The Marmot’s Hole

The Kyunghyang Shinmun ran a piece Monday on how Korea’s presidential contenders are making use of the Korean kinda-blog service Cyworld in an effort to convince potential voters that they are, in fact, human beings.  Cyworld "minihompies" on display:

• Grand National Party Chairwoman Park Geun-hye: Lots of pictures when Geun-hye was younger, living the kind of rough, day-to-day existence only a presidential daughter and serving First Lady could.  Oh, yeah, and pics of her seven Jindo dogs.
• Health and Welfare Minister Kim Geun-tae: You would have thought that being arrested and probably tortured during the 1980s would change a man, but judging from this Uri Party presidential hopeful’s high school pic, that’s apparently not the case.
• Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak: Uses the restored Cheonggye Stream as his mini-room wallpaper.  Go figure.  Tons of heroic action shots of Lee at various Hyundai Construction locales.
• Former Prime Minister/Acting President Goh Kun: Trying desperately to convince voters that he has a personality.  Not an easy task.
• Gyeonggi-do Governor Sohn Hak-kyu: Seriously cool.  I want to come back as Gov. Sohn in the next life.
• Unification Minister Chung Dong-young: Apparently much too busy bending over for the North Koreans to do much quality blogging nowadays, Chung is not putting as much time into his minihompy as he used to when he was a lawmaker.  Bummer.