You probably know that I spend way too much time watching and thinking about sports. Moving to South Korea has not changed this at all. In fact, going to sporting events here is so much cheaper here than it is at home, I almost get to satisfy my yen every week. For instance, Incheon has a team in the Korean baseball league. The quality of the play is roughly equal to that in AA or AAA in the U.S. The kicker is that the "cheap seats" (the equivalent of lawn seating at a Rivercats game, except that you actually get a seat) are roughly $2. $2 bucks!! Beer and hot dogs set you back about a dollar apiece (and you can bring your own into the ballpark). Not surprisingly, Korean baseball is one of the more popular pastimes for expats.
On top of this, the local team (the SK Wyverns*) is leading the league. This is rather exciting, since SK is the newest entry in the Korean league, and is the only franchise that has never won the Korean Series.
Baseball here is also "different" in many ways from the U.S. There are fewer home runs, and there is more of an emphasis on moving baserunners and manufacturing runs. Nearly all relief pitchers have, for some reason, been trained to throw sidearmed. The most important difference, however, is that there are dancing girls to entertain the home fans. (Koreans hire dancing girls for just about everything, from sports to the opening of a new store.) Actually, Korean baseball games are a bit like minor league games in the States, in that there are all kinds of contests and promotions to bring in fans. However, Korean baseball fans are very passionate. Whereas polite applause when the home team does something right constitutes "cheering" in the U.S., fans here cheer more like fans at European soccer matches. They sing songs, chant players names, and so on. Since Korea's such a small country, the visiting team will usually bring a contingent of its own fans. When they start chanting at each other, the stadium can get rather loud, even if there are only a few thousand people at the game.
Another fun experience was taking in the South Korea/Netherlands international soccer friendly. This was instructional for two reasons: A) The Dutch national team is really good. B) Koreans are passionate about their national team. The Seoul World Cup stadium (which is about the size of the Oakland Coliseum or Candlestick Park) was pretty much crammed for the game, even though Korea has not been playing well (all of the top players are hurt), the match was meaningless (a "friendly" for you soccer-philes), and the home team really didn't have a snowballs chance in hell of winning. Part of the attraction was the Dutch, of course, but most of the people were there to watch the Koreans, even though they are a shadow of what they were a few years ago. I couldn't imagine what the World Cup was like here in 2002. I should ask my co-teachers about that sometime. But I digress....
*Korean baseball teams are not generally known by the city they play in, but rather the company they're owned by (like Japanese baseball teams). The owner of Incheon's team, the SK Corporation, is the perfect example of a "chaebol" or Korean conglomerate. They have interests ranging from oil refining, to shipping, to telecommunications. The wonky way in which these corporate monoliths (and the Korean economy in general) developed is worth a separate post sometime. But not tonight.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The scariest place in the world...
I ran into a thread concerning the continued presence of U.S. troops on the Korean peninsula at ESLCafe (an online gathering place for English language teachers) yesterday. The thread turned into a discussion of the possibility of a North Korean strike against Seoul. You have probably heard it discussed on the news that North Korea has literally thousands of heavy artillery guns poised on the northern side of the DMZ, trained on Seoul, 35 miles to the south. This might seem a little abstract to the folks back home. The truth is, though, the North Korean guns could level much of metropolitan Seoul (home to over 20 million souls, including yours truly) in the time it will take for me to write this post. Imagine New York or San Francisco coming under a sustained assault of 500,000 artillery shells per hour. Also keep in mind that NK has the missile capability to strike targets Japan, and as far away as Guam. They have also tested missiles capable of hitting the west coast of the U.S. Finally, top this off with chemical, biological, and nuclear capabilities. The North, when you think about it, has actually created a credible military deterrent (at a stunning cost to its people, of course).
Of course, the North could not "win" a war against the U.S. and South Korea. They would not be able to forcibly reunify the peninsula, and the regime would almost certainly be toppled in a protracted conflict. But, being able to "win" is beside the point when you can effectively turn much of the east Asian economic miracle into smoking rubble in two days.
