#105. 달님, 재앙 -- Current Korean political climate, North Korea, and the Olympics

Have you ever tried to eat the outer part of old celery stalks?

As the celery ages, the fibres become tough, and chewing doesn't do anything to make them any more palatable. Unless you toss them in a huge pot and boil them for hours, there is nothing you can do to make it delicious.

You can imagine that there are other things that are even tougher to eat. For example, imagine you are trying to cook cornstalk, or barks of trees. They would be tough, chewy, and rubbery.

South Koreans would sometimes steep tree bark into a cup of tea; North Koreans might actually eat these tough-looking things!

Koreans call this state of toughness "억세다." It is an adjective describing the toughness and hardness of material; unlike young shoots, willow tree, or fabric, which bend easily to the touch, the objects that are tough (or, "억센 물건들" in Korean) have the quality of resilience, and do not change easily from the outside force. For example, you can say:

"셀러리 줄기는 빨리 먹지 않으면 억세져." (The celery stalks become tough and chewy if you don't eat them soon.)

In this case, there is no nuance to this word other than the neutral one used to describe some property. However, you can describe someone who doesn't bend to outside pressure by using this word. While I would say that the nuance of this word is slightly negative in this case, it can be used in a positive context, like the example below:

"정아는 성격이 억세서 마음먹은 일은 꼭 이뤄내." (Jung-ah is tough and resilient, so she always gets things done that she intended to do.)

 Of course, some listeners would detect a subtle undertone of criticism, about how her personality is rather too strong (definitely not a desired trait in the Korean society!)

Nonetheless, the word "억세다" is often used by the South Koreans to describe the North Koreans. Due to the lack of food and other resources, the North Koreans are forced to be tough and resilient; otherwise they would have died from starvation already. When the food situation is dire, they resort to eating things like barks of trees (which are "억세다" themselves); it seems socially acceptable to commit small acts of crime such as petty theft (especially if it is against the government officials), and unfortunately, their sense of morals are not quite at the level of that of the South Koreans.

As you can see, natural resources are scarce in North Korea; between the government needing trees and other things, and the North Koreans eating whatever they can find, most of their mountains are bald. South Koreans call this "민둥산," literally "bald mountain."

Combined with the long years of separation between the two nations (this July marks 65 years since the truce), the young South Koreans are actually apprehensive about trying to unify the two countries. Although many of them have long-lost relatives in Korea, it is a tall order to try to feel that you are connected to someone that you don't even know exists -- I am one of them; my paternal grandfather is from Hwanghae Province in North Korea, although he moved to Seoul before the Korean war. He had siblings in the Hwanghae Province, although whether they married and had children, I have absolutely no clue. So, I might have cousins in North Korea, but so what?

When you're on the verge of starvation, anything can be fair game. Poverty in North Korea is heartbreaking.

In fact, I feel a little more negative than indifference. Suppose that the two Koreas decided to unite. It might happen that one day, some North Koreans might show up at my doorstep. Likely they don't own anything, they are very poor, and they might have been brought up thinking that stealing is more or less OK (as it might be necessary to survive). And because we're related by blood, they might be expecting me to take care of them (that would be the proper thing to do according to Confucianism.) As heartless as it might sound, I am not OK with this idea. Furthermore, our more-or-less orderly South Korean society would be flooded with these 억센 North Koreans who are used to doing whatever they can to survive. It could be a disaster in terms of our economy, security, and social stability.

This makes politics a little bit complicated in Korea. While many young people (myself included) tend to lean towards the left in the political spectrum, in Korea, if you lean too much to the left, you land right on the communism side, which is a real possibility!

Currently, our president Moon Jae-In (문재인) is left-leaning in the political spectrum, whereas the previous president Park Geun-Hye (박근혜) was right-leaning. This means that ever since the power change, there has been a drastic change in our attitude towards the North.

Choi Soon-Sil (left) and Park Geun-Hye (right)

Park Geun-Hye took a very strict approach to North Korea, with minimal aids ($337 million USD, compared to $4.36 billion USD during president Roh Moo-Hyun (노무현), who was the last left-leaning president before Moon), and as far as I can tell, did not give into any demands by the North that she deemed unreasonable, which lead to a few tense situations. (Ironically, she still wanted to unify the two Koreas; with the approach she was taking, I have no idea how she would have accomplished this -- perhaps she wanted the Kim Dynasty to collapse, and the South would just absorb the North.)

The current president Moon Jae-In

Moon Jae-In is taking a completely different approach, by trying to invite North Korea to participate in conversations, and to interact with other countries. While he is barely eight months into his presidency, and we will have to wait and see what he accomplishes, one of his achievements so far was to dissolve the tension between the US and North Korea, and to convince North Korea to participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics, which is being hosted in Pyeongchang, South Korea. While the figures won't be available, I imagine that the aid towards North Korea will again increase, compared to Park's times.

Ironically, this achievement threw Korea into a huge political turmoil.

Moon became the president under overwhelming support by the Koreans, whether they were fundamentally on the left or right wing, because of the scandal involving Park's impeachment (mostly due to the fact that she was being unofficially advised by Choi Soon-Sil, who is the daughter of a shaman). At the time of his inauguration, he was supported by nearly 80% of the Koreans in his political endeavors, and even until a few months ago, his approval rating was in the mid-70% range.

