N and S Korea

[WilliamTSherman]

Put me in coach. I'm ready to play!

 

[Muck]

Well that and they usually do stupid shit like this when they are short of something, the big thing is determining what that something is....is it grain or is it oil?

Pretty much. Most of DPRKs provocations are little more than a blackmail scheme to get free shit from the US & other nations that find it easiest to just buy them off.

Muck, is the KPA still digging those big ass tunnels under the DMZ, or did satellite/listening technology put a stop to their old "secret" underground autobahns offensive strategy?

I don't think they've discovered any new ones in a long time but I haven't really kept up to date on the peninsula (it was never my primary AOR). They do still catch infiltrators in the South somewhat regularly but I believe most of them come in from the sea these days.

Still I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that they've managed to excavate a tunnel or two. It's not like seismic sensors have prevented the cartels from digging them from TJ into San Diego.

 

[MaxBuck]

They have been trying to become self sufficient from a techno production standpoint ...

I had no idea the Koreans were so into trance.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoEjVF8_LYg"]Korean Folk Music[/ame]

 

[OCBucksFan]

Pretty much. Most of DPRKs provocations are little more than a blackmail scheme to get free shit from the US & other nations that find it easiest to just buy them off.

This is incredibly accurate. The DPRK has had two years of really bad, spoiled, crops and their people are starving. The attack on a sub a few months back stopped the South from giving them food any longer for a couple months, so they decided to allow the South Koreans to have meetings, in special meeting buildings, with their families in the North, this getting aid from South Korea again.

There's more to this than the "we want attention" thing though, Kim Jong-Ill is about about to die, his youngest son is being put into his place and he's a leader that's done nothing. So he wants to flex his muscles to show that he's a powerful leader, and the propaganda that's fed there is out of control. The North tells their people that South Koreans are all warmongers who constantly attack and try to invade North Korea. Even more than that, it's the constant feeding of "we're the supermen of the world, we have the best technology, they are the most powerful nation in the world" and if they let their borders opened too much, or let too many people see the outside world that image could be shattered. Thus the embarassment over the poor performance at the World Cup, the first time they have ever showed a live sporting event, and it was a 7-0 humiliation. This after they showed video from their "1-0 Victory over Brazil" on the news.

But all this slowly begins to shatter the image, you have people who escape North Korea, knowing their familys will be executed, but having to decide that it's better they die that way than starve to death.

Sooner or later the country will be unified again. The fact that China is not backing North Korea right now is a bad sign for the DPRK, that's their only ally, and it's obvious they are getting tired of having to give them aid, support their stupid decisions, and keep them from getting their asses beaten down.

Now, for the last question, why are we out here.

I am out here on a contract that's turned pretty long term, though in March odds are I will be off to Hong Kong or potentially Singapore. Doing the overseas contractor thing while the US economy stabilizes. It's also a good way to see the world, let someone else pay for it, and get enough time to actually experience the culture of another country. Not to mention, get pretty damned good with a pair of chopsticks.

 

[Best Buckeye]

This is incredibly accurate. The DPRK has had two years of really bad, spoiled, crops and their people are starving. The attack on a sub a few months back stopped the South from giving them food any longer for a couple months, so they decided to allow the South Koreans to have meetings, in special meeting buildings, with their families in the North, this getting aid from South Korea again.

There's more to this than the "we want attention" thing though, Kim Jong-Ill is about about to die, his youngest son is being put into his place and he's a leader that's done nothing. So he wants to flex his muscles to show that he's a powerful leader, and the propaganda that's fed there is out of control. The North tells their people that South Koreans are all warmongers who constantly attack and try to invade North Korea. Even more than that, it's the constant feeding of "we're the supermen of the world, we have the best technology, they are the most powerful nation in the world" and if they let their borders opened too much, or let too many people see the outside world that image could be shattered. Thus the embarassment over the poor performance at the World Cup, the first time they have ever showed a live sporting event, and it was a 7-0 humiliation. This after they showed video from their "1-0 Victory over Brazil" on the news.

But all this slowly begins to shatter the image, you have people who escape North Korea, knowing their familys will be executed, but having to decide that it's better they die that way than starve to death.

Sooner or later the country will be unified again. The fact that China is not backing North Korea right now is a bad sign for the DPRK, that's their only ally, and it's obvious they are getting tired of having to give them aid, support their stupid decisions, and keep them from getting their asses beaten down.

Now, for the last question, why are we out here.

I am out here on a contract that's turned pretty long term, though in March odds are I will be off to Hong Kong or potentially Singapore. Doing the overseas contractor thing while the US economy stabilizes. It's also a good way to see the world, let someone else pay for it, and get enough time to actually experience the culture of another country. Not to mention, get pretty damned good with a pair of chopsticks.

hey fan guy you want A #1 girl? I give you best girl to make you love ever. You number 1 with her.

 

[OCBuckWife]

Can't think of a better place to visit!