This situation would seem to lend itself to a mutually assured destruction type of deterrance from all sides (for any of you IR geeks reading this). This, of course, is pretty much what has transpired over the past 50 years on the peninsula. Unfortunately, the North Koreans are known for selling their military wares to the highest bidder. This is one scenario (albeit somewhat farfetched) under which a terrorist group could obtain nuclear weapons. This has made the more hawkish sectors of the U.S. foreign policy favor a pre-emptive strike against the North Koreans, even though such an attack would unleash the scenario described above.
This, in turn, puts the U.S./South Korean alliance in an extremely untenable position. The Americans desperately want to contain North Korea's nuclear capability. Doing so with a military strike, however, could easily cost a million or so South Korean lives (not to mention erasing the economic progress that has been made over the past 35 years). In other words, the South Koreans might be asked to sacrifice Seoul in order to protect New York and Washington.
Not good times, as my friend Rolfe might say.
So, what to do? Really, the only option is some kind of diplomatic initiative to get the North to surrender is nuclear capability. The North Koreans always cheat on these agreements, though. Likely, you'll be in another standoff with them in another ten years. The best case scenario is that we buy enough time for Kim Jong-il to kick the bucket and hope that North Korea dies with him. At that point, the U.S., South Koreans, Chinese, and maybe the Russians would pour in and try to seize all of Pyongyang's military goodies and prevent a crippling refugee flow. Then, the long road to reunification would begin, with the U.S. and China competing for influence on the peninsula.
Of course, the North could not "win" a war against the U.S. and South Korea. They would not be able to forcibly reunify the peninsula, and the regime would almost certainly be toppled in a protracted conflict. But, being able to "win" is beside the point when you can effectively turn much of the east Asian economic miracle into smoking rubble in two days.
This situation would seem to lend itself to a mutually assured destruction type of deterrance from all sides (for any of you IR geeks reading this). This, of course, is pretty much what has transpired over the past 50 years on the peninsula. Unfortunately, the North Koreans are known for selling their military wares to the highest bidder. This is one scenario (albeit somewhat farfetched) under which a terrorist group could obtain nuclear weapons. This has made the more hawkish sectors of the U.S. foreign policy favor a pre-emptive strike against the North Koreans, even though such an attack would unleash the scenario described above.
This, in turn, puts the U.S./South Korean alliance in an extremely untenable position. The Americans desperately want to contain North Korea's nuclear capability. Doing so with a military strike, however, could easily cost a million or so South Korean lives (not to mention erasing the economic progress that has been made over the past 35 years). In other words, the South Koreans might be asked to sacrifice Seoul in order to protect New York and Washington.
Not good times, as my friend Rolfe might say.
So, what to do? Really, the only option is some kind of diplomatic initiative to get the North to surrender is nuclear capability. The North Koreans always cheat on these agreements, though. Likely, you'll be in another standoff with them in another ten years. The best case scenario is that we buy enough time for Kim Jong-il to kick the bucket and hope that North Korea dies with him. At that point, the U.S., South Koreans, Chinese, and maybe the Russians would pour in and try to seize all of Pyongyang's military goodies and prevent a crippling refugee flow. Then, the long road to reunification would begin, with the U.S. and China competing for influence on the peninsula.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Aloha means Hello...
All,
I have decided to add my thoughts to the blogosphere. At first, putting my thoughts out for the entire world to see seemed a bit self-important. Then, I thought, why should that stop me? After all, getting to live in a foreign country provides me with an endless amount of jokes and anecdotes that can be told in an utterly self-serving manner.
