Thanks for the occasional insight into Korea, Justin. (What do you think of the outcome of the most recent election, btw?)

Your welcome Mary Anne. Well, the cultural insight I could right would fill pages, though I am hesitant to embark on that endeavour because my perspective is always changing, and being updated. Maybe I could start a blog on it? ;-)

As far as politics, well my korean is not good enough to follow politics as close as I would like. There are no english korean news channels, and the korean language ones speak at Warp VII using formal words and congugations. I'm focusing on stictly conversational korean at polite and informal words and congugations.

There is a good korean newspaper that I reference often:
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/

The reason it is in English is because it is sold as a tool for the masses of Koreans wanting to speak better english. You might find they over do it on the idioms or use them incorrectly along with some of our more 'intelligent' words. But I think they do a suprisingly good job. Then again I work alone in something like a cave and have been speaking broken english for the past few year or so. I've become acclimated to everything, you might notice a lot more problems in the articles than I would.

These are front page articles on the Uri party taking over
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2004/04/19/200404190037.asp
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2004/04/19/200404190043.asp

As far as Noh's impeachment, where all this started, most of friends were extrememly embarrased by their government and the way they acted. After watching for hours the ongoing cagematch I really couldn't think of much to say either to make them feel less so. It was like a mob of kindergardeners locked in a school for the day with no teachers around. Throwing chairs and breaking furniture, temper tantrums, fist fights, grown men sitting on the ground like todlers and just crying uncontrollably, others crying on each others shoes begging them not to vote for impeachment. None of them knew Tai-Kwon-Do fortunately/unfortunately depending how you want to look at it. . . how humiliating.

I just told my friends "thats ok, they're polititians, in the US we consider them pretty much next to worms and used car salesmen, I think every country is embarrased by its politicians . . . " I'm not sure how well that worked.

The 우리당 ( oo-Lee-dah'ng / Uri Party / literally : the 'We' Party or better 'Our Party' . . . usually they romanize their word for 'we' to 'woori' and not 'uri', even though I think Uri is closer to how it actually sounds ) party is mostly supported by the younger generation here. In fact thier Chairman got into big trouble for saying "the old people should just stay home this election and let the younger poeple decide our future" (he had to step down after that). Regardless they won in a landslide.

This younger generation didn't grow up in an atmosphere of fear like thier parents did. They grew up either sheltered somewhat or just plain ignoring the threat posed to them form the north. I suspect this may be cultural: e.g. I'm living fine right now, so nothing is wrong. You should the look on thier faces when I tell them a makes an extra $50 bucks a months for being in a 'dangerous' zone. Many don't like the army, despise their draft(who could blame them?), and commonly despise the US being here too.

Generally thier opinnion of us is that our soldiers barely graduated kindergarden and do nothing but drink, and easliy beleive almost anything negative about us. It is not uncommon for them to think that the soldier who ran over two girls while in a convoy "intentionally swerved in order to run them over" and many other absurd thoughts, mainly perpetuated by a biased media that does shoddy fact checking and suffers from preaching to the choir.

President Noh won by a slim margin, bolstered by the younger generation for his 'sunshine policy' as you may know. Noh capitalized on this attitude of the younger generation, but in his wisdom knew better and moved away form his rhetoric after being elected. His defense minister even asked Rumsfeld 'not' to remove any of our troops when he tried to move out 2nd ID.

Perhaps this is a small backlash against Noh himself for doing that, as he is not from the Uri Party. But Korean press views the Uri win as a vindication of Noh after his impeachment. Regarless Nohs initial election was the flap of the butterfly wings that is forcasting a future downpour. The next step was his impeachment and subsequent backlash to elect a party that truely supported his sunshine policy and didn't just use it to get votes. Though the Uri Party is not entirely in the hands of the younger generation yet, they hold sway in it. As time goes on of course this party will get stronger and stronger. Time and the a positive birth and death rate is on thier side.

Maybe the repositioning of our forces will have a positive effect, particularly moving us out of Seoul (thats painful to admit). When they deal with North Korea (and China) more on their own, they may reach a turning point and the pendullum will start swinging the other way. Personally, I think thier younger generation will have to experience first hand the weight of their situation for it to be apreciated.

I hope thats what you meant by "insight". . .

Regards,
Justin Kelly

P.S. Perhaps the Koreans who don't like the way things will go will move to Australia? I hear there a lot of room down there ^^ (thats the korean smiley emoticon)