Still Nothing to See Here

People often say that Koreans don't pay much attention to DPRK's saber-rattling. Well, today's Korea Herald front page apparently didn't get the memo.


That story they head "NK warns foreigners to leave South Korea" is titled "NK trying to scare foreigners in South" by the Korea Times. Neither article plays up any actual concerns about imminent threat--and certainly none that should worry foreigners more than natives.

Curiously, none of my friends and family back home has emailed or FB'ed me or anything to tell me to get the hell out. Maybe you guys don't care about me any more ... Or maybe you are getting accustomed to the rigmarole surrounding the Kim dynasty's need for attention. Still, just to waylay any fears, I do have ready access to sufficient assets to effect a timely exit, should that be required.

The downside is that by the time I could actually get a flight out (to anywhere), make my way home, and have a patty melt on wheat plate, scatteredsmotheredandcovered, the game here would be over and time to move back.

In other news, I see Hyori is set to release her first album since 2010. I'm not too excited, as I didn't care all that much for the last one. It seemed so ... derivative.

A Security Message for U.S. Citizens

... from the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. It begins:

The U.S. Embassy informs U.S. citizens that despite current political tensions with North Korea there is no specific information to suggest there are imminent threats to U.S. citizens or facilities in the Republic of Korea (ROK). The Embassy has not changed its security posture and we have not recommended that U.S. citizens who reside in, or plan to visit, the Republic of Korea take special security precautions at this time. The U.S. Embassy takes as its highest priority the welfare of American citizens in Korea. Should the security situation change, the Embassy will issue updated information.

We urge U.S. citizens to keep in regular contact with family and friends. U.S. citizens living or traveling abroad are encouraged to enroll in the Department of State's Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP), to receive the latest travel updates and information and to obtain updated information on travel and security issues.

It then goes on about how to contact them, etc, etc.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Book Report: Escape from Camp 14

Blaine Harden, an American journalist with an impeccable pedigree from the Washington Post, New York Times and Time magazine, has written a powerful book about the amazing journey of Shin Dong-hyuk.  Shin was born and raised in a North Korean labor camp for political prisoners. As a child of the camp, he was malnourished, inadequately clothed, uneducated, always hungry, and taught from birth to ‘inform” on all others in the camp. As a teenager, he informed camp guards of a plan by his mother and older brother to escape, and was later forced to watch as they were executed, wondering if he was next. 

       Later, when he decided to escape, his co-escapee was killed by the electrified fence surrounding the camp, and he crawled over his friend’s dead body to get away.  It took a month, keeping a low profile, traveling with small bands of itinerant traders, stealing when necessary, to make his way to China; he was lucky to find work on an ethnic Korean's pig farm, where the comparative easy life, and some grilled meat, allowed his tortured body to heal.  Eventually, he managed to get to the South Korean Consulate in Shanghai, which kept him for six months before transferring him to South Korea.
       After two years, unable to adjust to life in South Korea, a common problem with NK defectors, he went to the United States to become a human rights activist, a still-ongoing process.  Harden met him in Seoul, and followed up with a series of interviews in California, during the course of which Shin finally broke down and told the truth about informing on his mother.
       In the selection I have copied below, Harden tells about seeing a speech of Shin's as part of an NGO concerned with NK human rights.  I used this selection in my public speaking class because it draws attention to several elements of successful public speaking, while summarizing many of the key elements of Shin's life story.

Without notes, without a hint of nerves, he spoke for a solid hour. He began by goading his audience of Korean immigrants and their American-raised adult children, asserting that Kim Jong Il was worse than Hitler. While Hitler attacked his enemies, Shin said Kim worked his own people to death in places like Camp 14.
       Having grabbed the congregation’s attention, Shin then introduced himself as a predator who had been bred in the camp to inform on family and friends—and to feel no remorse. “The only thing I thought was that I had to prey on others for my survival,” he said
       In the camp, when his teacher beat a six-year-old classmate to death for having five grains of corn in her pocket, Shin confessed to the congregation that he “didn’t think much about it.”
       “I did not know about sympathy or sadness,” he said. “They educated us from birth so that we were not capable of normal human emotions. Now that I am out, I am learning to be emotional. I have learned to cry. I feel like I am becoming human.”
       But Shin made it clear that he still had a long way to go. “I escaped physically,” he said. “I haven’t escaped psychologically.”
      Near the end of his speech, Shin described how he crawled over Park’s [his fellow escapee] smoldering body. His motives in fleeing Camp 14, he said, were not noble. He did not thirst for freedom or political rights. He was merely hungry for meat.
       Shin’s speech astonished me. Compared to the diffident, incoherent speaker I had seen six months earlier in Southern California, he was unrecognizable. He had harnessed his self-loathing and used it to indict the state that had poisoned his heart and killed his family.
       His confessional, I later learned, was the calculated result of hard work. Shin had noticed that his meandering question-and-answer sessions were putting people to sleep. So he decided to act on advice he had been resisting for years: he outlined his speech, tailored it to his audience, and [decided exactly] what he wanted to say. In a room by himself, he polished his delivery.
       Preparation paid off. That evening, his listeners squirmed in their pews, their faces showing discomfort, disgust, anger, and shock. Some faces were stained with tears. When Shin was finished, when he told the audience that one man, if he refuses to be silenced, could help free the tens of thousands who remain in North Korea’s labor camps, the church exploded in applause.

Meeting a North Korean

Talk to enough South Koreans, and eventually you meet North Koreans. Our little street in Bongcheon (see the previous post) is populated by ethnic North Koreans who came here through China a generation ago. At my school, I have mentioned we have a boy from North Korea, whose family arrived here in March or April 2011. He came to our school about two weeks after second semester began, in September 2011.

His English was non-existent, and his Korean, at least of the variety spoken in the South, nearly so. Over the course of a semester, he improved considerably, and even semed to understand me a few times. But mostly, as my co-teacher told me, he was overwhelmed and nonplussed by what was happening around him--he has not had much schooling. We have worried about whether he will ever fit in.

Tonight, I met a young man who went through a similar process back in 2001, at about the same age. Ten years later, he is in university here, and was able to speak to me in English quite adequately.

He left NK with his family--his father, his sister and himself--after years of hardship after being sent to a cold, remote area near the Russian border. They were being punished for some error his grandfather had made as a cadre many years before, apparently in the time of Kim Il-sung. What did the grandfather do? He doesn't know. Even his father doesn't know.

Why did they escape? Unrelenting poverty and starvation. How did they escape? They bribed the guards with some food and simply walked across the Tumen River to China. We know there was spate of refugees around this time due to the late 1990s famine.

After about two years in China, they felt endangered and made their way to Mongolia--to the capital, Ulan Bator, and flew to South Korea. How did you get the money for this flight? He wasn't sure, but his father was able to work in China, and it was probably that.

What happened to your mother, why didn't she come with you? "It's a lie," he told me. Huh? "They lied to us," he insisted. The said she had a disease, he couldn't explain it in English.

