried deep in my closet, I had quite a fun evening plunging into old memories. Well, not that old, considering I only graduated high school less than three years ago. But looking back on all the things that I have accomplished since then, I definitely feel like I have grown a lot in college.

My perceptions of North Korea have also changed, now that I come to think about it. As one of the heads of International Students Association, I was always seeking for ways to update our school community on what's happening on the other side of the globe. Having gone to an all-girls boarding school full of WASP-y country club goers and Ivy League graduates as parents, I was bound to encounter problems truly communicating with our student body on such matters, of course.

Every Monday, we had this one-hour period called "X Block" during which the entire school gathered in the auditorium for a special presentation, ranging from our school band Reckless Collision's performances to alumni lectures. Being a prestigious private school and all, everyone was set on going to one of the top colleges and naturally, obsessed with community service. There were probably at least twenty email blasts about some kind of a drive - clothing, canned food, children's toys, etc. - benefiting all kinds of charity, often local but occasionally international. After seeing with my own eyes how successful our "Save Darfur" movement turned out to be, I wanted to do an X Block presentation on North Korean issues.

The first step I took was to schedule a conference with my East Asian teacher, Mr. Neumann. Although strict in grading and rigid in class rules, he came second to no one when discussing anything East Asia - politics, culture, latest TV shows, you name it. "I wanna tell the girls about North Korea and raise money to help the refugees," I remember my naive, seventeen-year-old self declaring in his classroom. After what seemed like a huge chunk of infinite silence, Mr. Neumann finally faced me and said, "Well, you gotta take baby steps. You have to first make them be aware of the big picture and then slowly guide them toward the humanitarian issues. The situation is a lot more complicated than you think."

I walked out of the classroom disappointed. I expected a little more enthusiasm, but it seemed like I was either on my own to make it happen or go with his directions of "taking it slow." Slow? How slow? I was graduating in two months; I did not have the patience. Later that day as I walked into my usual 2 p.m. East Asian Studies class, Mr. Neumann handed me a huge stack of articles, telling me to read it to "understand the big picture first."

Of course I never finished reading it - nor did the presentation ever happen. It's probably not the best excuse, but being a second-semester senior in the Boston private school circle meant driving up to Providence for Brown's "sophisticated college parties," shopping for multiple prom dresses, tanning on a yacht while drifting down Charles River and sneaking into Braeburn Country Club's outdoor pool. Between senior projects and insanely packed social calendar, I found no motivation to sit down and read article after article about the Korean War and Kim Jung Il. Mr. Neumann, if you're reading this right now, I'm so sorry - but I can guarantee you that I through with my crazy days and now have a whole blog dedicated to North Korean issues, so I hope you'll forgive me.

Funny how things turn out... While I was researching for my last paper, I ran into the exact same article he handed to me two and a half years ago. I can't remember what it was called, but it contained a very deep insight on the relationship between South Korean and North Korean soldiers along the border. If I had read those back then and really understood the things that I know now, I might have made a difference earlier than expected.

I forget where I was going with this post (thanks, ridiculously wasted girl 1 and girl 2 outside my window having a "whose voice is louder" competition), but I guess the moral of the story is never miss your opportunity to study what you're passionate about for the moment's fun - you never know what you'll get out of it.

Open Post #1

Family Guy, Simpsons, South Park, Team America - it seems like Kim Jong Il has gone from a shadowy villain of a far, faraway land to an official joke of the nation. In the past five years, Kim Jong Il's nuclear program has earned him countless headlines in major newspapers, instantly upgrading his status to a nationally recognized figure with funny glasses and funny costume. Take a look at this clip from Team America, for instance. With a Chinese accent and vicious habit of wiping out anyone who comes in his way, Kim Jong Il acts as the ultimate villain in this modern political satire.
Perhaps it is Kim Jong Il's open hatred towards America and his public determination to crush the number one nation that is causing Americans to simply laugh at his absurdity. His ridiculous appearance and solemn expression serve as the perfect target for Americans' elitist sense of humor. "And this little Asian dude is threatening to take all of our lives? I don't think so," the public seems to think. In the midst of recession, America is at the height of its internal turmoil. Maybe it only makes sense that they choose to belittle the North Korea issue since they are so much more occupied with their own problems. President Obama might be meeting with President Lee of South Korea regularly to discuss eliminating Kim Jong Il's nuclear weapons, but lack of public interest in the matter isn't really moving the process forward. America has an excellent ability to assemble and make a difference, unlike other relatively small nations with not much political power in a gloal scale. Why not use that power to put a stop to Kim Jong Il's crazy wrongdoings, instead of simply poking fun at his chubby cheeks?

