"I read the news today..." [Roh]

Only, actually, I didn't. Well, I did, but since coming back from Jirisan I've been too busy to keep tabs on the American papers or even watch my favorite, The Daily Show. So I truthfully have no idea what the Western press has been going on about with regards to North Korea's latest temper tantrum.*

I can tell you, however, that it's just about the last thing anyone is talking about here - and not for the reason you might think. People aren't in denial, they're otherwise engaged. You see, the day I left for my epic Jirisan hike, one of Korea's most recent former President Roh Moo-hyun committed suicide. I won't get into the particulars - they're unimportant to my main point - but suffice it to say that Roh, a self-educated lawyer from a small Korean backwater, had been plagued by corruption and bribery charges since leaving office in 2008. I mention these two points by way of declaring him something of a polarizing figure: a rags-to-riches story for some, a betrayal of convictions to others.

Nonetheless almost all of Korea mourns. It's, well, weird. It's not just that I have only the most fleeting connection to a man that people are wailing in the streets over but the larger idea that people are wailing in the streets at all. I haven't been here long, but this I know is true: by and large wailing simply isn't done here, so when you see it they mean it.

Boy do they mean it. The women in my office discretely cried while watched the funeral on pocket TVs. The funeral attracted hundreds of thousands even though the current President refused to declare a day of mourning. Even my local subway station, as shown to the right, has become a local focal point of collective remembrance. The other night [last week?] I went to meet a couchsurfer there only to find well in excess of two thousand people lined up in a candlelight vigil.

Yep, the Norks could definitely have timed things better - no one has said anything about them for days.

*I can only assume that they're not making too much of a fuss because only one of my friends has even alluded to it in an e-mail and not even Mom seems frantic. ^^