At this point, his more fluent friend stepped in and showed me in his cellphone dic that it was tuberculosis. The saddest part of the story is that he still does not believe this tale: if his mother died of TB and he doesn't believe it, that's sad. If she hasn't died (or doesn't even have TB), he'll probably never know, and that's just as sad, really.

By the time he came to South Korea, after two years in China and Mongolia, assimilating was not as difficult a time for him as my student has had. What do you miss from North Korea? Nothing. What was the hardest change about living in the South? His father finding work. He is a journalist and writer, but it is still difficult.

Was my chain being pulled? I doubt it, partly because there's no advantage for this young man to lie to me, and secondly because of his tale's internal and external consistency.

So, should we hope his Mom is still alive in NK, probably in a "re-education camp" or a backwards hospital, or should we hope she has passed beyond the tortures of the family member left behind? Cf., Morton's fork.

News From the North

Springtime is creeping northward on the peninsula, and so is reaching the DPRK about now, hopefully giving its impoverished masses a few moments of joy while they enjoy the sun on their backs.

Alas, this bright sunshine may be obscured for many in the North: in addition to "fresh U.N. sanctions for a nuclear test in May and flooding a few months ago that wiped out farmland in a country that already faces chronic food shortages (Reuters)", NASA Earth Observatory posted this image of widespread forest fires:

[The Aqua] satellite captured this image of smoke pouring from dozens of fires (marked in red) in North Korea. These fires could be related to agricultural burning; however, the huge plumes of smoke blowing eastward from some of the coastal fires suggest that those blazes are forest or other wildland fires. Much of the Korean Peninsula’s precipitation falls between June and September during the “wet” monsoon phase. Therefore, these fires are burning at one of the driest times of the year.

The Reuters story reports that no official word has come from DPRK media, but today's Korea Times online has this:

“This year there are many reports of forest fires in North Korea. Residents here are waiting for it to stop spreading by itself. They are also criticizing those who are trying to put out the fires,” reported a North Korean radio broadcast.
According to the media, residents are happy about these fires because the land will be cleared for farming and firewood will be readily available to them.

Gotta wonder about the logic (or English) there: burning down a tree doesn't create firewood, but fired wood. Further, the clearing of land for agriculture is meaningless in an extended cycle of drought and flooding when you lack modern means of irrigation. Like, say, North Korea.

Of course, it's not the residents saying those things, but the party cadres, whose job it is to prove that in North Korea, shit doesn't stink.

Speaking of which, the Daily NK has a story about the spread of Paratyphus in Pyongyang--a bacterial disease associated with poor sewage, flooding and civil engineering failures common to the Third World. Like Pyongyang, sadly.

Since the disease is bacterial and highly contagious, treatment is best done in isolation, while the area where the disease breaks out should be thoroughly disinfected.
However, a country with limited resources such as North Korea struggles to deal with such things. The source explained, "Paratyphus normally spreads through water and defecation, and has spread quickly now because the water pipes here are old and there is a lack of water treatment chemicals.”
“There is a water treatment plant in Nakrang district but there are no chemicals so the authorities are at a loss as to what to do," the source went on.
Nevertheless, the North Korean authorities are doing what they are best at; working to control passage through areas where the disease is currently spreading in an effort to hinder its movement. According to the source, "Public Security Agency guard posts have been set up all over."
In addition, the authorities are allegedly only approving travel for people carrying certificates confirming that they have been vaccinated against the disease. The vaccination and certificate are both officially free; however, this is not really the case in corruption-ridden North Korea.
Therefore, since the cost of the certificate is expensive and obtaining it troublesome, many small traders and other travelers are said to be bribing their way past the guard posts with money or cigarettes.

North Koreans deserve better than this. That is an obvious statement, but one that the Chinese government and the Kim regime's other enablers need to recognize. Also, something more South Koreans need to become more passionate about...

Education News

1) This week's education news roundup opens with the headliner, "More 'fat schools' north of Han River", detailing the increase in overweight and obesity among Korea's youth. Welcome to the First World, Taehan Minguk!

According to data obtained by a member of the National Assembly’s Education, Science and Technology Committee and reported in the Joongang Daily, 64 of 1,276 Seoul schools were "fat", meaning 20 percent or more of the schools' students were overweight by BMI measurement.

The article tried to make sense of the data by purely geographic means: north of the river, "nine out of the top 10 schools with the lowest obesity rates were found in Songpa," eight "fat schools" in Gangseo (my district, but certainly not my school), etc. Random pins in a map, really. I suspect a more meaningful breakdown might be accomplished by a socioeconomic rubric...

Education, Science and Technology Committee member Rep. Park Young-ah commented: "There is a need for schools and also the government to provide measures for physical education, health programs and education on right eating habits."

No one mentioned the report I blogged about last year that 60 percent of Seoul high schools plan to cut P.E. classes for 3rd graders.

2) Students cry foul over soaring fees

According to a governmental report, Korea’s college fees ranked second-highest among OECD members following the U.S. in 2007 when it marked $8,519 a year for private schools.
In a separate report by the National Assembly, the annual university fee reached 7.5 million won in 2010 for private schools and 5 million won for public schools. The amount exceeds 10 million won for medical schools. Adding costs for class materials and lodgings, the money easily surpasses 10 million. The sum amounts to about 23 percent of the average Korean’s income of 32 million won.

Debate and discussion of soaring higher education costs promise to monopolize the policy chat forums for some time to come, since the problem seems as intractable as it is in the US. University costs are rising faster than private sector incomes. For instance, the article says that 189 private universities had 7,353 buildings in their campus in 2008 ― up 279 from the previous year ― suggesting that 1.5 buildings per school have been built within a year.

Detractors suggest that new buildings are just another way for universities to increase slush funds, pointing out that:

As of 2009, Ewha Womans University, Yonsei University and Hongik University have been piling up 738 billion won, 511 billion won and 485 billion won, respectively. Korea University, which has recently announced a 5.1 percent tuition hike, has also set 230 billion won aside. The amount of reserves for these prestigious schools has risen by double digits over the past three years, despite their complaints.

Interesting stat:

[U]niversities have been stingy about investing to enhance students’ and professors’ capacity and aptitude. The KHERI found the private universities spent only 0.9 percent of their budgets on books for their libraries. The portion has risen only 0.04 percent over 10 years. On average, the number of books per student is 58.5, a far cry from Stanford’s 703 and MIT’s 259 in the United States.

Well, okay, but I wonder what that ratio is at, say, University of West Georgia. Ah, 47.

During the 2008 election cycle, the Lee Myung-bak campaign promoted a "half-tuition" policy, whereby the government would fund half of a student's tuition costs. However, it seems to have gone nowhere, and is currently "at the forefront" of the main opposition Democratic Party's platform for next year's elections.

3) Story K Research Center of Youth Intellectuals Forum (whatever the hell that may be) has released a report touted in yesterday's Dong-A Ilbo about pro-North Korea bias in Korean history textbooks. Before venturing any further, it must be said that the DongA is the "rightest" of Korea's right wing dominated media. And they are very poor about labeling opinion pieces as such. For instance:

On North Korean leader Kim Jong Il handing over power to his youngest son Jong Un, five of the six textbooks surveyed used the term "inheritance" or "formation of inheritance structure" instead of "succession." In a father-to-son power succession, something which is hard to find in a civilized society, use of the term "inheritance" to describe the event is inaccurate.