Paper 2

Introduction:

March 26, 2010. I woke up to three missed calls and five text messages. “Have you called your parents yet?” My roommate asked me. When I slowly shook my confused head and blankly stared back at her, she said, “South Korea has been bombed. It’s all over the internet.”

Indeed, photos of bombed island and evacuating people filled my computer screen as soon as I accessed a national news website. I called my mom to make sure they weren’t affected, and she assured me that everyone was fine. Relieved yet still a bit shaken, I felt like I received a very rude wake-up call that told us the Korean peninsula is still in the middle of a war.

Background and Significance:

It has been a few years since Kim Jong Il announced his plan to develop nuclear missiles, but thankfully, we haven’t seen any chunks of a continent chipping off and being wiped out by this threatening technology. We as South Koreans, however, are constantly facing such threat every second, especially when military outbreaks like the one mentioned above fly at us and hit us in the face without any warning. It has been the same way since the 1990s – attempted terror of a South Korean airplane, countless bombs buried and ticking away along the border, continuous invasion of their spies – and no one can predict when the Korean War will resume. As the frequency of such events is rapidly increasing as Kim Jong Il nears his death, however, many experts predict that a war might be more imminent than we thought.

            North Korea’s military actions such as the bombing and open firing can be analogous to a temper tantrum of a younger sibling. Whenever Kim Jong Il doesn’t get something he wants, or when something doesn’t go the way he had planned, he throws bullets at us and kicks spies and submarines toward our shores. Then who plays the role of a parent? The South Korean government, of course. Just as a parent would try different methods to discipline (or simply to pacify the house in some cases) his troublesome child, past presidents of South Korea have employed various strategies to stop Kim Jong Il’s crazy tantrums. Their actions can be largely divided into two categories: the “sunshine policy” and the “cold shoulders strategy.” While the presidents strongly leaning towards the left favored the former, others, including the current president, decided to discipline our neighboring nation by depriving them of what they rely on us for: food aid. It is a widely known fact that tons and tons of food and money we send to help out North Korean citizens all go into feeding Kim Jong Il’s ever-growing army, so basically we are feeding those who could potentially point their guns at us – or their nuclear weapons, in this case – any moment.

Statement of Purpose:

            In this paper, I am willing to set aside my strong political preference in order to objectively analyze what experts have said about both strategies and their effectiveness, what they indicate about Kim Jong Il’s personality and how such information can be used to predict the future of the peninsula.

Review of Research:

            Political experts have extensively analyzed pros and cons of the sunshine policy over the past two decades. President Kim Dae-Jung was the initiator of the sunshine policy, eventually earning a Nobel Peace Prize for his strong outreach to North Korea. While the rest of the world sees him as a hero who was able to successfully warm up to Kim Jong Il, there has been a certain degree of controversy regarding his presidency and especially the legitimacy of said Nobel Prize. Donald Kirk, a journalist and correspondent who has covered major events in Korea from Park Jung Hee’s assassination to every presidential elections following, offers an in-depth analysis of this controversy in his book “Korea Betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and Sunshine.” His keen political eyes sharpened over the past forty years in the midst of internal turmoil in Korea have enabled him to catch the hidden corruptions leading up to the award, claiming that the money used to “buy the Nobel Prize” is what ultimately strengthened Kim Jong Il to create his nuclear weapons.

            Succeeding President Kim Dae-Jung was President Roh Moo-Hyun, now deceased but still a controversial figure highly revered by left-wing political activists but frowned upon by right-wing conservatives for his hidden corruptions and motives. Although it was during his presidency that North Korea announced the launch of their nuclear project, President Roh continued to pacify the matters between the two Koreas by continuing the sunshine policy, as portrayed in this article in Asia News. He also spent large sums of government money on pleasing Kim Jong Il, thus the reason North Korea has displayed a favorable attitude during these two presidents’ rules. Thanks to them, Kim Jong Il agreed to a number of reunification projects including the meeting of separated families from the Korean War and the Summit talks, experts say.

