More fun facts about the Korean War!

From the Wikipedia article on the Korean War:

In South Korea the war is usually referred to as the 6-2-5 War (yuk-i-o jeonjaeng), reflecting the date of its commencement on June 25.

In North Korea the war is officially referred to as the Choguk haebang chǒnjaeng ("fatherland liberation war").

North Korea is a Scary Place

This is a satellite image of the Korean Peninsula taken at night. Notice something weird? How about that big black thing, also know as 조선민주주의인민공화국. Yes, there are no lights in North Korea, an East Asian Country of 24 million, outside of Pyongyang.

North Korea is a scary place. That is the only thing I've learned in my history class so far. They've got a good 250,000+ of their own citizens locked up in forced labor camps that are routinely compared to concentration camps. But don't worry folks, this is an improvement! Before the late 1990s, you could be killed for such offenses as listening to foreign radio or humming South Korean songs. When this turned out to be bad for maintaining some kind of population growth the system was reformed to include torture, rape, medical experimentation, bribery, forced labor and starvation as possible alternatives to capital punishment. Not that they've taken capital punishment off the table entirely. They just like to save that for more serious offenses like say, having books written in English.

North Korea is an entirely state-owned, planned-economy and prides itself on Juche, self efficiency. Oh, except for the whole part where China is basically their life support. Without China's monetary support, the North Korea would collapse, swiftly. But that isn't going to happen, even if China finds North Korea annoying, because if North Korea did collapse they would have to deal with millions (more) of North Korean refugees, which would be even more annoying.

Oh, and guess what else? They've got nuclear technology! They've got a bomb about the same size as the one that we dropped on Hiroshima. When all is said and done though, South Korea still wants to unify with them and it is kind of understandable. They are one people and all. But it's still amazing, after reading about the atrocities of the Korean war (much of which is totally unknown to people outside, or even inside, of the Koreas), the things these two states did to each other (with a bit of help from the Soviets, Americans and Chinese) and just how anxious they both are to forget about all of it.

I'll leave you with these two pictures, the first of the Incheon International Airport in South Korean, and the Second of the Pyongyang International Airport in North Korea.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Incheon_International_Airpot_%28interesting_architecture%29.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dprk_pyongyang_airport_05.jpg