Possibly there's a translation issue, but I don't see the huge difference, since succession means "the right of a person or line" to take over. That North Korea has reverted to a feudal power structure seems obvious, and both terms seem to me adequate for relaying the fact.

The five textbooks also turned a blind eye to the human rights of North Koreans, who are suffering under dictatorship and suppression. One of the textbooks that mentions human rights also blurs the subject by saying, "An issue more important than human rights, including political prisoner camps in North Korea, is the defection of North Koreans who are suffering from hunger."

Well, if the textbook mentions human rights, it clearly didn't turn a blind eye, though it may have given them short shrift. I don't know, I would need to read the text. However, it could be argued that the starvation deaths of 3 million people is more important than maybe 200,000 people in political or re-education prison camps, at least from a purely humanitarian perspective. No one is arguing that things north of the 38th are going well.

The article is correct that it is wrong to say NK is "suspected" of developing nuclear weapons, when it has detonated two such bombs; however, it's rather simplistic to deny the role of antagonistic foreign powers in spurring the regime on. While the Clinton administration had effectively reined in Pyongyang's nuke program, the swaggering, tough-(non)talking Bush approach clearly raised tensions and whipped up Kim's paranoia. Rightist oversimplifications of history are no less dangerous than simpering lefties'.

The new textbooks have been published after undergoing a string of obstacles and struggle, including legal battles, amid social consensus that left-leaning history textbooks should be corrected following the inauguration of the Lee Myung-bak administration. Nevertheless, textbooks meant to view the North as an "immanent being" and to overlook objectivity and historical facts have not been corrected. This is believed to be closely related to the structural problem of South Korea’s history sector. Amid an overly nationalistic perspective over history, the environment of a certain school of South Korea’s history community that accepts and justifies everything on North Korean history is apparently worsening this problem.

The Korean culture wars, like those of America, are so often fought in the classroom. To quote T. Jefferson: "Educate and inform the whole mass of the people...they are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."

Art and Tyranny

Today's NYT has a story of interest for those of us who "watch" unhinged despots like North Korea's Kim Jong-il and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, or in this case, both.  Some might be interested to learn that the two countries share more than just insane, murderous tyrants at the helm whose "socialist" policies have ruined their economies, enabled by greedy, corrupt political cadres. 

For instance, there's the Joshua Nkomo statue erected in Bulawayo.  Nkomo was Mugabe's chief political rival in the early days after the end of white rule in then-Rhodesia--but Mugabe's ZANU Party won the elections in 1980, and that was that.  The two rival leaders (in broad terms, ZANU represented the Shona peoples, and Nkomo's ZAPU faction were Matabele) started off all friendly, but Nkomo was variously imprisoned or exiled during the Gukurahundi Massacres of Ndebeles, finally folding his machinery into Mugabe's ZAPU in 1987, leaving Zim a one-party state. 

So, last year, Mugabe goes and erects a statue of Nkomo like they were best friends.  This naturally teed off a lot of Ndebeles and Nkomo supporters whose families were massacred by Mugabe's special forces, the so-called 5th Brigade, from about 1983 to 1987.  

What's this got to with DPRK, you may be asking.  Two things: first, Mugabe's 5th Brigade were actually trained in North Korea starting in 1980, while Kim Il-sung was still in charge; second, it turns out the statue was actually manufactured in North Korea, according to reports. 

And frankly, it doesn't have a lot to do with the NYT article, except by way of background.  The article does mention another interesting, or chilling, episode in the relations between these two rogue nations:

Before the World Cup in South Africa in June, a minister in Mr. Mugabe’s party, ZANU-PF, invited the North Korean soccer team, on behalf of Zimbabwe’s tourism authority, to base itself in Bulawayo before the games began, a gesture that roused a ferocious outcry. After all, it was North Korea that trained and equipped the infamous Fifth Brigade, which historians estimate killed at least 10,000 civilians in the Ndebele minority between 1983 and 1987.

“To us it opened very old wounds,” Thabitha Khumalo, a member of Parliament, said of the attempt to bring the North Korean team to the Ndebele heartland. “We’re being reminded of the most horrible pain. How dare they? Our loved ones are still buried in pit latrines, mine shafts and shallow graves.”

The North Korean team did not come to Zim, and was humiliated in its three games, scoring one goal while giving up 12.  But don't blame the coach, Dear Leader was there via invisible phone to give advice. 
Anyway, the article.  It concerns mainly an art exhibit at the National Gallery in Bulawayo (the nation's second city) that is now a crime scene, because it depicts the Gukurahundi on numerous large canvases, complete with "recurrent, menacing images of a man in oversize glasses — Mr. Mugabe."

By way of contrast between the lunatic sadistic tyrant that is Robert Mugabe and the lunatic sadistic Stalinist tyrant that is Kim Jong-il, the latest art controversy from the peninsular gulag is: which glorious leader Kim is being beatified in this painting?

From Foreign Policy

Is it Great Leader Kim Il-sung, or [Adjective] Leader-to-be Kim Jong-un, for whose ascendancy fifty South Korean citizens have been sacrificed so far.  (I'm counting 46 from the ROKS Cheonan and 4 from the Yeongpyeongdo shelling.)  For North Koreans unable to make the trek to the Rajin Art Gallery in the country's northeast, what with freezing and starving to death and all, the government is helpfully handing out his portrait:

According to sources, there are variations of Kim Jong-un’s portrait that are being handed out: a portrait of the son in a military suit is to be given to those in the military, while there are versions with Kim standing in an suit and another featuring the young successor examining documents. Representative members of North Korea’s Workers’ Party received their copies of Kim Jong-un’s portrait on Sept. 28 during the party’s rare convention. A source in Ryanggang Province said teams of regional officials had been formed to inspect the status of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong-il portraits in North Korean homes ahead of Kim Jong-un’s portrait distribution.

Look at this site of Kim Jong-il looking at things: http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/

I'm Still Standing

After being postponed twice due to heavy fog, shelling drills by ROK forces in the Yelllow Sea near the NLL (Northern Limit Line) continued today beginning at 2:30 PM. They ended at 4:04 PM.

Source

And I am still here in Seoul, safe, and well. While North Korea had reiterated its threat of "a nuclear war disaster" and promised to "inflict decisive and unrelenting punishment on aggressors that infringe upon the sovereignty and territory of our republic," just this Sunday, the response from Pyongyang to the resumpton of the periodic "war games" has been unusually calm. Says Korea Times:

The North gave a mixed response to the drill, which began at 2:30 p.m. after being postponed twice due to heavy fog.
“We have no interest in responding to each one of such despicable military provocations,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said, hinting that it may refrain from any immediate retaliation.
However, the Supreme Command of the North Korean People’s Army, warned of harsh retaliatory measures, saying “its limitless revolutionary force” would wipe out the “strongholds of the American and South Korean warmongers” through stronger counter strikes than its earlier artillery attack on Nov. 23 [on Yeonpyeongdo, in which 2 South Korean civilians were killed].