What can I say about Korea after two months? Well, I think that no matter what you say about Korea, the opposite can also be true. I'll give you an example. My friend Mark is an American of Korean extraction. Like nearly all Koreans and gyopos (people of Korean descent who live outside the peninsula), his family has some fairly shocking tales about the Japanese occupation of the peninsula. I think "ethnic cleansing" is a good way of characterizing the way Japan treated Korea during the occupation. The Japanese did not actually try to exterminate the Koreans like the Germans did with the Jews, but they basically tried to erase any vestige of Korean language, culture, and national identity. Many who resisted were killed. Others were kidnapped into sexual slavery. More were taken to Japan and used as slave labor. To this day, Koreans in Japan face discrimination.
Not surprisingly, the very act of living in Korea dims one's view of Japan, as anti-Japanese sentiments are fairly routine around here. Koreans don't like the Japanese, you might say. Oh, but it is not that simple. Mark and I were thinking about taking a trip when we get our vacation here in a couple of months. Where to go? Tokyo, of course! This is not an uncommon line of thinking in Korea, either. Seoul-Tokyo is one of the busiest air corridors on the planet. When Tokyo's Haneda Airport re-opened to international flights a few years ago, the first city served was Seoul. NHK (one of the Japanese national broadcasters) is available on many cable systems in Korea. Korean players appear in the Japanese baseball leagues. The Japanese are vigorous consumers of various forms of Korean pop culture, and vice-versa.
It's not so surprising that Korea and Japan have been able to build a successful working relationship in the post-war years. After all, many former enemies in Europe and Asia have developed alliances over the past few decades. What is surprising is that something that is seen by many foreigners as a key component of the national identity (Korean disdain for Japan) is oftentimes the very opposite. As a former social scientist, living in a foreign country is really helpful in terms of exploring how concepts like "culture" and "national identity" can be useful and limited at the same time. I will return to this idea later. Now, I need to go to bed.
I have decided to add my thoughts to the blogosphere. At first, putting my thoughts out for the entire world to see seemed a bit self-important. Then, I thought, why should that stop me? After all, getting to live in a foreign country provides me with an endless amount of jokes and anecdotes that can be told in an utterly self-serving manner.
What can I say about Korea after two months? Well, I think that no matter what you say about Korea, the opposite can also be true. I'll give you an example. My friend Mark is an American of Korean extraction. Like nearly all Koreans and gyopos (people of Korean descent who live outside the peninsula), his family has some fairly shocking tales about the Japanese occupation of the peninsula. I think "ethnic cleansing" is a good way of characterizing the way Japan treated Korea during the occupation. The Japanese did not actually try to exterminate the Koreans like the Germans did with the Jews, but they basically tried to erase any vestige of Korean language, culture, and national identity. Many who resisted were killed. Others were kidnapped into sexual slavery. More were taken to Japan and used as slave labor. To this day, Koreans in Japan face discrimination.
Not surprisingly, the very act of living in Korea dims one's view of Japan, as anti-Japanese sentiments are fairly routine around here. Koreans don't like the Japanese, you might say. Oh, but it is not that simple. Mark and I were thinking about taking a trip when we get our vacation here in a couple of months. Where to go? Tokyo, of course! This is not an uncommon line of thinking in Korea, either. Seoul-Tokyo is one of the busiest air corridors on the planet. When Tokyo's Haneda Airport re-opened to international flights a few years ago, the first city served was Seoul. NHK (one of the Japanese national broadcasters) is available on many cable systems in Korea. Korean players appear in the Japanese baseball leagues. The Japanese are vigorous consumers of various forms of Korean pop culture, and vice-versa.
It's not so surprising that Korea and Japan have been able to build a successful working relationship in the post-war years. After all, many former enemies in Europe and Asia have developed alliances over the past few decades. What is surprising is that something that is seen by many foreigners as a key component of the national identity (Korean disdain for Japan) is oftentimes the very opposite. As a former social scientist, living in a foreign country is really helpful in terms of exploring how concepts like "culture" and "national identity" can be useful and limited at the same time. I will return to this idea later. Now, I need to go to bed.
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