tensions

Maybe I've dropped the ball here a little bit. I mean, there's a crisis going on these days, and I'm right here where it's all going down. Pyongyang is a shade over 200 miles from where I sit now typing this. Seoul is less than 90. This all is affecting me in a much closer way than you. Perhaps I owe it to us all to give a little report on the situation as I've been able to gauge it so far. So here's what I can tell you about it.

First, outwardly, nothing has changed. Everyday life here continues unabated. When I walk the streets, everything is the same as it's ever been. I've seen no change in demeanor; I still garner the same cockeyed glances from old people. I'm still awoken by drunks vomiting outside my window at all hours of the night. It occurs to me now that perhaps I should use said drunks as a barometer of sorts. If the vomiters cease to vomit, then I'll get really scared. 

However, when I take a slightly closer look at things, I can tell that it's on people's minds. As I sit alone in restaurants, eating my lunch, I can pick up on bits of conversation around me. I frequently hear the words "Buk-Han" which mean North Korea. So, as I'm sure you'd imagine, it's a common source of discussion. I often see people's eyes fixed on TVs in local establishments, when the news is on and the latest rumblings are being reported. I don't think I see much fear or trepidation in those eyes. There's more annoyance, with a hint of stress. But, who knows, maybe that's just due to the 60 hour work weeks they put in here.

Also on the auricular level - and I don't have any evidence other than my first hand experiences to back this up - I swear that I've heard more fighter jets recently. I thought I even heard some kind of attack helicopter the other day. For as long as I've been here it hasn't been rare to hear the occasional jet zipping around overhead, but I'm certain that they've been more frequent as of late.

Now let's get down to actual conversations I've had with Koreans on the matter. When things started to heat up a few months ago, I queried my girlfriend about it. She insisted it was nothing to worry about it, as the North would never go too far because of their reliance on the Kaesong Industrial Park. In case you are unaware, the Kaesong Industrial Park is a place in North Korea where North Korean laborers work to manufacture goods for South Korean companies.  It's an important resource for the North Korean economy, and it provides South Korean companies with cheap labor, whose wages are paid directly to the North Korean government. However, as you may have heard, a few days ago the North put the kibosh on the whole thing. This worried me, as I'd been lead to believe that if that were to ever happen it would be a sign that shit might be getting real. I informed my girlfriend of the Kaesong closure the day that it happened. She was surprised, then shot a quick quizzical look at the floor and said, "It's nothing." 

Of course, my girlfriend isn't the only Korean whom I interact with. Last week, during one of my break periods, I was sitting at a computer in the teachers' room reading an article about the latest escalations. One of my Korean coworkers saw this and asked my opinion on the whole thing. I said it was troublesome, and in turn asked for his opinion. His opinion was that things weren't quite serious yet, but   that with the way things were, it could get serious very quickly. And then he said something which I find to be compelling, even alarming. He said, "Anyway, I'd rather die in a war than from a disease." Such a statement can't be intended to allay any fears. I wanted to follow up on his line of thinking, but the bell rang and we had to go teach. 

My most frequent interactions with Koreans are with those I teach. As such, I've been able to observe their feelings as well. Of course, with the younger ones it's not a source of discussion. For one, I'm teaching them basic English so they aren't able to communicate with me very well, and two, I'm not in the business of asking first graders if they fear imminent death at the hands of the North. But with the older ones, the middle schoolers who are capable of having a conversation, it is something that they are aware of. But I think I can sum up their point of view by relaying what one middle schooler told me today. I asked him what his thoughts were on it. Specifically, I asked him if he was worried. He answered, "I'm just worried about my school tests next week."

I'll end with my feelings on the whole thing, with how I feel about all this information that I take in. When I touched on this before, in my post about money (the won has dropped 3 more cents by the way, dammit), I was a bit crass and I belied my true feelings a bit. Or at least I've had a slight change of heart since then. Honestly, I am a bit scared. Every day I wake up and I check the latest news on this front. It's on my mind and occupies my thoughts. Earlier today while sitting on the floor of my apartment I felt a slight rumbling, and for a split second I thought, "Oh God, is something happening?" It turned out that it was just a truck driving by my apartment, but it made me realize that I am on edge. The North's proclamation today that foreigners in South Korea should get out didn't help.

Don't chalk up my trepidation to self-preservation or money, either. I have many interests here other than my own life or monetary ones. I don't want any of the people I've mentioned in harms way. Not my students, nor my coworkers, of course not my wonderful girlfriend whom I love dearly, not even the old folks shooting me cockeyed glances. I fear for everyone here and everything about this amazing country that the South Koreans have built, a country that has provided me with so much. It'd kill me to see it all laid to waste. My parting thought to you, dear reader, is the same thing I tell myself when I get a little scared: North Korea can't possibly be dumb enough to actually restart the Korean War.