Prior to the drill, some 280 remaining residents of the Yellow Sea island were ordered into air raid shelters, according to JoongAng Daily, in its only really up-to-date online coverage. Until last month, Yeonpyeongdo was a sleepy fishing village with a marine garrison dug in due to the proximity to the NLL. It certainly doesn't resemble Baghdad in any way, shape or form, so one has to wonder who fell for this picture here:

Source

The story reads, in part:

One particularly stunning aerial image of plumes of smoke coming from a bombed-out territory made it onto local broadcaster KBS and even CNN. It turns out that image was a fake. The territory being bombed wasn’t Yeonpyeong at all, but Baghdad during the initial days of the U.S. invasion of 2003.

Okay, back from Lala Land. But not quite, as I'm now going to look at what some would call the two extremes of US news, Fox vs NYT.
Fox offers this: "The North on Monday, however, kept its rhetoric heated, saying it will use its powerful military to blow up South Korean and U.S. bases." Well, DPRK always talks tough, so no one actually reports on the bluffs, but on the small bits of meaning hidden away between the bully language. What, are you guys trying to stir things up?

NYT offers this snippet, amidst their coverage of Bill Richardson's stay in Pyongyang: "Earlier Monday, South Korean television showed footage of the few remaining residents of the island’s fishing community moving into bomb shelters and trying on gas masks as the mainland also braced itself for possible North Korean retaliation." In the context of those nearby trying on gas masks, one might suppose that we on the mainland "bracing ourselves" would include some kind of actual behavior toward that end.

Uh, nope. Not at all. I taught class during the entire timeframe of the fusillade, and never heard an air raid warning or anything. A couple hours later, I went to dinner utilizing a subway system totally free from emergency measures (apparent ones, at least). If "bracing yourself" means carrying on just like always, then they're right.

Each story comes with a photo from the AP (top, Fox; bottom, NYT):

Both photos have oodles of atmosphere and loads of tension. Personally, I prefer the second one, because it's more personal. Your thoughts? BTW, the yellow band reads 통일, meaning "Unity."

Blog News:
So, Dear Reader, I am still here in Seoul, still standing (well, sitting and typing), and proud to announce that this is blog post number 600 since I started gardening here in The Seoul Patch two and a half years ago!

Different This Time, And The Same

I am referring to the North Korean show of force last week that left two Korean civilians dead.  While it's true that the North has racheted-up its "acting-out behaviors" as we educators say of snotty-nosed little assholes, in recent months, the shelling of a fishing village on a border island called Yeonpyeongdo, was highly unusual.

North Korea has broken the peace several times in the nearly sixty years since the truce was declared at Panmunjom--most recently, apparently, in the sinking of a "Pohang-class" corvette cruiser named ROKS Cheonan--but its targets are pretty much always military or governmental.  Forty-six sailors died aboard the Cheonan, two marines were killed at Yeonpyeongdo.  True, there was the Geumgangsan resort shooting--but that was the case of a (possibly soju-addled) ajumma shot by a pimply-faced recruit who panicked.   Meanwhile, tens of thousands in Kim Jong-il's concentration camps have withered away, been stoned to death or shot for attempted escape....

It's also different this time in the reaction of many South Koreans.  They have been angered by aggressive action from the North before this, of course, but there seems to be a feeling of betrayal this time--they killed regular Koreans, not soldiers, but their brothers!  We send them rice, we keep them from freezing to death in the winter cold, and they kill their own relatives?  Enough!

So that's what's different.  What's the same?  First and foremost, of course, are the reasons behind Pyongyang's actions:; scholarly concensus and newspaper punditry agree (read here my favorite source, the Daily NK):

Why did the Kim Jong Il regime carry out this act of aggression?The priorities for the Kim Jong Il regime are as follows, in the order given; 1. Maintain the current system; 2. Hand down power with stability; 3. Draw up domestic and foreign policies to solve problems such as feeding the people.
North Korea's attack on Yeonpyeong Island, and its revealing of a uranium enrichment facility earlier this month, are directly related to priorities 1, 2 and 3, and move the country one step closer to its stated goal of becoming a “strong and prosperous nation” by 2012. The regime's intention to steer the Lee Myung Bak North Korea policy towards failure is clear, and there are two reasons for this; the short-term goals that lie openly before our eyes, and North Korea's oft-repeated, broader goal of 'resolving fundamental issues between the U.S. and North Korea'.

Also the same: international condemnation, roundly stated, but basically futile as long as China doesn't make an effort to rein in the Dear Leader.  That DPRK continues to see the US as its primary enemy and the ROK as her "puppets" should be no surprise, since there's no other way NK soldiers could stomach aiming at their kith and kin.  This is not an exaggeration--I mentioned in the post immediately preceding this one how relational the Korean language is, no matter which side of the 38th parallel you are on. 

But what most stays the same is the refusal of the North Korean cadres to conform their world view to the observable circumstances around them: for instance, the per capita income north of the 38th parallel is 7.0% of what it is south of it on the Korean peninsula.  South Koreans have a more-or-less fully functioning liberal democracy in which every vote counts--hell, election day is a holiday here!  While the media here is rather blinkered and conservative, it has few governmental limitations and is sure-as-hell-NOT some kind of US proxy! 

Here is a photo from DongA (thanks to blogger bud Adeel for this) showing North Korea as seen from Yeonpyeongdo, with a less-than-subliminal message for the masses:



위대한 수령 김일성 동지 혁명사상 만세 -
"Long live the revolutionary ideas of the Great Leader Kim Il-sung"

 Interestingly, it was the DongA, of all the paps today, that reported anything other than the resignations/firing of Lee Myung-bak's two main military dudes (is this really the best timing for that?)  due to some verbal miscues in the immediate aftermath of the Yeonpyeongdo incident.  The story focused on Cheongwadae's dealings with Chinese leaders to act.  Titled China begins action on defusing inter-Korean tension, the story provides hope, but little, alas, in the way of concrete measures China is taking, or even promising to take.  I mean, "China is committed to peace and stability on the [Korean] peninsula?"

Who the hell isn't?  Except Kim Jong-il, of course.

US Embassy Seoul - To Me

Artillery Firing into Northwest Islands Off the Coast of Korea

The U.S. Embassy in Seoul is transmitting the following information through the Embassy's Warden System as a public service to all U.S. citizens in the Republic of Korea. Please disseminate this message broadly to U.S. citizens.

This warden message is being issued in response to reports of North Korean artillery firing into the Northwest Islands (Yeonpyeong-do) off the coast of the Republic of Korea the afternoon of November 23, 2010. This artillery exchange was isolated to the Northwest Island area of the Republic of Korea and ceased as of 3:30 p.m. The Embassy is closely monitoring the situation. Should the security situation change, the Embassy will update this warden message.

