NK
North Korea acting up again (probably wants more aid packages this time as well). As usual, those outside of Korea are more concerned with the security of the penisula. South Koreans are now all too familiar with the North throwing tantrums and making empty threats of turning Seoul into sea of flames - I guess this is how the Japanese people react to small earthquakes. We know North attempting any sort of actual military invasion would be purely suicidal for the Kim regime(read: USA). As usual, they want rice and dollars and have to come up with creative threats to drag South Korea and the US to the negotiation table.
I remember, when I was just back from the US and started working in Seoul - year 2010 - NK made a similar threat. I was so nervous that the government complex I was working in would become the first target of nuke I lost my appetite for days. My friends on Facebook messaged me frantically, aksing whether I was still alive. When I confided my fear to my colleagues, they laughed it off, saying "You lived in America for too long."
And it's been almost five years. A similar kind of apathy has permeated my brain as well. Whenever I watch news and see the pudgy face of Kim Jong Un, who is barely older than I am, I can't keep thinking, it must suck to be a dictator of a hermit country when you grew up in Geneva and loved Michael Jordan and could have gone to university in France like his cousins. Perhaps underneath that ridiculous hairdo and stiff Mao-style suit, he's just a sad young man who'd rather be in New York with an actual haircut that makes him look more human than a caricature. Which doesn't absolve him at all from various crimes against humanity his regime is committing against the people, though. No sympathy, at all.
I remember, when I was just back from the US and started working in Seoul - year 2010 - NK made a similar threat. I was so nervous that the government complex I was working in would become the first target of nuke I lost my appetite for days. My friends on Facebook messaged me frantically, aksing whether I was still alive. When I confided my fear to my colleagues, they laughed it off, saying "You lived in America for too long."
And it's been almost five years. A similar kind of apathy has permeated my brain as well. Whenever I watch news and see the pudgy face of Kim Jong Un, who is barely older than I am, I can't keep thinking, it must suck to be a dictator of a hermit country when you grew up in Geneva and loved Michael Jordan and could have gone to university in France like his cousins. Perhaps underneath that ridiculous hairdo and stiff Mao-style suit, he's just a sad young man who'd rather be in New York with an actual haircut that makes him look more human than a caricature. Which doesn't absolve him at all from various crimes against humanity his regime is committing against the people, though. No sympathy, at all.