The Chosun Ilbo reported Tuesday that a North Korean Foreign Ministry delegation was sent to Ireland in October to study the Emerald Isle’s remarkable transformation from the EU’s poor man to economic dynamo.
On the other hand, perhaps this is where they got the idea of exporting food in the middle of a famine… just minus the British overlords.
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“…the delegation listened to the explanations attentively, and expressed deep interest in the question of wealth distribution. Its interest was not only confined to Ireland’s economic development, but the entire Irish social system…”.
It’s too bad we won’t be privileged to see what the delegation actually conveys in their report to NorK superiors, maybe even to the Dear Leader himself. The precedent that springs to mind are Soviet envoys to the west in the Stalinist era — often theyreturned to the Soviet Union to find themselves consigned to the “gulag” as the possible conveyors of dangerous western ideas.
I guess the trick is knowing exactly how to word your reports and briefings. Since the prospect of imminent death or imprisonment tends to concentrate the mind, I suppose there’s a good chance they’ll get it “right” (oops, wrong word. I’d be shot for sure if I were a NorK official returning from Emerald Isle, full of good whiskey and incautiously optimistic for change).
Ah yes, the ‘Celtic Tiger’.
I remember a certain enthusiatic sales clerk from KirkKearney’s who was selling woolen Aran knitted sweaters in Dublin. She was explaining about the braided patterns on the sweaters, how each family had their own unique patterns, and how the bodies of dead fishermen that wash up on shore can be identified by looking at the patterns. She was also lamenting about how economic development has affected people’s interest in traditional craft such as the sweaters.
Asia by Blog
Asia by Blog is a twice weekly feature, usually posted on Monday and Thursday, providing links to Asian blogs and their views on the news in this fascinating region. Previous editions can be found here. This will be the final edition for 2004. New edit…
John Derbyshire of the National Review Online, comparing the Koreans and Irish while writing about SK attitudes towards NK, once wrote:
“There was, and is, also a curious kind of racial solidarity in play. The Koreans have been called the Irish of Asia, and there is indeed something very Irish in the illusion, widespread in South Korea, that Koreans could mend things among themselves if only foreign meddlers and imperialists would butt out. The actual historical evidence, in Korea as well as in Ireland, is that if left to their own devices, the peoples concerned would cheerfully kill, cook and eat each other. This, however, is one of those truths only apparent to outsiders. The underlying desire for racial solidarity on the peninsula is one of the reasons for the high levels of anti-Americanism among young Koreans, visible during George W. Bush?€™s visit to the country last February, and confirmed in a recent Boston University survey. A poll at the time of the Bush visit turned up sixty percent of South Koreans thinking that the president?€™s inclusion of North Korea in the ?€œaxis of evil?€? was inappropriate. ”
agreed!!!!!!!
http://olimu.com/WebJournalism.....nNukes.htm
excerpt from:
“Runaway Ally” Joins “the Axis of Evil”
One More Neocon Target: South Korea
By GARY LEUPP
http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp11272004.html
“Korean Nationalism vs. Hyperpower Plans
I have known many Koreans, in various capacities, for many years. There’s no people I more admire, or for whom I feel greater affection. Temperamentally, I relate to Korean friends’ expansiveness, love of song and drama, capacity for indignation over matters of principle, and their pugnacity. One thing I’ve noticed: there is no people with a greater sense of national pride or unity. The inclination of many South Koreans to reject U.S. policy towards the North is not “unnatural” as Eberstadt opines. It’s the exact opposite. It’s very natural for them to work for unity that preserves all Koreans’ self-respect, built on a long shared, tragic history of complex relations with China, Russia, Japan and the U.S.”
hmmmm…expansiveness, love of song and drama, capacity for indignation over matters of principle, and their pugnacity
irish traits as well?
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