Korea Beat reports that Seoul’s finest have arrested three, ahem, unification activists on charges of distributing North Korean revolutionary literature on orders from North Korean agents.
This news, naturally enough, might get you wondering. Are there North Korean spies in my neighborhood or office? Is my mother-in-law a North Korean agent? How would I know?
Well, your Uncle Marmot — and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) — is here to help.
You see, the NIS has been marking the upcoming 59th anniversary of the start of the Korean War with an online event that includes a Flash game where you, the resident of Korea, can learn how to identify the spy or leftist criminal.
In case you need help, the NIS game describes the following individuals as possible spies/leftist criminals:
- Someone who sits in an odd corner at a PC room or elsewhere, uses the Internet to post and spread inpure content, and then leaves in a hurry;
- People who spread false rumors at anti-American or anti-government rallies and encourage violent demonstrations;
- Someone who uses Kim Il-sung or Kim Jong-il as a game avatar while praising them;
- Someone photographing military or industrial facilities or smelling out security;
- People calling for unification using inter-Korean economic cooperation or family reunions as pretexts.
Needless to say, the Kyunghyang Shinmun is not amused.
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Back in the 80s, there used to be signs in rural areas about how to determine if someone unfamiliar in the area was a spy – for some reason, I remember one of the qualifications was not knowing the price of staples like rice and eggs.
I didn’t see that in your list of criteria, Robert, so I know that SK’s ability to sniff out the other team has really advanced.
Upon reading this post, an old Springsteen melody began warbling in my head .. something about checking a furnace and an old Ford ..
And, of course, one should take note of expats in Korea who use their blogs to ‘sympathize’ with the North Korean people but are actually just trolling to gather information on anti-progressive forces in South Korean society, like my blog, lately . . . though you’ve all missed this since Gypsy Scholar seems to have disappeared from the Marmot’s Blog Feed.
But perhaps it has disappeared because I don’t exist .
Jeffery Hodges
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I can think of no downside.
Oh stop complaining. Pity the blogless alien adrift in cyberspace without an anchor. While you do not exist, think of those whose existence still goes unchallenged. I would say that you got off pretty well, Hodges, but then who would I be talking to?
#3,
I’ve often wondered why there are more than a few blog feeds here that have not been updated for months, nay years, but I am entertained also by the active blog feeds that do exist, so I shan’t complain lest I be scolded by Our Friend Mizar, whose second sentence in the post in #5 is, I trust, not a cry for help but more a challenge for our times, but at any rate classically sardonic without being salty.
Mizar is perfectly right.
I see that now . . . now that I have become my own sockpuppet. My newfound selflessness empathizes with the postmodern condition of every “blogless alien adrift in cyberspace without an anchor,” for we now have something in common — a missing self.
Like a Bodhisattva, I reached the threshhold of nirvana but have turned and returned to the world of samsara and maya, where I extend compassion to all.
Even to Mizar . . . for we are one and the same.
Jeffery Hodges
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Goo goo gajoob
My selfless sentiments exactly!
Jeffery Hodges
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Don’t be so full of your non-self.
Under the second criterion listed above, can we conclude that the good folks at PD Notebook are North Korean spies?
Uh oh, looks like I need to change avatars. Quick, anyone have a picture of Brilliant Comrade?
Jeffery — my grievous oversight has been corrected, and you’re back on the aggregator.
On behalf of everyone here at the Marmot’s Hole — well, OK, on behalf of me — my deep and sincere apologies. I shall commence my self-flagellation forthwith.
I remember those signs too from the early 90s. And then Pres. George H. W. Bush went to the supermarket and was surprised at the laser price scanners. Thanks to the NIS (then it was the KCIA or ANSP) warnings, I knew he was a spy!
This is no sh*t, Itaewon has a few crawling around. I was in a place having a beer when a guy starts chatting about nothing and then starts asking me questions about the US Army, the troops, where in Europe will go long before the talk of us going to Poland. He claimed to be in the trade business. About a month later, i was out with a coworker when the same guy walked by, starting speaking Russian but switched to Chinese. My buddy said the guy was shaking him down for info the week before. Same questions, same scenario. Of course some of those hot chicks are out there to, a girl asked while we were in the sack, “What level security clearance do you possess” I was like WTF? I still finished up though. Oh well, the NIS is on the job baby! Woooooooooooooooo.
“Pres. George H. W. Bush went to the supermarket and was surprised at the laser price scanners. Thanks to the NIS (then it was the KCIA or ANSP) warnings, I knew he was a spy!”
And not only that, he was the head spy.
Thanks, Robert, and no need to self-flagellate. Others will surely do it for you. My advice for you is to become selfless — like Mizar and my . . . uh, self.
Jeffery Hodges
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Who?
As ridiculous as all of this is it’s still a lot better than what the left-wing in the country is capable of.
Mizar, as the currently ‘non-self’ George Carlin used to say (in a gravely tone) . . . “It’s a mystery.”
Jeffery Hodges
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“Someone who sits in an odd corner at a PC room…” is most likely watching porn.
I know this is going way back – but during the unrest following Japan’s seizure of Korea (excuse me – making Korea a protectorate) many people were arrested for being members of the resistence. Those who denied being military members and insisted that they were merely farmers were ordered to make a pair of straw sandals within a certain amount of time to prove their innocence. Those who were not able to comply were assumed to be rebels (?) and sentenced to death or, if they were luckly, to long terms in prison. What I always found amusing was that just ten years earlier, prisoners in Seoul’s prisons/jails were taught and forced to make straw sandals. So those who made the sandals in time – were they truly innocent farmers or hardened convicts?
The non entity formerly known as Carlin was so brutally honest that he even offended “me” at times – high praise indeed, for in offending all, he offended me, and in offending me, he offended no one.
Mizar, I concur with your paralogistic reasoning.
Meanwhile — in breaking news — Michael Jackson has joined forces with us non-selves.
(Also, I meant to write that Carlin’s tone was “gravelly” . . . but my typo turned out better than my intention.)
Jeffery Hodges
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Can someone (admin?) fish out my comment I made here yesterday? – actually I wrote two – just the second amended version will do- from spam? It was a longish one with a few links.
Boring game.
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