            When Lee Myung Bak stepped up as the first right-wing president in a decade, however, South Korea’s North Korea relations took a dramatic turn. The ex-mayor of Seoul not only cut the government spending on North Korea by a significant amount but also openly declared an end to the sunshine policy, as this article from InternationalBusiness Times states. His new vision of international relations is well detailed in a book called “TheKee Myung-bak Government’s North Korea Policy: A Study on Its Historical andTheoretical Foundation” and a Daily NK article titled “Analysis of Lee MyungBak’s policy toward North Korea.” Both of these sources are excellent in examining what aspects of the sunshine policy were affected by President Lee’s decision and how the rest of the world reacted. Of course, the North Korean government was enraged. They held public rallies to denounce the presidency of Lee, as we can see here in a NK News article, and the frequency of North Korea attacks took a sharp increase. It is also around this time that rumors about North Korea going broke started to surface in the international community. Kim Jong Il took multiple trips to China to ask for food aid, to which China responded with a generous helping hand. With all ties severed from South Korea and its rally America, however, we can’t predict whether Kim Jong Il will finally collapse and come to agreeable terms with the world or throw a final blowout with his beloved nuclear technology.

            Foreignpolicy.com had an interesting article on the sunshine policy between the United States and its allies. Although the author doesn’t make direct references to North Korea, his insights on another instance of sunshine policy helped shed light onto the understanding of Kim Dae Jung’s policy. America’s attempt at sunshine policy also had its pros and cons, just as President Kim’s did. The result of America’s policy discussed in this article can also be used to predict North Korea’s next move.

Questions and Expectations:

            What was North Korea’s relationship with the past three presidents of South Korea? How did this relationship affect the way North Korea acted in respective time periods? What will be North Korea’s next move if anti-sunshine policy continues? Ultimately, what is the expected method of reunification, a violent war or a pacified talk? Considering that Kim Jong Il’s relationship with the liberal presidents to the conservative president went from favorable to hateful, it is expected that his government will throw more “temper tantrums” as he grows more desperate for aid he no longer receives from South Korea. In regards to what his next move will be, no one can tell for sure but it seems to be leading towards the violent side judging from how frequent military outbreaks have been in the past few months.

Methodology:

I will be primarily drawing from newspaper articles for information and editorials since 1995 for experts’ analysis. Lastly, survey results will be used to examine the public’s attitudes toward the two policies and what they deem more effective. If situation allows, I would like to speak to Professor David Kang at USC, a North Korea specialist, who has provided me with insights and knowledge on North Korean issues during my post at Liberty in North Korea. 

Soulmate Post

Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Ze-dong, and now Kim Jong Il – these are the names you are most likely to spot when you search “world’s worst dictators” on Google. Marked by horrifying crimes and selfish actions, their reigns were almost always seen in a negative light. These crimes, however, were never carried out strictly on their own. I began to wonder what kind of people would stand firmly behind these dictators to fulfill their anti-humanitarian missions.

Finding “eccovento” (username) on Delicious.com was the most perfect answer to my question. With general tags like “North Korea,” “Kim Jung Il” and “unification” and inactivity over the past few years, his page was almost overlooked had it not been my curiosity to click on an article titled “TheAxis of Hackensack: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com.” It struck my interest that Vanity Fair, a magazine mostly concerned with celebrity gossip and socialite parties and maybe the president’s ex-lovers on a political day, would write anything related to North Korea.

And I found my gem.

The lengthy 10-page article starts off with a detailed description of the most recent meeting between North Korean ambassadors and their beloved friend / barbecue joint owner, Bobby Egan, from New Jersey. Although it begins in a fairly casual tone as if discussing a nice little lunch between old friends, it soon probes into the mysterious relationship that these people seem to have kept for a long time. As a former FBI informant, Egan displays quite an interesting attitude: he seems to pay utmost respect to his “axis of evil” members from North Korea, yet he refuses to take sides regarding the nuclear conflict between his mother country and theirs.

A different article also bookmarked by “eccovento” was a NewYorker story about Bobby Egan, this time a little more personal as it relies mostly on one-on-one interview with the man. It served as an ideal counterpart to the previous article, together providing a complete package composed of thorough background, in-depth analysis and personal thoughts of Egan. After giving the readers a detailed biography of Egan and his former “suspicious” political activities, the writers of two articles begin to probe into the sphere of international “friendships” and how far is too far when it comes to communicating with the “enemies.”

