Throwback

Ian and I met up with Ben and Amy to see Prince of Persia today.  The movie was terrible.  No character development, no real conflict to be found anywhere in the plot.  The acting was stilted and contrived.  Even Jake Gyllenhaal, whom I usually find to be refreshingly honest in his acting, was terrible.  I'm of the opinion that Disney may want to lay of the live action films for awhile and focus on conquering the world with Pixar and have it's 2D department follow in it's footsteps.

After the movie we walked back to their apartment because we left our work bags there last night.  On our walk over, we encountered some very strange campaigning.

 These folks were marching down the street holding candles for their candidate.  In America, candlelight vigils are reserved for the deceased or those who are in a grave situation.  Obviously, that's not the case here.

We ended up sitting at Ben and Amy's for a couple of hours, watching funny videos online.  "Greg Rutter's Definitive List of the 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced on the Internet..." is a good source of entertainment.  It reminded me of college.  My room mates (and, later, housemates) and I would sit around for hours thinking of things to show each other on the internet.  It wasn't the best use of time, but it was a good bonding exercise.  Ben, Amy, Ian and I share a love of the SNL Digital Shorts, so we watched several of those.

We've got an early morning ahead of us, since we're off to meet the Veggie Club in Seoul for some Mexican food.  It should be a good time.

Good night!

Elections

June 2nd is Voting Day and we (like most every worker in Korea) have the day off.  City politicians have been out in force for the past two weeks.  While it's not completely unlike campaigning in the states, we are in Korea, so everything is done with more kitsch and, well, eccentricity .

All campaign posters feature really stiff portraits of the candidate.  Each one has a designated number and color scheme (the color scheme I'm not completely certain about, but it seems like it on the streets).  I think they each have a number because Korean names are so similar to each other.

Team 2 (green) preps for it's morning out amongst the public.  They work in groups picking up garbage, dancing and waving signs, or just standing at busy corners bowing and saying hello to every person and car that passes.  One morning, on our way to the gym, we saw a group that was all women, but for one man with a whistle.  Every time a car passed he would blow the whistle and they'd all bow in unison.

Trucks, like this one for candidate number 9, crawl down every street in town.  They blare theme songs and political promises.

Candidate number 8 had quite a team out this morning.  A woman we know from the gym was with them.  She came over and tried to talk to us about it, her volume increasing each time we looked confused and told her we didn't understand.  The belief that yelling can break down language barriers is definitely world wide.  She ultimately gave up and sent us on our way.

I don't know much about South Korean elections or politics.  I tried to find out what type of elections are happening on the 2nd, but I Google didn't have much to offer.

I've been requested to write an article about my experiences here and touching on the North Korea situation, so I've been doing some reading.  I'll most likely post some thoughts on that this weekend.  If you have any information to share, please do so.

Good night!

Two Koreas face off, puff chests

North Korea's military fired artillery shells in a disputed part of the west coast this morning.  The South Korean military responded by firing vulcan canon shots into the air as a warning.  CNN.com reports the Yonhap News Agency as saying the retaliation was "a statement that it [South Korea] would not be intimidated by saber-rattling by the communist neighbor."  North Korea claims its actions are part of an annual military drill.  Sohn Jie-ae (CNN's Seoul correspondent) hypothesizes that this may be more political postering from North Korea.  Anytime, they face negotiations with other nations, she says, we tend to see this show of power from them.  They are currently facing peace treaty talks with the U.S. and South Korea has decided to postpone talks of joint tourism.

South Korea also recently put out a warning to North Korea, stating that if there are strong enough indications that North Korea intends to attack, that they will launch a preemptive strike.  This came after North Korea's National Defense Comission threw around words like "holy war."

North Korea's economy is suffering severely, and I have to wonder if this behavior reflects some last ditch effort to save face while taking aid from the South and negotiating (off and on) in the nuclear talks.  South Korea is definitely doing its own share of posturing by keeping a watchful eye on the North and responding to everything the nation does with vigor.

To be honest, my knowledge of politics and foreign policy is only enough to get me into trouble.  But, I find the relationship between these two sibling nations very interesting and I invite you to share your thoughts and opinions or to impart any knowledge about the situation.

Good night!