Mainly a Hetalia blog, but you will also find Homestuck, Avatar, the Avengers, Sherlock, and anything else I find interesting.
Pablo Picasso - Massacre in Korea
“In 2008 the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation commission found 1,222 instances of mass killings, with at least 215 of these involving U.S. troops or airplanes massacring unarmed civilians. At Cheongwon in central Korea, up to 7,000 people were slaughtered.”
The U.S. committed an uncountable amount of acts designated as “war crimes”, including widespread use of chemical and biological weapons such as the plague, and intentionally destroying hydroelectric dams that provided drinking water for 75% of the population. In total around 5 million Koreans lost their lives.
Remember No Gun Ri, Jeju, Yeosun, and the countless other instances of mass extermination by the U.S.Reblogging this because most of my followers probably don’t know about this and this is important regardless of whether or not you’re Korean. SERIOUSLY, READ THIS. This is important if you’re an American (well, in my opinion, it’s important even if you’re not) and if you want to better understand why, aside from the obvious, the U.S. and North Korea don’t get along and why the DPRK hates the U.S so much.
I’m going to condense this into bullets and put the main points in bold because I know that if this is super long, you guys are definitely going all TL;DR and scroll past this post. Anyway, if you have any questions, feel free to ask and I’ll try to answer to the best of my limited knowledge:
- The U.S., not Korea, was completely responsible for splitting Korea into two, which everyone in Korea wanted to avoid. This happened in 1945 at the end of WWII with the surrender of Japan (not with the 1953 Korean War armistice which basically just reaffirmed things that were already in place).
- Yes, armistice, not treaty. Even though it’s been 63 years since the start of the war (and 60 since the armistice), the war has never officially ended. The two Koreas are technically still at war. This explains the South’s mandatory military service required of all their male citizens and why, if the North declares war, it’s a continuation of an existing war rather than a completely new one.
- The U.S. is also partially at fault for the Korean War happening. After WWII, they put those who were in power during colonial rule back into influential positions in the South, pissing off a lot of people in the North for a lot of reasons, namely that many of these people were Japanese sympathizers or collaborators. Basically, they put the old Japanese machinery back into place and if you know anything of the Japanese occupation of Korea, you’ll know why they were angry. It’s also why the North didn’t see the South’s government as legitimate. Yeah, somehow the U.S. thought it was a great idea to put people who supported their enemies during the war in power again.
- The American strategy during the Korean War was to wipe out all life in tactical locality. They carpet-bombed the North with bombs and napalm with next to no concern for civilian casualties.
- According to U.S. Air Force estimates, “the scale of urban destruction quite exceeded that in Germany and Japan.” Yes, you read correctly. Feel free to go “WTH?” especially considering how tiny North Korea is (46,541 sq. miles). It’s about the same size as Pennsylvania (46,055 sq. miles). Compare that to Germany (137,800 sq. miles) and Japan (145,925 sq. miles).
- More bombs were dropped in Korea by the U.S. than had been dropped in the entire Pacific theater in World War II. Also a huge WTH if you guys know how bad the war was in the Pacific.
- By 1953, at least 50% of 18 out of North Korea’s 22 major cities were obliterated.
- Nearly 10% of the Korean population died during the war, the majority from the North.
- The aerial bombardment of North Korea inflicted the greatest loss of civilian life in the Korean War by far.
So basically, the U.S. never talks about this. I never learned ANY of this growing up. All I learned from high school was that the North started the Korean War (only partially true; they did invade, but things had been going on before 1950 due to American actions and conflicts originating from the colonial era) and that the U.S. and South Korea (democracy! Good!) went against North Korea and China (Communism! Bad!). I was shocked when I learned all this last semester and basically, it makes it a lot easier to understand the deep seated hatred North Korea holds towards the United States today. I’m not saying the North wasn’t aggressive during the war; they were as were the South, but it’s kind of strange how while it was the U.S. that wreaked the most devastation during the war, the North is seen as the ultimate aggressor.
Like do you guys understand? The U.S. committed war crimes and NO ONE TALKS ABOUT THIS AND THIS IS SO IMPORTANT IN UNDERSTANDING WHY NORTH KOREA ACTS THE WAY IT DOES RIGHT NOW (not including the events that happen from 1953 and on with the collapse of the USSR, the 1990s famine, and basically just how the U.S. dealt and interacted with the DPRK in the second half of the 20th century).