Considering that he also bookmarked the popular “KoreanUnification Studies” blog that exploits all the wrongdoings of the North Korean government while updating the world about their whereabouts, “eccovento” seems to be less interested in the heart-touching humanitarian accounts of the suffering North Koreans and more intrigued by their political leaders’ schemes. If he ever decides to come back to social bookmarking to add to his library of six articles, I would love to follow him to find more gems that I might have missed in the newspapers. His sources are great for anyone fascinated by the minds of world’s most dangerous communists and how they function in the real world outside of their Hermit Kingdom.

Trio

Hello, World:

Throughout my sophomore year, I had an opportunity to participate as vice president of public relations in an organization called “Liberty in North Korea.” With my South Korean roots and what little knowledge I gained from high school East Asian class, I was confident that I knew all there was to know about North Korea and that I was more than qualified to bring peace to the Korean peninsula. I soon realized I was dead wrong, however, in two different senses: one, my responsibilities merely included sending out press releases and selling cookies and shirts to raise money (which are totally honorable, yet not exactly world-changing) and two, there were a lot more to learn about North Korea, not from a completely biased, right-winged South Korean’s perspective, but from an objective third party’s point of view.

Growing up in South Korea with super-conservative parents who refused to utter a word of sympathy towards North Koreans did have a certain degree of influence over my way of thinking. In my wildest imagination, our fellow neighbors up north were either starving to death or cooking up their next plot for yet another military attack. I’ve lived through their attempted flight bombings, numerous submarine attacks, and armed quarrels at the border amongst countless other random “tantrums” that killed and harmed clueless citizens of my own country. I despised their reckless and immature actions filled with pure evil intents that benefited no one, not even themselves.

In my junior year in high school, I actually visited North Korea as a tourist. I got on the bus expecting rows of starving people and begging children, but came back with photos of me in picturesque locations and an amazing three-course meal. What did surprise me, however, was the attitude of North Koreans themselves. Whether they were tour guides, restaurant waitresses or “photo models” (pretty women dressed in traditional attire offering to take pictures with tourists), the civilians only seemed concerned with one matter: their mighty general. Commonly known as Kim Jong Il the dictator to the rest of the world, this dear general was praised and honored in every sentence they pronounced. He was basically a god, a holy entity that creates and controls all matters of life. At first I figured they might be faking it due to the hidden security cameras monitored by the government, but their twinkling eyes and solemn faces expressed nothing but genuine gratitude to the “one and only general who has provided them with such wonderful lives.”

Not a lot of people realize that the Korean peninsula is still in the middle of a war; we’re simply “taking a break.” Under such circumstance, it isn’t highly unusual to hear about military outbreaks and Kim Jong Il’s rant about how his army is going to destroy South Korea and the U.S., and it is definitely too idealistic to hope for a peaceful reunification at this point. Quite a few experts have been hinting at a possibility of a war, perhaps the very first high-tech nuclear war the world has ever seen. The method with which reunification takes place, however, isn’t currently within the boundaries of my interest; what I really want to analyze is the aftermath of reunification. As previously discussed in my recollections of the North Korea trip, the civilians of NK possess a certain mindset completely different from ours that messing with their beliefs would be like telling the most devoted Christians that God doesn’t exist – ineffective and a total waste of time. When the entire peninsula merges and the NK “general is god” civilians and SK “Kim Jong Il is a devil from hell” civilians are forced to mingle, what will happen? Would North Koreans be happier where they are now, completely clueless of the rest of the world yet perfectly content with what they have? Are we trying to muddle with their ideology because we, as the rest of the world, are simply too caught up with the idea of being heroes that we are completely disregarding the perspective of the NK civilians? Given that the U.S. wins this hypothetical war, would North Koreans who have been trained from birth to despise Americans reach their hands out and yell “save us?”

In the following weeks, I would like to analyze the mindset and the culture of NK civilians and the relationship between them and their leaders, measure the difference between their reality and what we are assuming it to be, and ultimately determine if reunification would be a successful process for all nations involved. If you are interested in this issue and learn more about it, visit the following blogs:

http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-everything-began.html

This Austrian traveler gives a detailed travelogue about his trip to the hermit kingdom. In contrast to my trip that has been strictly censored and probably distorted out of reality, his recollections give a better sense of where North Korea actually stands.

http://friendsofkorea.blogspot.com/

This is a blog created by London-based communists, and thus gives a different perspective on the whole issue of North Korea threatening world peace.

http://nkleadershipwatch.wordpress.com/

Accompanied by reliable photos and official statements, this blog follows Kim Jong Il and updates the world on his whereabouts. 