With his unique situation involving the spectacular failure of the previous president, his campaign, and also his good looks, he gained quite a following (think of the Korean version of the popular Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau!) leading to the nickname "idol president." His strongest supporters call him by various nicknames, "달님 (the moon-god, because of his last name "Moon")," and "이니 (Innie, using the last syllable of his first name; kind of like Lexie for Alexandra)."

When he first became the president, you would often see comments throwing huge support behind him, such as:

"우리 이니 하고싶은거 다 해" (Our dearst Innie, do everything that you want to do.)

Or

"달님이 계셔서 든든합니다" (Because we have our moon-god, we feel protected.) 

While exaggerated, it was that much of a relief to get rid of our previous president, and her shaman advisor.

Unfortunately, Moon's approval rating has dropped to around 58% in the past few days, and it has something to do with his approach to North Korea. And it came from a seemingly innocuous move involving North Korea and the Olympics.

A few days into 2018, North Korea announced that they are open for conversations with the South, and South Korea took this offer. At this meeting, it was agreed that North Korea would participate in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics. The two Koreas would make their entrance as a single team (meaning that neither the South or the North Korean flags would be used; instead, they would use the 한반도기, the Korean peninsula flag.) Furthermore, while the two Koreas would compete mostly separately, they would form a single team for women's ice hockey.

This threw many Koreans into rage and disappointment.

This is Dokdo. Although it is a tiny island, it comes with a large amount of surrounding water, hence the dispute with Japan.

First of all, news broke that the 한반도기 that the two Koreas would use at entrance did not include 독도 (Dokdo), the disputed island territory in the East Sea between South Korea and Japan. Given that most Koreans feel animosity against the Japanese for their occupation (my grandmother, who lived through Japanese occupation and the Korean war, says that the Japanese were a million times worse than the North Koreans) this territorial dispute is a huge deal to many Koreans. To make matters worse, a Japanese news outlet has remarked that the flag does not include 독도, therefore the Koreans are giving up their claim on the island. Koreans were enraged at this; the would much rather just see the South Korean flag at the Olympics. The Korean government recently confirmed that the flag does not include Dokdo, as it doesn't make sense to add every island to the flag.

When the government confirmed that there was no Dokdo in the Korean Peninsula flag, the netizens went and found a photo of the flag, held by the unified Korean team at the Torino Olympics in 2006. Notice that this flag depicts Dokdo, which led to further criticism for the Moon administration.

Secondly, Koreans feared that by forming a single team for women's hockey, the South Korean hockey players would get less ice time, since the North Koreans need to play on ice. The young Koreans were especially upset at this; Korean society is lacking some transparency, as the children of high-ranking officials are sometimes mysteriously excluded from military duties, or they get into a better university than they deserve, like the case of Chung Yoo-Ra, the daughter of Choi Soon-Sil. They hoped for a more transparent society under Moon's presidency, but instead, he was bringing politics into the Olympics, and took away the opportunity from the Korean hockey players who worked hard for their spots on the Olympics team.

The unified women's hockey team.

Furthermore, one of the ministers in Moon's administration made the mistake of saying that "the unified team doesn't matter; they're not in the range for a medal anyway." The youths of Korea, who hope for fair opportunities and rewards commensurate with the efforts that you put in, were enraged. At least one hockey player has publicly spoken out against it, saying that she does not understand how the government believes that they are not taking opportunities away from the South Korean players, as every minute on ice counts. Her post more or less confirmed that the South Korean hockey players are not happy that they became the scapegoat for a political agenda.

Because of this, Moon also gained some negative nicknames. Some are calling him "문재앙" (Disaster Moon, because the word "재앙" meaning disaster is very similar to his name "재인.") For similar reasons, some are calling him "문죄인" (Sinner Moon). There seems to be a sizable (and possibly growing) Korean population that believe that he is too friendly towards North Korea, and that one day, he might sell out to North Korea. Some are critical towards the staunch supporters of Moon, and started calling them "문슬람" (Moom-slam, coming from Moon+Islam; Koreans tend to be very liberal with using racial slurs.)

An article that I read today gives some numbers to this.

55.8% of the Koreans believe that having North Korea participate in the Olympics will contribute to its success, whereas 42.9% believe that this will not help.

56.7% of the Koreans believe that this move will help improve the relationship between the two Koreas; 41.9% of the Koreans believe that this will not help.

37.7% of the Koreans believe that the participation of North Korea in the 2018 Olympics is an embodiment of the spirit of the Olympics.

51.0% of the Koreans felt positively towards using the Korean peninsula flag, while 47.4% of the Koreans were against using the Korean peninsula flag.

58.7% of the Koreans are against forming a single women's ice hockey team.

88.2% of the Koreans feel that unification of two Koreas in unnecessary; they prefer to have two Koreas, and just maintain the peace. Only 9.8% of the Koreans felt that Korea should take active steps towards reunification.

73.2% of the Koreans felt that while the North Koreans are of the same ethnicity, North Korea is a separate entity. 25.2% of the Koreans felt that North Korea is the same country as South Korea.


This feels like a tricky situation; I can understand where both sides are coming from, and I hope that they will come to some kind of an understanding. I've often felt that the Korean politics tend to be extremely polarized (probably because of North Korea), so this may just be one of these instances that highlight this. In any case, do keep an eye on the political situation, as it really is very fascinating how everything changes so drastically (even more than the Obama-Trump transition, I would say!) with the change of power. I wish all my best for Korea.