Anyway, sorry this is disgustingly long, but I just think it’s really important for people to learn and know. :/
Thank you for adding that information. This information should be required reading for all humans.
read this.
that explains why North Korea acts so erratically to our eyes…
if i see that ‘pray for our kpop idols because north korea declared war on south korea!!!!1!’ post one more time
i am going to shoot someone in the dick i swear to god
that is the dumbest post for so many reasons… well really 2.
A) North Korea regularly declares violence against or war on South Korea. No one that actually lives there is all that worried.
and
B) YOU SHOULDN’T BE WORRIED ABOUT YOUR PRECIOUS OPPAR IF A WAR BREAKS OUT. YOU SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT ALL SOUTH KOREAN CITIZENS BECAUSE NORTH KOREA IS CAPABLE OF FUCKING OWNING THEM
not that north korea hates south korea all that much, their beef with them mainly lies in that they’re allies with us, the U.S., and they’re easy to get to. maybe instead of crying about oppa, try and get something done in the U.S. to ease things between north korea and… well, everybody else.
because we seem to forget or not be educated at all in that the U.S. seperated the koreas in the first place and basically caused all this shit to happen, and if we apologized and allowed them to unify or take some sort of monetary reparation from us, this might all go away, or at least lessen the threat to our allies. (that’s just my idealism talking, sorry)
but we’ll never apologize because of the whole USA #1 mentality
and that kind of pride is going to send US straight into another war, and on a much larger scale than anything north korea threatens to do to south korea
smh
if you only care about pretty faces and pop music that’s fine but don’t pretend to know more about the political climate of a country than you actually do.
south korea’s fine
oppa will be fine
calm the fuck down
Activist No Su-hui, center, shouts “Long Live Reunification” in front of North Korean officials and soldiers, foreground, before crossing the demarcation line between North and South Korea where South Korean officials, at rear, were waiting for him, at the Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjom.
“While in the North I have felt that the North where the leader and the people form a harmonious whole will surely build a thriving nation thanks to political stability and strong economic potential,” Ro was quoted as saying on Tuesday by the North’s official KCNA news agency.
Have I mentioned I totally love where I’m going to college this year. And I kinda wish I could stay here forever.
(Finally getting around to posting some originals.)
North Korean leader calls for end to “confrontation” with South
LATEST UPDATE: 01/01/2013- KIM JONG-UN - NORTH KOREA - SOUTH KOREA
In the first televised New Year address by a North Korean leader in 19 years, Kim Jong-un called for the end of “confrontation between the north and the south” of the Korean peninsula. The two Koreas never signed a treaty to end the 1950-1953 war.
By Andrew SALMON (video)North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for an end to confrontation between the two Koreas, technically still at war in the absence of a peace treaty to end their 1950-53 conflict, in a surprise New Year speech broadcast on state media.
The address by Kim, who took over power in the reclusive state after his father, Kim Jong-il, died in 2011, appeared to take the place of the policy-setting New Year editorial published in leading state newspapers.
Impoverished North Korea raised tensions in the region by launching a long-range rocket in December that it said was aimed at putting a scientific satellite in orbit, drawing international condemnation.
North Korea, which considers North and South as one country, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is banned from testing missile or nuclear technology under U.N. sanctions imposed after its 2006 and 2009 nuclear weapons tests.
“An important issue in putting an end to the division of the country and achieving its reunification is to remove confrontation between the north and the south,” Kim said in the address that appeared to be pre-recorded and was made at an undisclosed location.
“The past records of inter-Korean relations show that confrontation between fellow countrymen leads to nothing but war.”
The New Year address was the first in 19 years by a North Korean leader after the death of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-un’s grandfather. Kim Jong-il rarely spoke in public and disclosed his national policy agenda in editorials in state newspapers.
The two Koreas have seen tensions rise to the highest level in decades after the North bombed a Southern island in 2010 killing two civilians and two soldiers.
The sinking of a South Korean navy ship earlier that year was blamed on the North but Pyongyang has denied it and accused Seoul of waging a smear campaign against its leadership.