Short contract as a gateway to Asia makes it a great place to visit. For those of us that are interested of course.

 

[OCBuckWife]

hey fan guy you want A #1 girl? I give you best girl to make you love ever. You number 1 with her.

He already has one.

 

[Gatorubet]

He already has one.

Plus, she make numbah one bacon exprosion!

 

[BrutusBuckeyeAZ]

Disagree. Even if there's the will (which in many quarters there is not for a variety of reasons) where are we going to pull the necessary manpower to repel what would probably be a million N. Koreans pouring across the parallel. No administration--Republican or Democratic--is going to throw a few token divisions into a meat grinder.

So your saying that we will let the death of thousands of U.S. troops just go away?

 

[BrutusBuckeyeAZ]

I was stationed in Korea in 94-95! For the most part the people were very happy that the U.S. was there! It is only a handful of people that are protesting that we are there! It drives me crazy to hear people talking from there ass about things they know nothing about! But then again, this is America and we all have the right to make an ass of our selves...

 

[OCBucksFan]

I was stationed in Korea in 94-95! For the most part the people were very happy that the U.S. was there! It is only a handful of people that are protesting that we are there! It drives me crazy to hear people talking from there ass about things they know nothing about! But then again, this is America and we all have the right to make an ass of our selves...

Overall, most of the people here are friendly and polite, sure you run into a few that are racist douchebags, but you run into that in the states as well.

I think a lot of people don't get one think about Korea, it's not that they don't want Americans or Westerners here, what they don't want is Western Culture.

Korea desperately holds onto a few really stupid ideas, but it works for them. This country is incredibly sexist, business has this Hierarchy system in place that prevents a lot of growth, and the economy is basically controlled by 4 major familys here are huge conglomerates controlling the department stores, grocery stores, gas stations, hotels, construction, and everything in between.

These are the Chaebols, (Samsung, LG, Hyundai, and SK), and unless you do business with one of them, odds are your'e not doing business in South Korea. But on the other hand, if a Korean gets a job with one of these families, it's a great success.

It's the whole Eastern VS Western culture thing, and it's pretty extreme here. You're seeing the youth embrace more and more of western culture, so it's coming and it's coming fast, but you have the old rich Koreans who really don't want to see things change.

 

[Muck]

Regarding the ROK population it should be mentioned that there is a very large split in opinion between the older generations and the younger peeps.

Basically those who can remember the Korean War are very pro American presence in the nation while the younger adults who grew up afterwards and have no memory of the war are the ones protesting for the US to remove troops.

He already has one.

Do you and she get along?

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

It's the whole Eastern VS Western culture thing, and it's pretty extreme here. You're seeing the youth embrace more and more of western culture, so it's coming and it's coming fast, but you have the old rich Koreans who really don't want to see things change.

One thing that I've read analysis of in position papers regarding the home country's internal politics and, more recently, noted on a much smaller scale among a lot of Korean-Americans is that they have a severe little man syndrome. They overcompensate....a lot. Both personally and as a nation. In the smaller instances, it's somewhat amusing: the Korean girl waving her iphone around the restaurant for everyone to see, the large number of Korean guys obsessed with bodybuilding and their embrace of gangsta rap. On a national level, it seems to have taken a more serious turn of both downplaying the threat from the North, shifting their economic focus away from Japan and towards China and protesting the American presence on the parallel.

One seriously has to wonder whether this is all some Freudian overcompensation on a national scale due to feelings of inadequacy over the Japanese having turned their entire country into one big rest and "recreation" area during the war.

 

[OCBuckWife]

Regarding the ROK population it should be mentioned that there is a very large split in opinion between the older generations and the younger peeps.

Basically those who can remember the Korean War are very pro American presence in the nation while the younger adults who grew up afterwards and have no memory of the war are the ones protesting for the US to remove troops.



Do you and she get along?

Our monthly courses have synched!

 

[WaitingforKickoff]

The Koreas, not just the north, have a bad rep for being extremely chauvinistic in both sense of the word. It's male dominated society, and the old generation hold prejudice against other countries in the region. Remember the reason that Americans withheld heavy weapons from the South prior to the Korean war was because the South had vowed to invade the North.

Anyone who thinks reunification is a plausible outcome from the collapse of the North is semi-delusional. No one can afford the start-up costs for building North Korea, not the US, not China or Russia, and certainly not the South. If you liquidate the most valuable asset of the North, their nuclear program, and heaven forbid sell it on the market, what you get in return is still waaaaaay short of what you need to build the North. The US would be the only actor who has a geopolitical interest to see a reunification unfold that way, but it certainly won't have the means to underwrite this project. That's why the so-called leaked secrets regarding China's acquience is absurd: it's simply a moot point.

The best way for reunification would still be a gradual shift of the North that would encompass greater integration of the North into the region economy of Northeast Asia. It's the only way that is affordable to anyone.