Profile Post:

When discussing two-sided issues such as the Korean unification, most people tend to be biased towards one side or another, myself included, mainly because the people interested in the issue have some kind of connection to either side or is affected by the outcome of the issue. So it is always fresh to find an objective third party talking about the issue nonchalantly as if it were straight out of a textbook, a pure academic matter.

Such was the case with one blogger, more specifically an English instructor living in South Korea, who posts about his daily sightings and discoveries in a highly observant manner. As a foreigner, he offers a third-person perspective to the unification issue in the Korean peninsula and other political problems he detects in his daily life in Korea. Although he is neither a historian nor a professional in this field, he researches topics he is interested in and appears to be somewhat informed of the situation and background, which aid in providing evidence for his observations throughout the post. The frequency of his postings varies; it sometimes appears as little as two to three times a month, but massively increases to twenty or even thirty in the active days. As a result, he received lots of feedback when his blog was constantly being updated, but he hasn’t seen many comments these days.

His blog, titled “The News from Wabu-eup,” contains various sightings and issues spotted during his stay in Korea. Some posts draw heavily from his background research, yet others are purely observational. I found two posts that I was particularly interested in: “Anti Kim Jong-Il Graffiti” and “Mao Zedong, the Savior of North Korea.” The first article was posted on July 2, 2011 as a response to the news that a certain graffiti praising ex-president of South Korea, Park Jung-Hee, and scorning the current leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Il. His tone throughout this post is very informative, and he doesn’t give away much of his reactions or feelings; instead, he simply tells us the gist of the news, with added background knowledge in the intro for those who don’t know about the current situation in North Korea. In the more recent post mentioned above, he summarizes the events of the Korean War, eventually drawing the conclusion that “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army entered the war… without them, one wonders whether or not North Korea would exist today.” He ends his thoughts with a quote from Andrew Salmon’s Korea Times article that gives Mao credit for saving North Korea. It is interesting how, although Salmon’s article is rather biased towards the left with many comments taking China and North Korea’s side and sneering at South Korea’s leftists, he manages to maintain his pacifist position by objectively listing detail by detail without an inch of prejudice detected. By carefully avoiding controversial words such as “winning” and “losing” and refusing to take sides by abstaining from the pronoun “we,” he successfully upholds his objective point of view.

As a whole, this blog provides historical insight to the current issues of the Korean peninsula. Although it does not directly address reunification, it is a valuable source for me and my studies in a way that it allows me to probe into the views of a third party not necessarily on either side of the debate. While his postings aren’t usually too rich in detail or scholarly, he glosses over relevant historical examples and tie them together in a clear, simple manner that is directly linked to his conclusions. My blog will definitely be drawing from more modern evidence and events instead of relying heavily on historical examples, and it will be somewhat more biased due to my background and prior knowledge. 

As a lazy, stereotypical 21^st century human being, I rarely go beyond Page 2 in a search engine to look for, well, anything (referencing to a certain “Is Google Making Us Stupid” post I had a chance to read in class). For this particular assignment, however, I had to go way beyond the usual limits of my attention span, mainly because it was so hard to find a non-journalistic blog entry written by a non-professional. I finally came across this amateur blogger, an American who lived in Korea for two years during which he married his Korean wife. Although the blog as a whole is simply a compilation of his daily thoughts, there was a particular post titled “On Korean Unification” that struck my interest.

Before going into detail of what his “voice” entails, it is important to mark the note at the bottom of the post that says “This was written for a job application.” As a result, his tone throughout this post is more formal than those of his other posts. He clearly paid more attention to his grammar and word choices than he normally would, which produced a post that was full of highly academic vocabularies and clean transitions. In comparison to his personal blog post titled “On Contentment, Part II,” which details his hardships over the past few years struggling with financial and family issues, this particular post has a very specific main idea and other metaphors and supporting evidences in a more structured order rather than “writing whatever comes to mind.”

