Average life expectancy for a South Korean male: 75.56 years
Average life expectancy for a North Korean male: 61.23 years
North Koreans will be shocked when they find out the greatest daily worry in South Korea is upgrading to the latest IPhone and not famine.
I would think North Koreans must have SOME idea what it's like in the south. I took a tour of Panmujeon and the JSA back in June, and the guide told us that some South Koreans are allowed to work in the factories on the north side. They probably have really strict protocols for working there, but you would think some of them must blab about the south from time to time. I don't know too many South Koreans who don't blab about Starcraft of Girls Generation from time to time
The mourning is real.
North Koreans are happy because they don't know any better and they are force-fed propaganda that they are the best in the world and everyone is the enemy.
The Berlin Wall example is good, East Germans being shocked what was in the West. Same thing in Vietnam when Saigon fell in 1975. North Vietnamese had been told that the South was being pillaged by the American and it was their jobs to save them. Once unified, they brought their old stoves, rusty pots and pans and broken mattress to donate to the South only to discover the South already had tvs and lazyboys!
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Originally Posted by Teh_Bandwagoner
I would think North Koreans must have SOME idea what it's like in the south. I took a tour of Panmujeon and the JSA back in June, and the guide told us that some South Koreans are allowed to work in the factories on the north side. They probably have really strict protocols for working there, but you would think some of them must blab about the south from time to time. I don't know too many South Koreans who don't blab about Starcraft of Girls Generation from time to time
The North Koreans probably think those South workers are lying.
Example, in China I told people that in Calgary there are traffic lights that will stay red until it detects a car close to the crosswalk and then it will turn green.
They thought I was bullspitting.
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Last edited by GirlySports; 12-19-2011 at 06:18 PM.
Alot of the crying looks extremely fake to me. I'd say 75% or so....
You have to show sorrow to your beloved leader or the local informant/spy will report you to the authorities. Perhaps you and/or your family will end up in a gulag prison of some kind.
Example, in China I told people that in Calgary there are traffic lights that will stay red until it detects a car close to the crosswalk and then it will turn green.
Yeah, it mostly works if you are driving a car, if you are riding a motorcycle, you will be waiting there all night.
The whole N. Korean society sounds like a case of Stockholm Syndrome to me. Once it falls apart, it should keep the psychologists employed for years as they analyze it.
The mourning is real.
North Koreans are happy because they don't know any better and they are force-fed propaganda that they are the best in the world and everyone is the enemy.
The Berlin Wall example is good, East Germans being shocked what was in the West. Same thing in Vietnam when Saigon fell in 1975. North Vietnamese had been told that the South was being pillaged by the American and it was their jobs to save them. Once unified, they brought their old stoves, rusty pots and pans and broken mattress to donate to the South only to discover the South already had tvs and lazyboys!
The North Koreans probably think those South workers are lying.
Example, in China I told people that in Calgary there are traffic lights that will stay red until it detects a car close to the crosswalk and then it will turn green.
They thought I was bullspitting.
Every person I know who has visited North Korea has said to me that people look miserable there. One of my friends went there expecting to see people seeming to have pretty typical levels of happiness, but he too said that people there all just look miserable. I don't believe they are happy.
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Every person I know who has visited North Korea has said to me that people look miserable there. One of my friends went there expecting to see people seeming to have pretty typical levels of happiness, but he too said that people there all just look miserable. I don't believe they are happy.
There are enough happy people to keep it going. They ones with guns.
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I think you doubt the degree to which these people are brainwashed; they honestly believe pretty much everything the state throws at them; including the mysticism surrounding their 'great leader'; Its really something none of us can understand.
Actually, no they don't. There are large number that do believe. Kids mainly. The rest do the dance because they HAVE TO.
I can't wait until that country is eventually exposed to the realities of the rest of the world one day. It's amazing how much they've been lied to for half a century.
It's almost tragic the way these people are so brainwashed.
It's too bad the people don't truly know the real success of their neighbours to the south.
What you are saying may have been true prior to the war and after the way for some time but now most see the difference. Look back at the Russians just before the fall of the Soviet Union and most of them knew the difference and didn't believe the BS. Hell, Eastern Europeans even..
In NK, most (90%) have seen or felt the deprivations. The leadership fears army desertions because most of them see how well equipped, well fed and worst of all......they have seen South Korea grow. Seoul's, towers and city lights can be seen a long ways away.
