One of the weirder features of Korea these
days: an obsession with the Dokdo Islands. This is a
video screen in the Busan station displaying a live feed of
Dokdo. These screens with their live feeds are in many
public buildings. There are also large banners on a
building facing the major palace area in Seoul proclaiming in
English that Dokdo is Korean.
Dokdo is what the Koreans call this bunch of nothing
rocks. The Japanese call it Takeshita Island. (The
Franco-English name is
the Liancourt Rocks, after a sunken whaling ship.)
It's an Japanese/Korean territorial dispute that Korea refuses
to submit to an international body to resolve. Today, it
appears to be a way to stir up nationalist nut jobs for
political reasons. (Tote went to Dokdo and said there was
nothing there and nothing to do.)
At first I thought this was an example of crazy and
irresponsible Korean political pandering, and smugly thought
"how silly Koreans must be to be stirred into a jingoistic
fervor by such a trivial bunch of rocks." But then I
reflected on how easily American nut jobs are manipulated by
similar, trivial issues, and I didn't feel so smug.
One of the good things about traveling is gaining a better
understanding of things back home. Sometimes that means
seeing how other places do things better, and sometimes that
means learning that people everywhere are often fools.
