KOREA

The Korean Peninsula is 621 miles north to south and 134 miles wide. Habitation started half a million years ago, before Homo Sapiens. Hanyang (now known as Seoul) became the capital city in 1394 and the Hangeul (alphabet) was invented in 1443.

The Japanese invasion of 1910 ended the Joseon Dynasty, which had lasted for more than 500 years. After the war in 1945, the country was split into the North under the communist bloc and south in the free world. Then came the Korean War in 1950, which accomplished nothing positive, ending with a truce in 1953, when the South’s first president, Sigman Rhee, was voted into office. South Korea hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics, leading to the simultaneous admittance of North and South into the United Nations as recently as 1991. My SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity Chapter 1 provides the differences between North and South, so for this blog, will only focus on the latter, which has nearly 50 million people.

The South Korean flag has a circle in the middle, representing the red proactive cosmic forces of the yang and the blue responsive forces of the yin (sometimes called ying). You probably never noticed that those four black trigrams are different, and starting with 1 o’clock going clockwise, represent water, earth, fire and heaven. The national flower is the Rose of Sharon, which is just about now out of season, symbolizing immortality, because it is a tenacious plant with a beautiful bloom. Korea co-hosted the World Cup in 2002 and the 2012 World Expo, Oceans of the World, will be held in Yeosu, where there are 300 islands.

October is the best month to be here, as it is dry and the fall colors are vibrant. Seniors are respected, 43% are Kim, Lee or Park, and tomorrow begins Chuseok, a three-day period of Thanksgiving, when ancestors are honored and people go home. To the left is the traditional Hanbok seen everywhere during this celebration.

Politically, there seems to be no hurry for a united Korea. The people in the south observed the problems Germany suffered through, and are developing a more optimal strategy.

-

The Dow Jones Industrials dropped 30 to 9712. Gold is up to $1009/toz and crude oil dropped below $70/barrel.

-

Typhoon Ketsana continued to take lives, now nearing 500. Meanwhile, Super Typhoon Parma appears not be turning north as predicted by experts, and now at 150 MPH, will almost surely make landfall in northern Luzon on Saturday. Also on Saturday, Typhoon Melor, now at 75 MPH, will strengthen and move just north of Guam.

There have been four earthquakes of recent in the South Pacific, an 8.3 south of Samoa, which created a tsunami said to be up to 20 feet high, killing more than a hundred, followed the next day by a 7.6 quake hitting Sumatra. There were two more significant aftershocks, and the death toll in Indonesia could also reach 500.

These cyclonic storms and earthquakes remind me of Chapters 5 and 6 from SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth. Speculations on why all this might be happening are provided.

-