U.S. citizens living or traveling in South Korea are encouraged to register with the Embassy through the State Department’s travel registration website: https://travelregistration.state.gov/ibrs/ui/. U.S. citizens without internet access may register in person at the U.S. Embassy. Registration is a voluntary way of telling us that you, as a U.S. citizen, are in Korea, whether for a long-term stay or for a short visit. In the event of an emergency, we use registration information to communicate with you. This could include a family emergency in which relatives in the United States request that the Embassy contact you.

For the latest security information worldwide, U.S. citizens should regularly monitor the State Department’s website at http://travel.state.gov where the current Worldwide Caution, Travel Warnings, and Travel Alerts can be found. Up-to-date information on security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the Unites States, or, for callers from outside the United States and Canada, a regular toll line at 1-202-501-4444. These numbers are available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays).

End text.

Today's Headlines

The Korea Herald, JoongAng Daily and Dong-A Ilbo all lead today's online editions with a story on President Lee's proposal for a "Unification Tax" to prepare for the costs of the inevitable fall of the North Korean regime and the costs that will ensue.

The No. 2 story across the paps is yesterday's Gwanghwamun reopening ceremonies, after the gate was burned down by a mentally ill man in 2008. The celebration coincided with Korean Liberation Day, marking 65 years of Korean independence from Japanese colonization.

The Korea Times, of course, ignored all that historic stuff, and topped its frontpage with Woman claims Donald Duck groped her breasts. Stay classy, KT.

April Magolon, from Upper Darby, Delaware, says the incident happened when she visited the Florida theme park with her fiancé and kids in May 2008. She said she was holding one of her children and trying to get the character’s autograph.
A 38-page lawsuit has been filed in Orlando, claiming Magolon feels traumatized two years on, suffering from anxiety, headaches, nausea, cold sweats, insomnia, nightmares, flashbacks and digestive problems, according the media.

This kind of story appears every few years but, alas, there's usually nothing much in it. I am not attempting to make light of actual abuse, but this is pretty much hooey. First of all, in this case, Donald Duck is almost always portrayed by a woman, since it is one of the smaller characters. Secondly, the "cast member" inside most any mascot suit has an extremely limited range of vision; Disney characters have handlers for that reason. Further, the "groper's" hands are contained in a rather thick costume--the sensation to be achieved is minimal to non-existent. More debunking of the fondling mascot can be found at Slate.

By the way, here I am being goosed by Bugs Bunny, in Spring 2003--I had repressed the memory until just now. I'll be announcing the lawsuit shortly; stay tuned to these pages.

An Instructive Example?

During the course of the just-ended World Cup, I made comments to the effect that the players for the North Korean soccer team and their families would be sent to re-education camp should the team do poorly.

Well, the team did poorly indeed, losing all three of their group round games, including a 0 - 7 thrashing by Portugal. This last after Kim Jong-il, Dear Leader, consented to show the game live nationwide following the NK's strong performance in a 1 - 2 loss to perennial powerhouse Brazil. Quelle humiliation!

The Telegraph (UK) posted a story on Friday which reported that the NK coach Kim Jong-hun will spend the next few years as a day laborer at a constructon site, after being subjected to "a six-hour grilling from 400 officials of the Communist country's hardline regime," during which his players were forced to blame him for their failure.

That story was later picked up by The Sun, which put its own particular spin on the story, opening with:

As Fabio Capello keeps his £6million-a-year job and enjoys a long holiday despite England's failure, Kim Jong-Hun, 53, will be grafting as a labourer for up to 14 hours a day.

:

While The Sun didn't bother provide sources (natch!) The Telegraph sourced "Radio Free Asia and South Korean media". According to its story, "Reports in South Korea said the Portugal thrashing was a result of direct orders from Kim Jong-Il to switch to an attacking style."

I found two stories online from the major South Korean papers: Korea Herald (2010-08-02) was scooped by Chosun Ilbo (2010-07-28) by nearly a week! The Herald admits its story is "according to The Sun". And the Chosun report relies on RFA and "A source in Sinuiju" for its facts:

Around 400 officials including the vice minister of the Workers' Party, Sports Minister Pak Myong-chol, other athletes and sport students were apparently part of the audience. Ri Dong-kyu, a sports commentator for the North's state-run Korean Central TV, pointed out the mistakes of each player.

So, who is actually behind this story? Looks like Radio Free Asia, which is a propaganda arm of the United States government. The story, from 2010-07-28, is headed World Cup Team Shamed, Reprimanded.

And it may well be true. After all, just a few months ago, DPRK executed Pak Nam-gi, the dude who had been North Korea's finance minister for about two decades, when the "screw with the money" plan didn't work out. After TWENTY YEARS in that job, he was labeled a "bourgeois infiltrator" who deliberately ruined the NK economy.

In that oeuvre, it is not unreasonable to expect an unfortunate outcomefor one who has shamed the great and almighty DPRK once again in the world of sports competition.

But, perhaps it is not so. The best source for NK information that I know is available online to everyone; it is, simply, Daily NK. Today's story on this topic seems to contradict the conventional wisdom! Have look at this:

An Myung Hak and Jung Tae Se, Korean-Japanese players who ply their trade outside the country, were not present, RFA added.
The report also repeated a rumor from Shinuiju whereby Kim Jong Hun had been expelled from the Party for, allegedly, betraying successor Kim Jong Eun’s trust.
However, sources from North Korea told The Daily NK that immediately after the North reached the World Cup Finals there were widespread celebrations and the coach was handed the prestigious “People’s Athlete” title. As one source pointed out, “In that situation, punishing him may have brought about side effects in public opinion.”

It's (Not) So Funny

"It's So Funny" apparently isn't. It is, however, one of the longest-running TV comedy shows in the world. And it comes from North Korea, one of the grimmest, unfunniest places on the planet.

But what the show lacks in humor, it makes up for in propaganda. Most episodes consist of a man and woman, each dressed in military uniform, conversing with each other--or more precisely, praising the policies of Dear Leader--with frequent bursts of dubious laughter. Back in April, Reuters ran a story about the show, including an interview with NK defector-turned-TV-presenter Kim Yong. They showed him a recent episode that the article described this way:

There was one long send-up that did gather a few chuckles. The two talk about how bean-fed North Korean soldiers were able to fight off U.S. imperialist troops during the Korean War.
The women soldier, playing the part of an old woman, said bean-fed troops including her husband had amazing strength on the battle field. "But he died," she said.
The show concludes with the two delivering homilies on Kim Jong-il's military rule.
"He had tried so hard to fill the people's tables," they say in tearful voices.

"The show is delivering the same material over and over again," Kim said, after viewing it. "They are still talking about beans. The country hasn't changed at all since I defected about 20 years ago."

Of course, North Koreans still have a sense of humor, even if there is little to laugh about, as per the Irish proverb: "Laughter is brightest in the place where the food is."

Here is a collection of recent jokes from Radio Free Asia: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/koreanjokes-09102008183510.html. And here is a collection from Ask A Korean: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/01/ask-korean-news-north-korean-jokes.html

Latest From North of the Border

It's official. These are desperate times in North Korea.

