Have you every been to Seoul, Korea? Imagine broad main streets lined with large, deep-green leaved maples and light green leaved ginko biloba trees. Tall skyscrapers go as far as the eye can see and company skycrapers that many workers call home are labeled with the names of the huge conglomerates that own them: DaeWoo, Samsung, Hyundai. Surrounding the main city are lush green hills with cicadas that trill on into the night with high pitched calls to elusive mates. Twisty back roads wind up the hillsides lined with trendy restaurants, antique stores and curio shops. Large, brightly lit hotels rise from the clutter in glass and cement towers surround by packed shopping centers with young urban workers hustling to and fro. Imagine Manhattan but a whole lot bigger and you've got Seoul.
In the Orient, I'd guess that the good citizens of Seoul are some of the most Westernized in all of Asia. Most of the younger generation speak fairly fluent English, watch American movies and live a life not all that different from your typical American urbanite. All this hustle and bustle just mere moments away from North Korea. If you ask a Seoul inhabitant if they worry about a North Korean invasion or some similar threat, they invariably say that it is just a part of life. Life goes on, hustle, bustle, hustle, bustle without a lot of mind for things up North.
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