But yes there are some Koreans that close their eyes to the west and focus on the evils of WESTERN CIVILIZATION even while living amongst it....gee like others we recently knew
Here in Japan we have NK schools that preach to the converted.
There are enough happy people to keep it going. They ones with guns.
I would not pretend to be an expert on North Korea or anything, but those descriptions of unhappiness from several different people who have gone on separate trips pertained to those relatively privileged lives in Pyongyang as well. I don't know if the country will fall, but I do not believe happiness is keeping it together or that it is a happy place for people there.
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The night the Berlin Wall fell, stunned, rag-tag, East Germans staggered unbelieving through the glittering, neon-strewn and flush retail districts of West Berlin, past endless stores aglitter and stuffed with jewellry, clothing and technology . . . . . .
. . . . . and then they got angry as it started to occur to them how much they had been led down the proverbial garden path . . . .
A decade later, the Germans were still paying the bill of trying to normalize the East into a modern economy and Germany was called "the sick man of Europe." More than 20 years later, that's obviously started to change and Germany is the strong man of Europe again . . . .
The economic burden on South Korea should the North actually die a natural death would be something staggering as well.
At the time Germany was the 2nd biggest economy when unification took place. South Korea looked on with wonder then trepidation......
Germany's economy took a huge hit. 2 decades worth of crapola! South Koreas economy TODAY is nowhere near a 1991 West Germany economic strength/size/ vitality! They sobered up and took a another look at unification!!!!
Hence they now look to build the North Up.....
A catch 22 of the ages....
We need to build the crazies up to unify so we will survive economically when they join us
vs
not building the crazies up so they can destroy us!
There's lots of really interesting things that happened when the walls fell, and the same thing will happen when the Korea's reunify, however reunification will only ever happen if china is removed from the equation, and the Army and Intelligent services are pacified, and the dynasty ends.
While the North Korean army is awesome in size, they're not a technology based army, and while their troops are the best fed in the country, they are still behind the South Korean army in terms of the individual Soldiers capability.
The NK special forces are vaunted, but that's because the Kim's were in love with the concept of infiltration, but I think that they would rank far behind the rest of the modern world in effectiveness and training.
The average NK soldier is encouraged not to be creative and to blindly follow his orders, the dicipline and training are incredibly brutal, and while the Force Multiplyer is expected to be between 3 and 5 to 1 in terms of killed to kill, I read that the NK kill multiplier has dropped to bellow 1 to 1, but that's what happens when you have disposible troops.
Going back to the drop of the wall, you have to remember that I was in the Military before the wall fell, I saw the Fulda Gap, which was expected to be the first point of contact between Soviet and American armor and infantry, and we all throught the Russians would be 10 feet tall and their tanks indestructible and there would be a fighting retreat all the way to the Atlantic. Years later I got to take a look at the incredibly cramped T-72 tank with the fuel line ringing the turret, the incredibly clumsy auto loader, and the terrible optices and aiming system, and I looked at a BMP (I think it was a BMP, it could have been a BRMD) and the exit door for the troops contained the diesal fuel tank and realized how wrong we had been about the Soviets for years.
Just recently talked with a Korean Major (now with LG) who said that it is often felt most that the NK army is now a "a feed the poor program."
Here's a link to N. Korean prison camps and how Kim keeps control.
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Some 200,000 people live as slaves – enduring starvation, torture, and rape while performing hard labor. Many die every year, only to be replaced by fresh bodies.
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Deemed ‘prisoners’, the victims of North Korea’s political pogroms are interned for the smallest criticisms of the regime of Kim Jong-Il, and when they are carried away their extended families are rounded up as well. This is not genocide, it’s not a war crime, it’s an unending consequence of North Korea’s authoritarian government. And it’s been getting worse for the last decade.
Location: Wondering when # became hashtag and not a number sign.
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I think the biggest point inall this has been lost on most....its the world of golf that lost bigger than anyone...i mean this guy was nothing but the greatest to ever live when it came to swinging the club.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il's death was noted on Twitter as an epic loss to golf, with hundreds recalling the Stalinist state media's reports of Kim's 11 holes-in-one in a single round in 1994.
Reports hailed Kim's 38-under par 34 over 18 holes at the 7,700-yard Pyongyang Golf Course in his first try at golf, a feat watched purportedly by 17 security guards protecting the man hailed as "Dear Leader."
Kim, who died on Saturday of a heart attack at age 69, was 52 at the time he purportedly fired a round where birdie was his worst score on any hole.
