News in Korea

It's been an emotional two weeks of news stories here in South Korea. While I'm sure the rest of the world heard about the Korean summit, as it is relevant to most major powers, somewhat less globally interesting is the second anniversary of the Sewol incident which was just  as significant to local Koreans. Since that happened first, I'll start there.

Sewol was the name of a ferry which capsized on it's way to Jeju Island (often called the Hawaii of Korea), killing over 300 of the 475 people on board, most of whom were middle school children on a school trip. The event is still highly emotional as it was only two years ago, and has resulted in all sorts of speculation about what really happened. This includes the kind of scary conspiracy theories that come of such a horrific tragedy and such a justifiably angry reaction to the negligent disaster response and a poor showing from the Korean Coastguard. The day is marked each year in schools with public mourning and some rather strange temporary memorials, including toilets and toy ships. I've never seen it myself, but several of the foreign teachers have relayed confusing stories of trying to keep a strait face while being shown, most sincerely, a demonstration by their students of a flushing toilet with little plastic toys around the rim. Apparently it's a common way to remember the event, as strange as it sounds to us as outsiders. I have been told that it is also now mandatory to take emergency swimming lessons in Korean schools now, which seems a reasonable response. Interestingly, this particular incident was one of the nails in the coffin of the ex-president Park's presidential run (a story which I believe did make international news).

Then, just a week later, the Korean Summit! This one brings mixed feelings, though overwhelmingly positive from the Korean public. The meeting of the two leaders is the first in about 11 years, and seemed to bring more hope for a lot of locals than previous attempts at civility between the nations, largely due to the fact that it is the first time since the war that the North Korean leader has set foot on South Korean soil. A point of interest, and something I didn't know before this happened, is that technically the Koreas are still at war, since the 1950-53 war only ended with an armistice agreement. It was part of the meeting agenda to discuss formally ending the war with a full peace treaty later this year. The meeting was full of symbolism and ceremony with tree plantings, bigger chairs of equal size for the two leaders at the table (which was supposedly of a size representative of the year 2018 somehow), and traditional foods. The north supplied it's famous 넹면 (neng-myeon), an iced noodle dish that I absolutely love, while the south provided fish and rice from the president's hometown. A point of controversy, not for the Koreas, but internationally, is that the two leaders shared a desert in the shape of a unified Korea which included the small island of Dokdo. Now I believe I've covered Dokdo in a previous post, but just in case I'll tell you. It is a small speck of rocky land between South Korean and Japan which both seem to think is theirs (think the Falkland Islands dispute between Argentina and Brittan). There are some suspiciously brain-washy videos on public transportation in Korea regarding it's claim, and every school child will insist on years of history and paperwork that document it as Korea's. Why is this island important? Well because it is just big enough to serve as a military base when Japan invaded, and has strategic value. Currently, I believe, a handful Korean soldiers are its only inhabitants. Anyway, so they split some dessert which included this island, and Japan threw a bit of an fit. I'm not sure what came of it, but apparently some official international grievance documents were filed. Personally, I think it was a bit petty in the light of the historic event, providing hope for peace that was occurring, but like I said, this is a pretty important piece of lingering conflict between the Koreas and Japan.

So it's been an exciting week to watch the morning news on your bus commute to work this week here in Goheung. I'm never sure how much Korean events make it to the news around the world so I thought it was worth mentioning here. Hope you found it as interesting as we do!

Cheers
-K