North Korea still has friends in high places... ask China
In late July, South Korean public schools finally closed for their summer holidays. The four-week break, taking us to the end of August, appears measly compared to those in Ireland, both for summer and winter vacations. But it’s worse than that. The regular classes might be off, but that doesn’t mean the pupils – and in some cases even the teachers – get even a week of down time. In a country so heavily reliant on after-school programmes, every child will spend the time away from their regular school cramming in as much English, science, math, music or Korean studies as they can muster.
So if you are a young person in Ireland reading this, spare a thought for your comrades in South Korea, for the likelihood is that most, if not all, of the kids in your age group have not a single week’s vacation this summer.
For some teachers, the situation is hardly any better. There are members of staff in my school who have five consecutive Fridays off in late July to the end of August, but that is all the time off they have in this blistering heat and ninety-per-cent humidity.
Fortunately for me, native English teachers in public schools are allowed two weeks vacation in summer. And my time off coincided with the armistice, which ended the Korean War 60 years ago.
Commemorations, however, were somewhat subdued in the capital Seoul. Key figures made speeches, and the flags of all the participating nations that helped South Korea achieve independence in the war were displayed in the city centre beneath the enormous statue of King Sejong, the man credited with inventing the Korean alphabet. Gyeongbukgung Palace provided an impressive backdrop to the flag-waving; less so the heavily fortified US Embassy, which resembles a penitentiary more than an embassy.
Meanwhile, North Korea’s capital Pyongyang was the scene for a military arms display of the kind normally seen at times like this. Yet to the surprise of analysts, Kim Jong-un did not make a much-anticipated public address. Still, the rhetoric emanating from the North was predictable that day; remembering the day the imperialists were beaten on the peninsula.
The following day, I took in a trip to Shanghai and Beijing and picked up the latest edition of the Shanghai Daily Sunday newspaper. Their take on all things Korea was expected, but also very interesting.
The front cover showed two images, both from the Pyongyang military performance, showing wailing soldiers – all men – waving frantically at Kim Jong-eun, flanked by the Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao. Li looked very pleased with himself to be standing with the leader of North Korea, next to the paper’s headline that read ‘Remem-bering end of war’.
Inside, the paper ran a long story under the title ‘N Korea flexes military muscle on key day’. The content was merely a detailed list of the weapons on show in Pyongyang, a short history lesson and the significance of the visit of the Vice President Li.
The article concluded with two paragraphs on the less extravagant Seoul memorial, before adding that President Park Geun-hye has “urged the North” to abandon its nuclear ambitions. And that, from a South Korean point of view, was all the Shanghai Daily Sunday had to say.
Glowing tributes to the North, however, continued. First there was reference to the War Museum opened in Pyongyang housing the captured USS Pueblo. And in the sports section, news that the North’s women’s soccer side won the East Asia Cup. ‘North Koreans soar’, the headline screamed, in reference to the North’s crucial victory over… China.
Support may be wearing thin elsewhere, but it seems the North still has plenty of friends in China.
Andrew Farrell works as an English language teacher in Korea.
