Ian Birrell

Korean notebook

Tales of life in the Hermit Kingdom show there’s nothing amusing about this dictatorship’s eccentricities

When I arrived in Seoul, I joked to my editor that I hoped this was not going to be like Ukraine. I went there for three days and ended up staying for five weeks because a war broke out. This time the threat of war is implied, rather than real, although a Korean conflict would be far more lethal and terrifying. Soon after arriving, I met Hwee-Rhak Park, a former army colonel who teaches strategy to young officers. We talked in his university office, high in suburban hills overlooking the smog and skyscrapers. He calmly told me how he had tried to persuade his children to leave and fully expects to die in one of the north’s hideous concentration camps. He believes that when Kim Jong-un develops nuclear weapons that can reach the United States, the south will be annexed with dire warnings against intervention to the White House. Despite such fears, shared by many older conservatives, life goes on as normal. This is a city that has learned to live with bellicose threats from the world’s most repressive state. There may be huge guns just 35 miles away, dug into hills over the border, plus stockpiles of who-knows-what chemical weapons. But young people especially — growing up in a different era and naturally more liberal — tend to ignore the north. ‘I don’t think people are really taking it seriously,’ said Christine, my 25-year-old translator.

I met Christine and her friend Heeyoung last year. Christine has never knowingly met someone from the north, showing how the bolshie neighbour is often ignored in the south. Both women are smart, ambitious and highly polished. Seoul is a global centre for cosmetics and plastic surgery — young people tend to be manicured and made-up, regardless of gender.

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