Meanwhile…
Kim Jong-Il has died. I made the joke on Facebook that the Atlas Obscura will have to update their list of Communist mummies soon. More seriously though… wow. I have no idea what this means or what will happen next.
This event has the potential to bury the previous two crises I’ve witnessed in the sand. Or not, because when it comes to North Korea I think we’re looking at a heavily armed and militarized inkblot. Who knows what’s happening inside it. I’m sure some people do — but the truth seems to get buried beneath our projections.
Right now South Korea’s on military alert. From past experiences the North has reacted to internal instability with external aggression. For this reason alone going on alert seems justified. But the war didn’t turn hot again in 1994 when Kim Il-Sung died, so it’s not like we haven’t been here before. Whether Kim Jong-Un, Jong-Il’s successor and son, lives out the rest of the month is another matter.
Crazy times ahead… well, crazier.
Thanks. Thanks For Nothing.
Well, Thanksgiving came and went.
I’d been offline some of the day, so it wasn’t until about 2PM that I realized what day it was. I did call my folks, but the early morning Skype session scheduled for today didn’t work out (my bed’s fault). Ah well, at least my cousin was there to be the surrogate-child to my folks. Besides, it’s not like I won’t be back to see them in January.
It still amazes me that I live in another country. I know. I know. It’s not like it’s very hard for USians to live abroad, but, as my closest friend back home said right before I left, moving to a foreign country is not what people “like me” do. (I leave it to you all to unpack that “like me” in scare quotes back there.) She’s certainly one to talk, since she had moved to a foreign country (the States) herself. She’d be proud though. I’ve pulled a decent Flitcraft over here. So much so that as I read the holiday travel plans of other expats on Facebook, I realize how much living in Asia is wasted on me.
Shit, I haven’t even been to Busan.
Yesterweird 