Despite their success at building about five nuclear bombs, they still haven't managed to make rockets capable of delivering them anywhere outside their own backyard.

Even though they qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1966 (when they stunned Italy 1 - 0 in the round of 16), DPRK was joined by only Cameroon in being ousted from this edition by losing every game in group play. In their defense, I should point out that Group G was the 2010 Group of Death.

Although the military managed to torpedo the ROKS Cheonan while it was on regular patrol, it didn't disrupt anyone's resolve, or even cause a hiccup in the Foal Eagle/Key Resolve joint training exercise that was going on at the time.

Captain Kim, or Jong-un, Dear Leader Kim Jong-il's third son and heir to the stinkweed throne, has been paraded about lately, but doesn't seem to inspire much confidence or adulation so far.

Likewise, the execution by firing squad of Pak Nam-gi, North Korea's Finance Minister (well, director of the Planning and Finance Department of North Korean Workers' Party), for his being a "bourgeois infiltrator" who deliberately ruined the NK economy, has failed to inspire confidence in the other leaders to run the economy.

In truth, all these moves were designed to distract the populace from the state of the economy and its inability to provide said populace with the basic necessities. This report from Daily NK paints a picture of the regime's failures from an unnamed source (of course) inside:

“In the second meeting of the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly on April 9th, a delegate from Hamju in South Hamkyung Province reported that on each cheongbo (9,917m²) paddy they had produced 11 tons of rice, and in similar size fields they had produced 15 tons of grain. However, people said that what he said was all crap.”
Then, he added, “In the same meeting, there was a resolution adopted whereby the Sungkang Steel Mill would guarantee iron for both the construction of 100,000 households in Pyongyang and the Heecheon Power Plant. People reacted to that sarcastically, asking, ‘How can they guarantee those materials when they even import chopsticks from China?’”
“When cadres applauded a report by the Director of the Ministry of Electric Power Industry that power production in 2009 had reached 154% of the plan, people looked down on it too, saying, ‘Puppets! How can they applaud when they have no electricity in their houses?!’”
“Electricity was provided to residential areas of Pyongyang for around two hours a day in May this year and for around five hours in April..."

Unhappiest of all was the blow on November 30 last year, when the NK won was devalued or redenominated at a rate of 100 to 1, in an apparent attempt to de-fang the nascent free market economy. The price of rice, or 미 mi, was set to 26 new won per kilo, but skyrocketed to 1500 won by early March. Shades of Zimbabwe.

Since March, though, 미 has stabilized, but the damage may be done. Citizens already barely scraping by saw most of their wealth vanish, and suddenly blaming the Party man who had been in charge of economic policy for about twenty years (Pak Nam-gi) as an infiltrator didn't really make sense.

Also not making sense were initial claims by some in the military taking responsibility for the Cheonan incident, only to be walked back starting in April by stories blaming "South Chosun" and Lee Myung-bak for the episode.

At the present, South Korea's petition to the UN Security Council languishes basically due to China's unwillingness to confront the evidence by the multinational investigation that placed the blame for the deaths of the 46 sailors killed squarely on the shoulders of NK aggression.

While it is understandable that China doesn't want to create a crisis on the Korean peninsula--especially when millions of starving North Koreans will cross its border--it was heartening to see Obama be blunt in his criticism of China at the G-20 Conference.

[H]e wants the U.N. Security Council to produce a "crystal-clear acknowledgment" of the North's attack. The cooperation of China, a veto-wielding member of the Security Council and North Korea's major international supporter, is crucial to that goal.
"It is absolutely critical that the international community rallies behind President Lee Myung-bak and sends a clear message to North Korea that that kind of behavior is unacceptable," Obama said.

Conversely, it was disappointing to continue to hear the nattering nabobs of negativity+alternative reality--Palin, Oliver North and George Allen, for instance--continue to criticize foreign policy in terms both inflammatory and meaningless in order to garner potential votes from those angered by reasonableness, dialogue and civility in the White House.

Is it even worth pointing out to them that the reason Kim Jong-il has nuclear weapons at all is due to the failed Bush policies that they would like to resurrect?

Bush swaggered, and talked big, and hooked his thumbs under his big belt buckle--couture that was de rigueur I'm sure at Andover and Yale--and harried and threatened our allies for grudging support. Is this a policy to which we should return?

At the end of eight years, he tried to wash his hands of the blood of 4,000 dead American soldiers and the 3,000 citizens killed on September 11, 2001. Plus the untold Iraqi dead who had nothing to do with September 11, 2001. Is this preferable to diplomacy, finding common ground and working out our differences?

Conservatives regularly suggested that those in America who disagreed with GWB's foreign policies hated the troops/were unpatriotic/practically treasonous. We are still involved in two wars, so Obama is a "war President". Nothing has changed. Yet conservatives no longer feel it is unpatriotic/nearly treasonous to criticize the President's foreign policy. Or maybe treason is cool now?

Okay. We totally screwed the pooch in the last administration, almost no one but the most abject apologists try to argue otherwise. Let's look at the future. Considering NK's current intransigence on resuming the five-party peace talks, can diplomacy make a difference? I would argue it can.

First of all, China must be brought on board. While Sarah Palin is sort of correct when she says Obama is "getting pushed around by the likes of China and Russia", she fails to understand that the USD 5 trillion debt of the Bush era (mostly sold as T-bills to money-happy places like China) is the reason for it. Our political relationship with China is weakened by this fiscal relationship.

I'm sure such subtleties escape her (or at least her target audience) but hopefully not you. What we have therefore is the soft power of moral force. The Cheonan attack was illegal, discreditable and actionable. China must say so in the Security Council, and the US must promise to limit the response to mitigate crisis or military conflict, while still speaking to NK in a way that's "crystal-clear".

You can see how Iraq War defenders might have difficulty trying to make this argument.

Second, the drawdown of the US presence in ROK must be slowed or stopped. DPRK must see that military action is still in our bag of tricks, as certainly the continuation of OPCON until 2015 will indicate to them. For a man so weak, Obama sure does some strong things.

Finally, people have to give a damn. The same people--well, at least some of them--that poo-poo diplomacy, poo-poo this idea. The BBC has been running a great series on the history and downfall of apartheid during the focus on World Cup 2010 (here is part of it). US college students protested to have their universities disinvest in corporations that did business with the RSA regime, and this eventually helped lead to free democratic elections there. The Solidarity movement in Poland drew strength in the same way from our protests, and eventually brought down the Iron Curtain.

It is not for South Korea we must care--the world's 13th largest economy, a sophisticated and modern infrastructure, etc--but for the North Korean people who live in a virtual fiefdom under the control of an cruel despot ravaged by cancer and possibly dementia. About 1,000,000 North Koreans died last winter, from starvation and/or hypothermia, as every winter. No one knows how many die in "re-education camps" like Yodok, described in Kang Chol-hwan's autobiography, Aquariums of Pyongyang.

