North Korea Planning 2nd Test?

In the news now there are reports that North Korea may be planning a second nuclear weapons test. After the unanimous vote for a harsh warning and sanctions against North Korea from the U.N. security council, further tests would heighten tensions in the region even further. I'm not considering jumping on the next plane but the situation here will likely get worse before it gets better. My wife denies it but I swear that there has been increased military activity here since the last test. We live only a few kilometres from the U.S. airforce base here in Gunsan so war planes flying overhead are not a new phenomenon but I've noticed more recently (maybe I'm just more sensitive to it right now). The most startling event was an alarm sounding all around the city - it sounded like an air raid warning from a movie. I've heard one before when I was here four years ago and just as in my previous experience, no one else seemed to notice. I've been told that these drills are common but this is the first one I've heard in the 7 months I've been here. To have one a week after North Korea conducts a nuclear weapons test either indicates an increased level of tension or an amazing coincidence. I'm hoping it's the latter.

Possible Nuclear Test in North Korea

Yesterday around 5:00 PM, just when I was finishing work I thought I'd check out CNN to see if there were any videos I could use for my classes. That's when I found out that North Korea claims to have tested its first nuclear weapon. I went home, turned on the TV and saw that all the news channels were talking about North Korea's nuclear weapons. It seems strange that I'm just a few hours drive from North Korea but no one at school made any mention of it. I asked my students today if they'd heard about it and they all knew but were not too concerned about it. When I pressed them for what they thought, one girl piped up, "Teacher, we have too many other important things to worry about, like studying." Except for my bringing the subject up in my classes, I haven't heard anyone talking about it here.

Although few people I've spoken to seem worried about the situation, I found out that this news was enough to dissuade a new American teacher from coming to the school my wife works at. He thinks it's too dangerous here so he has refused to come and demanded his documents returned to him. Given the media response to the situation I understand his concern but for us this is the fourth teacher in a row who has been unable to come and it's getting a little tedious for us. My wife has been looking forward to taking a break for almost two months but the school needs to find a replacement before she leaves. Every time we find a new teacher, we find out a few weeks later that they're not able to make it for one reason or another. Now with these new developments it's even less likely we'll be able to find someone soon.

Chuseok Holiday
Last weekend was a holiday for us so we had four days off during which my in-laws all came to our house to celebrate. My wife's sister came from China to visit and she's still visiting us now. We haven't seen her for about a year and a half so it's good to see her again. She speaks Chinese fluently and has recently finished university and started a new job in China.

We spent a few hours on Thursday and Friday visiting my wife's grandparents. All of the grandparents' children come to their house on this holiday every year to stay for a few days and celebrate. When having dinner the men of the family sat on the floor around the table and ate first. Then we moved off to a corner of the room to drink beer and maekoli (traditional rice wine) while the women restocked the table and ate their meal.

I found this custom strange and asked a co-worker about it yesterday. She told me that many married women don't like Chuseok because they are expected to spend the whole time preparing a lot of food for the extended family (I would estimate that we had about 15 different dishes on the table and 2 or 3 of each dish). Unfortunately they can't complain to their families because it is considered their duty and it would be shameful to do so. From what my co-worker said though it seems that complaining to one's friends and colleagues after the fact is acceptable.

Keeping Up Appearances
My co-worker is in a very strange situation. She has been divorced for 10 years but hasn't told anyone else in Korea because of the shame that's associated with it. Actually divorce rates here are comparable to those in Canada and the U.S. but it's still considered shameful so almost nobody talks about it. She also has a foreign boyfriend which she tells no one about. She is a very interesting woman to talk to as she has been in Australia for several years so she can understand both Korean and western culture well. I often feel a little sad after talking to her though as she has to be very careful about who she lets into her personal life and her options as a divorced woman are so few. She also has a daughter who she tutors but the daughter doesn't know that her tutor is her biological mother. The life my co-worker leads seems so twisted and unnatural to me but in a country where appearances are incredibly important, I suspect that lives like hers are not too uncommon.