The rebellious teen ignores its mourning neighbour

I had no idea it happened until Jon asked me after dinner.  Nobody told me.  Nobody talked about it.  Everybody in Gangnam was still dining or shopping.

"Did you hear about North Korea?"

Uh, no.

"What!? Really?!  Oh sh*t ..."

Apparently, I missed a lunchtime nuke this afternoon.  Detonated underground, it measured about 4.5 on the Richter scale.  Dear Leader also launched 3 mid- and short-range missiles this afternoon, according to South Korea's English daily, The Korea Herald.

"Busy day," as Jon said.

This is the second time in a week that the Koreas have made it on the front page of international news.  As many of you have no doubt heard, South Korea's ex-President, Roh Moo-hyun, committed suicide on Saturday morning after months of inquiry into the financials of his presidency.  Elected on an anti-corruption platform in 2003 (he was President until 2008), he was accused of embezzling over $6 million.  He jumped off a cliff near his home, a few hours from Seoul. (The Korea Herald posted his suicide note online - not something I'm used to seeing in Canadian media)

The broadsheets that were distributed in the subway that morning declared that a nation was in mourning.  After going to a baseball game that evening, joining a packed stadium of about 30,000, I had my doubts about how sincere these sources were being.  I began to get a glimpse into how Koreans feel when I walked into my third class on Monday morning and asked Dae Hee, upbeat energetic mother of two and former MTV Korea employee how her weekend was.

"Terrible. I cried all weekend."

In mourning, she didn't need to say.  She went on to debate slightly younger students about their political knowledge and (mis-)information, lamenting the loss of a generation that read papers for themselves, rather than basing their opinions on rumors and snippits of information from here and there.

So, the point is that although the Koreas are dealing with a little upheval right now, most people are going about their daily lives, and a select few are mourning the loss of their hero - corrupt or not.