Considering all the recent conflict and news from North Korea, I figured now would probably be a good time to take a moment to talk about it. The above picture is relevant because who doesn't want to see my cute kitty laying on a map of Korea? The thing is, the conflict with North Korea is big in the news now and what the news tells you and what is actually going on are not quite the same thing. Similarly, South Korea has a very different perspective due to being in conflict (or at least not at peace) with North Korea for decades.
You've probably seen the headlines as things have been escalating. Zach has some fancy terms for what's going on which I use as well, but I'll spare you those and give you some links instead. (I kind of like the term grandstanding, it's appropriate if not quite as "charming" as the other.) Most recently the headline (from the BBC, which I consider to be fairly reliable) is North Korea: Foreigners should evacuate South Korea. Before that you maybe saw North Korea suspends works at Kaesong industrial zone and before that North Korea enters "state of war" with South and on and on. There's a lot of talk, a lot a lot. From here, from there, from everywhere.
If you're not familiar with Eat Your Kimchi I will send you first toward them. They recently did a TL;DR (or too long; didn't read if you haven't seen it before) about the subject with a video titled TL;DR: The Threat of North Korea which gives a little bit of their own personal insight. As they state, they aren't really that politically heavy, but they have lived here in South Korea, Seoul specifically, for 5 years and have come to have a better understanding of how life in South Korea works. So that's just something to think about too.
That's not to say that we don't have our own concerns. In our case it's kind of nice now that we don't live directly in Seoul and instead live in Cheongju. This gives us some distance from Seoul both in terms of North Korea and primarily our ability to see more because we're sort of in the middle of the country instead. We are careful to monitor the news and I keep an eye on the US Embassy's website and Facebook page. Additionally, before we even came over here I signed up with the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) which sends email alerts and keeps you connected with the US Department of State in the event of an emergency. We also have some plans in mind if something does happen. So far everyone from home is concerned, and rightly so, but I agree with the EYK folks in saying that what does happen will largely affect the military involved, and the majority of us will not see any sort of disturbance aside from the ripples the media creates.
EDIT: I was just linked to this article (Stay Cool. Call North Korea's Bluff.) via a Facebook friend here in South Korea that hits things on the head. It's an opinion piece from the NY Times, but I think it accurately reflects the current situation. You may disagree, but I think the writer makes some good points.
All that said, we're keeping an eye out and you should too, but be a skeptic and don't believe everything you hear or read! We'll be hunkered down here teaching kindergartners and elementary age kids English like we do every week day while keeping an eye on our email and what the local news is saying. In the meantime we're still going to enjoy ourselves and celebrate my birthday later this week and hopefully see more cherry blossoms since it's that time of year.
On a final note, we were in the news too! Okay, the newspaper which I believe is local (at least that's what I was told) and our director linked the article on the website to the school site. I printed a few out for us, but it's pretty cool. So there is some fun news for the day. :)
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