It is interesting to see him using the pronoun “we” from beginning to end, as if he were part of the group being affected by the unification. He of course writes from the South Korean perspective, probably due to his experience in the country and his wife’s origin, and he takes a very strong stance against North Korea’s “overreacting” and “absurd demands.” He is very sympathetic towards the South Korean government, which he believes to have paid “gratuitous financial investments” for the purpose of “reaching out for the sake of reunification.” His attitude towards their conflict is similar to that of a family friend looking at a nasty marriage; concerned and troubled by his friends’ hardships, he tries his best to offer the most peaceful solution.

Indeed, he uses the marriage metaphor to a great degree to portray the relationship between South Korea and North Korea. “Many have friends in abusive, or otherwise dysfunctional relationships,” he says, “the reality of the relationship is that of a marriage in the 1950s: divorce is no solution, nor would it be advisable for the emotionally unstable children of the North.” He approaches the issue a bit cautiously in the beginning by simply sweeping over the general background of the situation with broad word choices (“normalcy,” “typical”, “cyclical”, etc.), but as he gets into the whole marriage notion, his inner “fatherness” comes to play as his voice grows increasingly firm on anti-divorce.

His ultimate solution for the troubling couple is to “take the moral high ground,” which is stated in an exceedingly idealistic manner. “Military preparedness and technological superiority must remain a priority, but in the end, a heart ready to make wrongs right, and ears primed for dialogue must always be offered,” he argues. While it may appear to be a simple communication problem when compared to the marriage analogy, this is a political issue that involves military actions, world-scale power shift, weapons and thousands of innocent citizens. His voice is very hopeful and naive, an attitude that tends to be frequently seen amongst political idealists who apply the most basic rules of communication to any level of conflict.

In the end, he finishes the article on a strong note by declaring that “making South Korea an island” will never be a sensible solution, and only a true compromise will make reunification take place. “Why, then must we seek to be right at the expense of our marriage to maintain a false position of strength and superiority?” he ends with a rhetorical question to which he has already given an obvious answer in order to make us re-think about what we believe to be right and wrong.

Overall, his emotions shift from sympathy towards South Korea and abhorrence towards North Korea to a high degree of hope later on. He definitely seems like an idealist, someone who likes to simplify matters into comprehensible analogies in order to make sense out of an otherwise complicated situation. While his views are definitely helpful in making us re-evaluate what ideals we are trying to protect by fighting for our own rights, his advice seems a little too general and impractical for current issues involving nuclear weapons and international politics. 

Voice Post: On Korean Unification

As a lazy, stereotypical 21^st century human being, I rarely go beyond Page 2 in a search engine to look for, well, anything (referencing to a certain “Is Google Making Us Stupid” post I had a chance to read in class). For this particular assignment, however, I had to go way beyond the usual limits of my attention span, mainly because it was so hard to find a non-journalistic blog entry written by a non-professional. I finally came across this amateur blogger, an American who lived in Korea for two years during which he married his Korean wife. Although the blog as a whole is simply a compilation of his daily thoughts, there was a particular post titled “On Korean Unification” that struck my interest.

Before going into detail of what his “voice” entails, it is important to mark the note at the bottom of the post that says “This was written for a job application.” As a result, his tone throughout this post is more formal than those of his other posts. He clearly paid more attention to his grammar and word choices than he normally would, which produced a post that was full of highly academic vocabularies and clean transitions. In comparison to his personal blog post titled “On Contentment, Part II,” which details his hardships over the past few years struggling with financial and family issues, this particular post has a very specific main idea and other metaphors and supporting evidences in a more structured order rather than “writing whatever comes to mind.”

It is interesting to see him using the pronoun “we” from beginning to end, as if he were part of the group being affected by the unification. He of course writes from the South Korean perspective, probably due to his experience in the country and his wife’s origin, and he takes a very strong stance against North Korea’s “overreacting” and “absurd demands.” He is very sympathetic towards the South Korean government, which he believes to have paid “gratuitous financial investments” for the purpose of “reaching out for the sake of reunification.” His attitude towards their conflict is similar to that of a family friend looking at a nasty marriage; concerned and troubled by his friends’ hardships, he tries his best to offer the most peaceful solution.

