haha, foot -> mouth.
but every south korean i've met have been really gungho about reunification, or either apathetic about NK in general. even some of my hardcore ROKMC friends.
and i may be a bit biased. when i went to the DMZ the tour guide was preaching it pretty hard.
the idea of reunification was taught in classrooms in SK for a long time now. However, from what I can assess, the newer generation of South Koreans really do not have the same gut-level identification of brotherhood to North Koreans that existed before. Koreans are pretty keen on the idea that we are 'one race', 'one blood' (not going to elaborate on this..), so there is some impetus towards reunification with regards to that.
But South Koreans know how much of a mindfuck North Korea is. In the past 50 years, South Korea has developed bewilderingly fast, so fast that one generation later South Korea is no longer recognizable... however, North Korea has evolved utterly in the opposite direction. The cultural differences between the two Koreas could not be more different, indeed, the difference that separates the two completely dwarfs the division between East and West Germany.
The economic differences are similarly mirrored as well. The fact is that many Koreans are rather apathetic about North Korea, and having so recently pulled themselves by the bootstraps to become a world-recognized economic power, are not likely to be so gung-ho to destroy their relative measure of prosperity for a group of people who only resemble them, but are otherwise alien.
As the old guard of North Koreans die, you have a new crop of people who are born and raised with the gospel of Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung from the time they can breathe. The way the state is totally ingrained into the minds of the people cannot be overexaggerated; indeed, many early north korean defectors who suffered at the hands of Kim Il Sung's regime sobbed and cried when they heard he passed away. I remember an interview with a former guard for the abysmal political prison camps talking about how he felt he has lost a father figure. The mental disease inflicted upon North Korea as a whole is real, and I don't think people who are used to making fun of Kim Jong Il as a puppet in Team America understand the depth of this. People have their lives chosen for them and governed by the state, they don't understand what its like to make their own decisions, and they are the farthest thing from anything resembling the mental state of a South Korean.
Add to this a whole nation that is chronically malnourished, with severe consequences for not only their physical stature but mental development as well. I am trying to come up with an example of what a sudden or even gentle reunification would be like, but I cannot.. all I can imagine is that it would be an utter catastrophe for my relatives and friends in Korea. If there is to be any real reunfication there would be a need to undo the permanet physical and psychological damage Kim Jong Il/Kim Il Sung's regime did to the population, but there is no way to do this. I am afraid that any real reunfication would not only face economic barriers but cultural barriers that are not obvious.
I guess I'm ranting at this point, and I haven't really written a lot about SK/NK reunification before, only read, talked to people, and watched BBC documentaries/Korean news and such.. my overall impression is that Korea has waited too long for reunification, and every year that passes by the people are no longer really 'one' people in anything but name...
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