Happy Easter! Funny story about this Easter, it completely slipped my mind that today was Easter. I did not realize it until a Korean girl and her mom came up to me in the park while I was playing basketball and handed me eggs. I was shocked that I forgot it was Easter, but that is the oblivious life an expat lives in Korea. After handing me the eggs the Korean lady asked me for my phone number, I had to get a little help to explain to her that I did not have a phone; it gets funnier each passing day I do not have a cell phone, but it is awesome. This blog update is not too interesting to me; maybe next Saturday I will head to the DMZ, all depends on the weather. I was very happy I finally got to play a basketball game today; there were finally enough people to play. The talent level was not too great but it was fun. Nothing good to read about this week, Saturday I went to insa dong, the markets there are awesome. I love seeing the huge crowds in such a small area, the insane amounts of items that are for sale and of course the awesome street food.

It is amazing how Koreans can be afraid of foreigners. Maybe because Korea is probably the most homogenous country on earth, I mean you know who is Korean and who is not. In the USA you got no clue, which is awesome. There is not more then one race here, I wish I could see the percentage. It must be 99% Korean. I got a few ideas why they are so afraid of foreigners. Number one, look at their past; the country has been treated like shit. They have been bullied around for so long they are probably happy it is mostly if not all Koreans in Korea. Japan tortured them, China tortured them, (they both at one point in the not so distant past controlled the country) When I first got to Korea I was told you will always be “an insider looking in from the outside” no matter how long I stay, and I believe it. Now with Korea holding the 11th largest economy in the world they are no longer pushed around; they went to rice patty workers to industrial leaders in one generation; there success story is pretty impressive. One major thing is left to happen and that is the future of North Korea. From what I can see the South is just waiting for them to eat them selves away. They are doing a pretty good job at it. At some point the North will fall, everyone hopes it is not war because that will just set the South back because of the damage to the infrastructure, I really think they are just waiting for the North to implode, and it could happen, not tomorrow but maybe in a decade? In the newspaper they wrote about civil unrest occurring in the North which was unheard of because of the brutality the North Korean government treats their civilians. The North’s citizens are tortured, hungry, all those things. I wonder how long it will go on for, will the South some day step in or just wait for the implosion of the North? The North’s government is dumb enough and powerful enough to do it. The citizens have no internet, government run media, tv, newspaper, a small private market which the government is forcibly eliminating. It is absolute hell to be in North Korea right now. This weekend in Insa dong was the first time I have seen a awareness group for the suffering of the north. They were not even Korea which was quite amazing. They were white; I got no clue what country they were from. Koreans are really passive so maybe it is harder to find a group of Koreans doing a public showing like this but North Korea is a very interesting country in the world today. Last Week a S. Korean nave ship sunk of the coast, they are now saying it might have been a torpedo, not a mine; they are still not entirely sure.