We're all going to DIE

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The first I heard of North Korea bombing the Yeonpyeong Island on the West coast (beside Incheon) was from my boyfriend when he simply said to me "It's started". "What's started?" I asked, confused. Dinner? a TV show? the rain? "The war" he replied. None of my colleagues or my students for that matter had told me about the bombing that occurred at 2pm that day. Did it not concern me as someone living in Korea, I wondered, though it probably says more about the unflappable Korean character. The next day however, I had some children in my class who managed to say with pictures, actions and a few words "North Korea is going to kill us" or something along the lines of "We all gonna DIE!" They seem to love the word "die" and they exciting video game notions it carries. All so exciting, they didn't seem the least bit scared that we could be bombed again at any moment.
I feel Koreans are used to this long silent conflict with the North and can easily sweep aside or compartmentalise their feelings. A co-worker asked me if I was worried. I said "no" because I wasn't about to start worrying until the Koreans were worrying! Plus, what can you really do when you work in a country? You can't really run away from your job right because there might be a war. In many places around the world there MIGHT be bombs and conflicts happening but people go about their daily routines.

This event didn't leave me completely untouched, however, but gave me a slight addiction to checking the news twice a day for any updates on the situation and having to write home to calm the folks. It did lead to an interesting questions among ex-pat friends: "what would it take to make you pack up and leave?" Most agreed that they can't run away from their jobs and lives and that the bombing would have to really start of the students stop coming in for them to run away. Koreans are notoriously hardworking so I imagine they would stop working only 10minutes before. Like a Korean friend told us though, it only takes 5 minutes for a plane from North Korea to reach South.

So the next question became:"what would you do if the siren sounds and you have 5-10 minutes to evacuate?" Hmm well you would obviously grab some stuff like clothes, food, passport, water and run to the nearest possibly underground place like the subway. Some people were talking about going to their embassies to evacuate but imagine the lines and would you have time? I personally imagine two scenarios: one - I jump on the fast train to the airport and say like in the movies "I want a ticket on the first plane out of here!" There's two problems with that - my Korean isn't that good and they probably would take out the airport first. Scenario two is that I run to the subway and huddle there with fellow Koreans who are all cooking Ramyeon and eating Kimchi in groups. I have to say it's kinda exciting imagining it happening but now a month has passed I would rather know sooner than later if something is going to happen than pushing it to the back or the front of my mind all the time.

Many Koreans who I ask about the North now have changed their tune aggressively to "kill them" when it used to be "help them". I find the politics of it quite interesting and like I say it's a international relations student wet dream so I guess I should look on the bright side and count myself lucky 😊

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