Indeed, he uses the marriage metaphor to a great degree to portray the relationship between South Korea and North Korea. “Many have friends in abusive, or otherwise dysfunctional relationships,” he says, “the reality of the relationship is that of a marriage in the 1950s: divorce is no solution, nor would it be advisable for the emotionally unstable children of the North.” He approaches the issue a bit cautiously in the beginning by simply sweeping over the general background of the situation with broad word choices (“normalcy,” “typical”, “cyclical”, etc.), but as he gets into the whole marriage notion, his inner “fatherness” comes to play as his voice grows increasingly firm on anti-divorce.

His ultimate solution for the troubling couple is to “take the moral high ground,” which is stated in an exceedingly idealistic manner. “Military preparedness and technological superiority must remain a priority, but in the end, a heart ready to make wrongs right, and ears primed for dialogue must always be offered,” he argues. While it may appear to be a simple communication problem when compared to the marriage analogy, this is a political issue that involves military actions, world-scale power shift, weapons and thousands of innocent citizens. His voice is very hopeful and naive, an attitude that tends to be frequently seen amongst political idealists who apply the most basic rules of communication to any level of conflict.

In the end, he finishes the article on a strong note by declaring that “making South Korea an island” will never be a sensible solution, and only a true compromise will make reunification take place. “Why, then must we seek to be right at the expense of our marriage to maintain a false position of strength and superiority?” he ends with a rhetorical question to which he has already given an obvious answer in order to make us re-think about what we believe to be right and wrong.

Overall, his emotions shift from sympathy towards South Korea and abhorrence towards North Korea to a high degree of hope later on. He definitely seems like an idealist, someone who likes to simplify matters into comprehensible analogies in order to make sense out of an otherwise complicated situation. While his views are definitely helpful in making us re-evaluate what ideals we are trying to protect by fighting for our own rights, his advice seems a little too general and impractical for current issues involving nuclear weapons and international politics. 

Profile Post: The News from Wabu-eup

When discussing two-sided issues such as the Korean unification, most people tend to be biased towards one side or another, myself included, mainly because the people interested in the issue have some kind of connection to either side or is affected by the outcome of the issue. So it is always fresh to find an objective third party talking about the issue nonchalantly as if it were straight out of a textbook, a pure academic matter.

Such was the case with one blogger, more specifically an English instructor living in South Korea, who posts about his daily sightings and discoveries in a highly observant manner. As a foreigner, he offers a third-person perspective to the unification issue in the Korean peninsula and other political problems he detects in his daily life in Korea. Although he is neither a historian nor a professional in this field, he researches topics he is interested in and appears to be somewhat informed of the situation and background, which aid in providing evidence for his observations throughout the post. The frequency of his postings varies; it sometimes appears as little as two to three times a month, but massively increases to twenty or even thirty in the active days. As a result, he received lots of feedback when his blog was constantly being updated, but he hasn’t seen many comments these days.

His blog, titled “The News from Wabu-eup,” contains various sightings and issues spotted during his stay in Korea. Some posts draw heavily from his background research, yet others are purely observational. I found two posts that I was particularly interested in: “Anti Kim Jong-Il Graffiti” (http://rbbadger.wordpress.com/2011/07/02/anti-kim-jong-il-graffiti/) and “Mao Zedong, the Savior of North Korea.” (http://rbbadger.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/mao-zedong-the-savior-of-north-korea/)The first article was posted on July 2, 2011 as a response to the news that a certain graffiti praising ex-president of South Korea, Park Jung-Hee, and scorning the current leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Il. His tone throughout this post is very informative, and he doesn’t give away much of his reactions or feelings; instead, he simply tells us the gist of the news, with added background knowledge in the intro for those who don’t know about the current situation in North Korea. In the more recent post mentioned above, he summarizes the events of the Korean War, eventually drawing the conclusion that “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army entered the war… without them, one wonders whether or not North Korea would exist today.” He ends his thoughts with a quote from Andrew Salmon’s Korea Times article that gives Mao credit for saving North Korea. It is interesting how, although Salmon’s article is rather biased towards the left with many comments taking China and North Korea’s side and sneering at South Korea’s leftists, he manages to maintain his pacifist position by objectively listing detail by detail without an inch of prejudice detected. By carefully avoiding controversial words such as “winning” and “losing” and refusing to take sides by abstaining from the pronoun “we,” he successfully upholds his objective point of view.

