I thought such a historic event deserved a blog post. First I will link to a website about photos taken in North Korea. If you want to watch video, here is one I saw before coming to Korea on Netflix. A good watch. So lets get to it. I am going to be discussing feelings and views more than facts, so if you want those may I suggest the Korea Herald.
Everyone says they remember where they were when they heard about the twin towers, or when they heard about JFK being assassinated. I remember the former, and was not alive for the latter, but I do believe I will always remember the moment I heard about the death of Kim Jong-il. I was sitting at the end seat of the second teachers lunch table across from my co-teacher Woo Jae-beom. It was a normal Monday afternoon, and we were silently scarfing down our food as we always do. During the meal he gets a phone call, which is not unusual, and he takes it. I hear him agreeing and sounding a little surprised, and then hanging up the phone call. "Do you know Kim Jong-Il of North Korea?" "Yes." I almost laugh aloud, "He is a very bad leader. Mean to his people." "Yes. Yes. He died." "What? He died?" "Yes. He died on Friday, but they are just making the announcement now." I finished lunch and scampered back to my desk to try and read as much about it as possible before my next classes.
In my next class I talked to my co-teacher Bong Won-ha about the issue. He brought it up to me actually, and said that he was of course very happy about it. I asked him what he thought about the whole situation and he basically said that he was kind of nervous about it. He talked about how over the history of Korea there had been plenty of young kings who had ruled very successfully, but that in the modern era there had never been a ruler so young. Mr. Bong said that what really made him so nervous is the shift in power. Kim Il-sung had plenty of time to set up Kim Jong-il as the next ruler. He had been groomed for the position and had shown a certain amount of ruthlessness in several bombings directed at the South. Kim Jong-un on the other hand has not been groomed for that long. He is in his late twenties, and "he does not have his hands in everything" the way his father did. The majority of North Korea seems to be based around the military, and all last night they were showing pictures of who was supposed to be his most likely advisors. The consensus seems to be that he will do something to show the military that he is not going to let them sit idly by, and to show that the North is still strong and not to be trifled with. It is times like this that I am glad I live out in the middle of nowhere. He might do some sort of posturing like shooting at a ship near the border, but he wont risk an all out war when their relationship with China is so shaky, and South Koreas relationship with America seems to be stronger than ever with the new free trade agreement. Either way I am ready to head out of here if the proverbial shit hits the fan, but I doubt my luck is bad enough for that to happen.
Last night we went out for some bbq and sat around staring at the tv. The news was nothing but announcements about Kim Jong-il dying. They showed the people screaming/crying in the streets over the news and the lady on tv who read the official announcement on the North Korean tv stations. It was interesting that of all the people who were crying, I didn't seem to see many tears. I saw some, but a lot of them seemed forced. Overly dramatic. Maybe I am just not familiar with how Koreans show grief, but it seemed pushed. At one point when the lady was reading the announcement for the third time, the owner of the bbq place was bringing us beer and stopped, looked up at the screen, then made some derisive noise. He then proceeded to mock her tone, and say what she was saying in a fake crying voice, which sounded absolutely hilarious. He was obviously not impressed by her show of emotions, and we must have laughed hysterically for a good minute or two. There are about eight shots of soju in one bottle, and their was four of us, so we took the opportunity to toast Kim Jong-ils death, and then for good measure toasted the death of Kim Jong-un as well. The reality is that as long as Kim Jong-il was alive, short of a massive implosion or revolution, that reunification of the Koreas was not possible. Now it is. It is not probable, but it is possible. Whatever happens, I just simply hope that those nukes don't get put in the wrong hands. Bong Won-ha went even a step further than toasting his death when he said "I wish that he hadn't died from a stroke, but like Qaddafi had died a couple months ago, in a revolution where he was murdered by his people." Today in class my high school students said "Do you know Kim Jong-il?" "Yes. He is dead." "Yeah!" the whole class shouted. Obviously the view of it over here is that it's a good thing he is dead, but it seems there is an edge of uncertainty now that the new guy is in power. Kim Jong-il was mean, but a predictable amount of mean. Kim Jong-un... who knows? The guy could win a Nobel peace prize for his efforts to reunify the Koreas, but most likely he will bee more of the same. That seems to be the most likely scenario, and the pervasive thought among most South Koreans.