This dictatorship must end, and its people reach the status of free human beings for the first time in their history. A status they were promised by the very leadership that now oppresses them with a cruelty and capriciousness unique in the world today. It is unconscionable for China to continue its support of this hereditary regime into a third generation (in violation of everything the Chinese system stands for) without facing its own repercussions.

What say you, college students? What say you, investors? What say you, consumers?

I Spy. "Me, too."

So, I'm spending the first fifteen minutes of class this week playing "I Spy" with my classes. You remember:

I spy
with my little eye
something [color] / something beginning with [letter]

The activity helps build vocabulary and also practices the "Is it the ....?" construction. The kids are really into it; I go first, and spy something red, which is the indicator light on the motion sensor above the door. It's red, but really small, and makes itself harder to see because it blinks--if you look at the wrong moment, you won't see it. Yes, I know I'm cleverer than I look.

Anyway. So today I'm looking in the Korea Times and I come across two North Koreans on trial for--well, I'll let reporter Park Si-soo tell it:

Two men wearing ivory-colored prison uniforms stepped into the courtroom, Wednesday, handcuffed and escorted by seemingly somewhat nervous police officers.
Asked of their jobs by presiding Judge Cho Han-chang, one answered in typical North Korean dialect, "I'm an agent of the state Reconnaissance Bureau (in Pyongyang)." The other sitting next to him nodded and said: "Me, too."

Not, like "Shut up, you idiot," or "Your Honor, I don't know this guy next to me, here," or even, "I am but a humble cobbler," but "Me, too."

No wonder they got caught. The two 36-year-olds had arrived in Seoul on a mission to assassinate a high up defector from DPRK named Hwang Jang-yop, who is credited with creating the North's state ideology of "Juche", which is all about independence of thought and self-reliance, ironically enough.

NK spies are usually here to assassinate defectors. Or collect information, of course. Or "mastermind pro-North Korea campaigns," as the article puts it.

Oh, and they can reportedly "kill people with their bare hands." Cool.

Playing Chicken

I just had a conversation with my Chicken Mania pal Pak Jung-mun about the global security and economic situation vis-a-vis Monday's announcement by the Korean government placing the blame in no uncertain terms on North Korea for the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan back in March.

He asked if I was worried. Since I am his senior, he couldn't ask if I was scared, or if I was planning to run home, but I assured him that I was concerned, but not overly concerned, about the situation.

He, likewise, was not afraid, but alas was not hopeful that the situation between the two ctates would change for the better anytime soon. I asked him if he knew the expression, "The straw that broke the camel's back." He did, but felt that this was not it.

Jong-il, in Pak's estimation, is not rational, and while he won't live much longer, he feels Jong-un won't be an improvement. If, indeed, the Chinese (and the DPRK generals) allow him to take control. My friend Hwang made much the same point earlier in the week.

So, are Koreans worried about all-out war? It seems not. While the DPRK has numerical superiority, Pak (and most people) thinks the US would swoop in with crushing airpower from Osan and beyond. He also showed me today's Chosun Ilbo front page, which has a surveillance photo of the north side of the MDL (military demarkation line). In it, two gun-holes that are usually described as "closed" are now "open". Personally, I imagine they're there to try to hit the giant propaganda loudspeakers the south is putting up along the DMZ.

Besides, it's not really the North Korea style to stand up and fight out in the open. No, they generally do something underhanded and sneaky, like the Cheonan attack, then lie about it. One of these days, though, they're going to go too far, pick a bad day or something, and it will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

ROKS Cheonan Summary

A South Korean naval vessel cruising the Yellow Sea near the NLL (Northern Limit Line), the sea boundary with North Korea, exploded and sank under mysterious circumstances last Friday night around 9:30, taking 46 crewmen with it.

But for the rest of the ROK, life goes on. The next day was the KBO's opening day, and all games proceeded as normal, without even, near as I could tell, a moment of silence or remembrance of any kind for the missing sailors. (Though perhaps the charye table I photographed was for them.)

In part, Southerners' equanimity may be due to the fact that the cause of the blast which sunk the ship is unknown, and according to a Dong-A Ilbo story could forever remain a mystery. But it is also because this kind of thing is old hat to them. Even if it turns out DPRK military was somehow involved, very little will happen as a result.

Right now, speculation tying the North to the sinking centers mainly on two possibilities: left-over mines in the area from the 1950-1953 action; or "two-manned torpedoes":

North Korea has two-manned torpedoes, citing "former North Korean navy men who defected" to the South.
The two-manned submarines are fitted with two torpedoes or a mine and move underwater at a pace slower than two kilometers per hour to avoid detection.

Still, while NK is quite often sneaky and underhanded, their aggression up near the NLL and Baeknyeong Island has usually been quite open--why, as recently as January, one of their ships spent the better part of the day firing rounds into the empty ocean. More serious skirmishes, even deadly ones, occured in the area in 2009, 2002 and 1999.

The ROKS Cheonan, commissioned in 1989, was a Pohang-class corvette cruiser with a crew of 104, a maximum speed of 32 knots, combined diesel or gas propulsion, and a displacement of 1200 tonnes. It spent most of its time patrolling the waters of the Yellow Sea, or the West Sea as it is called here, and was considerably off its usual course when the blast occured. This may be because it was trying to avoid high waves and rough waters that evening.

Of course, March and April marks the Foal Eagle/Key Resolve joint training excercise, so 22 vessels were speedily on hand to assist in the rescue and salvage efforts. Alas, no survivors beyond the 58 crew rescued at the time of sinking have been found. A diver was killed earlier today during rescue attempts, as well.

"North Korea Shoots At Empty Sea"

I admit I stole that headline from the Daily NK's coverage of the latest DPRK shenanigans in advance of the inter-Korean talks scheduled for next Monday. Impressively, every missile hit the target.

The Korea Times does a straight-up reporting job on the events, including a photograph and nice map:


They have pretty good blow-by-blow details, a quote or two from a South Korean general, and background on recent episodes that have more-or-less inflamed inter-Korean relations. In today's fracas, the North fired a salvo of 30 artillery shells toward, but short of, the NLL (Northern Limit Line). The South responded with 100 Vulcan cannon rounds as "warning shots". Considering that this weapon can discharge 6000 rounds per minute, they showed considerable restraint. From the Times:

The North began firing again at 3:25 p.m., with a dozen more shells landing north of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto western sea border. But the South did not respond.
This is the first time that the North has fired artillery into the NLL in the West Sea, though the navies from both Koreas have exchanged gunfire near the border before.

Korea Herald goes for analysis, titling it's most read entry on the story as NK firing part of two-track strategy, the pull-quote being this, from Kim Yong-hyun, professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University: "North Korea is exercising a two-track policy of aggressively seeking economic cooperation and humanitarian aid on one hand while heightening military tension on the other."

While the cash-strapped North strives to revive business with South Korea, it seeks to gain international leverage in future multilateral talks through saber-rattling moves.
"By firing (rounds of artillery) in the West Sea, the North seems to have intended to demonstrate that it can always act on its words," said professor Kim.
"Such military actions may have two purposes. One would be to highlight the dispute over the NLL and stress the importance of a peace treaty ahead of six-party talks and the other to strengthen national solidarity as it prepares for a post-Kim Jong-il system."

