Year of the Rat

My loyal reader recently asked me some questions about Koreans and their knowledge of US politics. This was an excellent question and quite relevant to some of my experiences here. I've been most fortunate to be in Korea during their own big election year. This was good because the public schools are used as voting centers and therefore school is canceled and I get a day to recover from replying to my daily 4,238 "hellos". I've experienced both a presidential election, which is held every five years, and a parliamentary election, which aren't very often either.

So what is unique and exciting about a Korean presidential election? I won't be able to delve too in depth (since I can't speak Korean unless it is something about food), but I saw a lot of interesting things so I can talk about that. One of the first things I noticed were all the big pictures of the candidates that didn't have their names next to them, but rather numbers. There were 12 candidates for the presidential election, and each one had a number. My friend Jeff brought up a good point; is there a problem with people voting for their favorite number? Does lucky number seven win more often than the other candidates? I asked my wise co-teacher about this and she didn't think it was a problem, but she did tell me that seven is considered a lucky number here and four is an unlucky number because the word for four in Chinese also means death. A lot of places don't have fourth floors just like we don't have thirteenth floors at some places in the United States. Superstition, another (irrational?) iron clad bond we share as humans.

Even more impressive than the number of candidates, is the promotion they do here. Posting a sign in a yard for who you support is the lazy American way, not the Korean way. So what do you instead? You dance.

Each candidate had their own theme song and dance that the supporters would do. I liked number six's music and dance the best and would have voted for him.

Can't dance? That's OK. You can drive a truck around that has a big video screen and speakers and play campaign ads for everyone. Forget about TV ads, the only way you'll see those is if you're watching a TV. This ensures that everyone hears your election jingle because you get to drive around and wake me up on my weekend mornings.

I never did see any TV campaign ads because I don't watch TV here. However, I found some of the ones made by supporters on the internet and they're much better than ones in the US.

I would have voted for this even before I knew that he could fly in a robot space suit. One of his workers gave me his business card which makes us friends, at least that's what I assume since all of my other friends have given me their business cards.

I found a TV ad for the eventual winner of the presidential election here. It is very sad, mainly because this poor candidate doesn't have a robot space suit.

My co-teacher didn't like him because she claimed he has shifty eyes like a rat or an evil villain or an evil rat villain. A whole lot of other people don't like him either. I was with my friend Hyung Kyung in Seoul about a month ago and a guy stopped us to talk to me about the new president's plan for a grand canal. The waterway of wonder would stretch from the northwest part of the country down to the southeast. I didn't have a problem with it, but the guy, whose name was "Universe," was very upset with this idea. He thought it was a bad idea since Korea is a peninsula. I kind of like islands, but Universe was very worried about the thought of Korea becoming one. After he left us alone, my friend commented on how it was odd that a Korean person would come and talk politics with me. I told him that I was used to it from Seattle with all of the activists around UW. Even so, Hyung Kyung pointed out how I am not a citizen of Korea and I therefore have no political power to make a change even if I did have a strong opinion about something.

I read a few weeks ago that the grand canal project has been abandoned. Universe won the battle, but the war continues for him and his friends. Arms have been taken up against a new deal that would allow US beef to be imported into the country once again. I had forgotten, but a few cows in the US were discovered to have mad cow disease a few years ago, and after that, US beef was banned in many countries throughout the world. Since then, I believe just about everywhere but Korea has allowed US beef back into their countries. A news program ran a special about US beef and mad cow disease after the new President signed an import agreement, and now it's caused quite a bit of hysteria. I thought it was really weird since no one in the US thinks twice about mad cow disease when they buy meat, and I think only three US citizens have ever died of the disease. However, my friend Ho Gun brought up a good point. He reminded me that Korean people eat much different cuts of meat than Americans. The spine of the cow and pig are often used in stews, and there is some evidence that I haven't bothered looking into too deeply, that claims the brain and spinal tissue are what transmits the disease between organisms. So there could be some danger in it. I also remain willfully ignorant of the practices of the US beef industry; my tongue trumps my brain for one of my favorite foods. However, I'm not going to go out to one of the candlelight protests that are becoming the style of the time for today's teenagers here. There's been a lot of misinformation spread about mad cow disease as well like how it spreads and that Koreans are genetically more susceptible to it. The Korean beef industry has a pretty good hold of the market, and bringing in American beef would definitely lower prices. I have no evidence of any relation between these these ideas, but generally when political disputes are going on, money isn't too far out of the way.

I find it interesting that it's only been a few months since the President, Lee Myung-bak, (or "2 Mega" as my co-teacher calls him since "Lee" means "2" and MB is "megabyte" in computer geek language) was elected. However, his approval rating is already at levels that rival our commander-in-chief back home. All I can think is wow, there might be people out there who do just as bad or maybe a worse job of researching and considering their president than Americans did before going out and voting last time. People were happy and felt they were getting what they wanted for at least a couple years after Bush was reelected. I asked my wise co-teacher what she thought of Koreans being so upset with 2 Mega after they had so recently decided on electing him as their leader. Her response: "I was right. I told them so." I agree, being right can be so difficult sometimes.