As a whole, this blog provides historical insight to the current issues of the Korean peninsula. Although it does not directly address reunification, it is a valuable source for me and my studies in a way that it allows me to probe into the views of a third party not necessarily on either side of the debate. While his postings aren’t usually too rich in detail or scholarly, he glosses over relevant historical examples and tie them together in a clear, simple manner that is directly linked to his conclusions. My blog will definitely be drawing from more modern evidence and events instead of relying heavily on historical examples, and it will be somewhat more biased due to my background and prior knowledge. 

Hello, World

Throughout my sophomore year, I had an opportunity to participate as vice president of public relations in an organization called “Liberty in North Korea.” With my South Korean roots and what little knowledge I gained from high school East Asian class, I was confident that I knew all there was to know about North Korea and that I was more than qualified to bring peace to the Korean peninsula. I soon realized I was dead wrong, however, in two different senses: one, my responsibilities merely included sending out press releases and selling cookies and shirts to raise money (which are totally honorable, yet not exactly world-changing) and two, there were a lot more to learn about North Korea, not from a completely biased, right-winged South Korean’s perspective, but from an objective third party’s point of view.

Growing up in South Korea with super-conservative parents who refused to utter a word of sympathy towards North Koreans did have a certain degree of influence over my way of thinking. In my wildest imagination, our fellow neighbors up north were either starving to death or cooking up their next plot for yet another military attack. I’ve lived through their attempted flight bombings, numerous submarine attacks, and armed quarrels at the border amongst countless other random “tantrums” that killed and harmed clueless citizens of my own country. I despised their reckless and immature actions filled with pure evil intents that benefited no one, not even themselves.

In my junior year in high school, I actually visited North Korea as a tourist. I got on the bus expecting rows of starving people and begging children, but came back with photos of me in picturesque locations and an amazing three-course meal. What did surprise me, however, was the attitude of North Koreans themselves. Whether they were tour guides, restaurant waitresses or “photo models” (pretty women dressed in traditional attire offering to take pictures with tourists), the civilians only seemed concerned with one matter: their mighty general. Commonly known as Kim Jong Il the dictator to the rest of the world, this dear general was praised and honored in every sentence they pronounced. He was basically a god, a holy entity that creates and controls all matters of life. At first I figured they might be faking it due to the hidden security cameras monitored by the government, but their twinkling eyes and solemn faces expressed nothing but genuine gratitude to the “one and only general who has provided them with such wonderful lives.”

Not a lot of people realize that the Korean peninsula is still in the middle of a war; we’re simply “taking a break.” Under such circumstance, it isn’t highly unusual to hear about military outbreaks and Kim Jong Il’s rant about how his army is going to destroy South Korea and the U.S., and it is definitely too idealistic to hope for a peaceful reunification at this point. Quite a few experts have been hinting at a possibility of a war, perhaps the very first high-tech nuclear war the world has ever seen. The method with which reunification takes place, however, isn’t currently within the boundaries of my interest; what I really want to analyze is the aftermath of reunification. As previously discussed in my recollections of the North Korea trip, the civilians of NK possess a certain mindset completely different from ours that messing with their beliefs would be like telling the most devoted Christians that God doesn’t exist – ineffective and a total waste of time. When the entire peninsula merges and the NK “general is god” civilians and SK “Kim Jong Il is a devil from hell” civilians are forced to mingle, what will happen? Would North Koreans be happier where they are now, completely clueless of the rest of the world yet perfectly content with what they have? Are we trying to muddle with their ideology because we, as the rest of the world, are simply too caught up with the idea of being heroes that we are completely disregarding the perspective of the NK civilians? Given that the U.S. wins this hypothetical war, would North Koreans who have been trained from birth to despise Americans reach their hands out and yell “save us?”

In the following weeks, I would like to analyze the mindset and the culture of NK civilians and the relationship between them and their leaders, measure the difference between their reality and what we are assuming it to be, and ultimately determine if reunification would be a successful process for all nations involved. If you are interested in this issue and learn more about it, visit the following blogs:

http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-everything-began.html

This Austrian traveler gives a detailed travelogue about his trip to the hermit kingdom. In contrast to my trip that has been strictly censored and probably distorted out of reality, his recollections give a better sense of where North Korea actually stands.

http://friendsofkorea.blogspot.com/

This is a blog created by London-based communists, and thus gives a different perspective on the whole issue of North Korea threatening world peace.

http://nkleadershipwatch.wordpress.com/

Accompanied by reliable photos and official statements, this blog follows Kim Jong Il and updates the world on his whereabouts.