Walking around central Seoul today with my sister and brother-in-law, in town visiting, we happened to stop in Jongmyo Citizen's Plaza as we strolled by, which is a dirty park that always seems to be filled with a great number of older Korean men milling about. In that way it is not unlike most of the parks here (or anywhere, I suppose) since they tend to be gathering spots of duffers. When I have gone by there usually, they tend to be playing Goh or shooting the breeze, but today there was a political rally involving Korean flags and the men shouting encouragement with fists raised in the air.
My brother-in-law is a garrulous sort and he started talking to one of the old timers, one of whom was wearing a pin with the U.S. and Korean flags intertwined on it and all of whom were stridently anti-communist and pro-American. Several had adulte children living in the U.S. The guy with the pin, who spoke good English, explained that the protest was against the 'repatriation" of some North Korean defectors who were picked up in the water out at sea. This has been big news recently. The men were not happy overall, to say the least, and we had a good 20 minutes of anti-Communist diatribe. You don't often get to hear that style of speech anymore back in the States. Unless you hang around old timers, that is.
After enough of the anti-communist agitprop we started working our way across the park and were stopped by yet another old timer, also with great English, who ran us through the usual questions until he got down to business.
His greatest concern was that Obama would be elected president, which, as he told us, means that he will be "the boss of the whole world." Given this staus, his real concern was that Obama was black. He was surprised and a bit chargined that none of us could understand his point of the difficulty the world would have with its new black boss. Helpfully, he repeated his point several times. Soon, a large group had gathered around us, all of whom had an opinion. The feeling was that Hillary Clinton would be a much better choice. None of the guys there (a good 20 by the end of the conversation) thought McCain had much of a chance, and few seemed really to have heard of him in fact.
My brother-in-law is a garrulous sort and he started talking to one of the old timers, one of whom was wearing a pin with the U.S. and Korean flags intertwined on it and all of whom were stridently anti-communist and pro-American. Several had adulte children living in the U.S. The guy with the pin, who spoke good English, explained that the protest was against the 'repatriation" of some North Korean defectors who were picked up in the water out at sea. This has been big news recently. The men were not happy overall, to say the least, and we had a good 20 minutes of anti-Communist diatribe. You don't often get to hear that style of speech anymore back in the States. Unless you hang around old timers, that is.
After enough of the anti-communist agitprop we started working our way across the park and were stopped by yet another old timer, also with great English, who ran us through the usual questions until he got down to business.
His greatest concern was that Obama would be elected president, which, as he told us, means that he will be "the boss of the whole world." Given this staus, his real concern was that Obama was black. He was surprised and a bit chargined that none of us could understand his point of the difficulty the world would have with its new black boss. Helpfully, he repeated his point several times. Soon, a large group had gathered around us, all of whom had an opinion. The feeling was that Hillary Clinton would be a much better choice. None of the guys there (a good 20 by the end of the conversation) thought McCain had much of a chance, and few seemed really to have heard of him in fact.
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