Well, this last begins to get at the truth, which I think is more about what's happening inside DPRK than any other factors--wagging the dog, as it were. Of course, the North can't actually go to war, since it will lose big-time, but it can try to provoke retaliatory action to rally the people against the bad, bad world outside.

Maybe then they will forget the disastrous monetary devaluation that has destabilized the already tenuous economy and squandered whatever goodwill for Dear Leader the people have left. Dong-A Ilbo covers this story, without linking it to today's military exercises:

Good Friends, a group fighting for human rights in North Korea, said, “The price of rice is reaching a new high every day,” adding, “Chongjin in North Hamkyong Province saw the biggest rise in rice prices. The price of a kilogram of rice there based on the (North’s) new currency tripled to 650 won Jan. 22 from 240 won a week before, and rose again to 1,100 won Sunday in the city’s Sunam Market.”
Before the North’s currency revaluation last year, rice went for 2,200 won in the old currency. Given the ratio of the old and new currency is 100 to one, the value of 1,100 won in the new currency is 50 times that of 2,200 won in the old currency.

Wow! Rice costs 5000% more in NK than it did 3 months ago! This is the beginning of hyperinflation, which as we see in Zimbabwe (full disclosure: I lived there a long time ago) is bound to lead to the demise of an evil dictatorial regime. Oh, wait, never mind. Turns out it doesn't ...

Well, I am sickened and saddened by the news from the North just as I am appalled by what has happened in Zim (scroll down for the pics I posted of my old school). For that matter, I'm not thrilled with what's going on in the USA, where it seems being against everything is way more popular than being for anything. No one seems to be for health care reform anymore, or for privacy rights, or even for change. They're not for the status quo, either. It's probably a good thing I'm not in the States right now, because I'd be threatening to leave.

GeorgiaNorth Korea On My Mind

I'm predicting that events are coming to a head in North Korea, and that it won't be too long before signs of significant change are seen by the outside world--a turning point, if you will.

Of course, I forecast the downfall of China's communist regime back in 1989 while glued to CNN during the Tienanmen Uprising (Google for it, smirk). So, I could be wrong. On the other hand, I correctly predicted Mark Helms's rise to power as fifth grade Hall Monitor at Chipley Elementary in 1972, so my bona fides as a political prognosticator are venerable if not 100% accurate.

DPRK (which is international code for North Korea) has done several things lately to indicate that a storm is a-brewin' in Pyongyang:
* Kim Jong-il admitted that much is lacking in terms of people's living standards (an unheard of confession of failure from the Dear Leader)
* the government changed the scrip, thereby eliminating most personal wealth in a country where eating a rat makes for a good day
* they then backed off due to a Cha-Bagger Revolt and rejiggered the devaluation scheme (still executed a few folks, though)
* renewed calls for nuclear disarmament talks, though these are rightly ignored by the Obama administration--especially since South Korea would be left out of any talks
* anointed third son Kim Jong-un as dictator-in-training (with a day-long birthday celebration), thereby pissing off China, which believes evil dictators should be appointed from within the party bureaucracy
* reported a bunch of made-up celebrations in South Korea to convince North Koreans that the South really wants reunification
* announced plans to create propaganda film/TV studios in each province to "publicize the good conduct of local citizens"
* following the currency devaluation, there was a "run" on low-quality rice in the Chinese provinces near DPRK, resulting in shortages and even starvation

The Daily NK is a great website for North Korea news and analysis; Slate has a story today about the idea of renewed talks; the NYT ran a nuanced story about NK refugees earlier this week; finally, here is a VOA report about North Korea's passive-aggressive approach to diplomacy.

Back in '89, when I thought China was going to change, I was actually correct--it's just that China didn't change the way we thought it would. Tienanmen was followed by a new openness, market openness--China today has capitalist markets in a communist social paradigm. (Americans who shop at WalMart perpetuate the Chinese system.) Chinese can have cell phones, but Big Brother will listen in on what they say (Hmmm, not so different from the USA, come to think of it!)

Following this model is the worst thing that could happen to North Korea, if you ask me. I mean, other than the status quo. Limited capitalism that merely enriches and empowers the elites without intellectual and transactional freedom for the people is a sham. Or, in other words, modern China.

I don't know what will happen, but I am confident that upon Kim Jong-il's demise (if not before), North Korea wll need a fair and unbiased arbiter to marshall the Hermit Kingdom into the Modern Age. This is where the West, working with the South, will need to step in: wonder if Mark Helms is available?

In The News: DPRK

Each of the three main English-language newspapers has front page coverage today about North Korea. But each one has a different story.

Kim Jong-il Determined to Feed His People (Korea Times):

"I am resolute in my determination to enhance people's living standards in the shortest possible time so that they don't have to envy the life of people in other countries," he said, according to a North Korea's official Web site, Uriminjokkiri. [...]
"Even though our nation has become a powerful state in terms of political ideology and the military, but it is much lacking in terms of people's living standards," Yonhap cited the web site, saying Kim's remark had originally appeared on the state-run Rodong Sinmun.

Nowhere to Hide for Kim Jong Il? (Dong-A Ilbo):

A Chinese-language magazine published in Canada has carried in this month’s edition a photo of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s office and vicinity. In photos taken in the 1980s, his office had equipment that received six foreign broadcast channels. In the latest photo, eleven satellite antennas were shown, including those for receiving South Korean broadcasts. This suggests that Kim is fully aware of what is going on in South Korea and other parts of the world. Accordingly, he should then realize how his country’s isolation and hereditary tyranny are worlds apart from the rest of the globe. [...]
He reportedly uses several residences. Those not frequented by him are made to look as if he lives there, but where he does reside is places unimaginable as living quarters. He uses underground passages so that no satellite can take photos of him. Intelligence data suggests that he uses doubles for public activities.

N.K. suspected of inflating heir apparent's age (Korea Herald):

North Korea's heir apparent was actually born in 1984, proving to be one year younger than previously known, a Japanese newspaper reported Sunday, citing an unidentified informed source, according to Yonhap News.
The Mainichi Shimbun said it has been confirmed that Kim Jong-un, the third son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, is now 26 years old, as he was born on Jan. 8, 1984, instead of the previously known date, Jan. 18, 1983.
A 25th birthday celebration was held in Pyongyang on Jan. 7 last year in honor of the North Korean heir apparent, the paper insisted.

NK Power Shift Becomes More Visible (Korea Times):
Without noting the apparent age discrepancy, this story reports on a celebration of Kim Jong-un's birthday last Friday.

North Korea watchers said this indicates that Kim Jong-un will soon ascend to a leadership role.
Earlier, the reclusive state showed signs of preparing to crown the heir-apparent, the youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, eulogizing him as the “morning star.”
“A bright full moon shone through the night in the skies above Mt. Baekdu, marking the maximum distance of vision until dawn came,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in its New Year’s Day meteorological report on Jan. 2.
Jong-un was initially referred to as “General Kim” but he is now called “Morning Star General.”