This isn't just a complaint about the loudspeakers going off from 8 a.m. to midnight every day, the 1920's-style platform cars and the mobs of people blocking up the most dangerous intersection in my neighborhood.
This is about spheres of influence and public persuasion.
We all know about the ship sinking in the Yellow see in March, and how the South is officially blaming the North.
President Lee Myung-bak is making a big grandstand about the North needing to pay for what it did.
Not related to an election?
Well, how about this news story that 134 public school teachers have been fired after signing up for a minor opposition party. Apparently, in Korea, teachers must maintain political neutrality. In a democratically elected government, how is it possible to ask people to remain neutral???
And that's the problem with the elections. The school teachers being fired is obvious, but why is the ship problem also related? Well, a lot of Koreans think this was some set-up by the government because it's election time. It certainly wouldn't be the first time in the history of the world that fear was used to accumulate votes.
So while I complain about those terrible election songs and speeches screeching through the air, at least I'm not losing my job or dying.
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