Frogs in a well:
AH thought experiment: Someone sets off a powerful nerve gas container at North Korean Army HQ during a Big Meeting, managing to decapitate the North Korean government. What happens next, if the country collapses without a shot, as per Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union?
Think of the big OMG situation when the Germans reunified. Now, consider the huge load of trying to deal with Korean reunification, both economic and social. I don’t want to imagine the political, considering that the North Koreans simply can’t conceive of a democracy.
To hear North Koreans tell it, South Korea is bewildering precisely because it is at once familiar and alien. The South and North share a common language, but in half a century of division, South Koreans have adopted so many foreign words that the newcomers spend hours learning the language spoken in the South.