Last month, South Korea elected as president Park Geun-hye, a conservative daughter of assassinated military ruler Park Chung-hee whom Kim Il-sung had tried to kill at the height of their Cold War confrontation.
Park has vowed to pursue engagement with the North and called for dialogue to build confidence but has demanded that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions, something it is unlikely to do.
Conspicuously absent from Kim’s speech was any mention of the nuclear arms programme.
Dictator father looms over South Korea’s 1st female president as she returns to childhood home
Associated Press, December 19, 2012
SEOUL, South Korea—When Park Geun-hye last lived in the presidential Blue House more than 30 years ago, she was a young, stand-in first lady, serving after the assassination of her mother and before the killing of her dictator father.After defeating Moon Jae-in in elections Wednesday, she will return to her childhood home as the first female president of a country where women continue to face widespread sexism, huge income gaps with men doing the same work and few opportunities to rise to the top in business, politics and other fields.
Her presidency will shatter the bias that women are less capable of thriving in male-oriented South Korean politics, said Lim Woo-youn, a researcher at the Chungcheongnam-do Women’s Policy Development Institute in central South Korea.
Her biggest challenge after she takes office in February, however, may be the still-fresh divisions that linger from the 18 years that her father, President Park Chung-hee, ruled South Korea.
Many, including the older conservative voters who form her political base, see Park Chung-hee as a hero, the man whose strong hand guided the country from the devastation of the Korean War to an economic force that lifted millions from crushing poverty. His critics remember the brutal way he dealt with opponents to his unchecked rule, the claims of torture, execution and vote rigging.
“There’s still a sentiment that rejects Park Geun-hye” because of her father’s brutality, said Lee Cheol-hee, a political analyst and head of Dumon Political Strategy Institute, a think tank. Park must appear sincere when she tries to “heal the past” as president, Lee said. She needs to convince people that she’s sympathetic to the pain caused by her father’s rule.
Park laid out a fairly moderate platform in her campaign to replace unpopular President Lee Myung-bak, a member of her conservative party.
She has vowed to reach out to North Korea and ease the current government’s hard line, fight widespread government corruption, strengthen social welfare, help small companies, close growing gaps between rich and poor, ease heavy household debt and curb the power of big corporations so powerful they threaten to eclipse national laws.
But despite her history-making win and her efforts to forge her own path, many see in her only the embodiment of her father, who grabbed power in a 1961 coup and ruled with ruthless efficiency until his spy chief shot him dead at a 1979 drinking party.
Much of Park’s public persona has been built on her close association with her father’s rule. She has created an image as a selfless daughter of Korea, never married, who served first her father as his first lady and then the people as a female lawmaker in South Korea’s tough political world.
Her website describes a young Park losing sleep in the Blue House and praying for rain during a devastating drought. Her “dreams of living a normal life” were crushed on Aug. 15, 1974, she says, when a Korean resident of Japan, claiming orders from North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, shot and killed her mother in a botched assassination attempt against her father. At 22, she rushed home from Paris, where she was studying, and for the next five years stood by her father’s side as acting first lady.
Violence came again in 1979 when her father was murdered. She entered parliament in 1998 and was a major figure in conservative politics in 2006 when a convicted criminal slashed her face as she was shaking hands with voters, opening up a gash that needed 60 stitches during surgery.
Park lost narrowly in 2007 presidential primaries to Lee.
Her father was a staunch anti-communist, but Park has shown a willingness to work with North Korea. She met privately with former leader Kim Jong Il during a visit to Pyongyang in 2002 and has vowed to ease Lee’s hard-line policy to Pyongyang.
Jeju Province—the autonomous province of South Korea.
Quite beautiful geography and natural scenery. Jeju Province was chosen as one of the 28 finalists for the New 7 Wonders campaign.
A view from Mount Inwang in Seoul
During the Joseon period, Mount Inwang was known as the “White Tiger” since it was inhabited by a large tiger population. These days, the tigers have vanished by you will find lots of temples instead. This mountain has one of the best atmospheres you can find in terms of feeling like you are in a different world.
How to get there: Dongnimmun Suway Station. Subway Line 3. Exit 2.
