kim jong-il

As I'm sure you've heard, a man named Kim Jong-il died the other day. He was an old Korean man. If you consider the whole of the Earth, he died relatively close to where I am now. If you consider the whole of the solar system, he died relatively close to where you are as well. He was on a train. I won't miss him. He would've hated me.

I figure that Kim Jong-il dies, you might check into the blog of that guy you know who is in Korea. Well, of course it was all over the news here. They showed the North Korean State TV announcement of his death, a plump, fat old North Korean woman blabbering her way through the report. Here she is, followed by the normal South Korean coverage (I'm sure you could find this video online if you wanted it, but here you get the added bonus of seeing it through my very own piece of shit TV):

I showed up to work and nobody immediately said anything about it. About halfway through the day my boss asked me if I'd heard the news. She, like every Korean I talked about it with today, couldn't help smiling when the words "Kim Jong-il died" passed her lips. However, when pressed for their feelings about it, they all became more pensive, and admitted that they're nervous about the possible ramifications of his death.

My students were the same way. I suppose to them it's as though the boogey-man just died, the dreaded tyrant up North who they've been conditioned to hate. And while they were cheerful, there was one or two in every class who said that it may not be such a great thing in the long term. We will see.