Hi there. This is Yurim from Seoul. The weather has been unusual lately. It's too warm to be April of South Korea. But flowers came back again with Spring. Today, I'm going to upload a photo of my town. You would see the famous flowers of Korea in Spring in this picture ; they are Golden Bell flowers and Cherry Blossoms. (Actually, Cherry Blossoms in Korea have been planted by Japanese during the occupation. This is just one of the ironic symbols of Korean history, I think.)

Warm weather, blooming flowers, and the people on the street who are hanging out to enjoy the day of Spring. These are one side of the Spring in 2009 of South Korea. On the other side, you could see some things which are too odd to recognize as real ; North Korea's rocket, arrested journalists in South Korea and so on.

Right now, there is no hot-line between North and South Korea. As you know, North Korea launched a rocket. Current relationship btw North and South Korea is the worst one compared with the relationship for the past 10 years ; Korean right wings call the period as "the lost 10 years" because they think during the 10 years, South Korean was governed by Lefts. Not just Lefts. Who are admiring or controlled by North Korean Communists.

The two former presidents' policy regarding North Korea is well known as "Sunshine Policy". (more info : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_policy ) It was one of the distinguishable aspect of them as one political stream. They were politically based on the history of movement for Democracy of South Korea.

When you listen to the history of Democracy in South Korea, you need to understand that the goal "Democracy" was always mentioned with the other goal "Reunion". The two goal were the main theme of South Korean Progressive movement. As people think the split of Korea was caused by Cold War between USSR and USA, reunion meant recovery of national autonomy. In the movement, people wanted to make this country more democratic and also reunited. Some of them were Lefts; Communists and Socialists.

The problem started from here. At that time and also these days, for South Koreans, North Korea was/is the country which represents the "Communist" country which is the most closest and fearful one. Plus, unfortunately, there were some South Korean Lefts who believed that North Korea was the ideal Communist country, and they joined the movement for Democracy and Reunion of Korea.
However, it's 2009 now. U.S.S.R is gone. In spite of the fact the we still don't have enough information about North Korea and hardly contact with North Korean people, but there are thousands and millions people who escape from North Korea, and we've heard the poverty and starvation all over North Korea from the unformal or humanitarian sources.

And in spite of all the threats of North Korea to South, South Koreans don't afraid them and worry that much. From the experience, South Koreans consider that their threats are just tactics to negotiate. So, when North Korea launched the rocket, most of the South Koreans didn't care much about it. They went out to enjoy the Spring like the other days.

Then, who are the people afraid and worry about the current situation? or who are talking about or using the situation? Some old people who have the memory of Korean war. They know what the war look like. Some people who want peace between North and South Korea. They worry about the military competition not just btw N-S Korea but also China and Japan. But the trouble maker is the other one. The people who need the "enemy".

Korean right wings recite "the lost 10 years". But for some other people, we lost 20 or even 30 years. Many people say it's like 1980's or 70's, not 2009. Again, there are people again who are fighting for "Democracy", and there are people who call them as "Communist". The government and the ruling party don't use the word "Communist" (officially). They use the word "rule of law" and "Economic Growth". Everything they do is for the Economic Growth. Especially under this global economic crisis, they say "Your protest against the government or against certain company degrades the South Korea's competitive position".

In my opinion, Cold War ideology is not as strong as Capitalist ideology in South Korea, but it supports the rule of Money. Right wings wield the two like a sword against their opposites no matter who they are ; journalists who criticize the policy of the government or labor union who are on strike against redundancy dismissal or nationalists who work for reunion of Korea.

The two ideology are two strong and deeply rooted. There is still North Korea like a sort of monster or ghost. But the most horrible ghost is poverty to South Koreans. I heard South Korea is the only country who once was offered aid from other countries and now offer aid to other countries. South Korea make this development only within half of the century. This means many of South Koreans still remember what the national poverty looked like, and with this collective memory, the whole abundance we are enjoying now makes people aim at the only goal ; being rich.

The desire to be rich made a new monster - President Lee. We elected him legitimately, so he is doing his job under the name of law. He and his party even make some new laws or amend laws. As I wrote the previous post, the "media law" is just one of their plan. The plan to make the country much richer. With media area, education and health care are the main area they want to open as a market. Like the workers in media industry, there will be the people who fight with the government. There are already the teachers who got fired because they didn't follow the policy of the government.

For the last thing for today's post, I recommend you visit the following addresses. One is about current crisis of press freedom in South Korea written by British magazine . The other one is about what did against the policy written by , the left journal in South Korea. Especially, if you read the comments below the news on the , you will see the discourse of South Korea about the issues. I could find some comments written by someone who believes the opposites of the government are "communists" connected with North Korea.

** South Korea, Mad Bullying Disease : Press freedom under attack
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13415822

** Google refuses South Korean government’s real-name system
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/349076.ht...

Maybe the real reason South Koreans afraid of or dislike North Korea might be that they are poor. On the surface, the biggest difference between North and South Korea is whether Democracy exists. At this moment, South Koreans face the crossroads that shows "Economic Growth without Democracy" or something else. The bitter humor is no one sure if the Economic Growth will be achieved. It's hard to live inside this mess, but I can tell you that it's quite fun to live in the middle of the mess, because it's dynamic. You don't know what this dynamic mess will create. We'll see. I'll keep update (more often!!).