The Korean Riddle

What do you call dogs and cats in Korea?

Before I answer that, I have to say, a lot of people seem concerned about the news coming out of North Korea. When I heard that even The History Channel was doing a series about the country, my initial reaction was to wonder who reported spotting a UFO fying over Pyongyang, seeing as how Kim Jung Il was doubtless way too young to have been on the grassy knoll.

Still, it is an important story, the idea that North Korea has been, and promises to continue, nuclear testing. Evidently, the last test, though a dud, was an actual attempt, involving processed plutonium.

The thing to remembr here is that this is a story that by rights should be of far greater concern to the other nations involved in the so-called six-nation talks, than the US. After all, China and Russia share a border with North Korea, as does South Korea, with whom the country is technically still at war, despite a fifty plus year cease fire overseen by some fifteen thousand US soldiers along the North-South border.

Japan, as well, which lies not too far off the coast of Korea, has reasons to be concerned, especially in that Japans conquest and rule of Korea, from about 1910 until the end of World War II, is a definite sticking point in relations between the two nations.

True, given North Koreas past record of success, or lack thereof, in the matter of it's recent tests, it seems unlikely that Bin Laden or the Chechen rebels are beating a path to their door in order to dicker for the acquisition of their weapons. Still, they are still determined, and have let it be known they consider the recent UN anctions against their country tantamount to a declaration of war.

So what exactly is it they want from the US? Why are they so determined to engage in bi-lateral talks with Washington? They claim to want all sanctions against them lifted, and of course they demand security guarantees. Obviously, this is all a lot of rubbish. They would have no need of bilateral negotiations for that. What they are after is what they have been after since the end of World War II, when Russia occuppied the North, and the US occuppied the South, resulting in a controlled experiment in the contest of communism versus capitalism.

They want reunification. They want a return to the days when Korea was one country, in fact, one of the oldest nations on the face of the earth, with the original capitol of the nation situated in Pyongyang.

Easy to see why. Without the Souths far more fertile agricultural base and greater natural resources all around, the North without the South can never be more than, at best, a second rate little backwater country dependent on aid and handouts from China, or Russia, or whoever they can get them from.

Nautrally, concurrent with that concern is the determination that the communist government of North Korea remain in power over the country as a whole, possibly and even probably with guarantees of a level of autonomy for the South and an allowance for capital investment and private property and ownership rights.

The way it stands now, the northen half of the country that may have been the first nation on the earth to utilize armored ships, fought successfuly for centuries against the Chinese, Japanese, and Mongols, and exported Bhuddhism and other innovations and cultural advancements to Japan, is, due to the divided nature of the country, standing at deaths door. The country with the fifth largest military in the world is so destitute, their people are becomming smaller as an adaptation to lack of sustenance.

About the only thing they have going for them is, they have no problems with obesity and it's related diseases. Nor do they have much concern with overpopulation of stray animals. Which brings me back to the subject of my original riddle.

Livestock.