North Korea Shmorth Korea

I know a lot of friends and family are becoming increasingly concerned about what is happening in North Korea. I'm writing this entry to put them at ease and also to share a little bit about what I have learned about the North. I was let in on some of the differences in the North and South today by my students and couple examples are the lack of religion and the cultural differences in language. North Korea is like a home-schooled child, at home with their parents things seem normal but when released into the wild they show obvious signs of awkward dysfunction. If a South Korean attempted to talk with a North Korean, the North Korean would be very confused by the South Korean's lingo and phrasing. North Korean has stuck to its traditional language and has not change much since 1953. South Korea on the other hand has had the western world to influence its business dealings, diplomacy, military, and even education since the end of the Korean War. More specifically the U.S. holds a strong military presence here along with thousands of foreigners that teach ESL like myself.

My students made it clear that Kim Jong Ill would like nothing more than to unify his Korean countrymen into one glorious nation-state but he would dare not do such a thing with American swine infecting half of the peninsula. All the bullshit with nukes and journalist captives is a ploy to get attention from the U.S. (which usually works) and persuade them to politely leave the country (which will never happen). Its really quite simple then, Mr. Kim wants us out and to re-unite the nation. Funny though, I highly doubt these folks want to be a part of his regime. South Korea does just fine economically and with the fall of GM and Chrysler soon to fall, I'm sure the car companies here are about to get even busier.

I just wanted to give you folks a little background of what the fuss is about and that there's no need to worry. I don't know any Koreans that concern themselves with news on North Korea so I don't see that any of you should either. The best comparison I could make is an Oklahomans reaction to a tornado siren, a shrug of the shoulders, possibly check the TV to see if you're going to be in the path and then go on about your business.